The Vault (2017) 1h 31m

I feel like film production companies still have this odd assumption that casting people based on name or affiliation alone will make a movie good (or at least draw).  We know this isn't true based on some of the big flops that have existed *cough*TomCruiseMummy*cough* but yet we still get these middle of the road, or worse, films that have some heavy casting done.  I would rather these companies save their money and give us a better film rather than wasting that dough of what is essentially turd polish.

The Vault focuses on a bank robbery gone dumb and the eventual release of ghosts in the bank?  I think.  Or the bank was just haunted and opening the second vault made it more haunted?  All I know is that people have quit this bank due to the weird things that happen around the downstairs where the old vault exists.  In the 80's a bank robbery went wrong and it lead to the death of pretty much everyone involved except the unaccounted for leader.  They all haunt that downstairs now but may be locked in that vault.  Either way, this odd group of white trash (including the woman that plays Pennsyltucky from Orange is the New Black) stir up some shit and end up dead thanks to these bland specters.

That's the whole film pretty much.  We do find out that the person that points them to the vault and attempts to save everyone is the ghost of the bank manager from that original robbery, but you could kind of tell that by his porn stashe and outdated suit.  I was bored the whole way through The Vault.  It has what could be labeled the worst use of the song Crimson and Clover, jailhouse tats that look like they were Sharpied on just prior to filming, and a Wilhelm scream.  A fucking Wilhelm scream in a 2017 film!  How hard is it to have someone record their own death scream? 

I can't with this film.  I really can't.  Hopefully that vault actually exists so they can take all the copies of this film and lock it inside.  Then if anyone opens it they're haunted by this film for the rest of their life.

I give The Vault  0 thieves out of 5:

The Axe Murders of Villisca (2016) 1h 18m

If you look at the little bit of white text under the title on this film's poster you'll notice it says "inspired by the true story."  So of course this sent me into a research spiral five seconds into the damn movie when it quotes some random reverend about hearing voices to murder.  The axe murders in Villisca, Iowa was an actual event that happened in 1912.  The variation in this film and the actual story (ghost possession aside) was that there were multiple suspects but the Reverend was the only one tried... twice.  The first time it was a hung jury and the second time he was acquitted.  Although he did have a history of being a perv and later ended up in a psych ward after sending what could be the first documented unsolicited dick pics.

The Axe Murders of Villisca establishes way too much personal back story for three twenty-somethings posing as high school students.  Somehow this group of faux misfits end up going on a road trip to this murder house so the one guy can record it for their YouTube ghost hunting show.  After they're booted from the home because the girl is a dunce they agree to break into the house at night and use candles and dowsing rods to speak to spirits.  It's a slapdash operation but one Instagram post later we have the weird semi-jock and his friend drive out in an attempt to cause some sort of harm to the others.  Instead, the demon or ghost or whatever is in this house possesses the semi-jock and he kills his friend and then others get possessed and everything becomes a mess.

The only upside to this film was the fact that it made me seek out information about an interesting unsolved murder.  But a film shouldn't make me want to do that during the whole film.  This was an IFC film but it feels more like some farm club production that got called up to warm the bench for the pro team and jumped on ice during some sort of line change confusion (I played ice hockey most of my life, those are my go-to sports metaphors, deal with it).  The actors were too old for their parts, there's no real understanding of why multiple people are possessed at the same time or if the mirrors hold a greater meaning to things.  Also, did they have Fireball candy back in 1912 and how did a fucking Fireball from 1912 exist to modern day?!  Fuckin' ghost magic!  Too bad they couldn't have used that to make this movie good.

I give The Axe Murders of Villisca 1 copy of So I Married an Axe Murderer out of 5 but only because this film lead to me learning something:

The Canal (2014) 1h 32m

Ireland.  All I really know about it, from the top of my head, is the following:  A history of strong political discord and activism, potatoes, the WWE wrestler Sheamus, and the stereotype of Boston police being Irish.  I'm sure there's more but right now I'm too lazy to attempt to recall additional info.  Why am I even rambling about Ireland right now?  It's because today's film comes from the Emerald Isles!

The Canal focuses on a family of three, at least until they become a family of two.  The husband, in the course of his archivist work, finds that their home has a history of strange murders in it.  In his paranoid husband work he finds his wife having an affair.  After stumbling into a toilet that makes Trainspotting blush, he sees a strange man attack his cheating wife.  Unable to save her, or stay conscious, he comes to and calls the police.  The cops assume it's him, he begins to think it's the ghost of a man that haunts his house, and his sanity seems to dangle from a thread.  Was it ghosts?  Was it his own cracking mental state?  Was it a ghost that flew up his ass and used him like a murder puppet?  This is where I would make a "C-anal" joke but I'm trying to avoid it.

 There's the old adage of "children should be seen and not heard," and when it comes to celluloid there are definitely some kids that I feel should not have been given the opportunity to be on film.  I bring this up because the child in The Canal has perfected his mumble-core acting at such a young age that it ruined scenes for me.  I didn't even have an issue with his accent, just his annunciation of words.  Plus he's one of those kids that his acting just doesn't seem to fit the emotion of the moment.  I feel bad for talking shit on him though because he's young so there's a lot of room for improvement over time.  Hang in there kid!

One thing that I did love about this film was the very ending of it.  I mention time and time again on here when a movie tips its hand and I see the ending coming early but the very end of this film caught me by surprised and I got super hyped on it.  Honestly.  It went down and I yelled "OOOOOOOO RAD!" at the TV, and then the movie was over.  This isn't the kind of film though where I could just tell you to watch the ending though because the whole is greater than some of its parts.  I'm not saying this is a perfect film, it reminded me a bit too much of the first season of American Horror Story, but I'm not going to write this one off.

I give The Canal 2.5 flags of Ireland out of 5:

The Disappointments Room (2016) 1h 25m

I like learning new things.  My mind is a collection of random and pretty much useless facts that exist for moments like this where I get to impart something I learned.  So here goes.  A "disappointments room" is a real architectural piece.  When someone, usually of affluence, would have a child that had some form of birth defect or a form of neruo-diversity that would cause them to pass as anything but a "regular" child then they could end up in one of these rooms for the rest of their life.  The family or possibly one staff member would help take care of them but they were hidden from the public.  While archaic, there have been recent cases of such things in Louisiana and Texas.  This film takes its influence from, of all things, and episode of an HGTV show where one of these rooms was shown.  The one in the show was actually made to look like a small home and still seemed  to have love with it as opposed to the one in this film.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The Disappointments Room has a family of three leaving their city life to move into a grotesquely large home in the country.  Abandoned for years, the building requires a lot of work and since the wife is an architect she has taken up the task of working on it.  When exploring the acting she finds a chest blocking a locked door.  The key is found and our leading lady opens the door. This is where things get weird because a lot of this is pointed at being ghosts of the original owners, but our woman is the only one that really has any direct interaction with these spirits.  There is one side character that ends up hanged in a tree by a grave which, now that I think of it, never gets dealt with.  Either way, the room causes something to happen.

If that last paragraph didn't point it out, I felt confused during this film.  We had scenes of horrific situations like a dog attack on their young son or a ghost attempting to smother the same kid, but they would be strange hallucinations or thoughts the mother was having.  There was also some sort of odd sexual tension between the mother and the side character but it really didn't need to exist and served no part of the story.  There was also an adorable fluffy cat that was killed off camera. If I haven't made it obvious in my time doing this blog, fuck that noise!

The ending of this film was also confusing.  Everyone just seems like "Okay, let's leave this place" and is totally fine with each other despite the big crazy ending.  Also, the door is taken off its hinges and put aside but I guess the ghosts fixed it so it could slam in the last shot?  Fuckin' handyghosts!  How does one summon those to fix things in the house because I need some electrical work done in our home?

I give The Disappointments Room 1 HGTV logo out of 5:

The Hatred (2017) 1h 30m

 

A couple of weeks ago I went to a local pro wrestling show.  On the card for that night was a "hardcore" match, which essentially means no disqualification, falls count anywhere, and weapons will be involved.  Mid-match, one of the wrestlers rolls out a shopping cart full of the traditional wrestling fare, but the other went the extra mile and pulled a kitchen sink out from under the ring.  We all get the joke but it's one you groan at.  Why am I mentioning this story?  Because this film pulled the kitchen sink out from under the apron.

Our introduction to The Hatred is its own short film.  We have a post World War 2 nazi hiding out in small town USA.  How a woman fell in love with and bore him a child is beyond me because this guy is just a prick.  One day he receives a package containing a personal artifact of Hitler's known as the Amulet of Hatred.  He cements this thing into his wall and it turns his crazy level up to 100 because he then murders his daughter and hides the body.  The mom knows what's up and kills him.  Then we go to modern time where some fresh-outta-college girls come up to help watch on of their professor's children for a weekend.  Too much crap happens.  Seriously, a lot of shit goes down,

If ever there were a film that was written based off of a bunch of Post-It notes stuck to a wall then it would be this one.  We have nazis, a magic French amulet the Germans had but was sent from Brazil, Japanese Grudge noises and growing black mold corners, some sort of creature thing, ghosts, creepy dolls, and the use of a creepy pasta (the one where the kid says there's something under their bed, and the person checks and it's the kid saying the thing on the bed isn't them).  It's like they had no idea where to go and instead of sticking with one direction they threw everything at it.

The one positive thing The Hatred does have would be the existence of one of my top five harbinger characters, ever.  The woman doesn't do much except act nervous, glances in the house, mumbles about it being evil, and then all but runs through the front yard.  It was awkward and hilarious and even the characters are weirded out by this display.  I just laughed my ass off.  This film should have embraced her and played Yakety Sax as she ran away and it would receive a higher rating from me. It doesn't, so fuck it.

The Hatred gets 1 Sgt. Hatred out of 5:

Abattoir (2016) 1h 38m

Abattoir (noun) - Slaughterhouse

I never learned this word while I was studying French in college so I'm let down it didn't mean something cooler.  I don't know what I wanted but I feel like "slaughterhouse" doesn't really fit.  I get what they were going for, and Abattoir is much better, but suck my ass with this being "slaughterhouse."

Abattoir starts with a Henry David Thoreau quote and a narrator.  Don't let this over pretentiousness turn you off though because the plot is kind of rad.  Julia, a reality reporter (which is a thing I guess) gets a call from a man that says he just murdered her sister and the sister's family.  After the funerals Julia, with her cop "friend" Declan, go back to her sister's house to find answers.  They find the room where the murder happened completely missing from the house.  Using her reality knowledge and reporter skills Julia finds that similar occurrences have been happening for around 50 years and trace back to Jebediah Crone as well as the town the sisters were born.

For the first two acts of Abattoir everything happens at high speed.  It's paced well, but when the time comes for the third act everything screeches to a halt in order for you to get a guided tour of the payoff you've been waiting for.  If they trimmed it by 5 or 10 minutes then it would've been just right.  They didn't, it made my interest wain.  Luckily, by the very end, this film got its shit together and I was all in.  It helps that this movie has one of my favorite things: the bad guy wins.

I want a sequel to Abattoir.  Don't do the same town or Jebediah again, but the plot of everything can go much further now that we have a foundation.  Make it!  Make it happen!  Appease me!

I give Abattoir 4 copies of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five out of 5:

Phantom of the Theatre (2016) 1h 43m

As soon as I started watching this film I began to spiral down a Wikipedia hole where I kept reading more and more about the types of Chinese ghosts.  I don't know where I got it stuck in my head that jiangshi were the primary ghost type in China.  They're not even ghosts, they're more along the lines of a vampire.  That said, there are some really awesome types of ghosts in their culture based off of their behavior in life.  Actually, both Japan and China have some really cool spirits.  We just get shit like Casper over here, and he's a dildo.

Phantom of the Theatre takes us to an undetermined time period in China.  An abandoned theatre is full of the spirits of a murdered acrobat troop which can kill by causing a person to burn from the inside out.  When a man approaches an up and coming actress to star in the film he wrote, she accepts once he decides to film it in the old theatre.  The pasts of both characters hold many secrets which rise to the surface during the filming and premier of their movie.

I don't know why I feel stunned by this, but it has been a while where I watched a film where the plot was so coherently addressed and wrapped up.  There were no loose ends, everything made sense, and the ending left me wanting.  Why is this something that is so hard to achieve in horror?   The sets and costumes were beautiful.  The visual and CG effects were acceptable although there tends to be some borderline Mortal Kombat skulls flying around (also a brief character named Liu Kang didn't help).

Twinsies!

I think my favorite part of this film was the actual Phantom.  He looked like some sort of Chinese King Diamond.  Look at him over there.  He looks like he's going to break out some sweet Merciful Fate covers or talk to you about his interest in black magick.  If Phantom of the Theatre was just this guy killing everyone then I would've given this film the highest rating ever!  Instead...

I give Phantom of the Theatre 4 Kennywood Phantom Fright Night logos out of 5:

Bleed (2016) 1h 22m

You know that part in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indy and those Nazis get to the grail room and they have to chose the Holy Grail?  The lady Nazi hands the one guy a cup and he says "it certainly is the cup of the King of Kings" and then fills it and drinks from it?  You remember that?  He fucking died super hard from that because he had chosen... poorly.  That's kind of how I feel with today's film.  I rolled a movie that I had already watched.  When that happens I try to go with the film before or after it then.  Upon reading that this was a bunch of people ghost hunting in a burned down prison I figured it would be good enough.  That's only a tiny bit of the plot and I felt this movie age me.  Not to dust, but enough that I'm not sure if my penis will ever work again...

Bleed focuses on a couple that just bought a house in southern fuck-all USA.  Our female protagonist has a strange crescent moon birthmark on her neck and is also eight or nine months pregnant.  These two things are related as the movie progresses.  Friends come to visit the couple and the woman's Burning Man burnout brother and his girlfriend convince almost everyone to go to a supposedly Satanic burned down prison to ghost hunt.  The ghost of Rob Zombie past appears, a bunch of pointless backstory and unnecessary character development happens, and the towns folk are a cult that want the baby for reasons never really defined.

This movie would've done well as a short film.  All killer, no filler, and we'd be just fine.  Unfortunately we have a rag tag cult with a religion thrown together based on no research other than "ummm... blood... babies... satan but not satan... Rob Zombie."  We get two thirds of the way through and a girl suddenly discloses that she was schizophrenic since she was a child and that's why she keeps taking pills.  This reveal has nothing to do with anything!  Ever!  Even the fact it's a prison is kind of worthless as it's just used as a building where Rob Zombie in Rasputin form could be chained up.  They could've used a spooky old shack for that.  It was just a dart board full of ideas and whatever they hit they tried to fit in and make it work.

On the plus side though, the acting was decent.  The accents were a bit thick on some of the locals but otherwise not too bad.  Camera work and sound were all good.  The score used a lot of cool instrumentation where I could tell it was metal bowls with water in them or doing slides on a violin or cello string.  I'm not knocking things like Carpenter's Halloween score here, but I would like horror to work more on atmosphere like that rather than traditional music.  Overall though, I think Bleed bled out, leaving a husk of a film on the floor.

I give Bleed 1 copy of Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed out of 5:

Last Shift (2014) 1h 30m

If your first shift at a new job is guarding a building that after that night they're not going to use anymore then that shit is haunted.  There is no doubt in my mind that it's haunted.  There's no doubt in the ghost's mind that it's haunted.

Last Shift is set in an old police station where Officer Laren is starting her first shift.  All she has to do is watch the building and at some point a clean-up crew is coming through to get some stuff from the evidence room.  What starts where her hearing some strange noises turns into a full-fledged haunting from the spirits of cult members.

I really got into this film.  It reminded me a lot of the Silent Hill video games because there were seemingly two worlds. Officer Laren would blink or turn away and her surroundings would change in that moment.  It made me feel like when you see something out of the corner of your eye, but turn and it's gone.  Last Shift also had some of the most frightening foley I've heard this side of J-Horror.  I haven't cringed from a horror movie in a while but this one made my shoulders tighten up.

My only complaint is that this film was done in 2014 and Officer Laren still had a flip phone.  Honestly, get with the fucking times girl!  No wonder ghosts are calling you, that's like have a Victrola strapped to your hip for your music!

I give Last Shift 3 police shields out of 5:

The Poltergeist of Borley Forest (a.k.a. American Poltergeist 2; a.k.a. You Will Love Me) (2013)

Fun fact:  American Poltergeist 1 came out in 2015, two years after this film was released.  If nothing else then this should give you an idea of what we're in for.  The joy of Hollywood is that they'll sometimes put out films that already exist under another moniker in hopes that being related to something else will help them sell.  A great example of this are some of the later Hellraiser films where they were completed scripts without any of the Cenobites or Hellraiser related items.  The studio said they needed to add those things to the script and then they'd make the movie because it was already a bad movie which they knew they couldn't sell.  There's also Dark Harvest 2: The Maize which was a film made by Bill Cowell because I had just bought a new camera and wanted to test it out.  He wrote a shitty script and had his family and friends act in it and for some reason Lion's Gate got a copy of it and said they'd give him money for it and put it out as DH2.  I've seen it, it is awful.

Back to the matter at hand though, American Poltergeist 2 is about a 17 year-old girl that parties in the wrong woods and finds a tree with the remains of a lynching rope still hanging from it.  She touches the rope and then begins to see and sometimes be attacked by a spirit.  After seeking out a professor in paranormal studies, and the girl's family experiences a violent encounter, they have to find the tree again to defeat the spirit.

Over the last few reviews I've mentioned things being "trash," but this transcends trash and becomes a new form of disgusting waste.  It's raw sewage, filled with the stench of poo poo and pee pee!  Using adult words to describe this film is too good for it!  The camera shots lack any dynamic.  It's either straight on or slightly off to the side so a character can look forward and not stare into the camera.  The audio engineer was fucking terrible as well.  If a scene was in public then it sounded like they recorded without a wind screen on the mic and pushed the EQ so it was all high end.  There was a scene of the girl walking outside with one of her friends which was almost inaudible.  It sounded like when you hit your head really hard and voices sound distant despite being right next to you.

The ending of this film tried to pull a "We killed the wrong ghost twin!" thing as a surprise reveal but you saw it coming from the other side of town.  Crap plot, crap acting, crap sound, crap camera... all crap!  Also, if you do watch this, look for the bright orange extension cord running through the grass to the light rig after the one character realizes their car batter is totally dead.  It was in the fucking shot the whole time!  You could see it under his arm!  Fuck you American Poltergeist 2, or whatever your real name is!

I give the movie with many titles 0 extension cords out of 5:

A Haunting at Silver Falls (2013) 1h 36m

I feel like I'm watching the same movie over and over during this Cut.  What is the appeal of teenage girls either being possessed or being the person that sees a ghost?  Then why do you spend a bunch of time trying to make it seem that those around them think they're having a mental issue?  I feel like the horror genre needs to put an unspoken ban on this plot base to make people do actual work and come up with something new and creative.  While I'm complaining here, can we also get rid of the big twist ending at in the last ten minutes of the film?  It's not good.  We all liked the reveal in the Sixth Sense, but since then it's been downhill, even for Mr. M. Night Shamballahdragon.

A Haunting at Silver Falls focuses around a girl that moves from L.A. to South Dakota after her father's death.  She moves in with her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend/husband/sub (I'm not sure).  After finding a ring in the woods she begins to see ghost girls.  Our first real experience with the ghosts is some sort of weird Enter Sandman scene where the ghost tries to take the ring off the girls finger and then eats all her Ferrero Rochers.  Seriously.  Ghosts don't need to be on a fuckin' diet.

We come to learn that these girls were murdered by their dad, but that's not the truth and there are three rings that when put together the truth is discovered.  I would much rather Captain Planet comes out.  That's the only reference I can think of with rings, aside from maybe Mandarin which is less interesting that Captain Planet.

This movie was just recycled crap.  Boring recycled crap.  The ghost girls looked good if you want a zombie version of possessed Regan from the Exorcist.  The acting was okay.  The character development was all a bag of floppy dicks though.  I hated everyone in this movie.  The dorky guy that is kind of her boyfriend is an asshole, the "cool" guy is an asshole, all the adults are assholes, our main girl is just annoying.  If I could do ADR for the DVD release of this film I would make it so every time someone opened their mouths a fart noise would come out.  Then I'd market it as the comedy of the year and sell it for the same age group as that shitty Indian horror from was from last Cut.

I give A Haunting at Silver Falls 1 picture of the Silver Falls out of 5 for being visually well done:

enter sandman but the ghost eats all the ferro roches

The Awakening (2011) 1h 42m

Sumptuous is a good word, but it doesn't sound appealing.  It hits the ear how some people cringe at the word "moist."  I think this is what might separate myself from the person that gave the quote that ended up on the poster.  Saying "it didn't make me want to smash my dick with a hammer" just doesn't have the same wide appeal when appearing in such print.

Our main character in The Awakening is a woman that works to debunk paranormal experiences in the early 1900's.  We're introduced to her as she metaphorically pulls back the curtain on a sham seance and exposes their charade piece by piece.  Shortly after this experience she is asked to come to an all boys school to help with the possibility of a ghost existing in the large mansion-turned-school.

This film reminded me a lot of the Del Toro produced movie The Orphanage.  They contain common threads as far as concept and presentation are concerned.  You could establish small connections with a majority of the characters as each one had legitimate depth.  The acting is solid and visually the film does a great job of making you feel as though you're in a haunted space in 1900's Britain.  This is more of a light horror film.  It consists of a few jump scares, but mostly a pending dread or suspense felt by the viewer.

I give The Awakening 3 Union Jacks out of 5:

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The Unborn (2009) 1h 28m

One of the taglines for this film is "It wants to be born."  Fuck that noise.  I want to abort this movie before it even existed.  I will invent time travel for the sole purpose of erasing this film from ever being released.

The Unborn goes all over the goddamn place.  What is initially just a girl being haunted by the ghost of a boy that wants to be born jumps those rails and crashes into a pile of everything.  Apparently the ghost is meant to be her twin brother that died in the womb.  But then we find out that thanks to Nazi's and their occult/medical experiments on twins they caused a dybbuk to return in the body of the great-uncle of our protagonist.  Her grandmother killed her twin/dybbuk which then attempted to come back in the twin brother that died.  Now he's haunting our girl in order to take over her body.

There is seriously just way too much going on here.  Twins, suicides, Jewish mysticism, Nazis, the occult, a dog wearing a mask, people and things with upside down heads, suddenly being in a Silent Hill bathroom, Gary Oldman... just too much.  There was a hilarious jump scare where our protagonist opens her medicine cabinet and the boy is inside there and kind of screams at her.  I laughed really hard at that but the rest of this was absurd trash with a few good visual effects.

I give The Unborn 1 smoking fish chicken (which came up when I image searched dybbuk) out of 5:

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Darr @ the Mall (2014) 2h 4m

Netflix had a moment of "Remember when you liked that other Indian horror film?  Well now you get this one!"  My reply to Netflix is just "You filthy fucking asshole!"

I'm not sure what Darr @ the Mall is really meant to be.  Apparently there is the Amity Mall, which is built over what was the burned out shell of an orphanage.  An orphanage where a nun burned it down and killed a ton of children with only one child unaccounted for.  This info you don't find out until about midway through the movie.  Initially we just get a bunch of dead security guards, some sort of ghost figure, and the mall management planning a huge party for some superstar.  The superstar does get a song and dance number about piña coladas and how it's like the expensive alcohol of life... if I could side eye this movie from this blog then imagine that's what I'm doing.

I have no clue of the layout of this mall.  There's an ice rink, something like four levels, a huge club/bar, a basement and a bunch of other crap that makes no sense.  Nothing appears to be locked as four random 20-somethings run around the mall despite a sick cyber-goth-steampunk party going on.

The story of this film is just too disjunct or just presented in a poor order.  The acting and cinematography are all good.  I can't fault them for it being a bad film, just a bad story, which once again drags through 2 fucking hours.

I give Darr @ the Mall 2 shopping bag clip arts out of 5:

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The Dead Room (2015) 1h 20m

"Hey guys!  I have access to this empty house for the weekend, do you want to make a movie?"
"Sure, whatever."
"We'll call it 'The Dead Room' and it will have minimal explanation for what happens!"

And that's the story of how The Dead room was made... or at least how I assume it was made.  I'm sure this had a budget in the sum of money I will never see at one time in my entire life, but I honestly have no clue what was really going on at the end.

Two paranormal investigators and a psychic come to a house in the middle of fuck all New Zealand after being called by a family we never see.  The house is haunted by the ghost of a "giant" man.  Initially they think that he is trying to attack them to get them to leave but they discover that he is trying to get them to leave in order to save them.  Save them from what, you ask yourself (or you don't.  Whatever.  I don't blame you).  Save them from the mummified woman that is chained up in a secret basement under the house that you have to bust through the dry wall which you only know because of a ghost hand print on a thermal image scan.  That's a long sentence.  It took a long time for this movie to get up to this point when watching it.

Cops are called, the body is gone, and they realize the ghost was trying to save them from the Mummies Alive!  Everybody dies super fast and the ghost/mummy/witch/whatever moves at the camera quickly and we're done.

This movie sucked.  I was briefly excited at the prospect of this weird corpse in the basement but it's like they've been edging this whole time just to fucking shoot their spooky load in the last 10 minutes.  While I'm complaining about this movie (as it's pretty much what I do on this blog), the choice to have a cage of birds in this film was a poor one.  First off, the birds don't care when they get fed after supposedly not eating for a few days.  I've seen pigeons pull a knife on other pigeons for french fries after having just ate one.  Goddamn pigeons and their adorable switchblades!  Second, these birds are horrible actors as they don't react to anything the people are.  Third, their cage gets thrown across the room at our group of losers and in the next shot the cage apparently righted itself and the birds are totally ready to just nap.  Like the ghost was like "Oh shit! Sorry birds!  Let me fix that for you."  Birds fucking suck as actors.  Kick them out of SAG.

I give The Dead Room 1 parakeet out of 5, and this is only because of a mummy woman being chained in the basement and that was briefly cool:

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Day 24: Odd Thomas (2013) 1h 37m

First off, RIP Anton Yelchin.  It's kind of a shame that you'll be known more as Chekov in the Star Trek reboots than anything else.  Not that I'm saying Odd Thomas should be the number one thing he's known for, but he should get recognition for this.  It was a fun horror comedy.

Odd Thomas (which is literally his name) has psychic abilities as well as the ability to see ghosts and demon-like entities that thrive on feeding off evil, chaos, and death.  After noticing a large group of these demons following "Fungus Bob" around, Odd begins to uncover an insane mass murder plot for the devil.  Not that the devil asked for it, but some fake "satanic" stuff gets thrown in and the plan is to do it for Satan and then probably some sort of honor.  This sounds really random but it's because I don't want to give too much away.  Why?  Because you should see it.

I'm not sure how true it is to the Dean Koontz book of the same name as I've never read any Koontz.  For some reason, despite him being a contemporary of Stephen King, I never see a Koontz books and think of supernatural thrillers.  King's son Joe Hill?  Sure.  Brian Keene?  Yes, Dean Koontz? Idkwtfbbq.

Regardless of the source material and your knowledge of or inexperience with it, Odd Thomas made me think of films like John Dies at the End (which I mention on here a lot) and Shawn of the Dead.  I'm not saying it's as good as those films in overall humor, but it's not far off.

I give Odd Thomas 4 unrelated but sweet lizard men images out of 5:

Day 15: The Abandoned (2015) 1h 26m

When you're movie production company is named C Plus Pictures I know you're not bringing your A game.

You know what?  I sat here for about 20 minutes trying to write this next paragraph, but it's not happening.  This film was okay but pulled too many horror tropes: jump scares, ghosts of children, shady old state hospital practices, and the "shocker" of a St. Elsewhere style ending.  The more that got revealed the more my interest waned.  Writing this review about the damn thing couldn't even keep my interest.

I give The Abandoned 1 sad Yoshi out of 5:

Day 9: The Fog (2005) 1h 40m

John Carpenter has made some great films.  Unfortunately I never saw the original of this film so I can't comment on his version, but I'll assume it was probably good.  This remake I have renamed The Fart.

Quick sum up: Town founders were dick bags, plundered and murdered a ship full of people, then covered it up.  Now it's the present day and people are celebrating the founding of the town, but the ghosts of those on the ship come for revenge! In the form of a giant fart cloud!

Seriously, don't make your "fog" have a green tinge a bunch of the time.  Also, you go crazy on the CGI fog effect but use an overly obvious fog machine in other parts, and it looks like shit.  The ghosts were kind of cool looking, some of the deaths were cool, but I spent more time making fun of this film than taking it seriously.  Honestly, it was kind of hard to when they have the flashback at the beginning end with Fallout Boy's Sugar We're Goin' Down blasting as the transition.

As a personal annoyance (and because this is my blog) don't use the first chorus of a song and then have your DJ start talking right after it.  I heard what you did there!  I know where you live!

This remake might have been good for 2005, but in 2016 I found it to be more of a high school kid type movie more than anything.  You know, where a group of kids go and make fun of it, or where a couple go on a date and make out through most of it because the film wasn't interesting.  That's how babies are made, kids!  Teenage necking during boring film remakes!  BABIES!

I give The Fog 1 Shutterstock fart cloud out of 5:

Day 3: Rigor Mortis (2013) 1h 43m

I have a love of horror films from Asian countries.  I've seen a few that have been really awful, and some American attempts at copying that style that have failed miserably!  However, Rigor Mortis was a solid C-horror (that's Chinese horror, not C-grade horror) film that does an excellent mix of vampires, ghosts, and magic in a way I haven't seen in a long time.

Focusing on Chin, an ex-actor that moves into an apartment building after his wife apparently left with his child, we're treated to a cast of provocative characters.  There's Yau who comes from a line of vampire hunters, but since vampires have long died out he is merely a cook.  Gau is a dark magic practitioner that exists with everyone else but is called on to help bring a man (Tung) back to life by his wife (Aunti Mui).  Finally there is Pak, the small boy, and Yeung, his mentally traumatized mother.  Chin's apartment 2442 once housed a murder followed by a suicide, and after his own suicide attempt causes one of the spirits to attempt a possession, the supernatural elements come out of the woodwork.

The ghost twins in this film are as stunning as any macabre spirit you find in Asian cinema.  Their presence is enhanced by the dramatic CGI elements encircling them.  The vampire is straight out of Chinese lore; gliding just above the ground with both arms straight out.  The fight scenes are vivid and dynamically filmed.  Couple that with martial arts and mysticism and they make this almost two hour film grip you until the credits roll.  Seriously, I loved this film from the moment the suicide/possession scene started.

Surprisingly, according to IMDB, this film did not do well State-side with the reviewers.  Well, fuck 'em!  Watch this film if you like foreign horror and don't mind subtitles.  There might be a dubbed version, but c'mon... subs are bullshit!

I give Rigor Mortis 3 Chinese vampire table-top miniatures out of 5: