The Conjuring – First Impression
As I mentioned I was anxious to see The Conjuring and went to the midday show to beat the crowds and the heat. No problem with the crowds, only 10 people in theater for this early show.
The movie starts off slowly by introducing some past "cases" of Ed and Lorraine and giving a brief history of what they do. They also elude to some dark experience that Lorraine had during their last case.
Without giving the story away, as if you couldn’t predict it, the family this house for a real bargain and buys it sight unseen and without knowing anything of the history. Turns out some strange deeds have occurred and after going to one of their lectures, Carolyn (the mother) begs for the Warrens to come and investigate.
The first half of the movie is quite good, as small events begin to happen and we get drawn in. But then it goes too far into the Hollywood spectrum and you can quite literally pick out paranormal shows and horror movies. To me it was so blatant as to be distracting. Instead of letting this supernatural force reveal itself, it becomes this hodgepodge of stories that are supposed to be related, but the way it’s all crammed together is more confusing than engaging. The motive and the plot take a back seat to figures behind doors, bangs against the walls and faces showing up out of nowhere. Not to be cliche, but there doesn’t seem to be any motivation for any of this. There’s no context for any of it.
Overall it was pretty decent with some interesting moments and a glimpse to the early days of the paranormal. Unfortunately, it tries to emulate too many other movies with blatant scares and you sit there going, "I saw that in the Exorcist. That reminds me of Amityville. They’re setting up the house like Ghost Adventures." Perhaps we’ve become tainted and we forget the original source for all those Johnny Come Lately shows. Even so, the movie is a just fragile and doesn’t have a strong thread of story holding it all together. Like I said, it was pretty decent with some interesting elements and insights, but it "reminds" me of too many things and as such isn’t an original like it should be.
Other Articles of Interest:
- Time to have a look at the Conjuring 2
- Rob Zombie’s Take on Halloween and Halloween II
- The Conjuring – A Film About Ed and Lorraine Warren
- Best Halloween Movies?
- The Awakening – The early ghost hunting adventures of Florence Cathcart
- Paranormal Activity 2 – Do we really have to do this?
- Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
- Grave Encounters 2
- Amityville – The Haunting
- Paranormal Lockdown – Hinsdale House – S01E05
The Conjuring – A Film About Ed and Lorraine Warren
I just found out about this movie and I have to admit, the trailers make this seem creepy as hell. The simple description of the movie reads as follows:
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.
Normally, most of these style movies simply go to far and try to weave in as much shock value and spewing pea soup as they possibly can. I have no idea if the Warren’s were consulted on this movie or if this "based on real events" style movie is really based on factual events. But if the rest of the movie keeps the same atmosphere as these trailers then this could be one hell of an adventure.
The Conjuring opens this weekend, July 19 and I think I’m going to have to see it. I usually wait for these to hit video, but I’m willing to give this a shot. It has an R Rating and was directed by the makers of SAW. The original SAW was a tense and dramatic movie so perhaps they can bring that to The Conjuring.
I have no doubt this is sensationalized and attempts will be made to make this the new Amityville, but it definitely has my interest.
Who else plans to check out this movie for the weekend?
Other Articles of Interest:
- Time to have a look at the Conjuring 2
- The Last Exorcism
- Now this is some debunking! The spirit of Michael Jackson explained
- Paranormal Incident
- Reincarnation – After Dark Horror Fest – 8 Films To Die For
- The Haunting in Connecticut
- The Dead Matter
- A Haunting in Connecticut
- Penny Dreadful – After Dark Horror Fest – 8 Films To Die For
- The Grudge – Rating 2 out of 5
Cabin in the Woods
This will go down as one of the dumbest horror movies I’ve had the misfortune of seeing. I’m not quite sure which is worse, The Dead Matter or Cabin in the Woods. I went into this movie with no preconceived notions. In fact, a couple friends said it was good and worth seeing. I was looking forward to a “different take”, to the unusual twist this movie supposedly offered. What I saw was a steamy pile that failed at every turn. I found it lacking in suspense, drama, tension or even a plot for that matter. Cabin in the Woods failed to produce anything except a lot of head shaking and sympathy for the poor schmucks who got roped into acting in this piece of crap.
Trying to give the horror genre a twist turns this movie into a confusing and laughable mess. It’s really not giving anything away, since you’ll learn the plot within the first 5 minutes, that a group of college kids have been lead out into the woods to a remote location so they can be sacrificed to the gods. They choose their own demise and then the results are broadcast for all to see. It’s all controlled and manipulated by some corporate or government entity. I guess there is supposed to be some deep meaning in choosing your own fate or destiny here?
Ok, so we have a twist on sacrificing virgins to the gods. The problem is, who the hell cares? There is nothing likeable or suspenseful about this movie. It’s pointless and boring carnage. There is no reason to care about any of the characters, so who gives a damn if they live or die? It’s pretty obvious they’re nothing but cattle, and if they don’t get sacrificed a terrible fate waits for all humanity. So where’s the suspense? What’s the point? It’s completely ludicrous and quite frankly boring. There is nothing original in this plot, nothing unique about how it achieves it’s goal and by the end I was shaking my head and how stupid it all was.
The repeated cut scenes between the action in the woods and the action at command central are just jarring and annoying. They’re betting on who dies first and what death they choose. They throw parties while the virgin gets the crap beat out of her on the dock by the lake. They stand around waiting to see boobs on the big screen as the “whore” participates in the typical sex scene in woods routine. They don’t give a damn about these people, it’s just business as usual. Why the hell should I care? It’s another day at the office, ho hum.
All of this is reminiscent of the ridiculous games we see in the beginning of “The Running Man”. The only thing missing is Richard Dawson to commentate all the action. Where is Jessie “The Body” Ventura to spice things up?
And because the movie is such as a damn mess, we have Sigourney Weaver come out at the end to give us a recap. “This is important work”, “This is meaningful work”. Who in the hell are these gods? What control do they have over humanity? Why should we be scared?
Even with this end, where Dana is on the verge of shooting Marty to save herself and humanity because she’s been confronted by the horror of it all, there is a great big, “whatever”. The whole movie is a sad joke. It fails as a horror movie and fails even worse as a spoof.
This movie was supposed to have some grand vision because Joss Whedon was at the helm. Still haven’t seen anything of his that I like. I can’t believe when all was said and done, the creators of this steamy pile stood back and said, “YES!! That’s the movie we want to make!”
I’m not sure under what circumstances this movie would be exciting or scary. Maybe if we were all as high as Marty, this movie wouldn’t suck so bad.
Other Articles of Interest:
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Rating 2 out of 5
- Dead Silence – Rating 3 out of 5
- The Grudge 2 – Rating 1 out of 5
- Saw III
- Reincarnation – After Dark Horror Fest – 8 Films To Die For
- The Number 23 – Rating 2.3 out of 5
- Flatliners – Rating 4 out of 5
- Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XIX
- Thr3e – Rating 3 out of 5
- Saw
Paranormal Incident
In order to get a decent grade in their glass, a group of friends head out to film paranormal events at the abandoned Odenbrook Sanitarium. With both skeptics and believers in the group, they encounter more than they can handle in this "lost footage" tale. But what could have been an interesting tale of the lone survivor of the incident trying to clear his name for the murder of his friends as he goes through the recovered footage, goes a bit South and gives us an ending that doesn’t even make sense.
It’s a plausible scenario; friends go out to investigate an asylum and to give them some thrills and chills, one of them breaks away from the group. He locks them in with the intent of returning later to scare the crap out of them. But as the group does their investigation things go sideways and they realize something is out there and it’s in no way friendly.
In the style of Grave Encounters, Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, we follow along with the jerky camera movements and things moving in the shadows. As the night moves on, the group realizes they can’t leave and panic ensues. They fight, argue, spew vulgarities and lost trust in each other. Soon, it’s every man for himself. Unfortunately, amidst all the screaming and hysterics there’s no plot. There’s nothing to hold this together. There is the lose idea of patients being abused and a mass suicide from 60 years earlier. The footage is intermixed with "visions" of the past, but how it all ties together is the big mystery. It’s an interesting premise and there is a lot to work with, but they can’t pull it together. What we end up with is haphazard investigation that leads us nowhere.
The acting within the "lost footage" is tolerable, barely, but the hospital scenes are just tragic. You begin to groan as soon as they cut back to hideous green and white walls of the hospital room.
While there was nothing compelling about this movie, I kept watching so I see the big reveal and find out what’s behind the events. But the big reveal doesn’t come and I don’t know what the hell kind of ending we’re given. We’re dropped in the middle of some craptacular X-Files ripoff and I don’t know what the hell just happened. What is this mess? How this ending fits with the rest of the movie I don’t know, but I’m terribly confused.
The ending completely ruins what could have been a decent, and I use that word loosely, low budget scare. There are some moments of fun in this movie, but by the time you get to the end, you’ll want to throw something.
Other Articles of Interest:
- Saw III
- I Am Zozo – A Review
- Paranormal Activity 2 – Do we really have to do this?
- The Abandoned – After Dark Horror Fest – 8 Films To Die For
- The Conjuring – First Impression
- Ouija – The Movie – Keep Telling Yourself It’s Just a Game
- Paranormal Activity – Movie Review
- Dreams in the Witch House – Masters of Horror – Rating 3 out of 5
- The Conjuring – A Film About Ed and Lorraine Warren
- The Number 23 – Rating 2.3 out of 5
Recent Comments