Nato – Insidious
Look at me, going for only positives this week! I just want to make sure all you readers out there have a decent selection to choose from, not giving you a reason to have to avoid anything. Plus, Remy has a no-no lined up for you, so I’ll let him throw some words of caution. But hell, I’m wasting your time. Here’s yet another newer pick to scare your pants off!
Insidious was so surprisingly good, I almost forgave director James Wan completely for Dead Silence. Â Key word: almost.
Up until Cabin in the Woods actually, Insidious was my favorite horror film in recent memory, proving that James Wan is much more than a one-hit-wonder.
Wan nailed the haunted house feel and showed a true understanding of tense, spooky, chilling horror. There were no cheap jump scares or buckets of gore to distract viewers, just properly drawn out scenes of uncomfortable imagery which is seared into your mind. Wan is a freakin’ master of atmosphere with Insidious, taking such harmless things like Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” and utilizing it for some super haunting scenes which barrage your senses and leave you helpless.
The villain looks like a demon lovechild of Darth Maul and Freddy Kruger, the two paranormal investigators (writer Leigh Whannell and actor Angus Sampson) were actually funny instead of cheesy, and it was one of the most fun theater watches in a few years.
Another more mainstream pick, but if you somehow missed this, trust me in saying my faith in mass appeal horror was lifted by James Wan.
Splendid to hear his new film Conjuring is receiving equally high praise as well!
Remy – Apartment 143
Fact: I don’t normally take pleasure from telling people what NOT to watch. I have genuine love for the whole horror genre, and even in cases of a movie taking a misstep, I appreciate anyone trying to further it or add to it at all.
Having said that, whatever you do, do NOT waste a second of your time watching Apartment 143. Seriously. Even if it’s in Netflix Watch Instantly’s database, you are FAR better off watching an old horror classic you love than giving any of your time to this movie.
Why? Well, for me there are two main reasons for that, the first being my main complaint about certain horror films. Everyone in the movie FELT like they were acting to me. I know undermining a young girl’s performance is kind of an asshole move, but when you need to play a disaffected, pissed-off teen girl, and you feel like you are playing pretend to me, I cannot get into the movie. Truthfully, I had issues with every performance in this movie, especially the daughter and Father’s portrayal of the “strained relationship as the result of trauma”.
My second issue with Apartment 143 was the rational of the movie.
Story is this – mother dies, leaving behind a son, daughter, and her husband. After she dies, weird, supernatural crap starts happening to them. They get specialists in (the most mismatched group of actors I have ever seen) and then, what the specialists actually SEE, and then what they rationalize it to be, is beyond stupid. Spoiler alert: A girl is floating, her eyes turning solid white, she is speaking in different voices, and the researchers say that is the psychic materialization of trauma, and it is the sign of an onset schizophrenic disorder in the daughter.
Um, sorry, but do your f*cking research, movie. Signs of schizophrenia in young woman do not often even BEGIN to show themselves until the early twenties. If you are going to try to take a huge scientific dump on “horror”, at least don’t sound moronic doing it.
Oh, and then you throw it all away with a HUGE Paranormal Activity ripoff final frame. For shame.
That movie was so terrible, it made me hate movies for the ninety minutes I watched it.
But wait, there’s more!
Continue reading on the next page…
