horror movie review – Page 29

Koko-di Koko-da (2019)

Posted on October 26, 2019February 28, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

A couple (Elin and Tobias) is on a vacation with their young daughter (Maja), when a serious case of food-poisoning causes the mother to become very ill. She is rushed to the hospital, and the whole family is spending the night in the hospital room, awaiting the mother’s recovery. When the next day arrives, which is also Maja’s birthday, they discover that she has died overnight due to a delayed response to the food poisoning. A few years later, the couple is going on a trip in order to find their way back to each other, but eventually find themselves trapped in a never-ending loop of terror when they are attacked by a trio of terrifying characters resembling the cartoons on their dead daughter’s music box.

Koki-di Koko-da by Johannes Nyholm is told like a nihilistic fable about loss and grief. The title is based on a French nursery rhyme, Le coq est mort (The rooster is dead, or Vår tupp är dö which is the Swedish version of the song). This song is sung by the only vocal character among the villains, and is also heard several other places throughout the movie. The atmosphere in the entire movie is somewhat tense already from the get-go, showing us that the death of their daughter has put such a strain on their relationship that they bicker at each other for every little trivial thing (like buying an ice cream with a different flavor). Setting up their tent in the woods at night, the couple is then attacked by the strange trio who also bring with them an aggressive dog. Elin goes out to take a pee, and sees a white cat (the cat having a different role in their story than the trio of weirdos, which is revealed later). When she is attacked, her husband Tobias just watches what unfolds from the tent, until it’s his turn to face their tormentors. And so it keeps repeating in a cycle of death and despair.

While we have had a couple of “Groundhog Day” type of horror movies recently (Happy Death Day, In The Tall Grass), this movie differs in how the time-loop never seem to make the characters any wiser or more prepared to face their fate. They get jumpier and more scared, but there is no “a-ha” moment in any of them, and Tobias is constantly cowering while his wife keeps getting brutalized and killed. The cartoony villains add to the bizarre and helpless atmosphere, giving it both a gloomy and weirdly funny tone. The animated sequences in the movie, consisting of shadow puppets which are moved along the screen with strings, are also a great element which ties together the rest. They show a “bunny family” representing the grieving parents and how they (ultimately) end up dealing with the loss of their daughter in ways that inevitably keeps them from progressing any further from their self-loathing and depression.

Koki-di Koko-da is an artistic horror movie which centers around grief and loss, and it’s definitely not aimed to be a crowd-pleaser. It’s not very straight-forward, and is not providing any clear goal for our protagonists (although there’s symbolism and metaphors all over the place). It’s like a twisted and dark fairytale that isn’t made with the intentions of tucking you off to bed with a good feeling.

Director: Johannes Nyholm
Country & year: Sweden | Denmark, 2019
Actors: Peter Belli, Leif Edlund, Ylva Gallon, Katarina Jakobson, Morad Baloo Khatchadorian, Brandy Litmanen
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt9355200/

Jack the Ripper (1976)

Posted on October 16, 2019May 22, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

It’s a foggy night in London, where the prostitute Sally is on her way home from Cabaret Pike’s Hole. After some walking through narrow, dark alleys, she stumbles right into the hands of Jack the Ripper (Klaus Kinski) who rips her clothes off and kills her (off screen). He then carries her home over his shoulders like a dead deer, and brings her to his psychotic and slightly retarded wife Flora, who looks at the bodies he brings home with him as dolls, or whatever. The next day, Dr. Jack and Flora are rowing out into the Thames River (here filmed in the Schanzengraben Canal in Zürich) to dump the body. Jack, who is working as a doctor, is then going to work as usual to take care of today’s patients, and perhaps snatch a new victim. At the same time Scotland Yard, led by Inspector Miller, is on the case.

Written and directed by the Spanish Jess Franco who was most famous (or rather more infamous) for his uncompromising and sleazy low budget exploitation- reels, often filled with tits, hairy pussies and pretty much the normal stuff that either cinema or TV in Spain usually refused to show. It never slowed down his creativity however, and made his films so quick and simple that he could pull out ten films in one year. Well, take that, Takashi Miike. A hardcore workaholic who obviously nearly worked himself to death, until he was hit by a deadly stroke in 2013. The 82-year-old left behind a track record of over 200 films. So it was pretty evident that I had to check out some of his work sooner or later.

The first impression here is not bad, the production value is up there with some great atmosphere. The rest, however, is nothing much to be impressed by. It clearly has nothing to do with Jack the Ripper whatsoever and the mystery/mythology, so God knows what this movie really was supposed to be. The acting goes from wooden, bad to so-bad-it’s-funny, and was originally performed by German actors. It later got rather sloppily dubbed in post-production, in German, Spanish and English. The gore effects, which is a minimal aspect here, is nothing but a joke, and this is supposed to be the uncut version. Sorry, but I’m still not impressed. There’s one scene where Jack chops off one of the victims titties in which the effect looks like a burger with red paint on it. Uhm.. okay. That really sucked. Someone give Tom Savini a call, please.

And when it comes to the ending.. it’s actually so lame, anticlimactic and lazy that not even an ending credit or a simple “The End” is shown. It just ends. Which is good. I’m glad it at least ended..

Director: Jess Franco
Country & year: Switzerland | West Germany | Spain, 1976
Actors: Klaus Kinski, Josephine Chaplin, Andreas Mannkopff, Herbert Fux, Lina Romay, Hans Gaugler, Nikola Weisse
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0074408/

In the Tall Grass (2019)

Posted on October 9, 2019February 28, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

A sister (Becky) and brother (Cal) is driving close by a vast field area of tall grass in the middle of Kansas. She is pregnant, and they stop by a deserted church because she’s gotten a bit carsick. There, they hear a young boy’s cry for help from the tall grass, claiming he’s lost and cannot find his way out. They both go in there to save him, but ends up finding themselves lost as well. Something is not right about that vast field of tall grass…and something evil is lurking within.

In The Tall Grass is based on a novella by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill. A father & son collaboration, in other words. The director is Vincenzo Natali (director of Cube from 1997, Splice from 2009, and among many other things he’s also been directing some of the episodes in the Locke & Key TV Series). This movie is available on Netflix, and was released on October 4th. This makes it the third Stephen King original on Netflix (the other two includes 1922 and Gerald’s Game).

The film starts off pretty interesting. and for those familiar with more of Stephen King’s work, Children of The Corn is easily coming to mind. This story has nothing to do with that, however, and instead throws the characters into a never-ending green maze. There they meet the boy and his parents (the father played by Patrick Wilson), and they all find themselves stuck in a Groundhog Day-like time-loop, in an ever expanding maze of tall grass.

There’s no denying that the first part of the movie is the best, and there’s especially one scene in particular that comes to mind when the movie is building the atmosphere and tension: where Becky and Cal tries jumping in the tall grass to see each other’s arms reaching above it, in order to try locating each other. Upon their second jump, just a few seconds later, they see the distance between them has grown considerably…despite none of them having moved an inch. This tells us early on that there’s something totally wrong with the maze of tall grass, and that there’s no easy way out of there.

In The Tall Grass is pretty far from a flawless movie, where there’s very little of an actual plot which makes it feel a bit shallow. There isn’t much of an explanation either…there’s some hints as to what the area is, but nothing properly explained or delved into. The area around the church is filled with other cars, giving us a hint that a lot of people have gone missing there for quite a while…but not much of anything is really revealed. It’s prone to confuse you more than scare you…and it’s definitely not a movie for everyone. That being said, it is still entertaining, atmospheric and visually strong. Hopefully it won’t be the last Netflix original featuring Stephen King / Joe Hill based movies.

Director: Vincenzo Natali
Country & year: Canada, 2019
Actors: Laysla De Oliveira, Avery Whitted, Patrick Wilson, Will Buie Jr., Harrison Gilbertson, Tiffany Helm, Rachel Wilson
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt4687108/

Nails (2017)

Posted on October 5, 2019February 28, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

Dana is going out for a run, but what should have been a normal morning ends with disaster when she is hit by a car and winds up confined to a hospital bed. Bruised and broken, with a breathing tube down her neck, no ability to speak (she must use a “speak and spell” device in order to communicate), and no ability to move, she’s totally helpless. And then, when things couldn’t possibly get any worse, what appears to be a malevolent spirit starts haunting her hospital room, and tries to kill her. When everyone believes she’s just having a mental breakdown, Dana struggles to find out who the spirit is, and why it is haunting her.

Nails is a supernatural horror flick starring Shauna Macdonald (known for The Descent). She is doing a solid performance as the broken and bed-ridden patient, and the concept is not bad. The hospital is creepy and atmospheric, and the idea of a spirit residing there is a good mix of ingredients to make a decent supernatural horror film. And it starts off rather well, building up tension and atmosphere as we see Dana struggle in her hospital bed, limited and vulnerable. When she starts experiencing the spirit’s malevolence, no one believes her (of course), and in the totally helpless situation she’s in we’re curious how it will all unfold. The movie also decides to try spicing up the tension a bit more with throwing some marital problems at Dana when she’s already struggling enough as it is.

Unfortunately, the movie fails a bit when it comes to be most important aspect of a horror movie featuring a ghost, and that is the ghost itself (“Nails”). While the idea behind him and his actions are quite good, we’re seeing way too much of him for him to actually be scary. There’s close-ups galore of his zombie-like face, and in the end he feels more like a generic enemy in a horror game. Which is really sad, because this character did indeed have a lot of potential to be quite creepy if he had just been left a lot more in the shadows.

The pacing stumbles a bit once we’ve established that Dana is, indeed, haunted by a spirit and that Nails is not just a result of her distressed mind. Thus, you may find yourself getting a bit impatient during the rest of the movie. Overall, Nails has a lot of potential that it unfortunately doesn’t manage to utilize, but it still delivers a certain amount of suspense and creepy atmosphere.

Director: Dennis Bartok
Country & year: Ireland, 2017
Actors: Shauna Macdonald, Steve Wall, Leah McNamara, Ross Noble, Richard Foster-King, Robert O’Mahoney, Charlotte Bradley, Muireann D’Arcy, Veronica O’Reilly, Conor Scott, Trish Groves, Eileen Doyle
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt4695098/

It Chapter Two (2019)

Posted on September 18, 2019May 7, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

It’s now been 27 years since “The Losers Club” had their first and terrifying encounter with the child-eating entity Pennywise. They have all moved on with their lives, and away from Derry and its awful memories. With the exception of Mike, the only one of them who stayed behind. When Mike starts noticing the tell-tale signs of their enemy being back again from its hibernation, he gives his old friends a phone call. They made a promise 27 years ago…that when It returned, they would get back together and end it once and for all.

This is the second and final chapter of IT, where our protagonists have become adults and need to face their worst fear one final time. They travel back to Derry, but their memories are somewhat blurred. Mike is the only one that clearly remembers everything (hinting that once you move away from Derry, so will It’s hold on you weaken). The story travels a little back and forth, with scenes of the gang as their younger selves, but mainly as the adults they’ve become who must face the terrors of Pennywise and figure out a way to beat It.

Bill Skarsgård is clowning around like never before, and keeps his performance top-notch. Just like the first chapter, scares are still packed in with a bit of a chuckle, and the part where Beverly is visiting her father’s old apartment to find an old lady residing there instead, builds up in such a fantastic and creepy way. There is also an excellent head-spider scene, where Richie exclaims “You’ve got to be fucking kidding“, referencing John Carpenter’s The Thing. In the original mini-series, there’s a scene where “The Losers Club” sees It as a giant arachnid creature, which was also partly revealed in one of Pennywise’s forms in the first chapter. I don’t suppose it’s much of a spoiler then to say that there will be an arachnid version in this movie as well, but at least more clownish than the original!

Some things from the book have been completely stripped away, or made insignificant to the story. Like Bev’s violent husband, who in the book becomes It’s puppet. And the affair between Bill and Bev, which doesn’t evolve at all in the movie. But even though the movie has a run-time of almost 3 hours, there would still be limitations as to what they could include while still being able to finish the story, so leaving out certain things is not only a smart decision, but a required one.

Since there were 2 years between the first chapter and this one, some of the child actors had actually grown so much that they had to be digitally de-aged in order to shoot the flashback scenes in this chapter. They also did an excellent job on casting the adult versions of the characters, as they truly do resemble the looks of the child actors. There’s also a lot of “easter eggs” in this movie (as well as in the first). The clowns in the funhouse scene for example, has the looks and resemblance of how Pennywise looked in the first movie adaption, the mini-series from 1990. Stephen King himself also has a small role as the antique owner shop, who is selling Bill’s old bike Silver back to him. Prior to this, Stephen King hasn’t had a cameo since 1996 (in “Thinner”). Even the director, Andy Muschietti, can be seen in the scene where Eddie visits the pharmacy.

Chapter two of IT is a solid conclusion to the story, and makes the two chapters a truly entertaining experience. Whether or not this will be Bill Skarsgård’s last performance as the menacing clown remains to be seen, as Bill himself has stated that he would be interested in playing Pennywise again in a potential prequel to King’s book. No matter what will eventually become of that idea, at least we’ve gotten yet another solid adaption of the book itself.

Director: Andy Muschietti
Country & year: USA | Canada, 2019
Actors: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt7349950/

Related post: It (2017)

It (2017)

Posted on September 18, 2019May 7, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

It’s 1989 in Derry, a small Maine town. A group of bullied kids who calls themselves “The Losers Club” experience frightening things when a creepy clown named Pennywise starts terrorizing the little town. Children go missing, and the kids band together in the hopes of destroying the creature.

Based on Stephen King’s monster of a book, IT, this first chapter of an installment of two movies in total follows the original story in certain parts while also adding something new to the mix. The book has been on the screen before, in the TV mini-series from 1990 (starring Tim Curry as Pennywise). Now, as many readers of Stephen King’s work are well aware of, some of his stuff is pretty hard to translate from written text to the screen… and IT is no exception in that regard. The original story contains a lot of stuff that is outright weird (and even some things that would probably not be “acceptable” to include in a Hollywood movie, even by today’s standards). Many readers and fans of the book might feel disappointed by a lack of some things they may have loved, like for example Maturin the Turtle, a character that was left out in both adaptions. Then again, there are those of us that have both read the book and still enjoy both movie adaptions on their own.

Now, one of the strongest qualities of this movie is the performances by quite a well-chosen cast. The actors are doing a terrific job in every scene they’re in, and Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is nothing but stellar. Like in the book, one major part is the bonding between the kids, something that is also being focused well on in the film. The members of “The Losers Club” not only has to face the horrifying shape-shifting entity, but also the bully Henry Bowers and his gang, which adds additional suspense. The history of Derry is rather rich on detail, and as our protagonists delve further into the backstory and origins of the feared clown they’re both hunting and are being hunted by, we get some insight into It’s long-lasting reign of terror. It is coming out of hibernation every 27 years to feast, repeating the cycle over and over.

When the kids experience the frightening visions caused by the entity, who uses their worst fears against them to scare the living daylights out of them, it’s always a pleasant experience with a mix of straight-out horror and even some comedic parts. It’s fun and it’s scary at the same time. The film has been criticized for being heavy in CGI usage, and while there are some scenes that are not exactly top-notch in that department (like when Georgie is getting his arm chewed off), there’s also some scenes that works pretty well. Also, the scenes where Pennywise’s eyes are pointing in different directions is actually a trick Bill Skarsgård is doing all by himself.

Today’s audience will probably automatically draw parallels to Stranger Things (and that series actually includes a major role by Finn Wolfhard, who’s playing Richie in IT), which is also set in the 80’s and features a group of kids battling supernatural forces. In the recent years, we’ve had quite a lot of “kids grouping together to fight scary things”, also including the excellent “Summer of 84” which has a pretty ballsy ending (review coming on Horror Ghouls later!). However, with IT being a story from 1986, with an earlier movie adaption in 1990, it’s got a different fanbase that is not sold mainly on 80’s nostalgia, but rather on the story itself and the iconic Pennywise. It’s a fun ride and a very good adaption, despite not being able to grasp at every single subject from the original story (which would, in my honest opinion, not really be possible without making it a total mess anyway).

Director: Andy Muschietti
Country & year: USA | Canada, 2017
Actors: Jaeden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogaert
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1396484/

Related post: It Chapter Two (2019)

The Mangler (1995)

Posted on September 13, 2019September 15, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

It’s a regular day at the Blue Ribbon Laundry service, run by the tyrant Bill Gartley (Robert Englund), where the employees are almost treated like worthless slaves under horrendous working conditions. One of the workers, Sherry, cuts her hand on a clamp connected to the laundry press, causing her to spill some blood over the machine. This somehow awakens a demonic force inside the the mangler. Yes, we’re talking about a demon-possessed laundry machine (!) It goes from bad to worse when one of the elderly workers drops her pills on the mangler, and tries to collect them. Bad idea. Her hand is getting trapped by the machine, and her entire body is rolled into the mangler and spews her out like a big pile of shit. What a way to go. It’s one of those scenes where someone makes so incredibly dumb decisions that you just can’t feel sorry for them. But yummy for the mangler, I guess.

Mulder and Scully is apparently unavailable, so the police officer John Hunton (Ted “Buffalo Bill” Levine), a bitter, burned out shell of a man who eats pills like it’s candy and clearly has his head filled with his own demons, is set to investigate. Some local inspectors views it as a glitch of the safety features and closes the case as a “work accident”. But Hunton gets instantly traumatized by the sight of what’s left of the mangled woman, and he’s just pissed that the machine is still running. And the day isn’t even over before another accident happens. Hunton’s brother-in-law is convinced that the machine is possessed, and after the demonic forces spread to the local town and possesses a refrigerator (yes, really) that then suffocates a kid, it’s time to find out what the hell is really going on on Gartley’s Laundry service.

The Mangler is based on a short story by Stephen King, inspired by his own experience from working in an industrial laundry service before he became a full-time writer. If the working conditions were as horrid and dreadful as in the story, it’s no wonder the setting inspired him to write a horror story. The highlight in this movie is clearly Robert Englund as the deranged owner of the laundry, Bill Gartley. He looks like an over-the-top cartoon villain with hidden, delusional desires to conquer the world. He gives it all, with the impression that he was just happy and excited to finally play a whole different villain than Freddy Krueger, and he owns every scene he’s in. Director Tobe Hooper didn’t sleepwalk through this movie, and it’s a clear big step up after the complete dumpster fire Night Terrors that he made two years earlier.

The Mangler came and went in 1995, butchered by critics, flopped at the box office, and was the last movie with wide theatrical release from Tobe Hooper before his crumbling career went completely downhill. What a shame. Rest in peace. This is not a masterpiece by any means, and with a premise like this where a laundry machine is demon-possessed, it’s a story that probably works best on paper. Still, this could have been so much worse. The film has a great level of energy, great performances by Robert Englund and Ted Levine, a lot of cheesy fun, gory and blood-spattering scenes, and a completely wild bat shit-crazy ending that shows us it doesn’t give a fuck. Despite the negative reception, two direct-to-video sequels were made, The Mangler 2 (2002) with Lance Henriksen getting possessed by a computer virus, and the unofficial sequel The Mangler Reborn (2005).

Director: Tobe Hooper
Country & year: South Africa | UK, 1995
Actors: Robert Englund, Ted Levine, Daniel Matmor, Jeremy Crutchley, Vanessa Pike, Demetre Phillips, Lisa Morris, Vera Blacker, Ashley Hayden, Danny Keogh, Danny Keogh, Todd Jensen, Sean Taylor, Gerrit Schoonhoven, Nan Hamilton
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0113762/

Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten (2018)

Posted on August 26, 2019February 28, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

We are introduced to the YouTube channel Prankstaz.tv, run by two mildly sociopathic douchebags who make prankster-videos where they break into a morgue (among other things) and takes a selfie with one of the cadavers. And all just to see those precious views on YouTube. Reminds me of a certain guy with a similar channel who went to Suicide Forest in Japan in late 2017, to film a fresh corpse hanging from a tree and laugh at it and mock it afterwards. So, here we get a satirical glimpse at how toxic and obnoxious the YouTube prankster-community can be, and how far they are willing to push the shock factor to get the desired attention and views.

However, the next project by The Prankstaz is to spend a night in the closed and abandoned Beeliz Heilstätten (or Beeliz Sanatorium), outside of Berlin, which was used during the Nazi era. The sanatorium is supposed to be haunted by a woman, or simply “patient 106”. She killed herself by slitting her wrists in a bathtub after she got pregnant with one of the doctors, and it’s said that she cursed the place. They bring some other YouTubers along with them: a local historian to creep us out with the sanatorium’s dark past, and of course a medium. After they’ve installed static cams in every corner and start to settle in for the night, it doesn’t take long until some spooky shit starts to happen. Of course.

The location is also based on the real sanatorium, Beelitz Heilstätten, where the Führer himself was treated for a leg wound in 1918. So yeah, this place goes way back, and was in its time the biggest building of this kind. But the place is most known for the murders by serial killer Wolfgang Schmidt, who allegedly killed five women on this location in the 80’s. A homeless man also hung himself in the sanatorium after it got closed down and abandoned in the early 90’s. A scene from The Pianist (2002) was shot here, and Rammstein used the location for the music video “Mein Herz Brennt”. In Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten they used Heilstätte Grabowsee as the location, another huge abandoned sanatorium outside of Berlin. And yes, Grave Encounters (2011) comes to mind, and they share much of the same qualities, I would say. A huge, dusty, decayed, broken down mental facility with narrow corridors that just seem to go into obscurity, great sound design, thick atmosphere, pretty much the ingredients you need to make a great found footage horror.

And then there’s a twist, which you will probably see a mile away, but unfortunately was very poorly executed. But besides of that, Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is a pretty solid found footage horror that deserves a watch.

Director: Michael David Pate
Country & year: Germany, 2018
Actors: Nilam Farooq, Farina Flebbe, Sonja Gerhardt, Maxine Kazis, Lisa-Marie Koroll, Emilio Sakraya, Tim Oliver Schultz, Davis Schulz, Timmi Trinks
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt7214470/

My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Posted on August 16, 2019February 28, 2022 by HorrorGhouls

In the small mine town community of Harmony, a young coal miner named Tom (Jensen Ackles) causes an accident that kills five men and puts another, Harry Warden, in a coma. A year later, Harry wakes up and causes a massacre at the hospital, and in the meantime a group of teens are having a party at mine tunnel 5, one of them being Tom. Harry shows up and causing further bloodshed, but the police does not succeed in catching the killer…

Ten years later, the mining town has gotten the unfortunate title “The Murder Capital of America” by the media, while they are still trying to move on from the past. Tom, who is pretty much not welcomed by most of the townspeople, happens to stop by to sign some papers to sell the mining tunnel where the killings took place. Bad news is that the signing has been postponed to Monday, so Tom has some time to kill (pun intended) before he leaves the town for good. After Tom checks into a motel, the killings start to happen again by a certain familiar figure wearing a gas mask.

“My Bloody Valentine” is the remake of the 1981 version, here with Jensen Ackles (or just Dean Winchester, if you will) in the main role. And it’s pretty much like watching Ackles just playing Dean having a really bad weekend with a reduced energy level. The Kiefer Sutherland effect, as I like to call it.

I don’t know if this is the same version that got screened in theaters back in 2009, but if so, the “Friday The 13th” remake which came same year looks like a kiddies movie made for Disney in comparison. A funny coincidence is that Jared Padalecki, known as Dean’s brother in “Supernatural”, also had a role in the Friday remake. As if they made a bet on which movie that would turn out to be the goriest. Well, Sammy, I guess you owe Dean a drink.

This was also the first 3D film with an R-rating, and it clearly shows. Heads are being chopped off, torsos cut in half, hearts ripped out, and whatnot. There’s also a scene where a midget lady gets impaled by a picksaw. No mercy given. And of course, there’s no slasher without a hot chick being chased while she’s stark naked. Some of the 3D effects looks pretty silly without the glasses, though, but it’s still a an entertaining slasher with some great death scenes.

Director: Patrick Lussier
Country & year: USA, 2009
Actors: Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi, Tom Atkins, Kevin Tighe, Megan Boone, Karen Baum, Joy de la Paz, Marc Macaulay, Todd Farmer, Jeff Hochendoner, Bingo O’Malley, Liam Rhodes
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179891/

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Posted on August 10, 2019September 19, 2023 by HorrorGhouls

It’s 1968, and we’re in a small town called Mill Valley where a group of teens are dressing up and getting ready for Halloween. This trio consists of Stella, an aspiring horror writer, a nervous nerd named Auggie, and the prankster Chuck. It’s their final year of trick-or-treating on Halloween together, and they’ve planned to use it as an opportunity to play a trick on the local school bully Tommy. This ends up with Tommy’s car getting vandalized, and he and his gang starts chasing them into a drive-in theater. While the trio is desperately looking for a hiding place, they all enter a young man’s car. His name is Ramon, and Stella immediately feels attracted to him as it becomes clear that he also shares the same passion for horror movies as she does. When Tommy and his gang are out of the way, Stella suggests that they visit the haunted house nearby: the old Bellows family residence. The Bellows family had a daughter, Sarah Bellows, whom they locked inside the house. No photos of the girl existed, and the story tells that she hanged herself inside the house after being accused of causing the death of several children after reading them some of the scary stories she used to write. When the group of teenagers enter the old house, they find the secret entrance to the room where the family kept Sarah locked in…and one of her “Scary Stories” books. Stella brings it back home with her, but when she starts reading it, a new story suddenly starts writing itself on one of the blank pages. Sarah Bellows is back at telling scary stories again…

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is a movie that plays a lot on the nostalgia for those of us who have read the book series by the same name, with the infamous illustrations by Stephen Gammell. The illustrations have played the biggest role in making the blood run cold in many a child’s veins when browsing through the pages, and the movie is actually taking clear references from the actual drawings themselves, even more than from the original stories. Like for example “Harold”, the scarecrow story. The story in the movie is nothing like the original story (in fact, the original story from the book is much darker), but in the movie’s setting it works in order to tie it up with the rest of the characters. And the woman from the story called “The Dream” is so much like the character from Stephen Gammell’s original illustration that I actually got a little chill. Now, in order to tie the original stories together with the plot in this movie, changes had to be made of course. Many of the stories from the original books were also based on folklore and urban legends, and thus some of the characters in the movie actually references to remembering some of the stories from their earlier childhood. There is also a new addition to the movie: the “Jangly Man”, which is a character composed from several of the stories and Stephen Gammell’s illustrations (including the “Me Tie Dough-ty Walker” story). While there aren’t references to every single story in the series of three books, there’s enough to keep you satisfied.

Now, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is not a horror movie for gore-hounds or those looking for something really scary. It’s a visually rich film with the excellent dark fantasy-mood that Guillermo del Toro has become so known for, and the direction by André Øvredal (who previously made “Trollhunter” and the quite dark and scary “Autopsy of Jane Doe” is confident and strong. Also keep in mind that the books were all written for and intended for children (so why they had some of the most nightmare-fueling illustrations you could possibly find is a bit mind-boggling, but really cool nevertheless). Still, the movie is really entertaining and chock-full of atmosphere (and actually some creepy scenes as well). You’ll also easily be able to enjoy it without having read the books, but there’s still no doubt that this movie will probably get a stronger hold on those of us that have read (and seen) them.

There’s also possibilities for a sequel or two here, and I hope they use that opportunity. Maybe a trilogy, just like the books. We’ll find out, sooner or later!

And, of course, the Horror Ghouls own the books and have done so for some years now. Here’s some photos from the books, and you’ll easily be able to see the similarities of the characters from Stephen Gammell’s illustrations. And for those interested in getting their hands on these books: they used to be out of print and not so easy to get your hands on (aside from some eBay listings), but they had a reprint a couple years back. The books had a reprint earlier as well, but that version didn’t contain Stephen Gammell’s illustrations as instead they hired Brett Helquist for the job to make new ones. While Brett Helquist is a very talented illustrator, known for making the art for books like “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and many others, the new illustrations just weren’t as bloodcurdling as the originals by Stephen Gammell. Thus, the replacements in the previous reprint did of course disappoint a lot of people. But now, you can easily get your hands on the books with the original drawings!

Director: André Øvredal
Country & year: USA | Canada, 2019
Actors: Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Kathleen Pollard, Stephanie Belding, Hershel Blatt, Brandon Knox, Jane Moffat, Amanda Smith
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3387520/