The Conjuring (2013) 1h 52m

I find the Warren's to be fascinating people, and I mean this in the most neutral and scientific sense.  While they were a power couple of paranormal and demonology, there always remains a thread of skepticism with their cases that someone is trying to pull.  Others in their field have denounced them or claimed they were exaggerating cases.  Prior to this, most people know them from the Amityville Horror case or seeing Lorraine on Paranormal State, and in a way maybe the pop culture association has done more harm than good.  With that said, I was excited when this film was going to come out because I was hoping it was going to pull back some of the veil on their work.  Instead it spawned a spin-off and sequel which I feel is more damning than Baal on holiday.

We start The Conjuring by getting a brief telling of Annabelle, a spirit that inhabits a creepy porcelain doll (in real life it's just a Raggedy Ann doll).  This is more to give us a lead-in to the Warrens as they're approached after speaking at a college and asked to come to a possibly haunted house.  The rest of the film is a mix of the family living in the home, the team investigating, and some personal life of the Warrens.

This film should really just be called "Jump Scares: The Movie."  Existing as much more of a paranormal drama, it's mostly figures popping out and loud noises ensconced in a supermarket paperback.  The only scare I liked was the sheet being blown off the clothesline and taking the form of a person before flying up to a window and then away.  I don't think it's coming back either.  We'll miss you sheet, we barely knew you.

I do want to rant about one thing here:  At the beginning we're given some text about the Annabelle doll and how the story was locked away until now.  Okay, first, that fucking doll is the most well known thing in their collection.  You can go to any paranormal website and there's probably a page on it.  They claim it caused a motorcycle accident with someone that made fun of it.  Before this film, if you Googled the Warrens you would see that fucking doll!  They do fucking tours of their haunted object museum!!!  Kiss my ass "locked away until now."

Okay, rant over, but so is my love for this film.  It wasn't what I hoped for when it first came out.  There are too many artistic liberties taken via Hollywood and at the same time I found myself bored.  If you're trying to make something scarier and instead I'm looking up haunted objects on Ebay then you failed!  I would be interested in a movie on this supposed Djinn trapped in a ring that will make you a sexual beast!  That can be The Conjuring 3: The Ring!  Only $49.99, with free shipping!

I give The Conjuring 1 picture of the real Annabelle 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:

Secret of Evil (a.k.a. Secreto Matusita) (2014) 1h 17m

 

Alright, I either pissed in Netflix's corn flakes, or I pissed in my die's corn flakes.  The third option is that neither of those like corn flakes with their piss.  Whatever the case may be, I have my second "found footage" film for the week.  Get ready for some shit.

Secret of Evil (Secreto Matusita) takes place in a haunted house where we get two possible back stories only to find that the cause is a totally different story.  We start by interviewing a man in a mental hospital where he mentions the "owner" while he trashes the room.  Then we get our two stories.  One is about a Japanese family living there and the other being about a couple living upstairs, all of which end with murder.  Our Scooby crew eventually find a letter hidden in a wall with a dead baby and that gives us the true story.  It doesn't change the fact they all die and the ghosts eat their bodies or shove them up their ghost butts or something. If I had, to then I can sum this up as  pretty much the Blair Witch Project only they have a clairvoyant with them and much better tech... and bodies shoved up ghost butts.

I don't know how to talk about found footage movies anymore.  It's mostly a bunch of "what was that?" and "Ahhhhh I'm going crazy with all these ghosts up in here!"  The one thing Secret of Evil has going for it would be that it mainly uses practical effects and camera pans for the spooky elements.  As I mentioned above, this felt too much like Blair Witch to really be a wholly original idea.

I give Secret of Evil 1 El Terrible picture out of 5:

Friday Choice Cuts: Haunted House season!

The House of Shock (New Orleans) from NOLA.com

When I was a young kid I always wanted to go to the haunted houses or whatever there was going on during the season.  The few times I did get taken to them I made it to the first scare and from then on had to be carried through while I hid my face in a family member's shoulder.  I liked the idea of being scared but wasn't able to grasp the concept of these ghouls will not harm me.

As I got older though I still kept an interest every October when you'd see signs for corn mazes or haunted hayrides or whatever.  As a young adult it was worth it to get a group of friends together and see who would get scared and who wouldn't.  Hell, even as an older adult I still love going with a group of people and watching them get scared.

While I've matured quite a bit from the crying child clinging to someone's neck, I learned to love a good scare.  I don't react to most things in haunted houses now.  In fact, a lot of times I'm the person that will walk up to an actor and just say "do you need a hug," but I've learned that these scares are controlled.  It's still worth it though, come every October, to go through the cobwebs and fake blood even if it's just for the laughs.

From fire departments, to community organizations, to full blown haunted house companies, there has to be something going on somewhere for you to go to.  So go have fun!

Haunt (2014) 1h 25m

Uuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!  There's nothing worse than seeing a film where it does a good job with its reveal, and then watching another film that has a similar reveal and it's just this fucking puddle of cold jizz you accidentally stepped in.  Dudes, you know you've done that on accident.  Ladies, if this has happened to you then on behalf of men, I apologize.  I am the spokesperson for all of manhood, after all...

Haunt follows a typical horror film premise.  A family moves into a house that is said to be haunted because most of the previous family died in mysterious ways.  The neighbor girl and the teen-ish boy of the family meet and start messing with an actually cool looking spirit radio receiver.  This brings about a gnarly looking female ghost that we mostly see in quick cuts.  Then the movie suddenly has the entire reveal of stuff at once and ends.

I left some stuff out but it's not important here.  I had resigned to possibly fall asleep during this film but suddenly it was all "Oh shit! I'm about to blow my story load" and literally ended in less than ten minutes.  The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.  It wasn't because there wasn't a "happy ending," I've mentioned before that I root for the bad guy, but it was the longest hour and ten minutes just to get to this fucking nasty wad of story blown directly in your eyes.  Whatever.  I was let down by this.  If not for the cool spirit radio and ghost lady I would have probably typed out three paragraphs of fart jokes and a picture of my scrote done in ASCII art.

I give Haunt 1 issue of Image Comic's Haunt out of 5:

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Housebound (2014) 1h 47m

Hi kids!  Do you like twists?  Do you want more twists than an M. Night Shammalammadingdong movie?  Oh man do we have something special for you!  So special I'm using this .jpg from the movie to pretty much show how I felt for most of this film.

I'm more of the woman on the left than the bloody woman...

Housebound started out really slow.  I wasn't sure if this was meant to be a horror film or a dry British horror-comedy.  I think it was the second option here.  We start with a botched ATM robbery which leads to our main character being sentenced to 8-months house arrest at her mother's house.  At first it seems that the house is haunted.  We see a ghost arm, hear some weird stories, find out this place used to be a halfway house where a murder was committed, and experience tons of electrical issues.

It's not ghosts, but we find that out later.

It's assumed the weird neighbor committed the murder, and we waste time on that for a bit.  He's only good for plot info about Eugene.  Who is Eugene?  He's the guy that has lived in the walls of their house for like fucking ever!  But he wasn't the murderer...

The murderer ends up being the therapist that is there to help our girl rehabilitate or something during her house arrest.  He was on some sort of internship or fellowship at the halfway house and killed a girl after an incident.  His head eventually explodes though so it works out.

This movie started out at a snail's pace.  So much so that I invested in watching one of our cats play with his toy bat.  It was adorable and a much better watch for the first 15 minutes.  Otherwise though, when this film starts to peak it stays at that point for a while.  I may or may not watch this again if given the chance.  I'm not sure.  You do get to see a cheese grater used as an actual weapon, so that's a plus.

I give Housebound 2 ankle monitors out of 5:

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The Houses October Built (2014) 1h 31m

That poster looks like it's from one of those hidden object game pack CD-Roms you find at Wal-Mart for $10.  I know about these because my obsession with Paranormal State caused me to track down their game on one of those... and something like five Wal-Marts in a 30-mile radius.  DON'T JUDGE ME!  Instead, judge this "found footage" film, because that shit has been done to fucking death.

The Houses October Built crew consists of some 20-somethings that get the idea that they want to go on a road-trip to find an "extreme" haunted house.  This road trip is only six days and they pretty much stay in Texas until they catch wind of a place known as "Blue Skeleton."  Think of it as the speakeasy of haunted houses where you have to get a weird invite in a creepy way and then go somewhere to meet someone.  Along their voyage they stop at a few different actual haunted houses and, usually the guy with the beard, ends up doing something asshole-ish and pissing off the workers.

They get followed and creeped on by all kind of crazy haunted house workers until they are picked up by the skeleton crew.  Then they're buried alive after being fucked with in some creepy house in the swamp/woods.  Whatever.  Fuck 'em.

I had actually seen parts of this film before because my husband (P.S.  I got married before this cut started) watched it and I was probably sitting on my laptop while he did that.  It didn't keep my interest much then and this time it started okay before my interest waned again.  I also, for the life of me, don't know where in the hell they found an alley off Bourbon St.  I saw there were doors so I assume it was a private drive-way or something.  Seriously, the Quarter is dolphin's butthole tight with their blocks.

I give The Houses October Built 1 supposedly real haunted house out of 5:

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