Category: Horror

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Film Review: A Horrible Way To Die – 7/10

Super bleak but powerful horror…

AJ Bowen puts in a charismatic performance

AJ Bowen puts in a charismatic performance

Far away from the seemingly endless stream of found footage movies and ghost stories currently stinking up theatre screens there is an impressive slew of underground horror directors slowly building momentum. Along with Ti West, A Horrible Way to Diedirector Adam Wingard is at the forefront of this scene following his success with You’re Next and his involvement with both the V/H/S and The ABCs of Death chronicles.

A Horrible Way to Die is an arty but brutal ‘what if?’ story in this case posing the question ‘what if your boyfriend is a serial killer?’. This question is a powerful one as it causes fear and uncertainty to breed in the one place that it never should – in your own home and in the arms of your loved one.

Amy Seimetz as the shell shocked and vulnerable Sarah.

Amy Seimetz as the shell shocked and vulnerable Sarah.

While not particularly high concept the constant extreme close ups and chilling choral score make for a unique and memorable viewing experience. This helps to frame three really top class performances with The Sacrament’s AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg acting as the perfect foil to Amy Seimetz tragic heroine. Bowen in particular is superb as convicted killer Garrick Turrell and a more cynical director could have made a horror franchise off the back of this performance but it is clear with Wingard as with West that the project is more important than the pay check and this is something to be lauded now more than ever.

A Horrible Way to Die is not revolutionary but it is a further example of the direction that horror films should definitely be going. Wingard’s next move will be to remake much loved and critically acclaimed South Korean horror flick I Saw the Devil… No pressure then.

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Film Review: Dark Places – 1/10

Unfortunately no Garth Marenghi in sight…

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Chloe Grace Moretz desperately trying to show everyone she is an adult now.

Where to start?

Dark Places borrows heavily from the real life story of the Amityville murders as well as Truman Capote’s true crime novel In Cold Blood. Other plot points such as a nod to the hysteria around devil worshipping in 1980’s America and child abuse are seemingly thrown it at random.

Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl (another film I hated) is also behind the book from which Dark Places is based and it massively shows. Like Gone Girl almost every character is a cliché and none of the increasingly bizarre story rings true. Gone Girl and Dark Places must be two of the most ridiculous, far fetched films released in the last ten years.

Instead of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike we have Charlize Theron and woefully miscast Nicholas Hoult. Alongside them and doing nothing to improve matters are Chloe Grace Moretz playing a cow murdering, pouting maniac and Christina Hendricks who is the only person to come out of this mess with any credibility.

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Charlize Theron wanders around glumly in a hat throughout.

Dark Places is nasty, predictable and in some places totally fucking laughable. The idea that the events leading up to the home invasion and murder that drives the plot could ever happen is completely absurd. I am actually offended that Gillian fucking Flynn and director Gilles Paquet-Brenner would serve up such a trite, daft and embarrassing piece of work. There is barely a single scene that didn’t drive me further away from the unintelligible and banal story and by the end I would have been laughing out loud had I not been consumed with a white hot rage.

Without a doubt the worst film I have seen this year.

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Film Review: Home Movie – 4/10

I have seen actual home movies that I enjoyed more than this…

Home-Movie-2008

The huge financial success of Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity opened the door for anyone with a video camera to have a crack at the big time. Home Movie is another distinctly average addition to a bloated genre.

The two adults leads have no chemistry and are both obnoxious and difficult to like. The message of science vs religion is clumsy and too ostentatious and the plot is unrealistic. The only thing that saves Home Movie from Mothman territory is the performance of the two young leads who terrorise their beleaguered parents and provide some genuinely chilling moments.

I have been hyper critical about found footage films in the past and Home Movie proves that for every great film in this genre there are 20 shit ones. Home Movie falls squarely into the latter camp.