Horror-tober 7: Return to the House on Haunted Hill

I'm not afraid to admit that I like the remake of The House on Haunted Hill from 1999. But it is also no surprise that this sequel is not that great. Shortly after the suspicious death of her sister (Sarah, a survivor from the massacre at the mansion), Ariel, receives a mysterious journal of a Dr. Vannacut that speaks about a Baphomet idol with supernatural powers. An archaeology professor helps Ariel translate the journal and he ends up going to the mansion with some students in search of the idol. Some thugs that may be responsible for Sarah's death kidnap her and her boyfriend and they force them into helping find the idol. Anyhow, of course the house traps them in and kills off a bunch of people until only two are left behind. Honestly, the idol aspect for the existence of the ghosts was pretty hoaky. The acting was dull, although I was sort of excited to see Andrew Lee Potts from the UK TV Show Primeval in this but of course he is not one of our survivors. Really the best part about this movie was Jeffrey Combs returning as the ghost of the doctor. He didn't say a word but he was perfect. The rest of the movie sucked but provided some unrealistic but memorable and gruesome death scenes.

Yep, because this is what happens when you are pulled apart.

My rating:

Horror-tober 2: We Are Still Here

An homage to horrors of old with a modern twist for Supernatural Sunday.

A husband and wife move to a small town in the country after their son passes away (not exactly sure how until later in the film). Little do they know that there is something sinister in the house, yet they think it might be their son. The townsfolk also seem to know more about the house than they are letting on. An homage to the older supernatural/haunted house stories of the 1970s but it has a flair of its own as well.  

The movie builds the tension well, although may be too revealing of its main ghosties/zombies, I don't really know what. At times, the acting seemed a little cheesy. However, Larry Fessenden, little known in the horror genre as a writer/director, producer, and actor (with such greats as Session 9, The House of the Devil, and You're Next), makes an appearance in this film as well. And he did a pretty superb job as sort of a new-age hippy that is into the occult.

This one also supplies some deliciously gory scenes towards the end. That being said though, the plot and script seemed to be lacking and was not executed well. Without giving too much away for those interested in viewing, I enjoy that the end is left open for interpretation but the flaws and plot holes within the main story make watching this movie frustrating and distracts from the good parts of what is presented. It loses some higher marks for that. Overall, a decent but imperfect film. I've read it is also an homage to Lucio Fulci, I honestly have only seen a few of his films, so maybe this is also a lesson for me to give some of his other films a watch and in so doing maybe I could appreciate this one more.

Joey had this to say about the movie after we got frustrated discussing the main storyline, "I liked the 'ash monsters'. But it showed them too much."

Joey's rating:

My rating:

Horror-tober 13: Archivo 253

Another one I chose because it was pretty short. As you can tell by my tardiness with posts, I don't have a lot of time to write these things up as you can tell since I keep posting these days after I have watched them.

Archivo 253 tells the story of four paranomal investigators breaking into an old insane asylum to discover why it was closed without an explanation years before. This film falls into the "found-footage" genre. These "investigators" find that there is some spirit or spirits in the building, but they haven't found the good solid evidence they crave for. So of course when they are getting a pretty good response, one of them sort of pesters it by asking if it is an evil spirit and asks it to show itself. Don't they know the old saying, "be careful what you wish for?" In their case, it awakens whatever evil spirit or demon is haunting the institution and it has no problem messing with them. 

The jump scares in this one really did make me jump a few times which I give it credit for, but I guess that is what I get for watching a movie on my laptop with headphones. It also had a pretty slow build which I enjoyed, too often movies like this jump right in and it just doesn't work well. Aside from that, I just wasn't super drawn into the story. I actually caught myself paying more attention to Joey playing the video game, The Last of Us, than the movie. But again, to its credit, it scared me at parts, some moments were pretty tense, and it had a nice build to when the shit really goes down. That and something really creepy with human hair that is just unnerving.