|
|
"THE UNBORN"-The Unborn is a film that at first glance can go either way. It is a January horror film with more than a few pretty tweeners getting scared and running around like crazy. The names Goyer, Oldman, and Gugino do add some validity to a film that would be dismissed as a movie designed to scare a few teenagers and then disappear into your local blockbuster bargain bin by. The resulting film though is an interesting look at your typical slasher flick with effectively creepy visuals, an interesting concept, and a fully fleshed out story that doesn’t feel forced or insulting to the average moviegoer’s intelligence. Unfortunately, at the end of the day it is still just a movie with pretty tweeners running scared out of their mind while occasionally over acting.
Casey Bolden (Odette Yustman) is a teenager that starts to get haunted by bizarre hallucinations and dreams. When these dreams manifest themselves through neighbors and begins to affect her real life, she starts to take a look at her past and the real reason her mother (played by Carla Gugino in an extended cameo that is really unlike anything I’ve ever seen her do) went insane. While digging around, she learns of a dark secret that her mother and grandmother have tried to keep hidden. With the help of her friends and an old rabbi (Gary Oldman), she has to find a way to stop the evil that is stalking her.
The biggest difference between this film and most throwaway horror is David Goyer’s care in actually telling a good story. He is able to put together a fairly believable ghost story that is enthralling at times and mix it with images that are genuinely creepy. He manages to work Jewish mysticism into the movie and I couldn’t help but be impressed with the way Goyer fleshed out a story for what would have otherwise been a pointless movie. The actors (with the exception of Gugino and Oldman) and dialog are distractingly bad in the movie. If the main characters aren’t over emoting and being typical tweeners in a horror film, then they all sound the way 40 year olds imagine teenagers talk. The film slows down and tends to teeter over the edge into ridiculousness a few times, but Goyer is able to tie up the loose ends by the end of the film. The trick is to stay to the end of the film. It will all make sense by the end.
This really could have been a good movie if the main cast hadn’t dragged the movie into no man’s land too many times with really bad acting. The Unborn seems like it would have made an excellent short story or novella to curl up on the couch with on a rainy night. While I can’t recommend this as the film to see this week, if you are looking for a decent scare and can’t find anything else to do, it would make a decent matinee.
--
|
|
|
|
"THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT"-Let’s face it: this year’s movie releases have generally been pretty scary—but not really in a good way. In fact, I’m still having nightmares about Miss March. So, after watching so many unintentionally horrifying movies, it’s rather refreshing to watch one that was actually supposed to be scary.
Based on actual events, The Haunting in Connecticut tells the creepy but cliché (and not necessarily well-developed) story of the Campbell family and their haunted house in Connecticut.
In order to be closer to the hospital where teenage son Matt (Kyle Gallner) is undergoing an experimental cancer treatment, the family moves into an old rental house. When they first move in, mom Sara (Virginia Madsen) is already aware that the house has a past: it was once a funeral home (and, for some reason, all of the mortuary equipment is still locked away in the basement). But she has no idea of the horrors that once took place there.
From the very beginning, Matt starts having strange and terrifying visions of the house’s history—visions that often involve a young boy. Afraid that they’re visions brought about by his treatment, he doesn’t say anything. But when the rest of the family starts seeing things, too, Matt goes to a fellow cancer patient, Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas), for help.
The Haunting in Connecticut has everything you’d expect from a creepy ghost story. It’s dark and eerie. It has suspenseful moments that will have you holding your breath and bracing yourself for what’s around the next corner. And it’s filled with cheap scares that are guaranteed to make you jump out of your seat (or, in the case of one of the women in the theater when I saw it, scream at the top of your lungs). There’s even a shower scene. Yet, despite all those horror clichés, it still works. It doesn’t feel cheesy or overdone or ridiculous; it just feels creepy. And though it’s not necessarily terrifying—nor is it especially gory—it’s sure to get your adrenaline pumping. It might even give you a nightmare or two. So, in that way, I’d say it’s done its job quite well.
When it comes to the story, though, Haunting could have been better. It tends to gloss over the details of what really happened in exchange for a few more scary images of the menacing ghosts that lurk around the house. And when it was all over, I still wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened—or what it all meant.
If you’re like me—and you prefer a creepy story to some cheap scares—you might be slightly disappointed by the story’s lack of development. Still, it’s all in good fun. You won’t find anything new or surprising from The Haunting in Connecticut, but you’re looking for a good scare, it’s still worth the trip. "YOU'LL BE AFRAID TO TURN THE LIGHTS OFF WHEN YOU GO TO SLEEP!"-Boxoffice
|
|
|
|
|
"DRAG ME TO HELL"-"Drag Me to Hell" is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is. After scaling the heights with "A Simple Plan" (1998) and slugging a home run with the "Spider-Man" franchise, it's like Sam Raimi is taking some personal time and returning to his hobby.
He is greatly assisted by his star, Alison Lohman. Horror movies with nasty old men can be fun (see "Bride of Frankenstein"), but for the mainline product there's nothing like a sweet and vulnerable girl. Although in real life she's pushing 30, Lohman looks nowhere near old enough to be Christine, the bank loan officer. No wonder she has such a chaste sleep-apart relationship with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton (Justin Long). I suspect they practice abstinence.
If "Clay Dalton" rings a bell, those are surely two of the most common names in movies; there have been 761 Clays and 413 Daltons. That's the kind of elbow nudge Raimi likes to provide, especially since the character really requires no surname. The whole movie is nudges, especially scenes involving a cute kitten and Shock Reveals. Cute kitties of course are useful in the It's Only a Cat! false alarms, and Raimi deserves praise for not using this kitten in that way. Shock Reveals are of course the moments when a terrifying image explodes from the scene, scaring the split pea soup out of the heroine.
Shock Reveals should logically be silent, unless the Revealed is screaming. But in horror films they always come with discordant chords and loud bangs. This is as obligatory as the fact that blades always make a snicker-snack noise even when they are not scraping enough something.
It is essential that the heroine (for horror victims are conventionally women) be a good screamer, and man, can that Alison Lohman scream. Stanley Kubrick would have needed only a day with her on "The Shining," instead of the weeks he spent with Shelley Duvall. Christine has reason to scream. An old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails asks her for a third extension on her home loan, and if there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's that you never say no to an old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails.
In the struggle that follows, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), rips a button off Christine's coat, and that leads to no end of bad things, including the very real possibility that (spoiler) Christine will find herself Dragged to Hell. (unspoiler) Mrs. Ganush stalks and threatens her, Christine psyches out at work and with dinner with Clay Dalton's parents, and Clay Dalton recruits an Indian-American mystic named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to fight on her side.
If you think "Rham Jas" is supposed to be an elbow nudge for the famous Ram Das, you may be on to something. I didn't find any occurrence of "Rham Jas," except those citing this movie, in the first 1,000 Google hits, which I considered to be due diligence.
For a Pasadena soothsayer who accepts American Express, Rham Jas is remarkably knowledgeable about the Rules of Hell, especially as they pertain to buttons and kittens. He struggles with Christine and Clay Dalton to appease Mrs. Ganush, especially after she dies and gains a powerful ally. Shock Reveals nevertheless occur with increasing frequency and ferocity.
Christine is badgered, beaten and hexed. Her body and soul are put through the wringer. Things get so bad Clay Dalton sleeps over one night. The other nights, he simply drops her off in front of her Arts & Crafts house (pre-crash value circa $2 million) and says, "You sure you'll be all right?" She always is, for some reason.
As Boss Gettys says of Citizen Kane, "He's going to need more than one lesson, and he's going to get more than one lesson." Christine learns these lessons: (a) Never say no to an old gypsy woman with a blind eye and leprous fingernails; (2) Never dig a grave during the thunderstorm of the century; (3) If she calls Clay Dalton when she needs him, that will be too late. Little could the poor girl have anticipated that a time would come when the penalty for approving the old gypsy woman's home loan application would be her whole bank being dragged down to hell.
-
|
|
|
