Horror-tober 18: The Psychic

A woman has visions of a room and a woman being entombed in a wall. Compelled by the visions she breaks down the wall in her husband's abandoned estate. When she discovers a skeleton in the wall, her husband is accused of murdering a young model. But she does not believe he did it nor that the woman found in the wall is indeed that young model (her visions were of an older woman). So she works with her psychiatrist to find the real culprit, but when she gets too close to the truth will it be the end of her search and her life?

Discovering the skeleton in the wall.

After I last posted about We Are Still Here and blasphemously replied to a comment from a friend saying that I do not like Fulci's Zombi 2, he recommended this earlier Fulci film. And because it was easy to find through the Multnomah County Library's digital service Hoopla, I was able to watch it for this year.

I actually quite enjoyed this film. It was suspenseful and the plot was interesting. I particularly liked the close-up shots of Jennifer O'Neill's eyes when she was having her visions. She has some very beautiful green eyes.

Those eyes! Although not the best screen capture of them

The soundtrack was also really enjoyable and the cinematography was quite striking with some really interesting shots and lighting.

One of my favorite shots in the film.

My friend was right, this was definitely a good one and unlike Fulci's later horror movies with little gore and a particularly good mystery and terrific soundtrack.

Horror-tober 12: The Voices

Jerry works in a factory in the small-town he grew up in. Not really noticed by most of his coworkers, he interacts with an accounting girl and finds himself smitten with her. When she doesn't show up for their "date", things get a little sour for Jerry. Oh, and he also thinks his animals are talking to him.

I'm a little on the fence for the rating of this one. I liked it because it did a dark comedy horror pretty well. But I was almost also rooting for Jerry to be OK and not make some of the decisions he did. So really it made me feel weird about "rooting" for the psycho killer but also wanting him to get caught and/or killed himself. Very conflicting feelings for this one. It is darkly funny and a bit macabre. Ridiculous but also really well written.

Not until a bit later did I realize that the voices Jerry was hearing were actually Ryan Reynolds doing them (which makes sense because they are the voices he creates as he dips deeper into his madness). I mean, Mr. Whiskers had such a good Scottish accent I kept trying to place it and thinking that it was Chris (Mark Bonnar) from Catastrophe (Amazon TV show that is pretty good). Bosco, the dog had a bit of a Billy Bob Thornton quality. All in all, Reynolds has been a favorite of mine for awhile, yeah mostly because he is pretty attractive, but seeing him in this role was so much different and he was actually really good in it. Also features Anna Kendrick. However, it does not get a much higher rating because the climax was a little dull and by that point I got a bit bored with the whole story. But then the credits ran. What was THAT?

So I also have to mention that tonight it was a choice between two movies, This one or The Neon Dead. I had originally had chosen Dead because it was shorter but I watched the first 10 minutes and decided it wasn't worth the time. But I wanted to see some of what originally attracted me to the movie, so I fast-forwarded through some of it to see if it got any better. Not. Don't watch it. Other than the movie being shot pretty much entirely in blacklight to create the neon element, it was definitely a B-movie that can be skipped. However, I do like this mask still and am considering how to make one. Maybe they were trying to make something with an Attack the Block feel? Who knows. But, remember folks, part of the reason I watch these is so that you guys don't have to, I got your backs.

The Voices rating:

The Neon Dead rating. Although I just skimmed through the whole movie, felt like I needed to give it something:

Horror-tober 6: Tormented (Rabbito Hora)

I chose this one this evening because I wanted to watch something fairly short and Joey expressed interest in it and it is always fun to get him to watch horror movies, because I know how much he loves them.

After Kiriko's brother, Daigo, puts a dying rabbit out of its misery and with his tenth birthday approaching, he starts having weird dreams and visions of a giant stuffed rabbit that seem all too real. On top of that, Kiriko's father doesn't seem concerned for either of them. But he is also still distraught over losing Daigo's mother in childbirth, so you can't really be too hard on the guy.

I'm not going to lie, I was intrigued by this one because I wanted to see creepy giant stuffed animals do creepy things. It had that, but the overall story was kind of all over the place, and even though there is a psychological twist, it just didn't really help to explain the finer details of the story. Also pretty predictable. Without spoiling too much, I will say that it did have some good creepy moments. When the cutesy giant stuffed rabbit turns into a more realistic and menacing rabbit and at the end the smaller stuffed rabbit loses its head but then its body crawls off the screen; both of which were a bit unnerving.

Hey, there. Wanna play? Both of these scenes have nice yellow tones too

I just noticed the more realistic giant stuffed rabbit has nipples, that explains some things

The whole time during the movie, Kiriko's father is making pop-up books of The Little Mermaid, not the sweet Disney version, and when shown on screen they are really quite beautiful. It also ties into Kiriko's narrative. She is mute. She lost her voice at some point as a child and it is implied that it was caused by a traumatic event in the past which then affects her situation in the film. Again, don't want to spoil anything for anyone wanting to watch this so won't give away too many details.

The little mermaid creeps into the Prince's room to kill him and get her voice back

In the end she could not do it and dissolves away as sea foam in the ocean

Definitely had some nice visuals and cinematography, but all in all, a little drab and not enough of the creepy giant stuffed animals. Joey gives it 2 skulls and I give it 2.5 skulls, purely for the pop-up books (reminded me of The Babadook, although not creepy like that one).  

Joey's rating:

My rating: