Red Lights

I don't remember how I found Red Lights - probably on a list of horror movies coming out soon somewhere. It's a decent, if slow, thriller, and very European.

In Red Lights, Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her partner, Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) are paranormal investigators who spend their time visiting supposed paranormal phenomenon & locations to weed out frauds using what Matheson calls "Red Lights," or supernatural trickery. The story opens with them visiting a haunted home only to debunk it rather quickly after a seance and that leads to the main plot - is the psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) the real deal or not? He's been in hiding for years, and now has appeared to do a few shows before retirement. Buckley is anxious to investigate and Matheson is curiously not interested. There's a little bit of a break between the two as Buckley struggles with the whys and goes off on his own, only to be faced with many curious events - birds smashing in to windows, electronics going haywire, etc. Eventually, Silver consents to testing, and soon the truth comes out. I won't tell you what it is, because it was a surprise to me. (There could be reasons for that though...as I had trouble keeping interested in the plot.)

This movie didn't really hold my attention until the end. I don't know if it was just too slow, or too disjointed, or what, but I really wasn't engrossed until it got into the last 30 minutes or so. Then I was riveted. So much so that I rewound the movie to catch something when JudoMaster started talking. Before that, it was sort of like blah blah, debunk, blah, Elizabeth Olsen, blah. Maybe I just expected a faster pace? Maybe they cut out too much in editing? I don't know. I'd like to say it was worth sitting through the first hour to get to the last 30 minutes, but I don't know that it was. It had its moments, but the revelation at the end wasn't terribly shocking. Although the special effects were good, and Hello - Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy, and Elizabeth Olsen, well, it just wasn't enough.

I don't mean for you to not see it, but I don't know that I can recommend it as much as say, The Orphanage or House of Voices - two other European horror flicks that are spooky and able to keep my attention through out. It wasn't bad, but it really wasn't great either.

Rating: 3 Purrrs for all of that star power

Pinata: Survival Island

I subjected poor JudoMaster to Pinata: Survival Island, one of my very favorite really bad horror movies, this past weekend. He survived, but just barely. He may be rethinking this whole marriage thing after it, but he's still here, so maybe I am in the clear.

Pinata: Survival Island is what it sounds like. A group of college kids are on an island for a Cinco de Mayo party to drink themselves silly and do what college kids do best. Unfortunately they come across a demon possessed pinata (yes, you read that right) that has other plans. Pretty soon, the crazed pinata is hunting them down, one by one, as they try to escape its wrath and make it to May 6th alive.

Why do I love this movie so much? Well, Jaime Pressley and Nicholas Brendon first of all. Yep. Buffy fans everywhere have to deal with Xander as a sexy college guy. A little bit of a leap, but he shows some nicely toned arms so...Second - Demon Possessed Pinata. How much better can it get than that? It's pretty freakin' fantastic and you know it. It's awful, really it is. Awful special effects, really bad acting, obvious backyard LA setting. But did you see that I said Demon Possessed Pinata? It's almost as if someone read my mind and pulled out my hopes & dreams and made a movie.

If you like really bad, really silly horror flicks you might give this one a whirl. I can't warn you enough that it really, truly is bad, but hell, I love it anyway. I mean, I did have demon possessed goats in my wedding vows, so that shouldn't surprise you too much.

Rating: 5 big old purrs

Sinister

It's October. That basically means 31 days of as many horror movies as I can squeeze in as possible. It's horror movie lovers Christmas time, and my poor JudoMaster endures it well. Case in point, today we ventured out to see Sinister. Sometimes I get lucky and find a scary movie that he thinks is more scary than silly. Sinister is one of those movies.

What made me happiest about Sinister is finally someone made a scary movie that they didn't completely ruin in the trailer or make you think you were getting one thing and end up getting another. I'll try to do the same, because frankly this sort of movie relies so much on not knowing too much, so you uncover the truth along with the protagonist. Knowing too much will destroy the tension the movie builds, and it does build that tension very, very well. So much so that I felt like a tightly wound spring by the end.

So what's it all about? Ethan Hawke (who would make me happy just reading the back of a cereal box) and his family are moving in to a new house, a house where something Really Bad happened. Something that seems to happen to children. Apparently, Hawke is a true crime writer, and he's moved in to that house where the Really Bad Thing happened to write about that Really Bad Thing. (It's obvious he is a writer - he's wearing a neutral cable knit sweater and has glasses. He drinks whiskey and smokes. He has a Mac. Of course he a writer. ) He discovers this box of Super 8 films in the attic and very quickly discovers that that Really Bad Thing is something that's Really Not Normal and has been happening for a long time to not just one family. According to Vincent D'Onofrio AKA supernatural crimes professor at the local college ( because there is always one of those in a small town, right?), Ethan Hawke's Really Bad Thing happens to be some sort of weird pagan deity that likes to eat children for breakfast.  Maybe literally. He's Mr. Creepy and he likes to move around in pictures like those Harry Potter folks. Things start to go bump in the night, kids start doing creepy stuff, and naturally the wife isn't too happy to see everything falling apart. Soon I was on the edge of my seat trying not to yelp out loud in the movie theater because even though little scares kept happening to break the tension, it just didn't let up even at the end. Which I won't tell you about. Trust me, you want to put two and two together on your own.

What I was most worried about was that Sinister would be just another Insidious. And while there were similarities, they really are two different, good at what they do, horror movies. Both had a haunted house, family in danger, creepy noises go bump in the night, and even the supernatural element. One word titles. Creepy bad guys with weird faces. Spooky children. But Sinister was slower, sometimes maybe a little too slow, and never ended up with the weird gadgets and medium, a la Poltergeist. You have this nice wrapper story with the Ethan Hawke family around those genuinely disturbing Super 8 films, all slowly building into this ending that I really didn't see coming. I know I won't forget it quickly, but I'd certainly watch it again. Just not at night, alone, in the dark. Not a chance in Hell.

Rating: 5 Purrrrrs for a movie that's going to make it hard to sleep tonight.

Insidious

Matt & I saw Insidious last weekend because I was too excited to wait another week. I am a fan of the guys who started the Saw franchise (if not a fan of the movies past maybe the second one...you know when they stopped being about the horror and all about the gore) and their other venture, Dead Silence, so when I saw they had this one coming out I was pretty excited.

Insidious is about a family that is settling in to a new home, unpacking, getting used to the things that go bump in the night in a new home. Unfortunately something does really go bump, it's not just weird noises or critters in the walls.

The movies goes from traditional haunted house, to weird, off-beat horror, to almost carnival tricks at the end. It's a wonderful mix of the unexpected. There were many scares and jumps to be had (ask Matt how many times I jumped) and I was engrossed for the entire movie.

I don't want to say too much and give anything away, because you really need to go into this with a blank slate as much as possible. Just know that it is an awesome blend of Poltergeist (references abound), goofy 70's horror, and even more traditional haunted house stories like Hill House.

Rating: 5 purrs...loved all of it


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Horrorfest 4

This year's entries into Horrorfest have been much better than past years.

• Dread: This one based on a Clive Barker story and stars a Cullen, but man it sure was icky. These college kids decide to run an experiment investigating people's biggest fears. Problem is, the ringleader just happens to be nuts, and he decides to make people face their biggest fears in hopes of learning how to cure his own. The paintings in this one were beautiful.
  
• The Final: The opening says this was based on a true story and it was filmed in McKinney and area up here in North Texas, so I can't help but like the story of a group of tormented high-schoolers who turn the tables on their bullies in most gruesome and psychological ways. One even wears an Audition costume, so of course I like it.
  
• Kill Theory: A group of long-time college friends head out to the lake to celebrate graduation, only to find themselves trapped by a psycho who says they must kill each other one by one and have one left standing at 6 AM or he will kill them all. This one was quite good. I can see why maybe it didn't make it to the theater but it is definitely worth a watch.
• The Graves: Sisters Megan and Abby Graves are taking a cross country trip before Megan starts a new job in New York. On the way, they decide to check out the road-side attraction called Skull City Mine. As these things go, they find something not so pleasant. Slicing and dicing and spooky stuff happens, and things get a bit disjointed towards the end, but I can't help but love a movie that has two goth girls who love comics and can kick ass.
  
• The Reeds: A group of Londonites take a weekend trip through the reeds of Norfolk on a hired boat. From the start, things get creepy, with the crochety old boat guy and the pesky teens that keep popping up here and there. It ends up in disaster and blood, and a mystery to be solved. It was quite good.
  
• Lake Mungo: A somewhat slow, creepy supernatural movie that deals with an Australian family's grief at losing their teenage daughter to drowning. It's shot documentary style. I was watching it by myself and I got a bit creeped out, so stick with it.
  
• Hidden: The foreign film entry into this year's horrorfest. A guy goes back home after his mother's death and faces the fears from his childhood. Someone is murdering people- is it a ghost, is it the boy from his childhood? It was spooky in places but also very slow.
  
• Zombies of Mass Destruction: Zombies! Need I say more? Yes, well then - zombies started by terrorists in a small town, gore and hilarity happens, boy comes out to mom, girl comes to term with her roots, brains get munched on.
  

Horrorfest 2009

I was pleasantly surprised with the entries in this group of Horrorfest movies. (Well, outside of the exact same, endless trailers on each DVD.) I had little hope after last year's entries.

• Autopsy: Some college kids go to New Orleans to party and end up in the strange Mercy Hospital. The hospital is creepy, and I am a sucker for weird, deserted building movies. Plus you gotta love Terminator 2 alums Jenette Goldstein and Robert Patrick. The reviews said this was supposed to be an homage to Italian horror, but it really ended up just being a gore-fest.
  
• The Broken: Lena Headly rules in whatever she is in, and so of course I think this one might be my favorite on that alone. Thsi starts off like your classic doppelganger tale and turns into something, well, different.
  
• The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations: Okay, so I skipped this one. I just couldn't stomach another Butterfly Effect movie. Sorry.
  
• Dying Breed: This one had Leigh Wannell and the guy from Snakes on a Plane and Wolf Creek. It's set in Tasmania with a group of students searching for the elusive Tasmanian Devil. Unfortunately they find the descendants of the serial killer called The Pieman, rather than the animal they were looking for.
  
• From Within: This one was good. It's about a small town that has a rash of suicides. Is it a curse? Will their faith in God protect them?
  
• Perkins' 14: A cop is obsessed with his son's disappearance. Soon he realizes the guy in his jail just might be the guy who took him and 13 others. And they just might still be alive.
• Slaughter: A young woman is running from an abusive boyfriend and stumbles upon a new friend in a bar who is much more than she seems. She agrees to stay with her new friend, only to find out she may have traded an apartment in a new city to a place much more dangerous than the one she ran from.
• Voices: The Asian horror entry in the series, this one has a young girl whose friends and family turn on her, one after the other trying to kill her for no reason, following a history of "accidental" deaths that have plagued her family for generations. This one was based on a Korean comic book.

I liked these entries better but honestly I am ready for horror to return to being scary and not just being gory.

The Beyond

"Woe be unto him who opens one of the seven gateways to Hell, because through that gateway, evil will invade the world."

I love Italian horror. Dario Argento was my first foray into the genre and man, Suspiria knocked my socks off. Anytime anyone asks me my favorite horror movie, it inevitably comes up. Fulci is a master, truly, but nothing it seems will ever be Suspiria to me. Well, except maybe Argento's Opera, but I do have a thing for opera, MacBeth, and those awesome costumes.
The Beyond takes place in New Orleans, in an old hotel with a past. Bad stuff, the entrance to hell, all sorts of goodies pop up here. The question is will the young, pretty new owner of the possessed hotel survive, or will they all die and turn into ewie gooey monsters?

The movie is beautifully shot, has all the right spooky music scares, and plenty of oozie gore. I think this movie might have had more slime than You Can't Do That on Television. It even looks like they shot some of this in New Orleans.

I don't know if anyone outside of true Italian horror fanatics would care for this one, especially anyone icked out by ooze and gore. It's old-school gore though, not your new The Hostel type gore, if it matters.

Other thoughts:

• Man, a lot of people fall off of things in this movie.
  
• Eeeewwww, that was an eyeball.
• Dog puppet FTW
• Cue the jerky boyfriend who doesn't believe the heroine is imperiled.
• Oh yes, the best place to go in a deserted hospital is the laboratory. Perfect.
• Zombies! Zombie killing!
• Uh oh, looks like the gates to hell opened up in her basement. That sucks. I hate it when that happens.
  

Rating: 4 Purrrs

The House of the Devil

So a college girl needs to make some rent so she can pay for a new place. Her roommate isn't a very nice one you see, so she needs a place of her own. Unfortunately her bank account is pretty low, so she might have a bit of trouble trying to pay the rent. Good thing she found a babysitting job way out in the boonies that's going to pay her some nice change.

What else about The House of the Devil?

• This movies has a nice 80's feel without being parody or campy.
• Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov & Dee Wallace - holy crap! It's like b-move horror roll call.
  
• Oh wow - he just totally blew her head off and stuff went everywhere.
• Man, I know just how she feels. Bored, waiting for pizza. Wandering around the house poking around. Every teenage babysitter knows these minutes.
  
• Why don't they do what they say, say what they mean...One thing leads to another...
  
• God, I just can't seem to get away from pool, can I?
• And yep, that whole dancing around the house thing - did that as a babysitter too.
  
• Uh oh, that locked room bodes no good for anybody.
  
• Who is that creepy dude with the beard lurking around?
  
• Ahh! Lights out!
• Uh oh. You know it's bad news when you wake up strapped to a pentagram in only your underwear.
• Yay for blood slippage!
• This movie went from bored babysitter to blood fest in 30 seconds.
• Well, wow. That was unexpected.
  

Wow. Wow. I must own this movie.

Rating: 5 Purrs

Watch Instantly Day 3

Once again it's laundry day! You know what that means - time for the Roku.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley showed up in NetFlix Watch Instantly recently so of course I had to watch it. I never would have bothered getting a DVD of it to watch, but since it was so easy...well how could I not? Molly's mom goes a bit nuts and tries to kill her to save her before her 18th birthday. Why? Well it seems someone made a deal with the devil, so to speak. This was a fun little movie - not much substance but nothing terrible here.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans also showed up. I went into this one with very low expectations and was very surprised to find a decent, romantic, gothy, slaves vs masters, vampires vs lycans story. It too was short to have a whole lot of fluff and it was interesting to see the backstory of why the vampires and werewolves hate each other so much. I would too, man. I would too. Hello, Michael Sheen & his buff self. Also very nice to look at. Towards the end - totally riveted to the action sword play. Yay for gothy music. Now I feel compelled to watch the others. I know. I am sad.

Watch Instantly Day

I am trapped at the house today waiting on the FedEx guy so I decided to take advantage of my Roku. Horror movies on Watch Instantly all day. Whee!

Pin: Ahh, the tales of a boy and his best friend Pin, the anatomically correct medical teaching dummy. Leon and Ursula grow up with their doctor dad who uses Pin, his medical teaching dummy, to teach them the lessons of life. Trouble is, Ursula grows up and knows Pin isn't real. Leon doesn't. In fact, Pin becomes his only friend, and Pin is jealous. Pin likes the stabby and the smacky and the beaty with blunt objects. This one was creepy in a maybe I should bathe with Lysol and steel wool sort of way.

House: No, not that one. This one with Michael Madsen for about two seconds. Two couples end up with torn up tires on a back country road. They stumble upon an old country bed & breakfast that may or may not have been there before. Creepy Leslie Easterbrook is the lady of the house, and soon the young couples realize not all is right with this family. Somehow the house is using their deep, dark secrets against them. Will they survive the night? Not too bad for a straight to DVD flick but nothing really new here.

Hack!: Well, they name checked Argento in the first few minutes so I am hoping the rest goes so well. There are several actors that have a name - Juliet Landau, Danika Macellar, Justin CHou (from Twilight!?)...and the idea is okay. A group of college students go to an island to observe the wildlife as an extra credit assignment. Someone starts killing them. Horror movie in-jokes and references abound. None of the actors are terrible, it just ends up dissolving into a tongue in cheek horror movie that could have been a contender.

Jennifer's Body

When I first heard about Jennifer’s Body on my favorite horror blog ever, Final Girl, I knew I had to see it. It really had nothing to do with the fact that Diablo Cody wrote it, although I liked Juno. It was mostly because the idea of Megan Fox playing a cheerleader who goes bad, really bad, and hungry for boys, if you know what I mean, and I think you do, made my toes wiggle with excitement. Feminist-ish horror. Yay!

*Here be perhaps a few spoilery-type items*

Jennifer Check is the popular girl. She’s the one that every girl wants to be and every guy want to sleep with. Somehow her best friend is geektastic Needy (nickname for Anita), despite the fact that they share little in common. Needy’s boyfriend Chip doesn’t get it. Most people don’t. But it works for them. After convincing Needy to go with her to the local bar to see an indie-rock bad (Low Shoulder) play, Jennifer hooks up with the “salty” lead singer who really just wants her for her virgin body. (Joke’s on them haha) Unfortunately, when you sacrifice a non-virgin to Satan to help your indie-rock band become the next Maroon Five, she gets all hungry for boy flesh. Let the chomping and seducing begin!

While I was pretty disappointed there was a gross lack of nudity in this horror film (hello- horror movies always have some), I did like the snappy, snarky dialog despite thinking it seemed a bit too snarky to be natural. There was some nice gore, and the scene where Jennifer takes the football guy into the woods for some afternoon delight is hilarious and gross all at the same time. It reminded me of one of my favorite South Park episodes (I think it was called Woodland Critter Christmas?). The lesbian tension between Jennifer and Needy is a big underlying sub-plot and always nice. (The kiss between the two of them was hot.)

I enjoyed Jennifer’s Body quite a lot (hush you – you know who you are) but I wouldn’t put it with my favorites. It’s almost as if it couldn’t find a balance between being funny and being serious so it never felt like one or the other. However, Adam Brody playing the indie-rock bank lead singer was an inspired casting choice. He was hilarious in his bits. I’d recommend this to my fellow horror geeks, but you could wait for DVD. If you aren’t about Megan Fox being sexy for an entire movie, you won’t be as interested in this one.

Rating: 4 Purrs for Megan Fox in tiny outfits, chomping with the best of them, and actually looking sallow here and there in the film – plus who doesn’t love the line – No, evil evil, not high-school evil.

Horrorfest 2009 - How many horror movies can I watch? Part 4

So I skipped out last night on the movie viewing, and read a whole bunch instead. So tonight I am back on track, especially since I am off work for the next few days and I can stay up late.  Never fear, I am trying really hard to meet my sister-in-law's expectations of 25 movies while the spouse is out of town I'm on 15 now, for those who are counting). So tonight is a night of classics rather than  B-Movies. Tonight I watch the good stuff. (I don't think I have Suspiria in me tonight, but it's on the list.)

• The Shining: God, I love this movie. I remember reading the book when I was in high school and being overwhelmed with how terrifying the story was and yet also how beautiful. Kubrick takes Stephen King's vision and makes it his own without ever really losing the essence of the story that King created.  Jack Nicholson is damn frightening, the kid is so cute and creepy, and Shelly Duvall is terrified. You can tell she is totally stressed out by working with Nicholson and Kubrick. 
• Jaws: I watch this movie even if it's showing on regular TV with commercials and all the good stuff chopped out. Stephen Spielberg makes good movies, but I think this is one of his best. It seems sometimes crap happens for a reason, so I can't help but be happy that Bruce the Shark was such a pissy creature that they could only show him towards the end. It certainly makes that first appearance a shocker, even on the 100th viewing. Plus, that opening scene is downright scary, no matter how many times you watch it. Jaws did the ocean for me like Psycho did for some and showers. I still can't get in the water much more than hip deep without thinking about this film., and to me, that says perfection. That says true horror - forget all the slash, slice, dice and naked teenagers (not that I don't like watching those too of course). 

The Convent

"Prince of Evil? You work at fuckin' Dairy Creme for crissakes."

The Convent started off strong, pussed out in the middle, and got better towards the end for a bit. I picked it up because Final Girl reviewed it awhile back and it sounded worth a viewing. I'm not sure I can recommend it though, because despite the few bits here and there, it really was awful. 

The Convent starts off with the best scene - a chick in a leather motorcycle jacket and Catholic schoolgirl outfit enters a chapel, disrupting what seems to be some sort of religious service. She whips out a shotgun, starts blasting away, and then burns the place down. All of this to the tune of "It's My Party" I think, or some such similar song. It's awesome in a cheesy horror movie sort of way. Then it all goes downhill when we zoom forward to the present - and a group of stereotypical college kids are geared up to hit the Convent where all the bad stuff went down. You know what happens when a group of kids gets together to smoke out and have the premarital sex. Especially when the local satan worshipers sacrifice a virgin. Yes, I know. It's too good to be true. It's like Santa came early, but then when you open your presents they really ended up being white tube socks. Enter evil nun and priest possession and goretastic attacks to the tune of really, really bad techno music. Techno music so disjointing it woke me up from my almost nap. But then, when all hope seemed lost, who shows up but Adrienne Barbeau. Ms. Escape from New York plays that Catholic schoolgirl all grown up. She commences to kick ass and take names, until the movie begins to suck again.

Really, I wouldn't rent this unless you really must see every movie Adrienne Barbeau is in. It's really not so good, even for folks who like really bad horror movies. I tried. Really, I tried. I had hopes there in that opening scene, but then the movie just stomped all over those hopes and dreams. Stomp, stomp, stomp. 

Mirrors

"Mirrors are just glass and silver, Ben. That's it. There's nothing behind them. "

Alexandre Aja has finally made me spooked to look in a mirror. He's finished what Poltergeist,  Clive Barker, and Candyman started. This movie made me jump. Repeatedly. Pandabob found much amusement in it when from the other room, he heard me jump and squeak. In fact, the creepiness in Mirrors made me wish that maybe Aja had filmed Mother of Tears. 

Mirrors is about an ex-cop, Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland), who is moonlighting as a security guard at an old burned out department store. The guy he replaced commits suicide, and when Ben finds out, he investigates, especially when he starts seeing things in the mirrors at the store that shouldn't, couldn't be there. Who or what is in the mirrors? Is he just going nuts or are he and his family really in danger?

It was gory. Amy Smart's bathtub scene, which you see part of in the trailer, is absolutely skin crawling. Ugh, and yet awesome. It was spooky. What wouldn't be with a huge, dilapidated,  burned out department store as a main setting? I was torn with the desire to explore the place and yet, also to maybe just stay away because the place kind of freaked me the frak out. The whole idea of evil, haunted mirrors is just way cool in my book. The plot got a little wonky there in the end, but I still couldn't help but love it. 

I didn't realize when I rented this that Mirrors is a remake of a South Korean horror film called Geoul sokeuro (Into the Mirror). Now I have another Asian horror film to add to my NetFlix queue. 

Rating: 4 Purrs. I can see that Kiefer's got a bit on the heavy-handed with the acting here and the plot does deviate into a convenient solution, but not nearly as badly as Aja's first film High Tension (which was also awesome until the end got all well, you know.)

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

As you might expect, books and DVDs were plentiful under the Christmas tree this year. People know me oh so well. 

DVDs:

• Wall-E (BluRay)
• HellBoy II: The Golden Army (BluRay)
• The Dark Knight (BluRay)
• Cowboy Bebop Remix DVD set (Whee! Finally, Bebop of my very own!)

Books:

• The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (Thanks LibraryThing Secret Santa!)
• The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore (Thanks LibraryThing Secret Santa!)
• The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson
• I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson
• Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation by Dan Kennedy
• Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy
• Who the Hell Is Pansy O'Hara?: The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World's Best Loved Books by Jenny Bond
• Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
• Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick

Comics:

• Dead at 17: The 13th Brother by Josh Howard
• Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures, Vol. 1 (v. 1) by Laurell K. Hamilton
• DMZ Vol. 4: Friendly Fire by Brian Wood

The Orphanage

The Orphanage wasn't quite what I expected. I expected a straight up horror movie and instead I got a supernatural, creepy, spooky thriller. Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

The Orphanage is Laura's new home. She's brought her husband Carlos and adopted son Simon to live in the orphanage where she grew up, hoping to open the house once again as a home for orphaned children. After moving in, Simon begins telling Laura about his invisible friends, and naturally she writes it off as normal childhood behavior, until Simon tries to show her his invisible friend's hidey-hole. Frustrated and busy throwing a party for the children she hopes will come to live in the home, she yells at Simon, sees a spooky kiddo in a scary burlap mask, and away Simon runs only to disappear into thin air. Laura refuses to give up hope, searching and searching until she begins feeling strange, otherworldly presences in the home. She becomes desperate, Carlos is ready to move on, but Laura refuses to give up hope. Eventually they invite parapsychologists into the home to help them find Simon, but it seems that it is left to Laura to unravel what really happened to Simon. Are there really ghosts in the house? Is Simon still alive?

The Orphanage was way spookier than I expected and the ending is just heart-breaking. Several times I jumped in my chair spooked. This is very good - not very many movies make me jump in my chair without resorting to cheap theatrics. The scene with the "freeze" game was so tense I clenched my hands. Why can't I find movies like this more often? Cause wow. When the mystery is revealed I was surprised just like I should have been. Oh yeah, and don't forget the gruesome looking face of the lady lying in the road. Ugh and awesome all at the same time.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for a beautiful, haunting, scary film

Ah vacation...

Vacation - the days where you can read a million books, take a million pictures, relax...

Well, I didn't quite get a million books read, and maybe not a million pictures, but I did read a whole heck of a bunch (I was only gone a week or so) and took so many pictures it's going to take me weeks of cropping, etc., before I can get them all posted.

I took about twice as many books as I actually read on my trip last week, which is pretty normal. My goal was to take things I wanted to read, even if I had read them before many times. I took some new stuff too, but I took some old favorites to revisit because I can never seem to convince myself to re-read things when it's "regular" reading.

What I read while I was gone:

• Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs - I picked these up because I love Bones. While the characters in the book are quite different from the TV Show, I still enjoy the dual mystery and forensics detailed in this series. I didn't think this was nearly as good as some of the former entries in the Temperance Brennan series of books. Here Dr. Brennan is trying to take a vacation with the hunky cop from Canada, but instead she find a big cache of bones that might be bear and might have some human there too. The investigation, death threats, and gore ensues. There's a lot of detail about endangered species here and you can't help but think that it's a topic close to Ms. Reichs' heart. I'd recommend it if you like forensics and want a pretty detailed look at the science.
  
• The Dispatch by Bentley Little - I like Bentley Little. His books are like horror cotton candy. They are tasty, fun, easy to eat up, but sometimes they give you a stomach ache after. This one is a bout a guy who writes letters. The letters he writes end up making things happen, and someone notices and wants to use him for something not so ethical. It's not his best work. I'd recommend The Walking or The Collection (short stories) first.
• The Maul and The Pear Tree by P. D. James and T. A. Critchley - A non-fiction work about the Ratcliffe Highway murders that took place in the early/mid 1800's. The book was very thoroughly researched, but the story felt sort of dry. Not nearly as engrossing as P.D. James' mystery stories. It's nice on a completist's perspective to have read this too, but I think I'll stick to her fiction from now on.
• The Mummy : or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice - I can't help it. I love this book. Always have, always will. Julie's dad dig's up Ramses' tomb, only to discover he's an immortal. An immortal who fell for Cleopatra. Chaos ensues. Romance blooms. Things blow up and people die. Seriously, it's not Pulitzer Prize material, but I love it anyway. It's my favorite Anne Rice book, ever.
• No Escape by Heather Lowell - It's a romance/thriller/mystery. I know. So sue me.
  
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley - Robin McKinley, one of my favorite authors of all time, writes a vampire novel. It's an interesting take - Rae, nicknamed Sunshine, likes to bake things. She's the Queen of Cinnamon rolls. She wants to just do that, but when some vampires kidnap her, she remembers what her Grandmother taught her - how to transmute objects. When she decides to save the life of Con, the vampire chained to the wall (she's supposed to be his lunch but he won't eat her), her life will never be the same. What I like about this book is that Con isn't a sympathetic, romantic vampire, at least not that much, and definitely not for most of the book. He's flawed, not really all that handsome, and Rae doesn't really find him attractive. In fact, she thinks something is very wrong with her for even helping him. I've read this before, and I picked it up again because of my sister-in-law getting me hooked on all of these Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and those Twilight books. This one was much more complex and a completely different voice. I highly recommend it - and please Ms. McKinley, write the darn sequel.
  

One Missed Call (Remake)

I loved the original One Missed Call. Takashi Miike is one of my favorite directors, but his American remake is nothing like the original - at least in tone, scares, or quality. I almost bought this movie and boy, am I glad I didn’t.

In One Missed Call, people are haunted by a phantom ringtone. They get calls to their voicemail saying One Missed Call, with this weird ring tone, and they hear their own deaths. Shannyn Sossoman is Beth – the heroine. Her friends are the ones who keep dying off with the weird phone messages. She hooks up with Ed Burns (but doesn’t “hook” up with him) to solve the mystery.

I usually don’t mind American remakes of Asian horror all that much. I really liked The Grudge and The Grudge 2. Dark Water was okay. The Ring was freaking scary as hell. I almost climbed right the hell out of my seat when Samara came crawling out of that TV (I saw that movie as a team-building event for work. How cool is that?!). One Missed Call just left me cold. I don’t care of you practically remake the movie, shot for shot, it has to be scary, and this version just plain wasn’t. The motive was trite, and followed pretty much the same plot and scares as the original. At least with the original, you had some good scares and the actors had some chemistry. This version had none of either. I hate to say that too, cause I like Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossoman.

I read in the IMDB trivia for this movie and saw that the director Eric Valette told the actors and crew to not watch the original (and he didn’t either). Somehow, that explains so much.

Rating: 4 Hisses – this should have been scary scary scary. Instead I was bored out of my mind.

Catacombs

“My sister sent me a postcard. All it said was, "Come to Paris. It will be good for you." Forty-eight hours after I arrived, she and everyone I'd met were dead.”

Catacombs sounded a whole heck of a lot more interesting than it ended up being. The idea is this: young woman travels to Paris to visit her sister. The girl is a bit tense, not so comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings, while her sister is vivacious, carefree, and constantly on her sister’s case for being too “stiff.” So what happens? The crazy sister drags the wallflower sister out to a rave in the catacombs under Paris, after telling her, of course, all about the scary, mass murdering, crazy child of a satanic cult that stalks the underground tunnels, looking for hapless victims. What happens next – well, what do you expect? Pretty soon the tense sister is running around, lost, scared about of her mind that the satanic love child is after her.

I loved the idea of a horror movie in the catacombs. The whole idea of underground parties, miles and miles of underground tunnels and old stuff sounded like a wonderfully claustrophobic setting for a horror movie. It was a great idea – in fact, the setting was the best part of the movie. Everything else, well it was rubbish. But you know, I have to say what bothered me the most was Pink. Yes, I said Pink, the pink-haired, Let’s Get This Party Started singer with the crazy abs. Her music, not terribly bad – but her acting was awful. She plays the fun loving sister and has absolutely no chemistry with Shannyn Sossamon, who plays the other sister. She wooden, and in turn, Shannyn seems even more wooden and bland. Instead of being tense and spooky, it ends up just being painful. Oh yes, also, the whole trick ending is just ludicrous, really. We’ve seen it before and seen it much better.

If you can’t tell already, I was disappointed with Catacombs. So much potential and it ended up being just a horrible retread of Creep (which wasn’t awesome by any means, but it was much better than this. Plus Franka Potente – got to love her!)

Rating: 1 Hiss – stupid movie – made me all interested with your creepy catacombs and ending up being ludicrous Phooey on you

Devour

I picked up Devour because I can’t help but have a super crush on Jensen Ackles. He is from Texas after all. I am so very thankful he got his role on Supernatural so he can have better character to play, because Devour, well, it sucked.

In Devour, Jake Gray (my favorite snarky demon fighting brother, Jensen) keeps having these really nasty nightmares. He’s in the woods hunting something, or sees his friends covered in blood, things like that. His two best friends decide that for his birthday they will sign him up for this weird online game called the Pathway, cause, you know, all the kids are doing it. Soon, his dreams get worse, his friends are starting to go a little but nuts, and he starts losing them one by one. Soon Jake is investigating the game with the help of the new gal in town, thinking somehow it is responsible for what is happening to his friends. Is it connected with the Devil somehow, and how is Jake connected?

It could have been an okay movie, if they had just left out the stupid game, or if they were going to have the game be a major player, make it more interesting like say, Stay Alive. Maybe tried to, I dunno, not try to mix a bunch of different ideas together like they threw darts at a dartboard. Overall the acting wasn’t atrocious, you could tell the actors were trying to do something with the poorly written dialogue they were given. The atmosphere was decent at times, I always love a woodland setting.

I can’t really recommend Devour, even though Jensen is in it. Just rent or buy Supernatural and watch that instead. Trust me.

Rating: I can’t even give it a 3 Purrs for Jensen being in it. This one has to get a Hiss. I hate to do it, but there it is.