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 23: Indigenous (2014) 1h 26m

Evil is out there.  It's all around us.  On the smile of every child. In every mylar birthday balloon of Dora the Explorer.  Anytime a group of entitled white Americans go to a foreign country and ignore local legends...

Indigenous, itself, is evil.  Not the good kind of evil that exists in King Diamond albums or D&D games, but the kind of evil that makes you angry that it exists.  That it's so far on the opposite end of a spectrum that there has to be something amazingly good to make up for how bad this is; something sainthood good.

IMDB's description of Indigenous is only "American Tourists travel to Panama and have a very terrifying experience."  The terrifying experience is a Chupacabra, which looks like your typical pasty white skin, razor teeth, and milk white pupil vampire style monster.  The only break-out moment of this film comes with the addition of a special device the one person is beta testing that allows for instant uploads to social media.  This makes it so a very Blair Witch style video hits Facebook and the world picks up on it in real time.  Everything else in this film is overdone crap.

Indigenous isn't worth the time.  Once again, this is a film that I needed to cleanse my horror pallet after it.

I give Indigenous 0 Deviant Art chupacabras out of 5:

Day 23: He Never Died (2015) 1h 39m

I have to begin this review with full disclosure:  I have a Black Flag tattoo,  I own almost every book Henry Rollins has ever written, I have seen Rollins Band live, I have seen Henry Rollins do spoken word live, I have DVDs of Henry Rollins doing spoken word live, I have many random and terrible movies because he is in them.  The point is that I am a fan of Henry Rollins and the work he does.

However, this does not rose tint my perception of him as an actor.  I know that he isn't the greatest actor.  Hell, he knows he isn't the greatest actor and has said so on many an occasion.  With that out of the way, as He Never Died went on, I think he just might have been the right person for this film.

A simple rundown of the film goes as such:  Henry Rollins plays Jack.  Jack pretty much doesn't care about much of anything and just has his routine.  He has an air of "seen it all," so he is pretty blasé to the world.  We come to find he has a daughter, but more importantly that he can't be killed.  People keep trying, and a lower level mob is involved, but after his daughter is kidnapped he finally takes an interest to the world.

There's much more to the story such biblical and supernatural tie-ins, but in truth I don't want to spoil those.  As a whole, the film did start a bit slow and I wasn't sure how to take Henry's flat affect.  Although as time went some actual character began to peak out before he gets his actual definition in the world.  Hearing things like "I remember I hate you" in such a deadpan tone is actually really funny and, in truth, Jack's dryness makes the emotional moments have a greater impact.

I give He Never Died 3.5 pictures of Henry Rollins holding a cobra that I screen capped from the Illumination video out of 5:

Day 22: The Barn (2016) 1h 36m NEW ORLEANS HORROR FILM FEST SPECIAL EDITION PART 2 of 2!

Continuing with our special New Orleans Horror Film Fest edition of reviews here at 30 Days of Plight, I bring to you an 80's throwback film entitled The Barn.

Every town has their ghost stories.  Where I grew up we had one about "Becky's Grave," which was a grave set back on some farm property.  As I got older there were other ones I found out about as you moved further out.  There's the underwater ex-town of Livermore, PA, or the child's grave in the basement of the Lawrenceville Library in Pittsburgh, PA.  In case you can't tell from that I lived in Western PA a long time.  Why do I bring any of this up in a review about a film?

The Barn focuses on one of these handed down ghost tales.  The story is that if you knock on a specific barn three times and say trick-or-treat then three spirits from hell come to kill you.  The first being the Boogyman, who dresses like a miner because he helped the devil create a tunnel from hell and some miners came across it.  I'll actually buy that story for this film.  The second being Pumpkin Jack who reminds me a lot of Samhain from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  He apparently works as the lookout for the trio because he can enter any pumpkin or jack-o-lantern to watch or take form.  The final is the Candy Corn Scarecrow, who feels like the most random of the bunch as he has candy corn teeth and bites the fuck out of people.  I forget what his role is specifically.  Our group of teens just so happen to be heading to a concert and come across the barn without knowing that it is the barn.  Shit, of course, goes down, and following the rules of Halloween may be the only way to survive.

This film had some great cameos in it, such as The Legendary Hucklebucks playing the Halloween Hootenanny and Ari Lehman of Friday the 13th fame plays the TV/radio personality Dr. Rock.  I also feel like there are some references to other horror classics.  The combination of the skull mask, the witch mask, and Pumpkin Jack made me think of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.  There's also an Evil Dead moment with some vines, and a more modern bit with a vibe of Tucker & Dale VS. Evil.  The only issue I had with this film at all was despite the relatively normal length, it felt like it was dragging a bit in the middle.  I thought this film was closer to two hours until I looked up the time.

If you want to check out more info on The Barn then visit their Facebook at facebook.com/TheBarnmovie/
Also if you want to check out the New Orleans Horror Film Fest you can do so at nolahorrorfilmfest.com/

Overall I give The Barn 4 copies of the Replacements album Hootenanny out of 5:

Day 21: Killennial (2016) NEW ORLEANS HORROR FILM FEST SPECIAL EDITION PART 1 of 2!

I'm taking a break from my traditional routine with Netflix to review two films I ended up catching at the 2016 New Orleans Horror Film Fest this year.  The first of which was the short film entitled Killennial.

A true horror-comedy, Killennial focuses around a killer that puts his cabin up for rent on AirBnB to a group of millennials.  His goal is to scare and murder each of them but they're so focused with their Instagram photos and vlogging that they don't even seem to notice the man in the mask.  If you have a chance to see this film, I definitely recommend it for some good laughs and some relatively decent gore kills.

My only complaint was the overacting of everyone that isn't the killer.  If it were toned down just a bit I feel like it actually would've helped the comedy factor a bit more.

If you'd like to check out info on this film you can go to its Facebook page at facebook.com/killennial/.
You can also check out the New Orleans Horror Film Fest page at nolahorrorfilmfest.com

Overall, I give Killennial 3 this dude in a gas mask out of 5:

Day 20: The Diabolical (2015) 1h 26m

The funny thing about rolling dice to pick what movie I'm going to watch is that sometimes you get something good, and sometimes you come up craps.  After watching the movie I previously reviewed (High Lane) I was hoping to get a decent pallet cleanser.  This time, lady luck was on my side.

The Diabolical focuses on a single mom and her two children.  An entity of some sort randomly appears in their home and causes all kinds of fear and havoc.  One of the kids believes that it might be the spirit of their deceased father.  Over time more and more of the plot unravels including a laboratory that wants to buy/threatens to foreclose on their home and someone close to them is tied in as well.  I'm not going to plot heavy on this one because aside from the sci-fi section at the end, this movie was pretty good.

A lot of the visual effects were great.  The figure that keeps appearing through the house looks frightening as fuck.  There's an early scene where we first see him and there's just a featureless face that he suddenly rips into and tears a film away to show the real face underneath.  It went from "Oh, that guy is rad looking," to "holy fuck!" that fast.  Every time he appears in his grotesque form it's always a good creep out.  My personal favorite being the one involving the dryer.

The "twist" part of the ending you see coming a little bit before the reveal if you know what to look for.  Also, as I said above, the sci-fi tie in element toward the end elicits more of a groan than a gasp.  Overall, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so I do recommend The Diabolical.

I give The Diabolical a solid 3 fake ghost photos out of 5:

Day 19: High Lane (2009) 1h 30m

I had a realization while watching this film.  You know what would make a great horror movie?  To just have these continuous moments of suspense and fear, but then everyone survives.  It would be along the lines of Hitchcock but just no Norman Bates on the other side of the shower curtain.  Just a thought, mainly because I feel like if someone made this idea it would suck.

The French film High Lane started by making me feel like it might just be a sense of survival against shitty odds.  A group of people attempt to go mountain climbing but find the path has been closed.  Being a bunch of idiots they attempt it anyway which leads to a lot of close calls up until they find some weird insane guy, that only screams, on a mountain top.  Anton the insane keeps trying to kill them.  Everyone dies.  I feel no remorse for any of them.

As with a lot of horror films, High Lane seems like they had an idea to start with (the mountain climbing) and reached a point where they realized they couldn't make it into a full film and threw in the insane guy.  I was so disappointed by this film I actually watched another one after it in hopes of it being a pallet cleanser...

I give High Lane 1 mountain climbing clip out of 5: