Horror movie mini reviews

Watched several horror films over the past couple of weeks.

First we watched Darkness Falls, about a vengeful spirit coming for kids who lose their last teeth, which was a total stinker. Bad acting, totally inconstant supernatural powers and character shields taken to the point of absurdity made it a very low-grade horror. 

Second was Lord of Tears, an attempt to find something very spooky, but despite the effective and using viral clips of the ‘Owl Man’ going after urban explorers that were released to promote the movie, it was a disappointment. Terrible acting, daft soliloquys and worst of all a ghost that seemed unable to do any actual harm to the protagonist beyond doing bad interpretive dance at him, it seemed a real waste. A simple plot like ‘The Owl Man is coming for you until you free a tormented spirit’ would have worked, but the Owl Man (and ghost) had to be palpable threats for this to be effective. Telegraphing all the twists with pseudo-creepy short clips near the beginning also removed most of the tension.

 Third, The Witch, a recent horror film meant to be very creepy, following a Puritan family as they encounter a witch after moving away from town. It was a simple film that was compelling and fun to watch, very tense with interesting characters, but sadly there was little I would call scary. Still looking for an actually frightening film to watch together!

The Gallows followed in our quest for scary horror. It was typical found-footage shenanigans and none of the victims were likable, but there were some decent atmospheric moments. The ending was so unnecessary, though.  

The Conjuring, was a tried-and-tested formula haunting story, perhaps unsurprisingly as it’s based on the real-life ‘demonologists’ Ed and Lorraine Warren, who inspired many a horror film, but was a satisfying story of creepy happenings and ghoulish images. Better than most of the other things we’ve watched, but still nothing I would call special.

The Haunting in Connecticut followed. Though the climactic part of the movie (where it becomes entirely the filmmakers’ fantasy) was pretty satisfying and visceral, and the idea of a horror movie where the visions are at least possibly just hallucinations caused by medical treatment is interesting, unfortunately most of the film dragged and just didn’t make for compelling viewing. 

Thi13een Ghosts was next, mostly to see the fun designs of the different ghosts, especially the Jackal and the Hammer. These fun flights of fancy were the best part of the film, but the rather cheesy moving house, deeply unlikeable characters and endless coincidences took the wind out of the movie’s sails. Fun to watch once for the visuals but not a favourite. Some actual scares would be nice, too…and the utter lack of reaction to seeing a man sliced in two was bizarre. 

Mama came after that, which was marketed as a Del Toro film but was actually only executive produced by him. Still, it had decent production values, excellent performances by child actresses, and a ghoulish phantasm that just stayed on the right side of looking ridiculous. It was nothing original or special, but it was certainly compelling, the performances were good (including Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones and The Other Woman doing quite an amusing Spock’s-evil-twin turn with two roles), the production values were excellent and the ending was not predictable. It won’t endure as a classic horror story, but it was certainly one of the best of the crop we’ve watched lately. 

The Woman In Black 2 was mostly a little dull. I’d forgotten the plot of the original movie, which unlike the play had the element of the ghost being able to control children and force them to kill themselves. That happened here, too, with a stream of evacuees being offed in the creepy old house from the original, but one boy who for no good reason was favoured by both the woman in black and the main character, had to be saved at all costs. It rang pretty hollow overall, and relied way too much on meaningless jump scares in fantasy sequences, but the production was slick, the aesthetics pleasant and the acting not at all bad. 

Finally, we saw The Quiet Ones, another revived Hammer film, this time about a professor doing experiments on a girl who can manifest psychic abilities. It’s purportedly based on true events, but it has extremely little to do with its source material. The set-up is nothing original – a cameraman joins the research team to document events and ends up in too deep – and there are uncomfortable echoes of Blithe Spirit. It also needed to pack much more into its run-time than it did. Still, some decent jumps and interesting characters elevate this a little above average.