Category Archives: Thriller

31 Days of Horror: Abandon (PG-13; 2002; 99 min)

Posted on October 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

abandon

So Katie Holmes has finally gotten on with her life after the crazy guy she was with – oh, wait, you thought I was talking about Tom Cruise, didn’t you? No, this is pre-KOM or TATIE or whatever they were called together. This is way back in 2002, when Katie was still in grade school maybe, she looks so very young and shapeless. But Katie -now this is the Katie in the movie – is actually a senior at an elite college, working on finishing her thesis, with romance novel- named boys and men all around her falling at her feet. Of course this includes Harrison Hobart, a longtime friend hoping desperately to leave the friend zone, plus the hot detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt), who has been assigned to verify the still missing-ness of Katie’s boyfriend Embry Larkin (played by the also impossibly-young Charlie Hunnam), who up and vanished two years ago without so much as a goodbye.

But wait. Suddenly Embry reappears in the soon-to-be-demolished dorm where they lived, wanting to pick up right where the two left off. You know – in B-E-D. And Katie is rightfully pissed at first, then just scared at his erratic behavior and veiled threats. Then Harrison goes missing. Hmm. Coincidence? And when Katie finally confides in Handler that Embry has returned, and Handler decides to finally be a detective and not just her boy toy, the cat and mouse game truly begins.

  • Top Scare: Benjamin Bratt kissing Katie Holmes (was she even legal?)
  • Heartbeats: 1 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, haunting, horror, Movies, mystery, scary movies, Thriller

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31 Days of Horror: Dark Skies (PG-13; 2013; 97 min.)

Posted on October 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

dark skies 3

Keri Russell sans twisty hair? Okay, maybe I can manage. And I’m kinda sorta glad I did.

Dark Skies is a supernatural horror movie with a decent premise: unusual, freaky things are happening in the Barrett household, especially to the youngest member Sam, and those beings responsible are not stopping until they get what they really want. As horror movie parents go, Lacey and Daniel are good ones to have because they don’t just dismiss these odd occurrences and get on with their days as so often happens in these movies (that dismissal is left up to a local, cocky police officer they keep calling in to help them figure it all out). Lacey especially works hard to figure out how, say, toasters and plates and glasses came to be stacked-floating in her kitchen one morning and her kids have strange markings on their bodies. Despite not being able to convince me she actually bore two kids – her body is way too underdeveloped for that – she is very convincing in her passionate fear for their safety. And with decent scares stacking up as well as mugs and appliances, this movie leads us on a tense, if odd, path towards a twist ending a la M. Night Shayamalan’s Signs.

  • Top Scare: Seeing “others” each time
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 and up

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Alien Abduction, Entertainment, Halloween, haunting, horror, Movies, scary movies, Thriller

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Horror Movie: Whiteout (R; 2009; 101 min.)

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Couldn’t really call this a horror movie, after seeing it, but is does have a couple of good scares so it still qualified for my 31 Days of Horror project. For me one of the scariest parts was seeing Tom Skerritt in a bushy gray beard and hairdo! Another? A group of naked men running through the cold during a prank…yuck!

U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko is ready to leave her post in Antarctica when she gets one last assignment. Hope it doesn’t delay her since a huge storm is now brewing and the VERY LAST flight out for six months has just been moved up!

Well, upon finding the gory body of a man from another outpost, and realizing he was murdered, she sets off to investigate in negative 55 degree celsius weather with little more than a few layers, some goggles, and a carabiner to tie her to the ropes running between buildings for moving around in whiteout conditions.

When she arrives to talk to one of the other three men stationed at that outpost and discovers he is dead too, all is not lost because she meets a handsome, mysterious UN investigator there. But she really should not wait around to be the last one heading back to base, because an ice-axe wielding madman in head-to-toe snow gear and goggles (you know, to keep warm AND so we can’t see his face) nearly chops her to bits. Luckily, she survives with only severe frostbite to two fingers (which must later be amputated by the Doc, Tom Skerritt).

As the clock is ticking, poor Carrie must decide to stay on in the cold, cold winter to pursue the killer. She and the UN guy discover a Cold War-era tie-in to the murder spree, and set out to stop this madman once and for all.

  • Top Scares: Madman’s rampages
  • Heartbeats: 2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 14 and up, due to nudity and gore/killing

Next up: Friday the 13th

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Antarctica, Blood, Movies, scary movies, Thriller

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Horror Movie: Psycho (TV-14; 1960; 109 min.)

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

This movie that kind of started it all is considered a classic for a good reason…it features great characters, suspense, a psycho on the loose, and even a dark, stormy night. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, how could you ask for more?

Psycho stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, an office worker who decides to steal $40,000 from her employer’s client and flee to another town to marry her boyfriend. On her way out of town, the skies let loose and she must pull off the road at the small Bates Motel for the night. There she meets Norman Bates (played oh, so deliciously by Anthony Perkins), the owner of the motel, who invites her “up to the house” where he lives behind the motel, for a bit of dinner. Since she can’t get out in the storm to look for food, she accepts. But as she “freshens up,” she overhears Norman and his elderly, ill mother argue about her joining them, so she simply eats with Norman in the hotel office.

Over sandwiches she discovers Norman’s interest in taxidermy (knew that was coming, didn’t ya?), and talks to him about his long, lonely days and nights spent caring for his mother. Perhaps he should put her in a “home?” Wrong thing to say, honey! How do we know? Because as Marion showers before bed, Norman’s mother opens the shower curtain and slashes her to death!

Norman quickly cleans up the evidence of Marion’s visit to the motel and her death. Which is a good thing since a private investigator has already begun looking for her and has tracked her to the Bates Motel. He asks a few too many questions though, so when he slips into Norman’s creepy, old house on the hill to talk to his mother, he discovers Momma isn’t such the invalid he thought. Bye-Bye Mr. Investigator!

Well, by this time Marion’s sister and boyfriend haven’t heard back from the P.I., so they also head to the B.M. (Bates Motel, not the yucky swamp-like land behind it which looks like a big toilet bowl). They devise a strategy to search the motel and the house, but when Norman grows suspicious, he takes off after them for one last showdown starring him and his UGLY Momma!

  • Top Scare: Shower scene!
  • Heartbeats: 4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 4 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 14 and up

Next up: Whiteout

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Alfred Hitchcock, haunting, horror, Movies, Norman Bates, Psycho, psychosis, scary movies, Thriller

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Horror Movie: The Omen (R; 1976; 111 min.)

Posted on October 17, 2010 | 5 comments

I wanted to watch the original version of this horror classic, not the recent remake, because I believe if it was good enough to want to remake it, it’s pretty good to begin with.

Gregory Peck stars as Robert Thorn, who’s wife has (unbeknownst to her) supposedly just given birth to a stillborn son. A priest shows Thorn another newborn boy who’s mother has just died, and offers him as a replacement saying, “She never has to know.” Let’s see how well that works out for him…

First, we see lovely scenes of the boy, whom they’ve named Damien, growing up a mostly normal child, that is until his fifth birthday party. At this event, Damien’s nanny calls out to him as he plays in the backyard with all the other children at his party, then commits suicide right in front of them all. As Thorn is the American Ambassador to Great Britain, this children’s party is being recorded by various photographers. One, Jennings, starts following Thorn after this incident, taking photos of various priests who seem to always be around Thorn, warning him of his son’s evil-ness, which he doesn’t believe…at first! Meanwhile, a new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, has taken charge of young Damien and vowed to him to keep him safe!

Finally, Jennings convinces Thorn that the devil is involved. Thorn is more sure than ever when his wife miscarries a baby and breaks numerous bones after Damien runs into her with his tricycle as she stands on a ladder to water a plant, causing her to topple two stories down over the bannister. Why does this cause him to believe? Because one of the cuckoo priests had warned him of just such a thing!

Thorn and Jennings head to Rome to look for the priest (different priest, not the cuckoo one) who gave him the newborn Damien that fateful day. When he discovers the grave of Damien’s real mother and sees she was not human, he calls the hospital and tells his wife to leave London immediately. As she already seems to know Damien is evil incarnate, she readies herself to go, but the new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, throws her over the balcony instead.

Still with me? Good. Now, Jennings and Thorn discover a still-different priest who says he can help them – Thorn must kill Damien using these special daggers he provides. Thorn says he cannot do it, Damien is just a child. Jennings says, then I will. But, that doesn’t work out so well for Jennings (don’t want to spoil it here). Thorn changes his mind and heads off to kill his evil son. But will he succeed?

  • Top Scare: Evil dogs
  • Heartbeats: 2 3/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 14 and up, mainly due to suicide scene and other death scenes

Next up: Psycho

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, baby, Exorcism, Hell, horror, Horror Movie, Movies, Omen, Satan, scary movies, Thriller

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Horror Movie: The Orphanage (R; 2007; 105 min.)

Posted on October 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This spanish movie with English subtitles was actually better than I anticipated, creepy and well-told, with a satisfying ending. Very suspenseful too!

Laura and her husband Carlos, along with their adopted son Simon, have moved into what used to be the orphanage where Laura lived before being adopted as a young girl. They have plans to care for several disabled children there and are preparing for their arrival. After a walk on the nearby beach, Laura and Simon enter into a cave where Simon “meets” several young children who tell him that he is adopted and ill as well (he is HIV positive, which his parents have kept from him along with the fact he is adopted). They invite him to come play with them, and to join their group. Laura and Carlos think it normal that a young boy would have these imaginary friends and play along as well.

On the day of their Open House for the disabled children’s families, Simon disappears. Laura soon comes to believe that these imaginary friends are not so imaginary after all, but are the ghosts of her childhood friends from the orphanage who have somehow taken Simon to live with them. She calls in a medium to help her reach these children to find out about Simon.

The medium tells her that “when something terrible happens sometimes it leaves a trace…a wound that acts as a knot between two time lines. It’s like an echo repeated over and over, waiting to be heard. Like a scar…or a pinch that begs for a caress to relieve it.” Cool.

So Laura does discover that something terrible did happen to these children after she was adopted out, and asks them if they want to play one more time together. They do…

  • Top Scare: The medium’s visit
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 1/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up

Next up: The Omen

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, horror, Movies, Orphans, scary movies, Thriller, Undead

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Horror Movie: Guess the Name (R; 1976; 98 min.)

Posted on October 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

I was too tired last night for subtitles (The Orphanage), so chose to watch a classic instead. My husband had never seen it, so  that made it even better. It was a literal bloodbath, or bloodshower I should say (in two scenes!), starring The Coal Miner’s Daughter, Urban Cowboy, Greatest American Hero, and Mrs. Bradford…can you guess its title?

Okay, hopefully you said Psycho…nah, just kidding. Carrie, of course! Now I know I just reviewed another Stephen King adaptation yesterday, Salem’s Lot, but he is the King of Horror after all, so I thought another so soon was okay.

Carrie is set in the land of true horror, aka High School. Raised by a fanatically religious mother, Carrie is “different” from the other kids. Not only does she become the world’s oldest girl to start menstruating, she discovers she has special abilities to move items, close doors, break mirrors, and make young, bratty boys riding bikes fall to the ground when she gets angry! Okay, take away the crazy mother and it sounds like a pretty good life to me so far, right?

Wrong! Carrie’s prom is coming up, and the most popular boy in school’s girlfriend, played by the young and beautiful Amy Irving, encourages him to ask Carrie to the prom to make up for a mean prank she pulled on Carrie with her classmates. Carrie accepts, but her mother says, “They’ll make fun of you!” in an incredibly creepy voice. Carrie says, “Things are going to change around here, Momma” as she throws her mother onto the bed (twice!) using only the powers emanating from her huge, round eyes.

Off to the prom she goes, and is having a great time dancing and being a “normal” kind of girl, but little does she know another classmate, who has been banned from the prom due to her participation in the cruel prank on Carrie, is seeking her revenge that night. Enlisting her boyfriend’s help, the Urban Cowboy, this classmate will soon learn that hell hath no fury like a teenaged girl drenched in blood!

Carrie is the ultimate high school girl’s revenge fantasy; revenge for all the wrongs that have been done to her over the years, for all the pointing and laughing and “cold shoulder-ing.” One of my favorite scenes is during Carrie’s walk home following the prom, when a quick cut-away shot shows Carrie/a creepy doll-like figure in the road diverting a car from hitting her. Second favorite scene: the final minute…got my husband good on that one!

  • Top Scare: Ending
  • Hearbeats: 3 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 2 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
  • Psycho Factor: 4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 16 and up, due to lots of cussing, date and teacher/student violence, sex scenes and general themes

Next up: The Orphanage

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, Blood, Hell, horror, Movies, psychosis, scary movies, Telekenesis, Thriller

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Horror Movie: Salem’s Lot (1979 TV Miniseries; 3 hours)

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

I found in my collection an old VHS tape of this movie which appeared on TV in 1979, and which used to terrify me. Based on a book by one of my favorite authors (Stephen King) and starring three of my favorite actors from the time period (David Soul, Lance Kerwin and James Mason), I just had to watch it again.

David Soul stars as a Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine, to discover some creepy, weird things are going on. Mears wants to write about the old Marston House in town, a purportedly haunted house where Mason (as Richard Straker) is living while preparing to open an antiques store with a colleague, an always-absent partner named Barlow.

Now, it seems young boys have been disappearing from Salem’s Lot for years, but people don’t seem to be too worked up about it. Weird. When a local boy once again goes missing, and other townsfolk begin dying off (or “not-dying” off), Mears and a local kid named Mark Petrie figure out that Barlow is really an ancient vampire and Straker is mixed up in helping him to “relocate” to Salem’s Lot.

Much killing and biting and mayhem ensue, plus we get to see what a Master Vampire looks like (picture this: white, glowing eyes, gray skin on an elongated skull, disgusting teeth and claw-like hands). Can Mark and Ben kill off the vampires and escape their evil clutches? Or will they too become one of the undead in Salem’s Lot? Only VHS can tell…

  • Top Scare: Vampire scene
  • Heartbeats: 3 1/4 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1 3/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 13 and up, due to the aftermath of a bedroom scene

Next up: The Orphanage

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Horror Movie: Rosemary’s Baby (R; 1968; 136 min.)

Posted on October 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

What a classic horror movie…love it still! And amazingly, many of the styles in the movie are “back in!”

Mia Farrow is Rosemary, who along with her husband Guy, a struggling actor,  is looking for a new apartment in New York City. They find a great one and get settled in. Soon, they meet their neighbors, an older couple named Roman and Minnie Castevet, and become friendly with them. Guy begins to spend more and more time with Roman despite Rosemary’s uneasy feelings about him.

Rosemary and Guy are anxious to start a family, and following a very creepy “dream” of Rosemary’s, they soon discover she is pregnant. Minnie convinces Rosemary to see a well-known obstetrician she’s friendly with, who prescribes a daily vitamin drink that Minnie will make for Rosemary’s baby’s health. Rosemary has terrible pains during the beginning of the pregnancy, loses lots of weight, and eats various cuts of raw meat, all concerns poo-poo’d by the doc, Guy and the Castevets when she states them.

Meanwhile, Guy’s fledgling acting career has suddenly taken off after a friend who had won a coveted role goes blind and Guy steps into the role. Rosemary begins to have even more misgivings about her neighbors, Guy, and her doctor after talking to some friends, and after a close friend, who falls suddenly ill, passes on to her a book about witches and the history of her building. Could her neighbors and her husband really be witches, she wonders? Is her baby tied into this somehow?

The story continues in this vain, following Rosemary through the pregnancy and birth, with wonderful acting by Farrow and Ruth Gordon (Minnie) especially. Fun to watch even though not very scary!

  • Top Scare: Rosemary’s dream, I guess
  • Heartbeats: 1  out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 1/2 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: 15 and up, mainly due to the “dream” scene

Next up: Amityville Horror

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, baby, horror, Movies, psychosis, Satan, scary movies, Thriller, witches

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Horror Movie: The Haunting in Connecticut (PG-13; 2009; 92 min.)

Posted on October 10, 2010 | 1 comment

I loved this movie! This had a great scary vibe right from the start and never let up. And the fact that it’s based on supposedly true events makes it even more scaaaarrrryyyy!

Matt Campbell is a teenager dying from cancer. Because his mother, Sarah, has been driving him hundreds of miles a day for treatments, she decides to rent a house close to the hospital for the whole family to move into. Luckily, ha!, she finds a great deal on an old house nearby.

As soon as the first night in the new house, Matt starts experiencing visions and strange noises, which he chalks up as side effects of his treatments. Not too smartly, he has chosen to locate his bedroom in the dark basement, right next to some locked doors no one can seem to pry open. Eventually, the doors do open, and the family comes to realize the locked room was a mortuary. Not just any mortuary though, one where a deranged man used bodies and body parts to try to reach the Otherworld, using a young apprentice Jonah as his medium. Jonah, it seems, was such a talented medium, he could spew ectoplasm, supposedly a sign of the spirits “talking” or whatever.

Matt begins to channel Jonah and his experiences as he grows weaker and more sickly. Matt can tell he is dying. Finally, his family also starts to “see” their house’s other inhabitants and realize Matt is not just hallucinating. Another cancer patient, who happens to be a Reverend, offers to help his family with their “visitors.” Will he succeed? Will Matt live or die? Will the family just GET OUT OF THAT HOUSE? Watch this great movie to find out!

  • Top Scare: I must have jumped 4 or 5 times during this movie. My top scare was a visitor’s sudden appearance.
  • Heartbeats: 4 1/2 out of 5
  • Gore Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
  • Suspense Factor: 4 1/2 out of 5
  • Recommended for: This is PG-13, but I don’t think it should be. I think an R is more appropriate for it. I say it’s good for 15 or 16 and up.

Next up: Rosemary’s Baby

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Posted in 31 Days of Horror, ectoplasm, horror, Movies, mystery, scary movies, Thriller

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