Totally Misleading Trailors: Jennifer's Body

This movie is now 4 years old, but I only recently saw it. I have spent the last 4 years skipping over it because I was under the impression that it was a typical sexy teen scream that just promised boobs and gore, and gory boobs, and probably Satan and lesbian makeout times too. You know the typical bullshit summer horror movie, rated R but aimed at 15 year olds. To add to this, they played the trailer non stop, and by the time it was in theaters I was already thoroughly sick of hearing about it. If you didn't own a TV in 2009, here's the official trailer.


See what I mean? It looks like a complete bore to me, which is why I never even considered it when trying to decide on what to watch next. It wasn't until recently someone sat me down and assured me it was actually a good movie. I was dubious of this but I decided to check it out anyways, and I'm really glad I did and really annoyed at it's marketing campaign for trying to cast so wide of a net that missed the point completely.

Instead of a typical Satanic teen scream boobfest, I was completely delighted to find that it was an incredibly competent horror comedy that was actually pretty faithfully spoofing this genre. The writing was a little jarring at times, as everyone sort of talks like the archetypical frat bro on the internet, but it really fits with the theme of the general spoof. Despite this I found myself immensely entertained by this movie! I'm probably going to have to rewatch it a few times to make up for the several lost years I spent shunning this movie.

7 Day Horror Movie Meme: Day 1- Top five favorite horror movies

Even though there are a few posts up already, let's kick this blog off with some memes so you can get to know us and our tastes a little bit. I scoured around for a meme shorter than 30 days but failed to find one, so I just winged it and made up my own. Each day, Time and I will be answering one of these questions! If you want to join in, here's the meme:

1. Top five favorite horror movies
2. Favorite and least favorite horror genre
3. Top three movies that scared you the most
4. Three movies you loved but everyone else seemed to hate
5. Three movies you couldn't stand but everyone else seems to love
6. Favorite franchise and your favorite and least favorite movies in it
7. If you were stuck in a horror movie what sort of character would you be?

 Today's topic is a pretty basic one: Top five favorite horror movies.

Caro

1. 28 Days Later- Not only is this movie terrifying on so many different levels and for so many different reasons, but it also struck me as an incredibly beautiful movie. This is one of the movies that gives me chills just thinking about it, again, for both it's terror and it's beauty.
2. Tremors- Sort of debatable whether or not this is a horror film, but it's typically categorized as a monster flick. I first saw this when I was really little and didn't get that it was supposed to be funny and just got how completely terrifying giant underground monsters are. I was terrified of Graboids for years and my tiny little kid brain would frequently make up escape plans just in case. 
3. Trick 'R Treat- I feel like this is the movie that got me back into horror movies. A few October's ago I was looking for horror recommendations and a friend suggested this, I was instantly impressed with how fun and original it was. I've always loved anthologies and was really excited to see how perfectly these were interwoven.
4. The Shining- This is one that sort of slips in and out of my favorites and I tend to forget how much I really like it until I see it again. It's a classic and it's simply a scary psychological horror movie, which is a genre I'm not usually a fan of.
5. House of 1000 Corpses- It's a toss up between this and The Devil's Rejects, several years ago I probably would have chosen The Devil's Rejects, but House of 1000 Corpses has become the more nostalgic movie for me over the years. I've practically been a lifelong Rob/White Zombie and I always thought he seemed like a really great guy, so when he first started making movies I was really excited about it. I love the homage and the camp and the gore and the comedy of this movie.

Time

1. Trick r' Treat- A Halloween themed anthology that ties every story together? there is nothing that I do not love about trick r' treat. I also adore the little girl dressed as a witch who spouts out information about the pagan holiday Samhain, which Halloween evolved from. This is also the only time I can enjoy a performance from Anna Paquin, who is not an actress who I am particularly fond of. There is not a negative thing I could say about this movie and I am constantly recommending it to people, it has become my Halloween movie of choice.
2. Cabin in the Woods- Slasher films where there is a group of five or six stupid college kids, who get drunk and are slaughtered one by one, are my least favorite horror movies. I think they are boring, and overdone. That being said when I sat down to watch Cabin in the woods at a friends urging, I was instantly put off by the start. I was so wrong. this shot to the top of my favorite because it makes fun of all the horror movies before it, and does it brilliantly. While poking fun at the stereotype it also maintained a level of scary, there were a few parts where I jumped. The only part of the movie I did not like was the last...two minutes, other then that I thought it was perfect.
3. Grave Encounters- Another movie I thought was going to be a waste of time. There are so many pseudo-found footage films out there, many of them terrible. The introductory message about the films was to me, unnecessary. After a shaky start the movie took a turn for the better. there were jump-scares, decent graphics, and a setting that fills the audience with a sens of dread. Grave Encounters is also the only horror move that made me feel claustrophobic while watching it. They do an amazing job creating the feeling of being trapped.
4. Pet Semetary- The loving and tragic story of a boy and his cat, well sort of. I remember reading the book in bible camp. the only really good memory from that summer but I had not had the opportunity to watch the film until years later. Pet Semetary terrified me. Watching it alone in the dark with surround sound made the end of the movie much more terrifying to me then it should have been. I must say I love many of Stephen Kings books but I have always felt a lot of the movie adaptations have not lived up to the terror the novels filled me with. Pet Semetary was one of the two that actually exceed to my expectations.
5. Creepshow- My favorite silly horror anthology that fills me with nostalgia. My dad and I watch it every fathers day or else my dad will walk around my house yelling "its fathers day and I want my cake!" When I was younger, the stories portrayed actually gave me nightmares, but after occasional viewings, they resulted in more of a 'playful' horror. Taking things that seemed dark and evil, and making you laugh a bit, well... atleast I did.

The Purge: My Reluctant And Unexpected Enjoyment

Right from the get go I was dubious about The Purge. It sounds completely unrealistic and even downright stupid: In the near future society is kept in line by allowing one night a year where nothing is a crime and people can descend into Battle Royale without consequence. It's a pretty shaky premise for what is basically a home invasion thriller, and even while I found myself reluctantly liking the movie, in the back of my head I couldn't shut off the torrent of "That's stupid! Why would that be happening!?". With the all too common chorus of "You're stupid! Why are you doing that!?" in the forefront of my head, it's a wonder I liked the movie at all.

Let's get this straight, it's a dumb premise. Not only is allowing a night of unbridled crime not going to stop anything, how would it ever be enforced? What's stopping people from just committing crimes all the time like they do anyways? Wouldn't people just hold year long grudges against their neighbor that they know is a murderer on one night a year, sowing even more distrust and paranoia? Why doesn't a security salesman in a future that allows murder to be legal have a secret unpenetrable panic room in his house instead of just sheet metal on the doors and windows? The answer to pretty much all of these questions can be summed up with: weak political commentary. Normally this is a major turnoff in a horror movie for me, but it was sort of so outlandish that I found myself enjoying it.

I like being scared by the idea of a strange and scary theocratic super government (this movie actually vaguely reminded me of Nine Inch Nail's concept album Year Zero), government sanctioned death sports, polite school uniform clad psycho murderers, and getting so frustrated with the stupidity of horror movie victims that I want to reach into my TV and slap some sense into them. To top it off, it's not too difficult to make a home invasion horror scary, as silly as the pretense might be. Even while half my brain was reminding me how dumb this movie was, the other half was yelling "Look out behind you! He has an ax!".

The Purge wasn't a great movie, but it was definitely a guilty pleasure to watch and had some fun home invasion related scares. I might not recommend it to everyone, but I definitely wouldn't recommend that you avoid it.

Incident in Lake County & Dark Skies: A Comparison

It's hard to find a good alien abduction horror movie. Alien invasion films are a dime a dozen, but a horror film about the classic case of otherworldly visitors breaking into your bedrooms at night and performing bizarre experiments on you against your will are surprisingly rare, despite how popular these types of stories have been for well over 50 years. I recently got the chance to check out Dark Skies, and was really impressed with both how spooky it was, and how accurately it portrayed the classic abduction story, even down to a lot of the creepy details that are often present in UFO folklore. It also heavily reminded me of an older alien abduction movie, commonly called Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County.

Before I get onto the comparisons, I'd like to talk a little bit about Incident in Lake County because the behind-the-scenes is pretty interesting. Made for TV in 1998 it was presented as a true-life documentary, complete with fake experts assuring us how real it is. As a pre-Blair Witch found footage film that lacked any sort of disclaimers, it actually managed to convince a fair number of people that it was a legit film. To make matters even more confusing, it was actually based on a 1989 found footage video called The McPherson Tape, which is a title some showings of the remake uses. There are also a few different cuts of this movie. Some people are still convinced that the original 1989 version (The "real" version as it's sometimes referred to) is an authentic alien encounter. True to the stereotypes, these people believe that there is a conspiracy involved which is why the original version is so hard to find (apparently ignoring the fact that low budget late 80s found footage sci-fi horror films aren't exactly something you can walk into a Blockbuster and pick up) and there are so many different cuts and titles for the remake.

If people are going to base a conspiracy around a movie, you would probably think that would have to be a pretty good movie, unfortunately, that's not true. Incident in Lake County remarkable for being such an early found footage movie, for being so accurate to the alien abduction folklore, and for managing to trick so many people; but in 2013, with over a decade's worth of found footage horror under all of our belts, it's a pretty weak addition to the genre, even if it was one of the first. Bad acting and a poor random-screaming-to-actua-horror ratio are this movie's biggest flaws. That's not to say you shouldn't check it out if you're interested in either found footage or alien abduction horror, it's worth watching, if you happen to ever come across it, if just because it's something of a now-forgotten classic.

Dark Skies, on the other hand, I found to be very good. While it was an alien abduction horror, it had the tone of a classic horror movie, almost along the lines of a demonic possession movie. It wasn't so much jump-in-your-seat scary, as it was the sort of ominous creeping terror that comes with the territory. In a genre who's movies can be counted on your fingers, Dark Skies is a good film. If you're familiar with alien abduction stories, you'll find a competent psychological horror movie with nods to the folklore. If you come in expecting a horror movie with aliens, and being completely unfamiliar with alien abduction lore, you're going to leave disappointed and most likely confused.

So what does Dark Skies, a recent and competent horror movie, have to do with a made for TV late 90's hoax? A surprising number of things, actually! Of course, this is largely due to the fact that both of them are pulling heavily from the same pool of lore, but it's still interesting to see how the two movies use the same elements.

Mind control and the spooky kid

The most standout feature of both of these movies is the use of the horror trope of the spooky kid. In both of these movies it's hinted that the spooky kid is the result of some kind of alien mind control. Children have played a particularly spooky role in alien abduction lore, many abductees claim that they've been taken their whole lives, and, just like in Dark Skies, there are a number of accounts that involve creepy drawings done by children that supposedly depict their encounters with aliens.

Electrical interference and glitchy cameras

In the case of Incident in Lake County, this was quite possibly largely done to cover up some low budget space ships, but it does echo a very common part of UFO lore. Electronics are reported to malfunction in a variety of ways when in the presence of alien technology. In Dark Skies it was used to hint that something creepy was happening late at night in their home, and in Incident in Lake County it was used in a rather effective way to show that the aliens were near, even when they were off camera.

Barely glimpsed aliens

In conjunction with malfunctioning camera equipment, the aliens in both movies were barely glimpsed and often shown as shadowy figures (I swear the second picture shows a glimps of an alien!). This is largely a cinematic decision to make something that is sometimes seen as typical and even laughable seem creepy. However, I feel that it also echos reports of alien encounters often ending in the contactee being unable to fully remember what it was they witnessed.

Implants

Implants are an incredibly common part of abduction lore, and was a feature in both movies. In Dark Skies members of the family found strange marks behind their ears, which according to an in-movie expert, was being used to control them. In Incident in Lake County they were found on the back of the neck and served no real purpose but to be a nod to the lore. Mysterious bumps under the skin and marks in a triangle shape either found behind the ear or on the back of the neck are iconic signs of alien abduction. Dark Skies has a double-dose of this, as the two sons are also both found to have strange markings all over their bodies, bruises on the youngest, and crop-circle like cuts on the eldest.

Nosebleeds

Ever wake up in the middle of the night with an unexplained nosebleed? Some people might tell  you that this is a sure fire sign that you've just been abducted by aliens, this is often explained a number of different ways, from high frequency energy used by the aliens to brain surgery via the nasal canal. Both of these movies feature inexplicable nosebleeds, in Dark Skies the husband is found standing in the yard in the middle of the night in a bizarre trance and blood starts gushing out of his nose, while in Incident in Lake County, everyone in the room starts to get a nose bleed at the exact moment.

While these movies both used a lot of the same elements from abduction lore, they went about it in very different ways. In Dark Skies these elements were used as a slow indication that something was wrong with the members of the family, and was shown in a way that was much more in line with hinting that these things were happening as the result of repeated abduction. In Incident in Lake County, which takes place over the span of only a couple hours in a single evening, it all just sort of happens one after another often without any real explanation as to why. Dark Skies succeeds as a horror movie with these elements because it works them into a more complex narrative, while Incident in Lake County is basically an hour and a half wink and a nudge to the late 90's UFOlogy community.

The real question here is why are there so few alien abduction horror movies? Horror movies featuring maniacs breaking into your house late at night to torment you are a staple of the genre, but what is it about the idea of someone breaking into your house night after night, tormenting you and then leaving you in the morning with no memory of what happened, only strange clues, so unappealing to horror audiences? Is the idea that alien abductions are too silly of a thing to be afraid of? As if dolls, clowns, and man-eating plants aren't.

When I first saw the trailer for Dark Skies I had high hopes of what that might mean for the genre. Perhaps it would be a hit and would inspire a number of other alien abduction movies. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, Dark Skies was met with incredibly mixed reviews. People simply aren't afraid of aliens if they aren't chasing you through the streets of New York.

V/H/S/2: An Unexpected Let Down

I really enjoy horror anthologies, I've become increasingly fond of the found footage genre, and we currently live in a world were sequels are generally expected to be just as good as the original, which are all reasons why I was extremely disappointed by V/H/S/2. I saw the first one after my sister suggested it to me, and really enjoyed each of the shorts, even the weakest one (Ti West's Second Honeymoon) was pretty good in comparison to pretty much everything V/H/S/2 has to offer. Let's take a look at each of the segments.

This is the wrap around segment that ties all the others together. Personally I found it very uninteresting. The original movie's wrap around hinted at something larger and spooky going on, but this was basically just two people sitting around watching some VHS they found in a spooky house. That's not to say that that spooky stuff wasn't probably happening in Tape 47, it was just so uneventful that I didn't even notice.

Some guy ge's an experimental eye replacement that, for whatever reason, includes a camera in his eye. It turns out that people who receive these experimental implants can see ghosts through them. He meets a girl who receives a hearing aid implant that allows her to hear ghosts. Some jump scares, but all in all bland. It's "quick, if we have sex the ghost will go away" scene just highlighted how generic it was.

In my opinion, the only one worth watching. A guy riding his bike with a camera attached to his helmet gets turned into a zombie. From here we get a zombie's eye view of a zombie outbreak that cumulates at a kid's birthday party. It's short enough and goofy enough to be entertaining. Unfortunately the end is kind of weak. If you had a problem with running zombies or smart zombies of movies past, you're probably going to take issue with suicidal zombies.

This is the one that got people talking, apparently. A documentary crew interviews a doomsday cult. It's a bit creepy and thrilling at times, but is unfortunately ruined towards the end by a really awful looking monster. I personally found it overly long, maybe I was just really uninterested in it but long stretches of it were just people shooting themselves while sirens were going off.

Exactly what the title sounds like, a bunch of kids are goofing off with a camera at a slumber party when they get abducted by aliens. Just generally pretty weak and not nearly as fun and goofy as it thought it was being. The kids in this segment were all douchebags, and not in the typical "omg I can't wait for them to all just die!" way that horror movies are known for, but in a way that made me just wish I wasn't watching a movie with them in it. Personally, upset dog noises really make me upset and this made the end of this particular short difficult for me to pay attention to, but that didn't really effect my opinion of it because I thought it really went down hill before that.

All in all, I found this to be a pretty lackluster anthology, with no real standout shorts. Each one of these feels like it could be the weakest story in a better anthology. What I find most unfortunate about this is that I feel like the found footage genre could really benefit from some solid anthologies as the format seems to do best when its short and sweet

Hello and welcome!

Hello and welcome to this little blog of horrors. This blog is sort of a more fleshed out version of a tumblr blog I was off-and-on keeping just for the sake of keeping track of various horror movies I'd been watching. I, personally, don't really care for the Tumblr format, so I just switched over to blogger so I can hopefully keep it a little more organized.

I've been a fan of horror movies since I was a kid, although I've never really been as hardcore int them as other people, and I generally sort of just watch them as I stumble across them, so I have unusually large holes in my list of seen movies. I've never actually yet gotten around to seeing any of the Evil Dead movies, for example, but I have seen a rather large number of other movies (This is actually true of any genre I enjoy. I am a huge sci-fi fan and it's practically the only thing I read, but I only saw the Alien movies about a year ago. I am sorry, universe). I generally enjoy most horror movies I see, I don't pretend to be an enlightened film viewer, just someone looking for that elusive scare. I am really overly fond of 80's and early 90's movies that feature animatronics.

I'll probably also be including posts on spooky TV shows, documentaries, comics, books or other forms of horror media.With some possible forays into spooky non-fiction.