Category Archives: Television

31 Days of Horror: Gerald’s Game (MA; 2017; 103 min.)

Posted on October 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

gerald's game

As a huge Stephen King fan, I was happy to find Netflix’s Gerald’s Game with production qualities rivaling a big theater release and featuring superb performances by Carla Gugino (Jessie), Bruce Greenwood (Gerald), and Chiara Aurelia (a young Jessie).

This definitely-for-mature-audiences movie is the story of a couple looking to get that spark back in their marriage with a lake house get-away, satin sheets, and police-issue handcuffs. But when Gerald suffers a massive heart attack just after cuffing Jessie to some pretty solid wooden bedposts, Jessie’s real get-away begins. As she slowly loses her mind, with visions of herself, Gerald, her younger self, her father, and a Moonlight Man taking over, she also has to fight off some very real demons, including a Cujo-like stray with a taste for fresh meat, as she tries to escape.

In true King style, Gerald’s Game delivers suspense, a moral, internal struggles, gore aplenty, and an unusual ending which blends reality and suspend-your-belief occurrences. Though I’m not sure I like the ending, I am sure I love the rest of this must-see movie.

  • Top Scare: Actions of Real People
  • Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 1/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 or 17 and up, due to gore, sexual situations, and an underlying theme of child abuse

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Gerald's Game, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Stephen King, Television

Tagged

31 Days of Horror: Truth or Dare (TV-14; 2017; 90 min.)

Posted on October 17, 2017 | Leave a comment

truth or dare

College students are prime targets for remote-house, drinking-game, evil-spirit based horror movies, and this SyFy movie pays homage to the sub-genre with truly spectacular results.

Eight college friends decide to rent a house where, decades earlier, another group of teens died while playing Truth or Dare. Of course, being young and invincible, they want to play the game there too. And while fun at first, the game soon turns creepy, then scary, then terrifying, and finally deadly. An evil spirit is in control of the game, and the students soon learn they must “Do the dare, or the dare does you.” Can they outsmart and outlast the game? Or will they too die in the process?

Truth or Dare is a suspenseful, fast-paced, (mostly) smart movie with plenty of flinch-inducing scenes and some surprises too. Nice to see SyFy channel stepping up in the horror genre with this new might-just-become-a-classic TV movie.

  • Top Scare: Dorm room scene
  • Heartbeats: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 1/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 and up due to gore and intensity of scenes

 

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Halloween, haunting, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, scary movies, Television, Truth or Dare

Tagged

31 Days of Horror: The Watcher (TV-14; 2016; 89 min.)

Posted on October 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

The Watcher

The Watcher is loosely inspired by a true-life couple who purchased their $1.3 million dream house in New Jersey only to never move in after receiving creepy and threatening letters from The Watcher. Turns out the previous owners had also received these letters (cue lawsuit for nondisclosure), as The Watcher had been actively pursuing the house’s various residents for many years.

The Watcher, a Lifetime movie available on Netflix, changes things up a bit from real life. The couple – Emma and Noah – does in fact move into the old home. They soon begin receiving the scary letters, packages of un-ordered and unusual goods, and visits from a life-sized, um, raven (which only the viewer actually sees at first). They also settle into their new neighborhood, meeting a couple across the road and a mom and son duo from down the street. As the letters and packages pile up, and strange and stranger things occur in their home, Emma and Noah bring in the police and even some of their neighbors for help in defeating The Watcher. But The Watcher/The Raven has different ideas about how this story will end.

All in all, The Watcher is a decent scary movie for those who don’t want too many special effects or super big scares. It is creepy and has some good tension, plus a bit of gore (not too much), and is well-acted. Give it a try if you want horror-light and some mystery thrown in as well.

  • Top Scare: Raven
  • Heartbeats: 3 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 2 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for 15 and up

 

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, scary movies, Television, The Watcher

Tagged

31 Days of Horror: The Haunting of Sorority Row (2007; Unrated; 86 min)

Posted on October 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

If you like a good laugh with your “horror,” this is a good movie for you. Not that the movie is funny. But you will laugh AT the movie as you watch it, it is that bad!

A Lifetime made-for-TV movie (that should have been the tipoff, right there!), this wanna-be horror movie is set in a college sorority during Hell Week. Sam is a freshman pledge trying to balance sorority hazing rituals by queen-bee “sisters,” with homework and a nerdy boyfriend, Oliver (her high school sweetheart who is obsessed with ESP and the paranormal).

Now, this is a big, old sorority house, with long hallways of rooms, yet we only see about 10 total “sisters” the entire time. And 5 of them are pledges. So when one by one, the sisters start breathing in (or out) a cold fog, and disappearing or dying, the house gets pretty empty, pretty fast. Add in the mysterious disappearance exactly one year ago of a freshman pledge, and you get the basic plot idea. The burning, no, freezing, questions are: will Sam escape the killer cold-fog, will Oliver or a new boy named Spencer capture Sam’s heart, will the queen-bee hazers get their come-uppance, and will anyone stay awake past the first 20 minutes to even find out?

  • Top Scare: hahahahah
  • Heartbeats: 1 out of 5
  • Gore factor: 2 out of 5
  • Suspense factor: 2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up, if you must

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Movies, Television

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

31 Days of Horror TV Show: American Horror Story (FX on Wednesdays,10pm)

Posted on October 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

With a great cast that includes Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, and Dylan McDermott, American Horror Story looked to be a good bet this Fall, and I wasn’t disappointed after seeing the pilot. Definitely earning its 10pm time slot (it’s slated as a psychosexual thriller and features lots of nudity, sex, and some pretty darn creepy demon-type stuff), this new series on FX has a taut, horror movie-like atmosphere and numerous good scares in just one hour.

American Horror story is set in LA, where the Harmons, Ben and Vivien, and their teenage daughter, Violet, have just arrived for a “new start.” They move into a classic old house with death in its history and a dark, maze-like basement. This, however, does not seem to deter them from the great deal they are getting on the house so they move right in!

Soon, uber-creepy neighbors who show up uninvited, freaky murals that are exposed behind torn wallpaper, and a psychotic teen patient of Ben’s let us in on some of the darker secrets of the house and its hold over the new inhabitants. Perhaps, dear friends, that great investment wasn’t such a smart move after all? Now the question is: will they figure that out before it’s too late?

  • Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Suspense factor: 4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 18 and up

Leave a comment

Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, psychosis, Television

Tagged , , , ,