A Haunting At Silver Falls (2013)

Directed by: Brett Donowho

Writers: Cam Cannon, Rachel Long, Brian Pittman

 

This starts off like a fairly standard ghost picture. Our heroine is a young girl who lost her parents, so she's staying with her aunt and her husband and one night she finds a ring that she puts on and can't take off later. Immediately after that she starts having a heavy case of ghost haunting - apparently, she's being chased by the spirits of two long gone twin sisters who want their damn ring back.

 

She's not exactly getting along with her aunt (or anyone else, come to think of it) and her only solace is a her nerd boyfriend who's a spitting image of a teen version of Eli Roth. However, soon it turns out that the spirits that haunt her don't mean harm - in fact, their father had been wrongfully accused for killing them and they are trying to lead her to the real perpetrator.

 

To me this idea was very appealing. With everyone (especially her relatives) acting more and more strange, it soon turns out that the only persons she can trust are - the dead twin sisters. It doesn't happen very often that you root for ghosts against the living people, so this movie has a point for originality because of that. Also, I quite liked the middle part of it, because it had a very nice kind of tense atmosphere where everyone seemed to be after our heroine.

 

However, everything falls apart at the ending, which is confusing and leaves heaps of questions unanswered. It's not the Michael Haneke kind of open ending, where you have to figure out what happened yourself (like in Hidden, for example) but rather a shining example of sloppy writing.

 

Still, this all makes for a rather pleasant and interesting viewing. If you liked this movie (and even if you didn't) I heartily recommend you watch Frank LaLoggia's Lady in White, a wonderful little film with somewhat similar story in a more Stephen King-like setting.

Kairo (2001)

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

When there's no more room for ghosts in the next world, the living will start commiting suicides and turning into black spots on walls, at least that's what Kiyoshi Kurosawa tells us in this slow, atmospheric and frustratingly complicated film. The main problem with this movie is that it doesn't go for the cheap jump scares and shameless exploitation of long-haired ghosts (though it does have some of that), but instead tries to make a clever statement about human loneliness and how modern technology is separating us and crap like that. It also has some features of an arthouse film, like when you have absolutely no idea what the hell is happening and why is everyone doing whatever the hell they're doing.

 

The story begins with a suicide of some guy. But, not only did he kill himself, he also turned into a black spot on the wall. At the same time, some other guy stumbles upon a scary website that promises their visitors interaction with the dead (!). At the same time, there's a scary mysterious room that harbours a horrifying secret. Some friends try to investigate what's going on, but they can do little to prevent the bizarre series of suicides that threatens to make the entire world (or at least Japan) look like Pripyat, Ukraine.

 

I found this movie incredibly difficult to follow. I don't know whether the problem was with the subtitles, or the director in most scenes didn't try too hard to establish the location, or I'm just stupid - anyway, I had mostly no idea who these people were and where did this all take place. And it's all so sloooooooooooooow and sloooooooooooooow and it's bearable for the first half an hour because there's an occasional scare here and there (like the first visit to the Forbidden Room, that one was spine-chilling) and you still have hope that things will actually resolve or something. However, from there on, it just seemed to me that Kurosawa was making some kind of style exercise, for himself rather than for the audience and I almost completely lost interest.

The last part of the movie has some nice apocalyptic images and this is the first movie I've seen that combines a J-horror with an actual apocalypse in such a direct way. It's a great idea, but I would've preferred it to be realized in a more conventional story. I'm not saying this movie was bad, of course. It was just a bit too hermetic for my taste, but if you like the films of, say, David Lynch, by all means I recommend you give it a try.

V/H/S 2 (2013)

Directed by: See below

Writers:  See below

 

The first V/H/S movie was pretty much a disappointment, at least given the names of some of the people involved. However, due to its anthological nature, it never got really boring, so I can't say watching it was a waste of time. Something similar goes for the sequel, but the quality of the stories varies much more here. Since there are only four stories (compared to 26 in The ABCs of Death), we'll look into each one of them briefly:

TAPE 49
(Written and directed by Simon Barrett)

The one that connects them all. Some people get into some house (which might or might not be the one from the first V/H/S, I don't remember), find some tapes and watch them. At the same time, we are made aware that something sinister is happening in the house, leading to a "shocking" twist at the end. Boring.

PHASE I CLINICAL TRIALS
(Directed by Adam Wingard, written by Simon Barrett)

A filthy rich guy (played by Adam Wingard himself) gets a supercool fancy eye-camera implant, which unfortunately makes him see dead people (Haley Joel Osment, eat your heart out). He spends most of the time running around completely terrified after a huge number of jump scares, which creates some pretty funny moments. Then he's visited by a girl who hears dead people. And then bad stuff happens. This one is told completely in the first person POV, has some nice humor in it, so I guess I'd call it not bad.

A RIDE IN THE PARK
(Directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale, written by Jamie Nash)

A guy goes for a nice bike ride in the park, only to fall victim to some zombies. He then wakes up as a zombie, forms a zombie party with some other guys and together they crash some child's birthday party. This one is also rather funny at times and it's interesting to see the events from a perspective of a zombie (the lead character has a camera on his helmet), however it drags in places and the birthday party chaos is not nearly as effective as it could have been.

SAFE HAVEN
(Written and directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans, story by Timo Tjahjanto)

By far the best story in the movie is also one of the most insane things I've seen in a long time. A film crew somewhere in Indonesia is making a documentary about a mysterious end-of-the-world sect, led by some obviously insane bastard. First they interview that insane bastard in a café or something, where he gives them a piece of his philosophy and then they persuade him to let them visit the place where his followers abide. Big mistake! After a somewhat slow intro, this quickly turns into a bloodbath of epic proportions, where randomly crazy stuff happens every few seconds. None of it makes much sense, but I guess the directors weren't exactly concerned about that - they wanted to give us a hilarious thrill ride, and boy did they succeed! This story was co-directed by Gareth Huw Evans, the director of the mightily successful Raid, and I'm so glad he gave a shot at directing a horror. Let's hope he does a full feature one after Raid 2.

SLUMBER PARTY ALIEN ABDUCTION
(Directed by Jason Eisener, written by Jason Eisener and John Davies)

Some kids are playing pranks on each other and then they are attacked by aliens and everything goes to Hell. The stupidest and most boring story of them all, it consists solely of irritating kids screaming "Oh my God, did you see that, what is that, we're gonna die, woe are us!!!!!" and pointlessly running around trying to escape some equally boring aliens. I don't know why in the heck did they put this one at the end, to ruin the entire impression. Jason Eisener had previously made a great little short called Treevenge, which had a terrific idea and execution, which makes the complete lack of imagination in this one even more surprising. 

Ghost Machine (2009)

Directed by: Chris Hartwill

Writers: Sven Hughes, Malachi Smyth, Sven Hughes (original story)

To tell you the truth, my hearing isn't what it used to be and I watched this movie late at night, so I wasn't able to turn the volume up as much as it was required. The point I'm getting to is - I heard almost nothing of what the characters were saying at the beginning, so I had only a vague idea of who they were and where the story took place. Sure, they are some military types and it's some kind of abandoned prison, I gathered that much, but I missed the finer details.

 

I guess it wasn't that important anyway. The point is - we have some people in some abandoned prison (presumably) and they set up a rather cool setup for a military virtual reality simulation. Basically, in the simulator they run through the same rooms and corridors that exist in the real life, with the difference that in the simulation they have full military equipment, including weapons of choice. Neat!

 

The slight problem is - a scary female ghost has infiltrated the simulation and is killing people right and left. And it has that irritating super power ripped off from Freddy Kruger that anyone who dies in the simulation dies for real. It also seems to have a power to modify the scenery, erase a staircase here, add a wall there and similar. It seems that sometimes being a ghost rocks.

 

Fortunately, it's not one of those scary long-haired Japanese ghosts, otherwise I would've promptly stop watching. The ghost is well done and a bit scary, but it doesn't stare at you through the screen and the way it eliminates people is anything but ghostly - it uses chains and brings devastating damage to their physical bodies.

 

For what it is, Ghost Machine is a finely made film that keeps interest throughout, but there's hardly anything spectacular in it. For this kind of movie, to elevate above the average status, one ghost is not enough. Had the budget allowed it, they could have made a full scale ghost vs. military war, where the ghosts would use a Hellraiser-like arsenal of chains, hooks and similar stuff, while the army would respond with their ultrafancy futuristic weapons like plasma guns, BFG 9000, railguns et cetera. Oh well, maybe in the sequel... Overall, Ghost Machine is far from a must-see, but it's worth checking it out for its rather original idea.

#HoldYourBreath (2012)

Directed by: Jared Cohn

Writers: Kenny Zinn (story), Geoff Meed

Somehow it happened that I watched another dreadful Asylum movie, I have absolutely no idea why. Perhaps I liked the poster, but I should have listened to the golden rule I'd already mentioned: DON'T watch The Asylum movies! Well, I asked for it...

 

Though I only planned to review two other Asylum movies, as I said in the review of Barely Legal, this one at least happens to be a landmark of some kind - it's apparently the first theatrical release by The Asylum!

 

Not that it makes a whole lot of difference - this movie does look slightly better than the others, but it's so aggressively stupid that it's just impossible to overlook. The story follows a standard group of young guys and girls looking for sex and finding death instead. This time, their doom comes in the form of a particularly nasty ghost of some murderer. There's this stupid urban legend that says you have to hold your breath when you're passing by a cemetery, otherwise you risk being possessed by all kinds of spirits. But - it only applies if you're in a car (!). If on foot, you're safe.

 

Of course, in every single movie of this type there's a stoner guy, and it's him who doesn't follow the rule (he's too busy inhaling) so he's the first one to get possessed. He manages to off a cop before the spirit passes on to another member of the group, the one that looks like a hybrid between Rafael Nadal and Christopher Reeve.

 

The only difference that this body switching creates is that most of the group members get a chance to kill someone. Otherwise, unless we count occasional red eyes (oooh, scary!), there are no body deformations of any kind.

 

Of course, The Asylum wouldn't live to their reputation if they weren't unable to completely mess up even the simplest slasher formula. Throughout its length, the movie fires a cannonade of stupidity at the viewer. First, there's the infamous "give me your cell phones and I will hide them in this glove compartment, that's about to become unreachable when we most need it" plot device. Then, there's a couple that goes to an abandoned insane asylum to have a "quick" hump, while the others immediately decide to follow them for some reason (not of a voyeuristic nature, unfortunately). So they are trying to find them and they're wandering through this huge abandoned building, and yet they never try calling them. Then, that Christopher Reeve - Rafael Nadal character, who happens to be the most irritating of the bunch, gets dared by some bimbo to sit in an old electric chair, which for some reason frightens him so much that he demands a blowjob in return. Dangerous Liaisons, eat your heart out! And to top it off, the movie ends with a ghost fight so ridiculous that you have to see it to believe (but please don't).

 

If there's anything redeeming here, it's a completely gratuitous sex scene and an unusual amount of eye violence - many murders for some reason include gouging out of an eye. However, the usual total lack of competence on the part of The Asylum directors and writers makes for a painful experience of a completely different kind than (but similar in intensity to) eye gouging out.