The Duplex (2015) 2h 38m

I'm going to be completely honest here.  If someone offered me a house for a super cheap price and I then found out it was haunted then I'd be okay with that.  I feel like after the 10th time of the ghost showing up to try and scare me and it would be one of those "OOOOOOO! Oh goddamnit! You're masturbating again!" moments then he'd just fuck right off.  Bustin' makes me feel good...

The Duplex is our first Nigerian horror film here on 30 Days of Plight.  A couple buys a home for an insanely cheap price only to have the pregnant wife repeatedly seeing some sort of specter move about their house.  Eventually the spirit causes the woman to miscarriage and it leaves with the baby.  This becomes the turning point for the man to see the ghost instead and then finally attempt to deal with the issue.  It's kind of dickish.

This film is rough around the edges.  The elements are all there but the script is just too long, the effects are behind (in comparison to U.S. films), and the plot needed some tightening up.  I did enjoy that the film brought in the idea of the entity being some form of "spiritual warfare" being waged by someone in the village.  We tend to assume that how people practice their faith is similar to what we know but there are variations everywhere because of exceptions that had to be made to integrate a new religion... other than swords, guns, and colonization.

If I had to sum up The Duplex then I'd say it was a roller coaster, but a shitty roller coaster.  I was all on board for it at the beginning but after two hours of the slow incline I began to wonder where the hell this was going and then suddenly it was over and I was told to exit the ride.  Then I get off the ride to find out someone stole my Motley Crue "mirror" I won in at the dart throwing game because people are scum!  That never happened but I'd cut a fucker for stealing my Motley Crue mirror if I had one.

 I give The Duplex 1.5 Bible Adventure cartridges out of 5:

The Silenced (aka: Gyeongseonghakyoo: Sarajin sonyeodeul) (2015) 1h 39m

I really like foreign horror films.  Primarily because they're something different.  They give me something new to be scared of.  It's a whole new series of plots, monsters, ghosts, and superstitions that actually spark something inside.  I find myself looking up more info, digging deeper, going further than I do with most American horror films.  So what do I do when one suddenly pulls a very American horror plot?  Actually... I kind of liked it.

The Silenced takes place in an all-girls boarding school/sanitarium.  Our main character, Shizuko, arrives because she has contracted TB.  Over time we find out that there was another girl with the same name that just left/vanished one day.  The girls seem like typical school girls but some have weird freak-out moments.  It's as if they've become possessed.  There are some more traditional Asian horror moments that come into play as well: hands reaching out where there's nobody, girls with long black hair being pulled into impossible spaces, etc.  Shizuko begins to change as well.

I want to write more but I know if I cover any more of the plot then I'll spoil this movie.  Most of the time I don't care if I do, but that's on crap, and I enjoyed watching The Silenced.  It's a slower paced film than what most people may be used to but when it picks up it picks the fuck up.  I spent time actively trying to piece together things rather than having it all figured out from the start.  I also like that the filmmakers use the symbolism of breaking glass so well.  It represents everything from  moments of frailty, to a shift in a person or moment, or even someone's breaking point.  At first it seems tedious until you have that realization of "oh, there is purpose to this."

I give The Silenced a solid 3 cheesy Mazel Tov images out of 5:

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Day 14: Para Elisa (2012) 1h 15m

Have you ever heard the Patton Oswalt bit about his TiVO?  I feel that way with some of the movies Netflix puts in their horror listing when I'm counting to the number I rolled.  It seems that since I enjoyed some of the foreign horror films I've watched on this blog that Netflix has the idea that I must like all foreign horror.  "But you like the horsee shows! NO TiVO! BAD TiVO!"  Bad Netflix!

Para Elisa comes to us from Spain and revolves around a spoiled shit of a college girl whose mom won't lend her 1000 Euros for a trip with her friends because the mother had just paid for her to take a trip to London.  Her drug dealer boyfriend sees a poster for a babysitting job, calls the number, and hands her the phone.  She eventually goes to find out that the girl she is supposed to baby sit is a grown ass woman that the mother has completely fucked up in the head.  After being drugged, our leading lady wakes up to realize that she is not meant to babysit, but to become a living doll for the daughter to play house with.

This movie wasn't for a horror fan.  This is more for the vanilla movie watcher that wanted to watch something scary.  Yes, the premise is kind of fucked up and the mother/daughter relationship is bizarre but it really didn't keep me invested in the film.  In addition, a leading character that I instantly did not like (as obvious above) really gave me no one to root for.  Plus, you see the ending coming way to early.  I know that's a constant complaint I bring up on here, but I want to be surprised.  Just once.

I give Para Elisa 1 creepy doll out of 5: