6 Souls (2010) 1h 52m

My first note for this film is just "Pittsburgh represent!"  In truth, Pittsburgh is nothing more than a setting for this film but it was nice to see some old favorites like Ritter's Diner.  There is a moment though where the one shot looks like it was done in East Liberty but then the next shot of what's supposed to be the same scene looks like it's the West End.  This means nothing to you reading this unless you're from the 412, but at least it's not someone trying to pass off Toronto as Pittsburgh.

Oh man, let's talk about the plot of 6 Souls.  Cara is a forensic psychologist that gets called in by her father to take a look at an interesting case of a man with multiple personalities.  What's interesting about this case is that the personalities have no overlap, so much so that one of the initial two we're introduced to has colorblindness where the other doesn't.  A third personality comes out (a singer in a death metal band) and this leads to Cara finding that all of these personalities were real people at some point.  Eventually this film goes off the rails when it begins to involve some made-up Appalachian folk-magick, the story of a priest without strong faith, and what might as well be some "believe in god or the boogyman will get you" spooky twist.

Of all the directions this film could have taken, I wish it would've chosen any of the others than the trail it took us down.  It wasn't bad so much as it was just asking too much of the viewer to stay engrossed when it seemed like the story was falling apart more than it was coming together.  The ending was too transparent to have any sense of shock or sympathy from me.  The entire first two acts are slow and while they're presenting us with information it's info that we're not sure what to do with.  We know it'll get glued together but by the time it does we already knew where it went so there was no reveal.  When the hypest thing in this film for me was Ritter's Diner then you know this film fucked up somewhere.

As a side rant, what fucking audio software does the one guy in this film have where he can take a photo, isolate a section of it, and turn it into a three dimensional soundwave?!  Most people are running Pro-Tools so don't lie to me like this jagoff in an old Southside warehouse has anything but that running in his "studio."  Funk dat!

I give 6 souls 1.5 Mortal Kombat Soulnados out of 5:

Cult of Chucky (2017) 1h 31m

If you've been with us from early on then you'll know that I covered this film's predecessor, Curse of Chucky and was blown away by the franchise's return to being actual horror films.  I'm not sure why but when I saw that they made yet another Chucky (do we still refer to this as Child's Play?) film then there was some trepidation that Cult would not live up to Curse.  Luckily, I was not let down.

Cult of Chucky takes us a few years beyond the ending of Curse.  We find out that Nica was blamed for the murder of her family but her insistence on the actual murdering being the Chucky doll lands her in a maximum security psych hospital.  She is eventually deemed safe enough to be moved to a medium security space by her doctor.  At the same time, Andy (from the original Child's Play films) is all grown up but still tortured by his past.  He keeps a living Chucky head in a safe believing that this is the best chance to prevent him from doing anymore harm.  Unfortunately for both of them, Chucky learned a spell from VoodooForDummies.Com (yes, that's a quote) and with the help again of Tiffany, he tries to finish everything he started all while creating a true cult of Chucky.

I can't believe that I was blown away again by a Chucky film.  It's the perfect mix of meta humor and knowing when and how far they can take a joke.  Combine that with some gruesome kills and an overall solid story and this movie is near perfect.  Alex Vincent returns as to play the adult version of his childhood role of Andy, Jennifer Tilly is still on board, and Brad Dourif is doing Charles' voice again.  What more could you want?

I give Cult of Chucky 5 My Buddy dolls out of 5:

Ghost House (2017) 1h 29m

At some point soon I would like to write a book that's an "everything I needed to know about life I learned from horror movies" type thing.  In it I plan on having a section on foreign travel because holy fuck do white tourists just do the dumbest shit!  Agreeing to ride out to the country in a foreign land with people you just met, yeah, fucking stupid!  Taking an object from something called a "ghost house," you're an idiot!  Basically being a tourist, you're probably an asshole, and I say that living in a city that is a tourist wonderland.

Ghost House sets us up with a couple on vacation in Thailand. On their first day they befriend two other tourists that are staying in their hotel.  After an evening of drinks and strippers our couple is convinced to go out to a remote spot because the fiancé is jealous of her man friend having lipstick on his face and she is told that she could get some cool pictures out there.  The other couple tricks them so that a spirit possessing their friend will possess our cranky lady.  Now, with the help of their tour driver (Gogo) our man seeks out all kinds of shaman and mystics to save his betrothed.  He has three days to do so before her soul is taken into the abyss.

This film had a really sharp reverse bell curve.  It started out strong, despite relying heavily on jump scares, but there were about 15-20 minutes where it just couldn't keep my interest.  By the end of the film it came back around and I want to create an award just to give to the actress that played the witch at the end (or whatever she might be called, my occult knowledge doesn't extend too far into Asiatic countries).  She by far has the best "fuck you I did it!" laugh I've ever heard.

As for our ghost woman, except for the very end she is shown in quick and jerky shots.  We get a few close-ups which end up disappointing because the facial appliance looks a bit rough.  I don't know if it's what they molded it out of, or the paint job, but it looks a bit too Halloween mask for me.  I've also been rewatching Syfy's FaceOff from the beginning and I'm finding myself more critical of stuff like that.  Curse you Glenn Hetrick!

I give Ghost House 2 ghost houses 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:

House on Willow Street (2016) 1h 30m

There have been a few times that I've brought up my exhaustion for possessed teenage girls on here.  Partially because it's been done to death, partially because I'm one of those assholes that will bring up the fact that The Exorcist was based off of a boy that was possessed but they changed it for the film.  I address the latter because I point my finger solely at at Regan for why we have so many demonic ladies.  Now, the question is, does this film do anything new?

House on Willow Street has four individuals that are planning a kidnapping and ransom of the daughter of a diamond store owner.  This group has to be the most textbook looking criminal group ever.  If you asked a child to draw a group of bad people then it would probably look like this cast.  They spend six-weeks plotting and despite one of their characters being the harbinger of "you can't plan for everything," they finally make their move.  The house is unlocked, no power, and strange magick symbols are carved in the back of an armoire.  Kidnapping ensues and each of our group begins to have hallucinations of people that they are grieving.  After returning to the house to find the parents as well as two priests dead a few of the kidnappers find a tape explaining what happened and what they're up against.  They then spend the next hour ignoring the primary instruction of what they should do to get rid of the demon.

I'm on the fence with House on Willow Street.  It's not bad, but it didn't wow me.  There are some great jump scares in here with the use of the dead individuals and the demon takes control of other people via an intense french kiss, but it didn't help the lackluster plot.  The criminals each get a backstory which never really gets expanded on enough.  Especially when it comes to the surviving girl because we get a whole thing where her dead loved one actually helps her out but I don't know why.  I assume it's because they died accidentally and had a good relationship with them but that's me writing some sort of expanded fanfic universe for this film and I really don't need that in my life... just like I don't need any more possessed teenage girls.  Fucking enough already!

I give House on Willow Street 2.5 bad 3D rendered demons out of 5:

Ava's Possessions (2015) 1h 29m

Someone reviewed this film as "The Hangover but with a lot more demons."  It's up there on that poster.  If The Hangover has become the standard description for any film where someone has a loss of memory and tries to figure out what happened during that time then that sucks.  The Hangover was a terrible movie and aside from the point I just touched on is not relatable to this film at all.

Ava's Possessions starts with an exorcism.  Once cleansed, to avoid jail time from her month long demon possession, Ava agrees to go to a recovery group for people that were inhabited by a demon.  Much like a regular 12-steps recovery, Ava has to seek out the people that she wronged to apologize but also to put the pieces together from her lost time.

This film had some great casting. Wass Stevens (that I know from being Max in Daria) was the demon possession counselor, Deborah Rush (Strangers With Candy) played Ava's mother, and mother fucking Carol Kane (Adam's Family Values / The Princess Bride / Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt / a million other awesome things) as the magick shop owner all killed it in Ava's Possessions.  Also, after a ton of possessed girl movies, it was great to see one just treat the possession with a recovery program.  It feels like a much more "modern" view instead of bumbling attempts with religious archaism or an obsession with The Exorcist.

Also, I want to give a quick shout out to whomever the person was that had to do the research for the demonic possession spell portion of the movie.  It was kind of a hodgepodge of stuff but I recognized the parts that were (if I'm remembering these details right) a Hermetic spell to ask for the favor of a demon.  It looked as the sigil on the floor was either Goetic or Enochian.  So thumbs fucking up for that.

On the flip side to this praise, the things I liked in this movie were overshadowed by the fact that it felt more like I was watching this for three hours as opposed to an hour and a half.  There was always something going on but the pacing just felt off.  Which leads me to my other complaint of the third act of this film had its own third act where they pushed all these reveals and explanations to the last little bit.  It felt really wrapped up well but instead of letting it ride they threw more and more onto you.  You probably aren't going to make a sequel to this.  This isn't like when Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm street were made and you needed to add a scene on to make a franchise.  Just let it go!

I give Ava's Possessions 2 Regans out of 5:

The Damned (2013) 1h 27m

I've learned a lot of odd things from horror film logic.  One of them is the following:  If you come across someone locked/chained up in basement, then don't jump to conclusions as they might be there for a legitimate reason.  The odds of me ever having to apply this lesson are pretty slim but it's definitely something that I will keep in mind should I come across such a situation.  You know, for safety reasons.

Set in Columbia, The Damned follows a man/father, his second wife, the daughter from the first wife, and two other young persons.  After getting caught in a landslide they survive and come to an old inn.  The old man living there refuses them entry until he finds out the daughter is injured and her father is trying to get her help.  Once inside the inn some of the group find a young girl locked in the basement.  They let her out only to later discover that she is possessed by the spirit of a Bruja that was killed by old descendants from the village.  Everyone is fucked.

I want to like this movie more than I do.  I thought that the spirit's backstory was flushed out well enough.  The the spirit could never "die" because if you killed the body hosting it then the spirit jumped to your body.  This is only a step above Horror 101 but I can look past this because of how well it fit the film.  There are some good practical effects present here as well, like the woman cutting her face with the knife or the hands in the fake stomach.

On the flip side, The Damned took a page from the "shit I'm tired of seeing done poorly in horror" book by letting a majority of this film exist in a blue-grey tonality.  Yes, it's raining.  Yes, this film is spooky.  You can do these things for atmosphere but when you're not offering me anything as a visual juxtaposition it just makes me feel bored.  These are colors we associate with sadness and melancholy more than we associate them with horror.  Even the blood in this film was incredibly dark in color.  So I ask myself, would I watch this again?  Nah.  I've got better things to do.  Like lock people up in my basement...

I give The Damned 1 copy of The Damned's s/t album out of 5:

Anguish (2015) 1h 31m

Here is a list of things I did in the course of watching this film:

1) went to my car to get out upholstery cleaner from the trunk
2) spot cleaned the couch (from rust from the pull out bed part... you perv)
3) cleaned the living room
4) made some mac n' cheese
5) questioned my life choices in regards to what lead me to "watch" this film

Anguish is not a horror film.  It falls under a heavy psychological thriller heading with about five minutes of forced horror.  Our story starts with a teenage girl being a teenager and getting hit and killed by a pick-up for her shitty angst.  Another teenage girl begins to have weird episodes of seeing things or having supernatural occurrences.  It's initially chalked up to mental illness until a priest visits and begins to assume it's possession.  We end up finding out it's the spirit of death-by-angst and then there are some awkward moments with the mothers of the teenage girls while our living girl is possessed by the dead girl.  Shoehorn in a brief moment where our living girl is briefly possessed by something else because, why not?  Then I think the living girl gets her spirit back and the movie just ends with some boyfriend making out and whatever.

Even when I was in the room and facing the TV I wasn't into this film.  It was boring and much like a lot of the films I've been watching, slow as fuck.  The fact that this wasn't a real "horror" film probably hurt it more in regards to my attention span.  I'm going to blame the script here because while I roll the plot over in my mind I think its foundation holds promise.  The execution however became the executioner for this film and instead of heads rolling it was my eyes at how listless this movie made me.

I give Anguish 0 copies of Teen Angst out of 5:

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Day 10: The Nightmare (2015) 1h 31m

Full disclosure:  In the course of my adult life I have had three events of sleep paralysis.  All three happened while I lived in the same apartment in Pittsburgh, PA.  Aside from those three, I have never had any other cases of sleep paralysis that I can recall.  Why am I disclosing this?  Because while the title and this poster make you think that The Nightmare could be a horror film (and despite being in the "horror" listing), it's actually a documentary about sleep paralysis and other individuals that have had experiences with it.  The disclosure is so you know that when I comment, I'm not just offhandedly making a comment with no background in the subject matter.

So despite my initial disappointment with this not being a real horror film, The Nightmare let us hear stories from people all over the world in regards to their experiences with sleep paralysis and what they saw, heard, and felt, not only through their own words but also through decent dramatizations.  What was interesting here was that when we're being presented these stories each one seems to build off of the previous in some way.  The only exception to this being that guy that was getting tickled by aliens.  I don't know what the hell was going on with that one.

Looking at this analytically, the commonalities between these create the question: why do these similar scenarios exist?  To talk about my own experience, only once did I ever feel a physical presence.  The other two times where one that I knew something was either there or around but I couldn't feel it, and the second was more along the lines of the symptoms of the "old hag" you read about in association with cases of sleep paralysis.  In this film there's the talk of shadow men, one of which may be wearing a hat, one that might have been an incubus, and the dumb tickle aliens.  Seriously, fuck the tickle alien thing.  Although he did make an awesome Halloween mask based on them.

I can't really give this a review as it's not a horror movie really.  Sure, things that happen in real life that can't be explained easily are scary as hell.  Some people view these experiences as an attempt at demonic possession, or UFO encounters, or just a state of sleep in which you feel you're awake but aren't and thus can't control your body despite your consciousness telling you that you should be able to.  I know this goes in the opposite direction of the rest of this blog, and fucking runs that way, but I'm going to attempt to wrap this up.

Since I'm not rating this film I will say to watch it if you have an interest in the experience of sleep paralysis.  While you do so, take it with a grain of salt.

Fuckin' tickle aliens, man...

Day 29: Exeter (2015) 1h 31m

An excellent day for an exorcism... except an exorcism here won't really help and they don't know how to do one properly anyway.  They try.  Believe me, they try to do an exorcism.  It devolves into splashing holy water and saying "the power of Christ compels you!" pretty quick.  If they knew anything about doing a proper exorcism then they would know you need to make the demon or entity tell you its name.  This helps in gaining power over it... not that I'm speaking from experience or anything... Hey, look!  Another paragraph!

Shitty exorcism (which may be my new metal band name) aside, Exeter takes place in what used to be one of those horrible state hospitals for children living with various disabilities.  After countless human rights violations it was shut down and now they want to turn it into something that I forget.  It was church related, but only exists as a plot device as to why Patrick knew of the location since he was helping to fix it up.  What is meant to be a small group of friends turns into a huge party and suddenly Patrick's younger brother is showing signs of possession.  Then everyone is locked in.  It's on!

About 10 minutes in I thought this film was going to be a bore.  However, once the possession happens Exeter held my interest and some of the gore got me really excited.  Wait... that sounds wrong... fuck it.  NO WAIT!

In all seriousness, Exeter was great.  The story turns in ways I didn't expect and the twist at the ending caught me off guard.  Very rarely do I completely lose consciousness of an entire piece of the puzzle, but Exeter had so much going on it redirected my focus and made the finale that much stronger.  I do have two complaints though.  The first one the overuse of panther sound effects for the possessed, and the second is the misuse of the term "Wiccan" for what really should have been "Witchcraft."  Wiccan doesn't really fit what's going on with this film.

I give Exeter 3 statues of St. Bernard getting ready to choke slam someone out of 5:

Day 27: The Chosen (2015): 1h 28m

There are a lot of really weird and cool things that come out of Abrahamic religions.  One of the most common you come across is Lilith, the first wife of Adam.  She was made of the same clay as Adam and was a much more independent individual.  The story goes that Lilith turned down Adam's sexual advances.  Adam, jilted and angry, turned to God and complained that Lilith would not do what he wanted.  God cast Lilith out of the garden and cursed her barren.  God then took the rib from Adam and created Eve.  The rib was used this time because it was a part of Adam and thus Adam would have a better control of Eve.  From here Lilith's story gets random.  To some, she becomes a vampire and feeds on or kills infants.  She also becomes Fraser's wife.  In this film she makes a pact with Lucifer and possesses children.  If a blood relative doesn't draw a blood sigil on six other blood relatives for Eve to take in the child's place.

And that's the plot of 2015's The Chosen.  An early 20's something uncle spends his time trying to save his niece from Lilith.  Luckily he has two elderly people living in the house, a bitch of an aunt that shows up, his mom (who confesses that she killed the young girl's twin brother three years ago), and a drunken asshole of an uncle living in the house.  That's only five you say.  C'mon, you know who the 6th person ends up being...

This film was slow as hell.  Even when there was action it felt like it was slow.  A ghost nun that wrote the weird book on Lilith our main guy ends up with shows up a few times and is kind of cool.  Otherwise, this movie was a good plot but a boring execution.  The Chosen was only rated PG, and that was its nail in the coffin.  If it were a solid R they could've made this pretty awesome.  I mean, the fact I spit out a bunch of esoteric knowledge on Lilith and that's longer than my review portion of this film should mean a lot.

I give The Chosen 1 Lilith statue out of 5:

Day 13: At the Devil's Door (2014) 1h 31m

While recapping this film to my fiancé, I explained it as a slow hand job where they don't finish you off; it would be better if they just sped up a bit, and you're totally let down by the "ending."

At the Devil's Door jumps a bit between two time lines.  One time line is the modern day and revolves around one woman and then, later, her sister.  The other is set in the past and involves a teenage girl going to some form of something, I'm not sure.  He might have been a psychic, or a satanist, or just a shitty stage magician talking out of his ass.  Either way, he tells her that she has been chosen and to say her name at a crossroads so "he" knows it when he calls her.  In this case "he" means the devil.

Early on we're treated to some creepy quick or out of focus shots of the devil.  There's one that is a jump scare where we get the best look.  I wasn't impressed.  I've seen enough weird anime to know he's gonna be like some muscle bear or something.  Bara satan!

The girl in the past kills herself and we get a ghost/demon possessed version in the present.  The devil kind of jumps from her to the later sister and impregnates her and puts her in a coma so she carries the baby to term.  This is a huge jump in the story but the movie was really not telling me anything interesting.  We do a jump to six years later, the sister goes to her demon daughter's adopted family's home (that's too many adjectives/possessive nouns) to call satan out on his shit.  Literally, she's sitting with a six year old and saying stuff like "I know who you really are!"  She then chases the girl with a knife but in the end takes her as her daughter and they leave.  I can't really explain it because I checked the fuck out a while ago with this film.

This movie might be okay, but I stopped caring to see anything good in it.

I give At the Devil's Door 1 devil from Legend 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: