The Green Inferno is one of the worst horror films of the year. The movie starts out awful. The acting and writing is incredibly poor during the first forty minutes and only gets slightly better for the rest of its duration. The Green Inferno relies too much on its shock value and fails to be a movie worth watching. There is not much left to say.
Just skip The Green Inferno.
2.7/10.0
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit is not as bad as your friends probably told you. The movie has plenty of suspenseful and creepy moments that I found to be satisfying. Personally, there are elements of The Visit that I thought Shyamalan did well. He made a horror film that was only from the perspective of two very young teenagers work. Also, Shyamalan’s leads actually behave and talk like kids their age. We see the goofy, awkward, and even vulnerable moments for these two likable characters. In addition, the movie makes an effort to provide characterization for its leads. Normally, horror movies have one-dimensional characters with cliché and/or superficial traits.
The Visit is thrilling from start to finish. The main problem is that the movie’s twist is not as exciting as I would have liked. There was nothing new about its reveal. I felt that I have seen this same reveal done too many times. I had hoped for something fresh.
Say what you may about Shyamalan’s past movies, but he had some good things going on in The Visit. The film is definitely not great, but it might be worth a viewing on a rainy day for horror fans.
5.7/10.0
Sinister 2 is a horror sequel that you should skip. The movie is a major misstep when compared it to its predecessor. The attempts to scare the audience are mediocre at best. The movie is lacking mystery and intrigue. The dialogue is sometimes goofy and the movie struggles with balancing tones. However, Sinister 2′s major flaw is its ill-advised decision to change up the rules that were established in the previous movie. This decision led to illogical events and frustrating narrative choices.
Don’t bother watching Sinister 2.
3.3/10.0
The Final Girls is a fun film for lovers of the horror genre. The Final Girls is about a group of teenagers who find themselves trapped in an 80’s horror movie. The only way out is to survive until the end. The film is a horror-comedy that plays off of common elements seen in many slasher movies, the Friday the 13th franchise being its greatest inspiration. The Final Girls features enjoyable performances, especially from Adam DeVine and Thomas Middleditch. The cinematography stands out with several stylized and visually stimulating shots. For example, many of the slow-motion shots at the climax of the movie were stunning. My main complaint with the film is I felt like there needed to be more jokes and references for the genre fans.
If you like the slasher genre you should definitely consider seeing The Final Girls.
7.4/10.0
I never would have thought a movie that mostly takes place over Skype could be as entertaining as Unfriended. The audience views the movie entirely from Blaire’s (Shelley Hennig) computer screen. Blaire surfs the Internet at a brisk pace. Her actions, such as cutting back and forth from website to website, very much resemble how an average person would normally behave. The film’s decision to take place over Skype is an interesting one. However, the story that surrounds it is way too far-fetched. In short, a ghost terrorizes a group of teenagers through the Internet. Obviously, a movie of the horror genre doesn’t have to be realistic, but Unfriended pushes its luck too many times. This is a shame because the film is well-acted and finely executed production-wise. Had Unfriended been more believable, its decision to have several key moments take place offscreen would have been easier to forgive.
5.6/10.0
David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows is not only thrilling and thought-provoking, but it also brings something new to a genre that often feels tired. It Follows can best be described as a distant cousin of Shivers, David Cronenberg’s cult hit. Different in its approach when compared to other horror films, David Robert Mitchell crafts a film that is both gorgeous and fear-inducing. In addition, It Follows has its share of appropriately timed humor. The acting is much better than other horror films and lead Maika Monroe shines. Monroe is a star in the making. David Robert Mitchell shows he has the talent and potential to compete with the top directors. I am intrigued to see what he does next.
You need to see this film if you’re a horror fan!
8.5/10.0
Simplicity is often underestimated. The Lazarus Effect shows what you can accomplish with a modest budget. What I loved about the film was its setting. Almost the entire film takes place in one scientific lab. The filmmakers make great use of the lab’s space, but also leave much of the lab unknown. Although as an audience member you have a general sense of the lab, you never get a clear-cut blueprint of where everything is. The filmmakers use this so well to their advantage once things start going wrong. As an audience member you feel helpless because you have no idea where Zoe (Olivia Wilde) is and where to look.
The film is by no means great and is only a little above average at best. The fault lies with its story more than anything else. The writers appeared to think they could do anything they wanted with the story. This resulted in the movie not having a clear focus after everything is finally placed on the table. The acting in The Lazarus Effect was crucial. Very few horror movies ever have good, consistent acting. All of the actors in the movie are good, especially Olivia Wilde. The Lazarus Effect shows how much a horror film can benefit when you have a great cast to support a script that isn’t particularly good or original. The Lazarus Effect is entertaining for its entire duration, but unfortunately its screenplay is inadequate.
5.5/10.0
Good horror movies have been a dying breed for several years now. Jump scares have become an overused technique and cheap way to scare audiences. They would not be too horrible if the scares were not clichés. The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death uses nearly every jump scare in the book, as well as a few overused objects such as the zoetrope. The use of these techniques and objects makes the movie feel cheap, regardless of whether or not they are actually used to provide a jump scare. What makes Angel of Death different is actually the number of scares, which are only a few. Angel of Death seemed more focused on giving exposition than providing terror.
Exposition occurs in the beginning of any story. Many movies, particularly horror movies, will drop information throughout the film in increments, not revealing all of the information about the killer at once. However, Angel of Death decided to make the exposition of The Woman in Black the main focus of the story. Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox) spends the whole movie trying to find out information about the mysterious Woman in Black. This would be fine if the filmmakers did not act like everything she learned was an enormous surprise. Those who saw the first movie, myself included, already knew everything we needed to know. The main reason why Angel of Death was so tiring, not to mention boring, is because it felt like you were being told a story for the second time. Ninety-six percent of its runtime should not have been devoted to telling the audience about The Woman in Black. Between movie-long exposition about the killer, there’s also information about Eve Parkins (Fox) revealed that in the grand scheme of things has very little value. Yes, it serves a purpose in the movie, but it’s ultimately unnecessary. Her actions and The Woman in Black’s actions more than likely would have been the same without that information. Therefore, there should have been a larger quantity of inventive scares.
Skip this movie at all costs.
2.1/10.0
The Quiet Ones is definitely not what I expected. I thought it would be something like The Last Exorcism blended with The Devil Inside. It was not really like that at all. Even though it is classified as a horror, I hardly felt like it was “true horror.” It’s horror in the sense that Near Dark is horror. The problem is The Quiet Ones is not the kind of movie that should have a romantic angle. However, it did anyway and as a result, the horror traits of the movie get lost in its really weird take on love and demonic possession (which are two words I never thought could be in the same sentence, let alone together).
What I found so odd about The Quiet Ones is that it never fully tried to scare the audience. The only attempts were the few times when the movie tried to make the audience jump with loud noises, which is a feature incredibly popular in PG-13 horror films. Personally, I’m waiting for the day when that style declines. As a filmmaker, I feel that this only startles the audience, it does not scare them. There is a difference. Towards the end of the movie, Evey and her cult are mentioned, but hardly discussed. I think that going more in-depth about the cult would have been beneficial to the film and interesting to the audience. Despite the fact that this is technically a possession film there is not a lot of possession.
Another weird aspect of this movie is the fact that it fluctuated between a horror and a bizarre romance. Young man (Sam Claflin) falls for possessed girl. I’m not sure why anyone would ever fall for someone who is possibly possessed. The movie almost seemed like it was trying to be the next Twilight, except a little bit more bizarre.
The movie spent way too much time with Professor Coupland trying to insure the other characters that Jane (Olivia Cooke) was not possessed and simply had telekinetic powers. We all knew she was truly possessed, so why did eighty percent of the movie have to pass by before the film finally admitted it? I also think it is worth noting that Jane’s possessor has to be called on all the time to make itself heard. Also, it conveniently never bothers Jane and Brian (Sam Claflin) when they are having a moment. What a nice demon!
The Quiet Ones featured one of the most lame and laid-back demons I have ever seen in a film. Professor Coupland and his team had to make a real effort in order to get the demon to actually do something. When does that ever happen? Normally, people are trying to get the demon to go away. It is never the other way around.
The film was an interesting deviation from traditional possession horror films, but it just does not work. Do not waste your time with this one. There are far better movies of the same genre out there.
3.2/10.0
Film Addiction w/ Maxwell Carter 