Temple (2017) 1h 18m

Horror films have taught me many things over the course of my life.  One thing is that children are most likely all ghosts or the devil.  Just because that creature was "born" doesn't make up for the fact that there were a solid nine months where you had no idea what it was really doing in there.  I've seen sonogram images that look like that thing is summing all the powers of the dark lord into him!  Seriously! Do you have multiple children?  Well then one is a ghost and one is Satan, or they're both the ghost of Satan, I don't know.  I don't have kids!

The Temple takes us to Japan where white people act like entitled assholes and can't take "no" or "not for sale" for an answer.  A woman finds an old journal in a used book store but when she attempts to buy it the shop owner tells her that the book is cursed, not for sale, and kicks them out and closes up shop.  If this isn't a sign of "don't fuck with that book," I don't know what is.  Of course, one of the men with her goes back to find a small boy in the shop and buys the book from him (red flag #2).  He stops at a ramen stand where he is told by the chef and the other patron to not go to the temple in the journal (red flags #3 & 4), but one of them still tells him where the temple is.  So guess where these people all go the next day?  This plot is trash.

I was really hoping for something great when this film started but it took me down a long and lonely road of boredom.  I held no sympathy for any of these people because they're all trash and multiple levels.  It's the deepest trash I've ever seen.  An ocean of trash.  The only thing that caught my attention was maybe three to five seconds long and it was the guardian spirit of the temple coming to life and attacking one of the men.  The rest of this film can be shot into the sun for all I care.

I give Temple 0 dumpsters out of 5:

8th Cut Begins! Bedeviled (2016) 1h 31m

When I was a kid I was easily scared by all kinds of dumb stuff.  Most of it being something related to the supernatural, but all of it being stupid shit that kids get scared of.  The concept of "apps" didn't exist until after I was out of college, but let's just say, for one minute, that it existed when I was a child.  There is no way in hell I'd be scared of an app with a silhouette of Pee Wee Herman on it!

Bedeviled is like someone took the original Nightmare on Elm Street and decided to make Freddy some sort of spooky demon in app form.  After a local girl is found dead of what seems to be heart failure all of her friends receive a request from her to download Bedeviled.  What starts out as a much better Siri turns into an evil presence that feeds off of fear and has no problem bending time and space to scare the hell out of anyone with the app.

If I wanted someone to try and scare me in regards to the use of technology then I would show my grandparents my iPhone and then proceed to hear all of the crazy shit they picked up from TV shows about how it will probably kill me.  This film had that overtone of "those damn kids and their cell phones," woven inside of it.  Yet, it tried to stay hip with the kids by mentioning stuff like BitTorrent and having phone hacking.  It does lose touch again quickly though when a cop starts listing off possible drugs one of the kids might be on and it goes "...molly, skunk...poppers, sniffing each other's dirty underwear, bath salt orgies!"  Remember kids:  only a cop will ask you for something like molly or skunk, and if they ask for poppers or where the bath salt orgies are then they're a pervert.

There are some saving graces in this film.  The entity can only exist and manipulate digital technology so anything analog is safe.  They end up finding a reel-to-reel recording which helps the remaining two in their attempt to delete this thing from their phones.  The app tricking a lot of them into revealing their biggest fears to use against them was also well done, except for the teddy bear.  That was just trying too hard.  The final nod (and I assume homage to Elm Street) was the mom ending up with the app on her phone at the end.  It was like the mannequin being pulled through the door by Freddy.  Unfortunately, these just weren't enough to bring me around to recommend this movie.

I give Bedeviled 1 iPhone out of 5:

7th Cut / Final Cut: 240 Movies Reviewed So Far

Once again we wrap up another Cut and I'm looking forward to a much needed break.  I love horror but subjecting myself to boring or just bad films makes me feel like I'm stuck on the Satellite of Love only without quirky robot friends to keep my sanity.  Instead I develop something more akin to Ren & Stimpy's "space madness."

 So what is going on with 30 Days of Plight while I'm taking my break between cuts?  A lot actually:

I'm waiting on an Elgato to arrive so I can do proper streams of horror games over on my Twitch channel which is Twitch.TV/30DaysOfPlight.  I'm looking to do at least an hour or two once a week during this break.  A lot of Friday the 13th The Game will be shown and I'll be announcing those streams on our Twitter and Facebook.

I'm working on a t-shirt design to sell through an online vendor which will hopefully be available at the start of the 8th Cut.

I'm going to start reaching out to try to get some screeners of newer films and once that starts then I'll be doing a "Screener Saturday" once or twice a Cut.

Speaking of format changes, I'm going to be going back to a Monday-Friday post schedule for our regular reviews.  The Sunday-Thursday existed because of my previous work schedule but being that I'm Fun-employed for the time being I can go back to a normal set-up.  What does this mean about my Friday's Choice Cuts?  I haven't been avoiding them, there just hasn't been a lot I've come across that I've felt like talking about.  More than likely I'll just shift these to open Saturdays or maybe I'll keep them for a second post on some Fridays.  They're kind of nebulous at this point.

Finally, we will return for not only our 8th Cut but also our 2 Year Anniversary on Monday, March 26th.  If you have any suggestions for anything related to the site or just want to reach out and say "hi" you can contact or catch me at any of the following:

E-mail: 30daysofplight@gmail.com
Facebook: 30daysofplight
Twitter: 30daysofplight
Instagram: 30daysofplight
Twitch: 30daysofplight

You get the point.  So thank you for reading and I'll see you all again on March 26th.  So until then, I'll be right back...

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) 1h 59m

Years ago I went with a group of people camping.  As night came, and we were sitting around the fire, we started attempting to tell ghost stories.  One of my fellow campers said he didn't have any ghost stories but he had seen this film so we told him to try and recap it since none of us saw it.  The next five minutes were a hodgepodge of a story which ended with the most blasé "and then she jumped out a window and died."  Everyone laughed their ass off and to this day I still think of that as a punchline to terrible stories.  Post script to this story, that isn't what happens.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is barely a horror movie.  In truth this is a court drama that happens to revolve around priest that is being blamed for negligence in the death of Emily.  Most of the time is spent with lawyers and witnesses arguing between the science of the physical word and the existence of the spirit of the supernatural.  We are told the story from start to finish and there are some scenes of Emily before and during her possession but it's overshadowed by the litigation.

If I would've paid to see this film in theatres and this is what I got then I would be pissed.  The only saving grace of Emily Rose is Emily herself.  Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) does a lot of the physical contortions on her own as well as her facial expressions and voices.  I spent some time looking into facts about this film and she was cast at the audition because she scared the director.  Big ups to you, Jennifer.

Speaking of the director of this film, I came across something saying that he wanted people to leave this film with more questions than answers.  You have a fictional court case and exorcism based off of a real account that happened in Germany.  You can't make something up and then have people seek out answers when you've created the universe it exists in!  Here's my question for you, why is this movie two hours of the most boring "horror" ever?  Riddle me that, Batman.

I give the Exorcism of Emily Rose 1 romance paperback titled "Exorcism" out of 5 (and that is only for Jennifer Carpenter):

Happy Hunting (2017) 1h 31m

This is an odd way to start a review, but I feel that the term "redneck" gets overused in horror.  It has become a catch-all for any non-urban/non-suburban villain character(s).  Take this film for example.  The descriptions mention the townspeople as "rednecks" but I find them more akin to the villagers in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.  Their actions may be shocking and wrong to us, but to them it's what they have been doing for ages.  I'm not justifying either groups actions here as by modern social and moral standards both are viewed as wrong.  The people here don't really fit the stereotypical overalls, flannel, banjo playing bumpkins we typically visualize, so why not find a better term?  Anyway, let's get back on track here.

Happy Hunting's main character is Warren, a crank making alcoholic.  He receives a call from Mexico saying that an ex-lover has died and that he has a child.  Warren mans up, tries to quit drinking, and sell some bunk crank to make it to Mexico.  The deal goes south but so does our man until he ends up in the town of Buffalo Flats.  It's a town known for its rich hunting heritage despite being a desert region now.  He arrives just in time for their annual hunting festival where this quickly turns into The Most Dangerous Game with Warren and four others attempting to flee from the towns elite huntsmen.

It's been a while since I've watched one of these Running Man style films.  While it lacks the panache of a lot of its predecessors I can't really find any heavy faults with Happy Hunting.  Sure, we have a ton of time spent in the desert without much action but I found myself on Warren's side and had some emotional reactions to characters being killed.  I also appreciated the speech from the Sheriff about the hunt being about how they "deal with problems," in this town.  Once again, it doesn't justify their actions, but it helps you understand them.  Overall, I'm probably not going to watch this film again, but if it's already on somewhere then I'm not adverse to seeing it again.

I give Happy Hunting 2 copies of Guns & Ammo out of 5:

Strayed (a.k.a. Perdidos) (2014) 1h 33m

So close.  So close to finishing this Cut without having to deal with another "found footage" film and instead one more has to sneak in at the zero hour.  My husband and I had a long discussion last night about this subgenre of horror and what has and hasn't worked.  Blair Witch played on the fact that everyone grew up with some sort of urban legend.  Paranormal Activity brought the fright into our homes.  Grave Encounters took the phenomena of ghost hunting shows and had their own twist on the absurdity of them as well as pushing horror to be a bit more extreme.  Most generic found footage just keep taking a group of 20-somethings and putting them in a haunted space.  You know what else had that plot?  Scooby Doo!  And the fucking Scooby gang is way more entertaining!

Strayed (Perdidos) does this same dead horse style plot.  A group of 20-somethings go into a supposedly haunted building to record ghosts.  They vanish and this is the footage found.  The twist here is that we know a Rabbi had to do an exorcism in this building.  The Rabbi also left a Dybbuk just chillin' in that space, which I feel you wouldn't want to leave hanging out for just anyone to find.  Spooky scares happen and I can't read Hebrew to save my life so I have no idea what half of that stuff says.  I couldn't even translate whats on that poster and I spent a good 20 minutes trying and just gave up assuming its one of the 72 names of god.

Surprisingly, Strayed was one of the better found footage films I've watched.  The quick pans gliding by shadowy figures are decently scary but what this movie does that I really like is that the spirit has the ability to manipulate physical space.  People find themselves in hallways that end up looping themselves, rooms will change at any point, and impossible space becomes possible.  In the end though, these weren't enough to save the film from long periods of nothing and poor character interactions.  I would have liked this better if it were a 20-30 minute short film.  This way you get all killer/no filler.

I give Strayed (Perdidos) 1 rabbi clip art out of 5:

Night of the Living Deb (2015) 1h 25m

Both on and off of this blog I've watched a lot of horror comedies.  Sometimes you want to be able to laugh while also seeing gore as opposed to laughing at the poorly done gore.  John Dies at the End, Tucker & Dale..., Shaun of the Dead, Deathgasm, all great examples of mixing hilarious comedy with fantastic horror.  So what happens when a horror comedy does neither their horror nor their comedy aspects well?

Night of the Living Deb doesn't have much going for it in the plot department.  Deb attempts to hit on a guy without knowing his fiancé is there and pissed at him.  They end up getting drunk and passing out back at his place.  The next morning is awkward but then so are the zombies that exist everywhere now due to water contamination by the water company owned by the guy's father.  That's about it.

There's an attempt at an awkward romantic angle here but the dialog feels really forced and disingenuous between our leading characters.  It's only made worse by 90% of the lines in this film attempting to be jokes.  I had a few laughs while watching this but to be bombarded with mediocre humor consistently made me dislike this film even more.

If I had to sum up Night of the Living Deb in a few words then I would say this is the equivalent of some college friends realizing one of them had a video camera and trying to make a zombie movie in a weekend.  Okay, that's more than a few, but we're not quite at "shit sandwich" level of bad with this film.

I give Night of the Living Deb 0 copies of Shaun of the Dead out of 5: