2000s horror movies – Page 3

Summer of 84 (2018)

Posted on March 5, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s the summer of 1984, where there are no mobile phones, no TikTok, and kids actually spend time together outside. What a time to be young! A fifteen year old, Davey Armstrong, works a paper route and spends time with his friends Dale, Curtis and Tommy. They live in Cape May, where a total of thirteen teenage boys have disappeared over the course of a decade. None of their disappearances have ever been connected, but after a local newspaper receives an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be their killer, or the Cape May Slayer, Davey starts suspecting his neighbor Wayne Mackey who is a popular police officer. His friends don’t put much value into his suspicions, though, as Davey is known for being easily drawn to all kinds of conspiracy theories and urban legends. Things change when a boy who Davey claims was inside Mackey’s house, ends up on a milk carton just a few days later. His friends agree to help him with the investigation of his suspicious neighbor, in the hopes of revealing him as the Cape May Slayer.

Summer of 84 is a horror film from 2018, directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissel. It was written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, to a fair amount of praise as many of the critics called it one of the best horror films of 2018. Since the main cast in the movie are teenagers and it’s set in the 80’s, some may think of the popular Netflix show Stranger Things, but they can’t really be compared. Summer of 84 is more like The Goonies turned into a mystery thriller, and while you’ll definitely get your fair share of the 80’s with the fitting soundtrack and certain elements from that era, this movie ventures into a much darker road.

As we follow Davey and his friends, we watch them do regular stuff like meeting in their tree house, watch dirty magazines, talk about who is the hottest girls in the neighborhood, and so on. Just normal teenage-boy stuff. When their attention is shifted onto a possible serial killer next door, we still have a bit of that whimsical Goonies-vibe. You’re not really sure what to expect, which makes it quite suspenseful. It also has quite a few little easter eggs: one of the missing boy posters displays one of John Wayne Gacy’s victims, and when the boys are in the clubhouse Tommy drinks from a bottle of MacReady’s Whiskey, which is a nod to The Thing (1982). While the first part of the movie builds up rather innocently when the kids are trying to figure out if Mackey really is a serial killer, offering both suspense and a few lighthearted chuckles here and there, it pretty much makes a 180 during the final act.

Summer of 84 is not your typical serial killer film, but offers something quite suspenseful and enjoyable. While some people really hated the ending of the movie, to the point where some said it literally ruined the entire movie for them, I personally found the choice for a dark and somewhat edgy ending to ground the movie into even more horror themed realism, and I’m glad they had the balls to do it this way.

Directors: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Writers: Matt Leslie, Stephen J. Smith
Country & year: Canada, 2018
Actors: Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye, Rich Sommer, Jason Gray-Stanford, Shauna Johannesen, William MacDonald, Harrison Houde
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5774450/

Cold Prey (2006)

Posted on March 1, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

– Herre hær kjæm te å gjør littegrainnj vondt. E du klar? Æ tælle te tre.

And no, it wasn’t my keyboard that just had a stroke. It’s the Norwegian for – This will hurt a little. Are you ready? I’m counting to three. Also in the dialect of trøndersk, just to mention.

The year was 2006, on Friday the 13th of October when we got our very first Norwegian slasher, titled Fritt Vilt (with the international title Cold Prey). Yay! So this wasn’t just any slasher you see, it was a cultural event that would have its new chapter in Norwegian film history. Yes I know, it’s quite strange that the country that had the biggest export of black metal, church burnings and Satan didn’t have any horror films to showcase until after the millennium. What held us back while the wave of New French Extremity was already near its peak, is a good question.

We, of course, had Villmark (Dark Woods) from 2003, which leans more into the thriller section, and from there on we have to rewind way, waaaay back to the year 1958 (!) with De Dødes Tjern (Lake of the Dead), which has not aged particularly well. What was left was decades of a pretty stiff, wooden and a ridiculously conservative film industry which had not much to offer other than sloggish, forgettable and painfully dry obscure drama films made for god knows who. Yawn. There were some very few exceptions much thanks to Ivo Caprino (RIP). So aside from that, a film like Cold Prey was a big fresh air in my tiny gnome country. A game changer and a complete shift on how films in Norway would be made from here on, which also included other genres.

With the success and the cultural impact of Cold Prey, it also opened the door to several young genre filmmakers to show their muscles, most notably Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) and André Øvredal (Troll Hunter). Roar Uthaug, along with the two mentioned, would also eventually work in Hollywood with various outcomes. But it’s also valid to say that we have our fair share of terrible, shitty horror movies and the last ten years hasn’t been much to be excited about. So I’m not being a blind patriot waving my flag here. There’s also several Norwegian horror movies that seem to be impossible to find anywhere due to lack of release and distribution, so for all I know there could be a hidden gem somewhere. The only titles I’ve seen which are worth watching from recently are Project Z and The Innocents, both from 2021. And soon Norway will give birth to its first sea monster flick called Kraken, which will start filming in the Norwegian coast later this year. So we’ll see how that one turns out.

Cold Prey follows a group of youngsters who are going snowboarding in the mountains of Jotunheimen. The sky is blue, the air is crisp with even some sprinkles of love, and life is good… until one of the poor bastards fall and breaks his ankle. Luckily, they find an abandoned hotel nearby where they take shelter. And nothing bad happens here. After spending the night, they get met by a rescue team and The End. I’m joking, of course. You know that they’re in deep shit when one of the in-love couple checks into one of the rooms that have the numbers 2 3 7. Redrum!

It’s not the biggest surprise that they’re not alone in the hotel. How boring would that be. We already learn in the opening sequence that the place has a dark history where a kid once disappeared under some questionable circumstances. Our group of friends also learn that a mysterious person called the Mountain Man lives like a hermit somewhere in the dark corners of the hotel, and kills anyone who has the nerve to trespass.

If the premise sounds familiar, you’re not wrong. On paper, Cold Prey is as formulaic as it can be, which basically follows the same footsteps of the most generic slasher films you’ve seen hundreds of already. There’s nothing much new on the surface here, nor was it back in 2006, and the film’s biggest sin is that it’s pretty tame with lackluster kills. The brutality from the early films of Alexandre Aja and other extreme Frenchmen are worlds apart, just to make that clear. Us slow Norwegians still have a lot to learn in the splatter and gore department, unfortunately.

And I almost forgot to mention that there’s no cringe sex scene here, so kudos for at least breaking that cliché.

That being said, there’s more to enjoy here. The setting itself gives the movie an eerie, grim vibe and the acting is solid. Ingrid Bolsø Berdal stands out as the heroine who can also handle a shotgun. The story is intriguing enough with a pacing that keeps the entertaining value on track. The film also looks fabulous, where the bleak coldness really spices up the claustrophobic tension and atmosphere. Cold Prey was filmed at Leirvassbu, a tourist cabin in Jotunheimen where the actors lived during the filming. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the isolated and stone-cold surroundings messed a little with their heads.

So overall, despite not being more ballsy with the violence, Cold Prey is an entertaining watch with some unique scenery, great suspense and a fine addition to winter horror. Still, I must be honest enough to say that it would work more as a horror film for beginners. This is also the directorial debut of Roar Uthaug, who in 2018 made Tomb Raider. If you want more of the primitive Norwegian landscape, check out Escape (2012), also directed by Uthaug.

The film got two sequels: Cold Prey II, which is more of a Halloween II (1981) ripoff, and I don’t remember much of Cold Prey III other than it was a prequel. The first two is on DVD from Anchor Bay and Shout Factory. Kos dåkk!

Director: Roar Uthaug
Writers: Thomas Moldestad, Martin Sundland, Roar Uthaug
Original title: Fritt Vilt
Country & year: Norway, 2006
Actors: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Endre Martin Midtstigen, Viktoria Winge, Rune Melby, Erik Skjeggedal, Tonie Lunde, Hallvard Holmen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808276/

Triangle (2009)

Posted on February 27, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Jess is preparing to take her autistic son Tommy on a boat trip with her friend Greg, and while getting both her and her son ready the doorbell suddenly rings. No one is on the other side. Later, Jess drives to Florida and meets up with Greg at the harbor. She arrives without Tommy, and explains that he is at his special needs school. They board the boat, together with Greg’s friends Sally, Downey and Heather. Soon afterwards, a storm is approaching and Greg picks up a distress signal from a woman pleading for help. She says she’s in danger as someone is killing off the crew members on the boat she’s on, but before this woman can complete the conversation Greg’s boat capsizes. The survivors then boards a passing ocean liner, which appears to be deserted, but they saw the silhouette of someone apparently ignoring their pleas for help when wanting to board the ship. Jess gets an uncomfortable feeling of déja vu when exploring the ship, and after discovering her own keys near a display case for the ship, which is named Aeolus, a lot of strange things start happening. Jess finds that she is stuck in a time-loop that keeps repeating itself, and she must try to figure out a way to break it.

Triangle is a psychological horror film from 2009, written and directed by Christopher Smith whose directorial debut was Creep (2004). The film is partly based on the story of Sisyphus, a Greek mythological figure cursed to repeatedly push a boulder up a hill without ever reaching the top. He was also inspired by Dead of Night (1945) and Memento (2000). The movie was filmed on sets and location in Queensland, Australia. It received favorable reviews upon its release, both from critics and audience, but still grossed only $1.3-1.6 million worldwide on a budget of $12 million. Ouch. But it also didn’t have a theatrical release in the US.

While Groundhog-day horror movies where time-loops keep the protagonists struggling with figuring out how to break them is nothing new, and some of them take on a more lighthearted variant like for example Happy Death Day. This movie on the other hand keeps everything considerably more dark and mysterious. Triangle is like a puzzle of pieces which start fitting together one by one, and small details which previously might have seemed insignificant proves to tie things together. What makes the movie even more effective is how the protagonist, Jess, keeps trying literally everything in order to break the loop, and while both she and the viewers think “aha, now she’s on to something!” we suddenly see that she’s already tried that exact same thing dozens of times in earlier loops. There is very little predictability here, and keeps you guessing throughout, making it a very entertaining watch.

On the whole, Triangle is a fun and thrilling time-loop horror movie, and despite having a conclusion that some might find a bit inadequate, it still ends up as a satisfactory ride.

Writer and director: Christopher Smith
Country & year: UK, Australia, 2009
Actors: Melissa George, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor, Michael Dorman, Henry Nixon, Rachael Carpani, Emma Lung, Liam Hemsworth, Bryan Probets
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064/

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Posted on February 20, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Now, time for some J-splatter horror insanity to make your hair wet n’ sticky. Director Yoshihiro Nishimura had primarily worked as special makeup effects supervisor on numerous films since the early 1980s. After working on The Machine Girl, he was asked if he wanted to direct his first full-length feature for the American distributor Media Blasters. The result was a remake of his earlier student film Anatomia Extinction from 1995. Like most people in the Asian movie business, he worked fast and furiously and completed the film in only two weeks, and with some pretty amusing results.

We’re in a futuristic dystopian Tokyo where the police force has been privatized, and the city is now an out-of-control violent gore-zone. Tokyo is also being threatened by a scientist under the name “The Key Man” who, with a key-shaped virus, injects people around the city and turn them into mutants called “Engineers”. It’s even worse than it sounds and there seems to be an army of them that spreads like banana flies. So, who’s here to save the day? Say hello to Ruka (Eihi Shiina), the most skilled, cold-blooded and dangerous of the special police squad of “Engineer Hunters” who slices her targets in half with her blade like it was just a regular day. The actress behind Ruka is the same shy and quiet lady we saw in Takashi Miike’s Audition. Yes, that lady. She’s also deeply traumatized after witnessing her father, who worked as a police officer, getting his head blown to pieces like a big watermelon by an unknown assassin. The motive? Who knows. She deals with the pain by some self-mutilation while she’s obsessed about one day catching the one who killed her father.

And good luck with that. We get invited on a crazy, red-soaked journey where blood pours endlessly out of wounds like garden hoses, an effect that gets pretty old after a while as it gets overused to death. The use of blood was so messy and all over the place that the cameras had to be covered in plastic. So in that regard, the film surely lives up to the title.

It also has to be pointed out that Tokyo Gore Police is not to be taken one bit seriously. The film has a zany manga vibe in the same style as Meatball Machine and The Machine Girl, where we have silly fight scenes filled with video game logic and some other, bizarre, mind-bending WTF moments. There are many highlights and unique scenes here that include a cute mutant girl whose half body is formed like a hybrid of a snail and the mouth of a crocodile that chews some poor guys’ dick off. We also have a mutant guy with a big elephant trunk as a penis which he uses as a machine gun. A chair urinates on a crowd in a fetish club. Yes, really. And there’s much more. Also watch out for a minigun that shoots fist knuckles. To amp up the madness all up to eleven, the film is sprinkled with some spicy satire aimed at Japan’s extreme trend of suicides. The most notable is the cute, colorful billboard commercials around the city where pre-teen girls in school uniforms joyfully promotes the new hot thing on the market The wrist cutter. Kawaii! Only in Japan, as we say.

And of course, the big question is: Is this the goriest film ever made? No, but it’s certainly on the top ten list. Tokyo Gore Police is overall a fun watch, but drags somewhere in the middle. It’s wild and experimental, which mostly works best as a creative showcase of old school special effects.

Yoshihiro Nishimura was planning a sequel at some time, but that doesn’t seem to happen. Anyway, he’s had a pretty fruitful career as director since TGP and made films such as Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl and Helldriver, which also seems worth checking out.

Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Writers: Kengo Kaji, Maki Mizui, Yoshihiro Nishimura
Original title: Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu
Country & year: Japan, 2008
Actors: Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Itao, Yukihide Benny, Jiji Bû, Ikuko Sawada, Cay Izumi, Mame Yamada, Ayano Yamamoto, Akane Akanezawa, Tsugumi Nagasawa
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183732/

Tokyo Gore Police Trailer from Derek Lieu on Vimeo.

Below (2002)

Posted on February 6, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It is 1943, and the USS Tiger Shark, a U.S. Navy submarine, patrols the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. They suddenly get orders to pick up survivors drifting in the sea, and they end up rescuing a British Nurse (Claire Paige) and two wounded men. They tell the crew that they were aboard the hospital ship Fort James, which was sunk two days earlier from a torpedo hit. Tension starts to arise when the crew of the submarine finds out that one of the wounded men is a German prisoner of war, ending up shooting him, much to Claire’s dismay as he was his patient. A German destroyer also approaches them, and the submarine ends up suffering damage from depth charges. However, that’s not all that’s wrong here, and both the crew and Claire becomes aware of strange supernatural happenings on the submarine. Claire also finds the captain’s journal, where she notices missing pages and a different handwriting in the latest pages. She’s told a story about the death of the former captain, which comes off as somewhat unconvincing. What has happened on the submarine, and why does it appear to be haunted?

Below is a supernatural horror film from 2002, directed by David Twohy (known for directing Pitch Black and several of the Riddick movies) and written by Darren Aronofsky (director of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan). It was originally intended to be a historical sci-fi thriller, but after the success with Pitch Black the director decided to go for a horror film instead. It was shot on location in Lake Michigan for the exteriors, using the World War II-era U.S. Navy submarine USS Silversides, and at Pinewood Studios. Miramax/Dimension Films wanted Twohy to edit the film so it could get a PG-13 rating instead of an R, but he refused, which ended up giving the film a limited theatrical release with very little advertising. It also flopped tragically, not only due to limited release and lack of advertisement, but also due to rather mixed reviews.

Now, your typical “haunted house” has been changed into different settings before, and the claustrophobic narrative of having it set in a submarine during World War II is definitely effective. The atmosphere is tight and creepy, nailing the mood while showing off just enough of the spooky stuff to keep it chilling. The supernatural effects and scenes are very subtle, and everything plays more around how the characters are spooked by it while also becoming slowly aware of its hold over them. Much of it is embraced with uncertainty and keeping you guessing.

Much like in Twohy’s Pitch Black, much of the story is carried on by the characters and the tension between them. You already realize from the first minutes of the film that some of the characters are a bit off, and are definitely hiding something. We just don’t know what, but their reactions to the supernatural events makes it easy to guess that something awful happened which they do not want to come to the surface. Much due to the underwater scenes and the submarine interior the atmosphere gets just right, clammy and stifling filled with apprehension.

Below is an underwater chiller that is actually quite decent, with its claustrophobic environment and the rising tension between the crew as the supernatural events enfold, all building up to a reveal and somewhat poetic ending.

Director: David Twohy
Writers: Lucas Sussman, Darren Aronofsky, David Twohy
Country & year: UK, US, 2002
Actors: Matthew Davis, Bruce Greenwood, Holt McCallany, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Chinlund, Olivia Williams, Scott Foley, Andrew Howard, Christopher Fairbank, Chuck Ellsworth, Crispin Layfield
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276816/

Sleepwalker (2000)

Posted on January 5, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Ulrik Hansson is a 45 year old man living in a residential district in Sweden, together with his wife Monika and their two children. The family man appears to live a pretty normal life, with a decently paid job as an architect. There is also a new home he’s built which they’ll soon move into. All fine and dandy. One night, when he and his wife are about to go to sleep, he’s suddenly having what first appears to be a heart attack, scaring his wife to the point where she’s about to call for help, until he settles down and says he feels okay again. A panic attack, perhaps? He goes to sleep, but when he wakes up in the morning, he discovers that the bed is covered in blood. In a full panic, he runs around the house, shouting for his wife and two children only to discover that they are all gone…

Sleepwalker is a Swedish thriller from 2000, directed by Johannes Pinter and written by Johan Brännström. It was apparently hyped a bit in its home country, where taglines like “the most exciting film you can see in year 2000 is made in Sweden”, which set the bar rather high. Thus, upon release some found it a bit underwhelming compared to what they were expecting, but despite this it’s actually a pretty decent low-key thriller about a man who fears he’s done something terrible while sleepwalking. It’s not very high in tension or action-packed or anything, but it’s doing a steady job of keeping you wondering together with the protagonist.

The movie starts off like a found footage movie, where Ulrik is filming his family and friends, but this isn’t the movie’s format. There are some scenes where he straps the camera to the side of his head when he goes to sleep, hoping to capture what he does when sleepwalking, and these scenes are actually some of the most effective. You can also find quite an easter-egg in this movie: there is one scene at the start where Ulrik’s children are watching a horror movie, and this movie is none other than Evil Ed (another Swedish film which is considerably more well known). And that’s not all, the actor who played Ed in that movie, Johan Rudebeck, also has a role here where he appears as one of Ulrik’s colleagues.

Sleepwalker is a decent mystery thriller, where we follow a man who appears to be in some kind of way responsible for this own family’s disappearance. And he doesn’t even know whether he is guilty or not, as he doesn’t remember anything. While I feel the ending was a little bit weak, I still found the movie to be quite enjoyable.

Director: Johannes Pinter
Writer: Johan Brännström
Country & year: Sweden, Norway, 2000
Actors: Ralph Carlsson, Ewa Carlsson, Anders Palm, Tuva Novotny, Donald Högberg, Fredrik Hammar, Mats Rudal, Sylvia Rauan, Christoffer Edström, Silke Lauren, Toivo Tolonen, Aina Lesse
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228871/

The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007)

Posted on December 15, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In a Japanese town, stories about Kuchisake-onna (The Slit-Mouthed Woman) are spread around. She’s a woman who’s got her mouth slit from side to side, dressed in a coat and wearing a face mask to conceal her looks. Carrying a rusty pair of scissors in her hands, it is said that she kidnaps children and kill them. She also asks those she meets on the street if they think she’s pretty, where the wrong answer will lead to horrible consequences. All of this, of course, sounds like a bunch of superstitious baloney, and only the children are taking this ridiculous story seriously while the adults just scoff at it. That is, until several children start disappearing. One day, a child even gets kidnapped right in front of the school teacher Matsuzaki. Together with her colleague she tries to uncover the truth about the legend of the “slit-mouthed woman”.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman (aka Carved) is based on a Japanese legend about the Kuchisake-onna, which is said to originate from sometime between year 794 and 1185, where the story is that a beautiful woman was mutilated by her jealous husband. He suspected her of being unfaithful to him, and thus he wanted to destroy her appearance. Later, it is said that she became a vengeful spirit who wanted to inflict the same pain and suffering on others as she experienced herself. The legend has many variations, and this movie has its own way of telling this story, set in a modern time.

The movie is directed by Kôji Shiraishi, who seems to have been directing a load of movies every year for quite some time, and is also the director of the found-footage/mockumentary horror movie Noroi (2005). Like many J-Horror movies, the supernatural is looming over everything, but the difference here is that it’s also mixing elements from a typical western slasher flick, which makes it an interesting combination. There is a bit of mystery, tension, and murders, all merged with the unmistakable dread-filled atmosphere of the supernatural J-Horror film. The makeup of The Slit-Mouthed Woman is decent, she’s genuinely creepy despite seeing her in full daylight most of the time, and unlike many J-Horror movies with ghostly villains, this one has a lot of scenes shot during the day.

The movie has a dark atmosphere and relies on some drama in order to fuel the characters as it becomes clear they also have their inner demons to struggle with, which they must come to terms with before trying to take on The Slit-Mouthed Woman. While the movie is somewhat predictable, and is not able to avoid the mistake of slowing things down a little too much during the second half of the movie, it’s still a very decent J-Horror movie about a well-known Japanese urban legend.

Director: Kôji Shiraishi
Writers: Naoyuki Yokota, Kôji Shiraishi
Original title: Kuchisake-onna
Also known as: Carved
Country & year: Japan, 2007
Actors: Eriko Satô, Haruhiko Katô, Chiharu Kawai, Rie Kuwana, Kazuyuki Matsuzawa, Kaori Sakagami, Sakina Kuwae, Yûto Kawase, Rio Nakamura, Ryôko Takizawa
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0891520/

The Orphanage (2007)

Posted on November 24, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Laura is a woman who once was adopted from an orphanage in Spain, and is now returning to the place with her husband Carlos and their seven-year-old son Simón. It’s been 30 years since Laura was adopted from there, and the orphanage is now closed. She plans to reopen the place and turn it into a facility for disabled children. Simón claims he has befriended a boy named Tomás, whom he draws as a child wearing a creepy-looking sack mask. This mysterious friend also tells Simón a secret Laura and Carlos have kept from him: that he is adopted. This revelation makes Simón angry, and he and Laura starts arguing which ends with her slapping him across the face. Even though she immediately regrets this, the damage has already been done, and he runs away. When looking for him, she encounters the sack-mask child who locks her inside the bathroom, and after managing to escape she is unable to find Simón anywhere. At night, banging sounds can be heard from within the walls of the orphanage, and old secrets from the place slowly starts unveiling.

The Orphanage (El orfanato) is a gothic supernatural horror film from 2007, and the directorial feature film debut of J. A. Bayona. The script was written in 1996 by Sergio G. Sánchez, and it caught Bayona’s attention in 2004, and he then went on to ask his long-time friend Guillermo del Toro to help him produce the film. The movie was well received, and won seven Goya awards. New Line Cinema bought the rights for an American remake, which was later cancelled.

As many classic ghost stories go, it’s rich in emotional struggles and relies more on visceral impact than jump-scares. There is a deliberate slow pace that feels rewarding more than protracted, offering a steady build-up of mystery and suspense. The movie manages to unravel the old orphanage’s mysteries in a way that keeps you engaged, while the dusty rooms and forsaken grounds all offers a sense of disquiet and foreboding, along with the sinister presences from the past that start making themselves known and reveal their secrets. Belen Rueda does a good performance as Laura, a woman devoured by loss and a desperate yearning for the truth.

A sense of sadness and despair is what appears to be deeply rooted within the story of The Orphanage, aided with spooky surroundings and, of course, the obligatory medium and séance scene. With a masked child appearing to be an imaginary friend (they’re always bad news in horror movies, we all know that), noises behind the walls, restless spirits of children and something terrible from the past that remains to be revealed, it’s all a recipe for a grounded ghost horror movie that treads along a safe path while still being able to held a steady course for an intriguing viewing experience. It’s not breaking new ground, but what it does, it does well.

So overall, The Orphanage offers a fine gothic ghost story, often more poetic than horrifying and more atmospheric and sad than scary. A perfect watch if you want an old-fashioned ghost movie that’s both creepy and beautiful.

Director: J.A. Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Original title: El orfanato
Country & year: Spain, 2007
Actors: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla, Andrés Gertrúdix, Edgar Vivar, Óscar Casas, Mireia Renau, Georgina Avellaneda, Carla Gordillo
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0464141/

Case 39 (2009)

Posted on November 17, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Emily Jenkins is a social worker who has been assigned to the case of 10-year-old Lillith Sullivan. It appears that some kind of emotional struggle has appeared between the little girl and her parents, and Emily suspects child abuse. She gets her suspicions well confirmed when Lillith’s parents actually try to kill her by putting her in the oven, Hansel & Gretel-style. The parents are, of course, placed in a mental institution while the most likely traumatized girl is sent to a children’s home. But she begs for Emily to look after her. And with her heart totally melted by this unfortunate, innocent little girl, Emily manages to get the board’s agreement of looking after her until a suitable foster family comes along. After Lillith moves in with Emily, strange things begin to happen. Maybe this little girl isn’t so innocent after all…

Case 39 is a supernatural horror thriller from 2009, directed by Christian Alvert. Upon its release, the reviews and overall reception was rather poor, and it barely managed to cover the budget of $26 million with a gross of $28.2 million. It was often being described as unoriginal and frightless, and thus, the expectations upon viewing it was rather low as I remember. Still, we found it to be a rather decent and suspenseful thriller, despite its unoriginality and lack of actual scares.

Like many “evil children” movies, the performances of the actual child actor is paramount for the viewing experience, and Jodelle Ferland (from Silent Hill and Tideland) does a very fine portrayal of the evil Lillith. While the movie totally lacks an actual mystery as it becomes quite apparent that the child is, in fact, evil incarnate, it still manages to be suspenseful enough to hold the entertainment value. The most creepy parts of the movie might be the very start, when Lillith is still with her parents and we get to wonder if there really is a case of domestic abuse here, or if it’s something else, only to be provided with a scene of the parents actually trying to bake their own child in the oven. Of course we know already at this stage that there’s something wrong with the child, but it’s still a pretty messed up scenario, especially considering that there have been cases of this actually happening in real life, like this rather grim case from 1984 where the parents claimed to have been “cooking Lucifer”. I wonder if this movie was a little inspired, perhaps.

As you can imagine, the movie centers around how Emily is gradually coming to realize what we, the viewers, already knew from the get-go: that Lillith is evil and also responsible for many of the horrible things happening around her, especially concerning another one of Emily’s cases with a young boy. Yeah, it’s often clichéd and not devoid of some tired jumpscares, but on the whole it works. So I’d say that Case 39, while suffering from predictability and very standard cinematography, redeems itself with a good construction of characters and gradual buildup of tension and suspense.

Director: Christian Alvart
Writer: Ray Wright
Country & year: Canada, US, 2009
Actors: Renée Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane, Bradley Cooper, Callum Keith Rennie, Adrian Lester, Kerry O’Malley, Cynthia Stevenson, Alexander Conti, Philip Cabrita
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0795351/

Shutter (2004)

Posted on October 27, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Smile to the camera!

We follow the young Thai couple, Tun and Jane, as they are on their way home after spending an evening with some friends. Their existence gets turned upside down when they accidentally hit a woman on a dark road. While Jane wants to check on her as she was also the one being behind the wheel, Tun panics and orders Jane to stomp the pedal and just leave the woman behind. Jane is soon to struggle with guilt, night terrors and never seems to be able to smile again, while Tun does his best to forget the whole thing and move on with life. Dream on, bud.

Tun is a freelance photographer and starts to see glimpses of a pale, creepy woman through the lens and eerie white shadows in his pictures which screams bad vibes. These are analog pictures, by the way, before the era of digital cameras took over. To get some answers other than “your camera is broken”, Tun and Jane speak to a photo expert who sells fake ghost photos to a glossy magazine. He also shows them an album which he claims is a collection of real shit, taken by polaroids and still images from security cameras, which is quite impossible to fake. Quick info for Gen Z; polaroid was a camera which gave instant physical pictures rolling out of the camera seconds after taking them. We see a collage of some creepy vintage photos, and some of them you might even recognize. I get a little nostalgic by especially seeing the classic image of The Grey Ghost Lady of the Willard Library, one of the first of its kind I was exposed to when I was hunting for this stuff in the darker corners of the web in the early 2000s, way before social media. Good old times.

All photos here are taken from the web and the film gives a credit at the end by addressing – The producers would like to thank in advance the owners of any spirit photographs or photo representations that were not properly credited for their use in this motion picture. –

Anyway, things get progressively worse and bleak for the couple as they get haunted with visions, more night terrors and more spooky stuff that appears in the photos. Tun develops a chronic neck pain while his friends from his schooldays mysteriously drop dead by jumping off buildings. Huh… As Jane starts her own little investigation, she stumbles upon some clues that expose a dark, disturbing past of their hit-and-run victim.

This is the debut film of the talented duo Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom (sorry if I butchered their names). The movie was released at the peak of the J-horror craze during the hot trend of displaying pale, skinny, scary Asian ghostly ladies with glitchy body movements with their long black hair obscuring their face followed by a series of jump scares. A gimmick that got more and more old to the level of almost parody until it fizzled out with bad sequels and remakes. It was easy to assume that Shutter was just another J-horror, even though this one is from Thailand. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that they reinvented the wheel here, but what makes this one stand out is the idea of the phenomenon of capturing ghosts on camera, a concept which has always intrigued me. It’s also a damn good horror flick which is still solid twenty years after its release, and one of the very few movies in the ghost film genre that still fills my heebie-jeebies meter scale up to ten.

Although there is a ghost lurking here, the film relies more on solving a mystery as the suspense and tension builds up to the maximum. The director duo has a great understanding of the more subtle ways to trigger the deepest primal fears of the audience by exposing them to the unknown, a pretty rare skill we don’t often see. James Wan with his two first Conjuring films, Scott Derrickson’s Sinister and Hideo Nakata’s Ringu are maybe the only ones than can match. As minimal as the effects are, the scares are probably the most inventive I’ve seen in the genre, which still slaps most of the similar and modern horror films to shame. The scene where Tun is alone in a photo studio where the lights turn off and his camera starts to flash on its own is one great example of how simple, yet effective Shutter is. A razor sharp sound design also does the trick and the fitting soundtrack during the opening credits already sets the tone. A modern classic.

The film has been remade not just one or two times, but actually three times: Sivi (2007) from India, which has been seen by hardly anyone, Click (2010), also from India, which looks more like a cheap version from Asylum, and the American Shutter (2008). I’ve only watched the last mentioned, which I don’t remember much of other than it gave me a good night’s sleep. And in order to not get confused, Shutter is also released with the undertitle The Original.

Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom
Writers: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom, Sophon Sakdaphisit
Also known as: Shutter: The Original
Country & year: Thailand, 2004
Actors: Ananda Everingham, Natthaweeranuch Thongmee, Achita Sikamana, Unnop Chanpaibool, Titikarn Tongprasearth, Sivagorn Muttamara, Chachchaya Chalemphol, Kachormsak Naruepatr
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0440803/