The Addams Family (1991)

WGBW, Uncle Buffalo is back. I know I constantly apologize for tha lack of delays but it is tha second greatest day of tha year, and I wouldn't forget about this.

1) Despite 24 year old Buff's earlier thoughts, this movie is definitely running laps around tha second movie. Tha first one obvi started it all, it avoided that wretched gremlin from tha second, and they play golf most of tha movie.

2) To be honest, this whole movie freaked me out for the better part of my childhood. Obvi, not as much as Child's Play 2, but really pretty close. I mean, there is a fucking hand that can be anywhere that just randomly messes with you; tha Lurch guy could put a beating on anyone; and two really creepy children and tha spooky uncle.

3) FWIW, this movie was also tight because it was tha start of Christina Ricci's acting career. She has never really been in anything tight (except for that one ep of tha Good Wife obvi), but she is pretty top notch.

4) This movie always has a special place in my <3 due to its constant airtime over tha Halloween season. It also had a fucking pinball machine that was in every arcade lol.

Super pumped tw.

A-

Suspiria

1) I figured it was time to review Suspiria as it pops up on almost every top 10 horror films list.

2) I don't really get the infatuation with all of tha inside organs and flesh. I mean that one chick gets all of her ish cut open, then tha dog is going to town on that one guy's business. Pretty gross.

3) Also, some of it doesn't make much sense. Like the time the Tom Cruise look alike shows up outside that Lincoln Memorial look a like and gets mauled by that ugly looking Hutchy. The part about the doctor telling her to drink wine to built up her immune system is pretty tight tho. Dr. Buffalo approves lol.

4) Overall tho it was pretty spooky: it had that crazy Exorcist type music, was set in a foreign country (which makes uncle buff homesick and pretty spooked out), and had creepy ish popping out of rando spaces.

5) But I have to throw tha challenge flag in on tha ending of it. I mean- so it's a school ran by some witch? And tha witch dies just by getting stabbed in tha throat? Really for how overall scary and engaging tha movie is, this ill-informed short-sighted explanation was a real injustice.

Pretty solid tho,

B+

The Hole (2009)

1) I know this isn't Academy Award winning material, but the title sounded funny (lol), it was less than 90 minutes long, and that really good looking chick from American Reunion has a 10 second part in it lol.

2) Really reminded me of Disturbia. Screw-up kid has new neighbors, gets a thing for the girl next door, finds a hobby together scoping out some creepy stuff. Also tailed off into a less scary version of the movie IT (which btw I keep forgetting to review).

3) Which is also where the movie went kinda downhill. I mean, they figure out that the only things creeping out of this hole are things that scare you, and if you can just not be afraid of them anymore then you're g2g. Kind of begs the question why the hole isn't constantly opening up to freak out the entire neighborhood.

4) I mean, the big scary monster at the end of the movie is the kid's dad. If the hole really works like this, I hate to see what other "scary monsters" could pop out? I can just see someone's fear of settling down causing a bunch of clingy girls to jump out of there; or a bunch of gun control laws popping out to scare Maker lol.

C-

1408

1) Uhhhh. Not tha best way to start off the second greatest day of tha year lol. I feel like this review is more of a questionnaire for the director lol.

2) Samuel Jackson is super tight, but outside of the hit movie Identity, John Cusack is generally too emo and boring. I get that he had a fictional death in the family, but man o man is he cranky the whole time.

3) I've watched this movie 3 times and still don't really get what's going on. Is he having a dream the whole time? Is the room just really making him hallucinate? If so, what is up with the fire that sets him free? And why does he just stare real creepily at the end of the movie? Is he possessed? Is he still hallucinating? Did someone slip him something in his drink?

4) You know how the Shining left a few things up in the air (why was Jack in that picture on the wall? who was that bartender)? It's like that movie, only the entirety of the movie is one irrelevant question after another.  I imagine if someone really had to explain the movie, there'd be 1408 different explanations of what actually went on (maybe that's how they got the movie title lol). 

How JC and SLJ made serious faces for the movie poster is beyond me. No way they put this one on their resumes

D

Paranormal Activity 4

1) Same old movie as the rest of them. I heard all of the reviews said that it was just the same old thing but I don't really know what people are looking for in these movies. I mean, it's obvi just gonna be a bunch of quiet moments with something crazy jumping out and scaring the hell out of everyone (myself included). You get what you pay for.

2) On that note it made me jump about every 2 minutes. I preemptively knew this and tried to preoccupy myself, but things like shadows, creepy little kids, and that weird contingent of chicks spook the hell out of me. 

3) That being said the movie didn't really wrap up any odd ends. So that Katie girl who's been in every movie is still around TKOing people, but it seems hard to figure out what they'll do with the plot now. And what was up with her letting the boyfriend hook up all the cameras in her house? He's like 'yeah let me put up a bunch in your bedroom and stuff' SMH.

It also kind of begs the question how all of these incidents get videotaped each and every time. They're kind of tossing the 'found footage' theory out the door with this one.

4) The one thing I do enjoy about watching these is trying to catch horror connections to other movies that I think always get hidden in there. The little kid riding that bike around was def from The Shining, the girl levitating from the bed was straight up the Exorcist, and the kid getting pulled into the tub was a shout-out to Nightmare on Elm Street. The last one I caught was when the kid is up goofing around with the spirit by the TV was probably a homage to Poltergeist. For all my idiotic writing, I do think I know some stuff about horror movies \o/

B

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

1) @Stone thought I should review this and that's not a horrible idea. I actually am not a fan of family/feel-good movies generally but this one was pretty good.

2) I know it's a fictional story and all, but it's pretty unbelievable. He has this big factory that sells candy that nobody's ever allowed to inspect? Obvi they don't abide by any safety regulations. Kind of makes you wonder if those oompa loompa people are paid well and stuff.

3) And really the kids are going this apeshit over winning a lifetime supply of candy? I mean, I know kids dig the candy and all,  but it's probably not worth getting this excited about. Back in the day I used to love those nerd ropes until I ate myself sick of them, but don't really think I would've been this nutso about winning a lifetime supply of the stuff.

4) And actually this movie is pretty spooky. That dude who tries to buy off the kids is creepy, the whole factory place gives me the willies, and the fact that there's just all of this scary unchartered territory to conquer gives me the shakes. The newer version of the film actually scares the hell out of me more. Johnny Depp is generally creepy to me but he is just off the charts in that movie.

B-

The Haunting (1999)

Sorry bw, I was going to post this much earlier in tha week but I passed tha bar(!!) and am just getting around to it now.

1) It took me a while to sit through it, but it was actually one of those movies that got better the more I powered through it. Liam Neeson tricks these people with sleeping problems to come stay over a this creepy place to see if they can eventually just believe that the place is super scary.

2) Then it got kind of goofy. One of the chicks realizes she is the daughter of one of the wives of the dudes who killed all of these kids so that they could stay in tha house for eternity with him.  So she decides that she just wants to never leave the place so she can reconnect with these people or something.

3) Little kids always spook me out so I guess that part was pretty freaky. And when the chick sees the person hang themselves it was scary. I think it kind of reminded me of that creepy ass scene in The Omen when the babysitter decides to jump off tha house in front of all of those kids.

4) It had a pretty star studded cast. CZJ, Liam Neeson and Owen Wilson all had much larger roles in some more popular movies. Surprised they all got together for this one.

C

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

1) One of the big problems is there's not really a focus on the 13 ghosts. On the DVD there's this extra feature that explains a background story for all 13 of the ghosts that goes into a way over detailed biographical explanation for all of them. It'd be cooler if they explored that in the movie instead of having to do it after the fact.

2) Some of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm still unsure why those big pieces of glass can deflect all the ghosts away. I mean, that one guy got killed with one of them so why can't the ghosts use them? And why would the ghosts leave these super power glasses around that allow them to be detected?

3) Crazy that Shannon Elizabeth and that Monk guy were in it. Pretty funny that Brock from She's All That is in it too lol. He's always kind of a n00b in horror movies and this one's not too different.

4) At least the movie poster was pretty solid. It spells 13 all goofy, and says Misery loves company. I can't find a link to it, but back in March when Missouri and Duke lost ESPN ran that headline lol.

Meh,

C-

Paranormal Activity 2

1) Wgbw, after reviewing the First and Third I finally made it to the second. This is probably somewhere in the middle of the two movies. It's obvi scarier than the first one, but no where near the 3rd one.

2) After watching these out of order, they still kinda confuse me. It's like the second one is a prequel to the first in the sense that it's just a little bit earlier while the 3rd one is the actual prequel. Kind of confusing to go all out of order. I'm really hoping the 4th one just goes down after the events in this one and not in between a bunch of them lol.

3) Anybody catch the Michael Myers look-a-like hanging out in the background of that kitchen scene? He's pretty visible for a lot of the dark camera scenes and goes away sporadically too \o/

4) That reminds me, if I was putting together one of these movies, I'd never waste money to see if there were any IMDB 'goofs'. I mean, pretend a cup was in one scene and not in the next. It's not really a goof, just a weird paranormal activity that the movie doesn't really explain. Seems like it's hard for the production crew to go wrong in these movies LOL.

Eh,

B-

The Changeling

1) Reminds me of a mix between Poltergeist and Paranormal Activity. Unfortunately the movie just seemed to move to slowly. In the Poltergeist or PNA at least there was some development. Here, the guy just kind of goofs around while barely anything creepy happens.

2) The guy should've probly done some prior inspections of the house. If I was gonna move across the country (not ever happening) I'd at least look around at the neighborhood or see if anyone had ever died in the house. After he moves in that one group even tells him he shouldn't live there!

3) That being said the guy never even seems really creeped out. You never see him scream or run out of the house too terrified to come back. I guess I always wonder in the Paranormal movies like this why the people don't just jump ship. If the Cone became haunted I'd be out of here in a heartbeat lol.

4) At the end of the day it's hard for me to get on board for the ghost stories where the ghost isn't actually evil. I mean, that poor kid obvi needed some redemption, but I don't know if a horror movie is the way to go. Instead of doing all that spooky stuff, why doesn't the kid just make a bunch of evidence of his death available to the guy to take to the police? Would solve his dilemma while avoid scaring the guy.

C-

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

1) It was really original in that it kind of set the foundation for movies where people try to stay in a haunted house for some purpose. Halloween Resurrection is a pretty recent copy (plus the whole Michael Myers thing).

2) Also original was the whole theme that if the house ended up engulfing you, you got to stick around and haunt everybody else that came in.

3) I did get confused because I thought the deal was once the door was closed to the place nobody could get out. But then that Annabelle chick is just hanging outside the window spooking people out?

4) One of my problems with these older movies is the kind of stuff that spooks people. Don't get me wrong, I get scared about super dumb stuff all the time. But the scene where that 1 pound door hanging skeleton pushes that girl into the pit of doom is kind of goofy. It's like, just push the skeleton out of the way or cut off the puppet hangers on the top of it lol.

At only an hour and 11 minutes, I'mma be tuning in,

B

Paranormal Activity 3

1) Top notch spooky stuff. One of the things that scares the bejesus out of me is when people are just standing somewhere staring at you for no reason. I think it's why The Strangers really spooked the hell out of me. This movie was just chalked full of this little ghost chick standing and staring. Really spooky. Movies with scary little kids also give me the willies and this had a bunch of them running around too.

2) The whole keeping a camera on at all times doesn't make any sense. Like if someone was actually haunting the place why would you carry around the stupid camera to tell your ladyfriend about it? I'd be like put down the camera and just tell me what is going on. It's kind of why The Blair Witch Project didn't make any sense either. I mean, your friend is stranded out in the woods and you're still trying to video tape it? SMH

3) Why did that one chick agree to babysit here? I mean, there's already 2 creepy little girls that are there, and then they tell you that they have these cameras all rigged up in order to spot all this scary activity that's going on. Just sounds like poor planning to me.

4) The ending was kind of confusing. There was like the group of old women wearing black and then the ladyfriend's mom popped that guys back. I get that he's mooching off his girlfriend's money to buy those VHS tapes, but was that really necessary? She must've really like her old boyfriend lol,

B+

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

1) Had a spooky beginning. The movies where the little girls get haunted by shenanigans that ultimately turn out true are always scary (see The Amityville Horror or Insidious).

2) The stupid part of the movie was when the little creatures come out. I mean, it's not like there's some madman in the basement, or some ghost that has haunted this place. It's just like these little miniature rabbits that pop out and talk to her. And was the ringleader of critters really named Lord Blackwood?

3) This really is a lesson to sleep with the TV on. Whenever I get creeped out that there's some noise in the house somewhere I just turn up the TV. That would totally solve the whole problem with the little critters whispering to her at night.

4) Kind of reminds me of the evil toys in Toy Story 3. They come out at night, are super evil, and that're out to get anyone that comes close to their territory. Maybe that'll explain this movie's rating lol.

C

The Amityville Horror (2005)

1) A really tight movie. Top notch stuff. The little girl that was haunted was scary as nuts, the scene where the regular little girl is on the roof of the house made my hands sweat, and most of the other shit was scary.

2) When I turned this movie on I started SMH at first. Ryan Reynolds in a horror movie just sounds like a stupid idea. He's only mediocre in RomComs but in horror movies I thought he'd be awful. He was actually okay though. Him going crazy was kind of stupid and so was him walking around half naked the whole time. But overall he didn't TKO the movie which was a plus.

3) I could go without the house doing all the stupid stuff but whatever. The little girl/creepy story behind it made up for it.

4) Two other minor things
a) Why was that girl going through the old school newspaper reel? She probably doesn't have lexis or anything but even a google search would be more efficient.

b) The babysitter wasn't the best looking horror movie chick of all time but she was still pretty top notch.

Good shit Miroki,

A

Insidious

1) First movie since Poltergeist that really scared the bejesus out of me. There's the part where this shadowy dude is just standing outside of the bedroom. Reminded me of The Box where there's just some dude creepily hanging out the window. Actually now that I think about it this movie was a lot like the Box. It had a sick scary beginning but then turned into a turd.

2) The life size dolls and devil people freak me out too. This movie just had all kinds of scary shit going on in it. In the middle of the movie my door squeaked open too. Scary stuff.

3) The plot didn't make that much sense. They had to go to some psychic world to recover the kid from the fake coma? And the mystery dude pops up in the pictures? #smh

4) I think sometimes these movies would just be scarier if they didn't try to develop some stupid explanation for the chain of events. The Box would've been good, One Missed Call woulda been tight, too many movies to count. They shoulda just let the creepy shit go down for awhile. For all the stupid movies that don't really have a plot or ending (see Annie Hall or The Graduate), you think they could at least try to do this sometime with horror movies. Like the reason Halloween was so tight was because there was really no explanation/motive for him at first. And the reason this was so jitsu is because they tried to explain it.

In the end the scary parts more than made up for the jitsu,

B-

House of Fears

1) Definitely a B grade horror movie, but a good one. The plot has been done a few times before (see the Funhouse), but it had a good spin to it.

2) It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that the monster dude can get in your head to figure out what you're scared of, but it's been awhile since someone went down that road.

3) Most of the monsters were pretty creepy. The scarecrow was sick and made up for the ho-humness of the rest of the scary people.

4) Figured there would be some nudity, or some stupid humor or something. Minus this it would've been a sick Bgrade movie.

Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't go out of your way to rent it, but it's sick to pass a Jitsu Sunday afternoon.

C+

The Funhouse

1) The beginning was super tight. Bunch of scary shit creeping around and the setup for the rest of the movie happened right at the get-go.

2) There was a wreck of references to other movies. The part where the kid is walking around with the mask on is straight up jacked from Halloween. The psycho shower scene also goes down.

3) All of the stuff at the amusement park was tight until that girl gets lost in the funhouse. For like 20 minutes she just walks around lost and nothing scary happens. It's like CYBHB and get the fuck out of there.

4) The creature/attacker guy was pretty stupid. You think they could've gotten a scarier looking face but who knows, I guess it was 1981.

Minus the ending it was good.

B-