Category: Horror
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Paranormal Activity The Ghost Dimension (*1/2): Is that all there is?
Director Gregory Plotkin Starring Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Dan Gill, Ivy George, Olivia Taylor Dudley Screenplay Jason Harry Pagan, Andrew Deutschman, Adam Robitel, Gavin Heffernan When viewing the Paranormal Activity series, one gets the indelible feeling of disintegration and waning interest by the film makers themselves. For the first two films especially, this was not the case. The viewer is brought in through a…
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The Green Inferno (***1/2) – That’s my next tattoo
The Green Inferno – 2013 Director Eli Roth Starring Lorenza Izzo, Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Sky Ferreira, Magda Apanowicz, Nicolás Martinez, Aaron Burns, Ignacia Allamand, Ramón Llao, Richard Burgi Screenplay Eli Roth, Guillermo Amoedo A group of college kids looking to do good land in a remote area of the Amazon. They think they will be greeted as liberators of a…
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Knock Knock (***) – It was free pizza
Knock Knock – 2015 Director Eli Roth Starring Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas, Ignacia Allamand, Aaron Burns, Colleen Camp Screenplay Guillermo Amoedo, Nicolás López, Eli Roth If the story is familiar, it’s because we saw it before in 1977. Then it was Death Game, starring two of the film’s producers, Sandra Locke and Colleen Camp. Camp makes a cameo in the film as…
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Unfriended (***1/2) And into the future of horror
Unfriended – 2015 Director Levan Gabriadze Starring Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Courtney Halverson, Heather Sossaman Screenplay Nelson Greaves One year ago, Laura Barnes (Sossaman) killed herself as the result of a cyberbullying episode. So, of course one year later, when her friends are all sharing a group conversation via Skype, it only occurs to one of them,…
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The Visit (***1/2) – Nice butt, Granny
The Visit – 2015 Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Starring Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn Let’s get the slumping career stuff out of the way. I mean, let’s not even discuss it. You either have enough juice to make a movie or you do not. This movie is made. Done. Finished. And it’s presented a…
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Insidious: Chapter 3 (***) – Come on, you gotta try at least a little
Insidious: Chapter 3 – 2015 Writer and Director Leigh Whannell Starring Lin Shaye, Dermot Mulroney, Stefanie Scott, Angus Sampson, Whannell, Hayley Kiyoko, Tate Berney, Michael Reid MacKay, Tom Gallup So I love ghost stories. I just do. And as many times as I have seen films that just don’t do it, I keep going back. Insidious…
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Sinister 2 (**1/2): Too much of anything
Sinister 2 – 2015 Director Cirian Foy Starring James Ransone, Shannyn Sossamon, Robert Daniel Sloan, Dartanian Sloan, Lea Coco, Tate Ellington, Nicholas King Screenplay C. Robert Cargill, Scott Derrickson The eternal question about sequels to horror movies that are moderate hits: How does one progress the story without taking any of the elements too far or, by contrast,…
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Creep (*): Can you believe we made a profit on this one?
So Duplass and Brice made enough here to put a little more money into the next project. That project maybe makes enough to pay for the next project. Maybe someday they strike gold. Maybe someday they make something more scary. Maybe someday they make something more memorable. Not this day.
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Keep me from The Gallows (*) pole
It’s an irony that in the era of digital filmmaking we have fallen into a dearth of films all of the same genre. Everyone carries a camera in Horror these days, and the effect is many bad camera angels, lots of disconnected noise and no one has a SAG card. It’s enough to make one…
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We Are Still Here (***1/2) is the solid work of someone who likes horror
Having middle-aged leads adds to the authentic feeling. Younger actors tend to have less to draw on and their looks of terror seem more manufactured. In this case, Crampton and Sensenig are not tempted to run upstairs when they are the last ones to bed.
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