Goosebumps Review: Welcome to Dead House

It will just kill you.

Hey! Saquarry here. So, I'm starting up a new review series where I plan to review every Goosebumps book and books kind of or semi associated with that series or R. L Stine in general. This is quite the endeavor, I hope you understand, but it's something I've been wanting to do for years. And now I finally have the energy and the resources to see it through to the end. And when I say end, I do mean even the current stuff- eventually.

I'm going to review these books chronologically when they were published, so it may seem all over the place at times, but that's what I would like to do. I also have some teen R. L. Stine books I'd like to talk about at some point, most notably some of my favorite of the actual Fear Street books. But we'll get there. I'm excited for the possibilities and the reviews. For the most part I haven't read any of these books in about twelve years or so, but I still have them all from the original run of the series. Now, I may have to buy a couple, most notably in the Ghosts of Fear Street books (especially the later books int hat series which were nearly impossible for me to find back then) as well as some of the short story collection if I decide to do them.

Anyway, this whole review series will involve everything with the Goosebumps name, even the Give Yourself Goosebumps choose your own adventure stories. And that's about it. I won't be touching any movies or television shows of Goosebumps though. I never watched them as a kid and have no real interest in them now. I guess I could talk about them at some point if interest is shown in this review series, but I'm not biting to do it.

I grew up reading these books, and they certainly have had a sizable impact on the person I am today. I probably wouldn't love horror half as much as I do without these books. They led me to many other avenues and other great books and movies as well, since a decent portion of these books play off of more famous actual horror or sci-fi movies, books, television shows, etc.

The series as a whole is fairly reminiscent of The Twilight Zone for kids, specifically the books with the crazy twists at the end. I will spoil these books as well, so read at your own risk. Since I'm sure people are terrified of having a twenty year old children's horror novel spoiled for them. I'm sure that keeps them up at night.

As for formatting, these reviews will come in two sections. The first will be what I recall of the book. I'll talk about my memories, whether I was fond of it or not, if it ever scared me, and how well the book stuck with me. Sometimes this section will be very long. Other times it may not exist at all. The second section will be my impressions and thoughts about the book now after reading it.

And that's about all I have. So, without further ado-


-let's go to Dark Falls.


"I'm surrounded by death, I thought."


Welcome to Dead House was published in 1992, the month of July. It was the first Goosebumps book released, and was numbered 1 in its original binding. It is the only book of the entire series that really felt like it was written for an older audience back when I first read it. The imagery, the nightmare that Amanda has, and the dog, Petey, dying in the book makes this one both memorable and slightly more intense than any other books in the series, in both my opinion and in my memory.

Now, for whatever reason this is probably the only book from the original series that ever scared me as a kid. I did not like some of the content, and the writing, to me back then, was so different than the other books of the series, that I tended to liken it much more to the older audience R. L. Stine books, like the Fear Street books or those Babysitter books. I didn't read this book very often, and tended to avoid rereading it unlike some of the others that I absolutely loved. It was probably one of my least favorites of the original series, but only because I felt that it was so different from the rest.

I have no real fond memories of it, and my memory of this book (not pleasant memories) was the biggest hurtle to actually starting these reviews in the first place. I tend to remember most of the other Goosebumps books having a lot of personality, but for whatever reason this one always struck me as very flat. The characters and the story barely seem to be able to work in a real world setting, and, in fact, the whole premise falls apart if you think on it too much. I did as a child, and I didn't like the answers my mind came up with.

I will say that the name Dark Falls was something I really enjoyed and remembered for years afterward. I would use the name to describe any town or area near me that had heavily shaded roads for miles around. Where I live has a ton of thick forests and trees that cover over the roads throughout the year. So, Dark Falls was a very real place to me, just not by that name.

Reading it again, I found this book interesting. It read better than I remembered, giving a ton of characterizations I simply didn't remember, mostly to Amanda, the main character and first person narrator. She starts a trend of R. L. Stine leaning (from my memory) to more female protagonists than males. Usually the protagonists are twelve and their sibling is ten. Their sibling is generally the opposite sex to them as well.

Amanda easily has the most characterization in the book, with her brother, Josh, a distant second as the annoying sibling who sometimes does useful things. The book moves slowly in the beginning, establishing the move in a long-winded way that grew tiresome. The slow build to the house being haunted was also flat, as nothing truly seemed to happen that wasn't also explained away. Nothing seemed scary exactly so much as slightly annoying. Even Amanda doesn't truly act scared. She seemed to think away most of the spooky elements so that nothing in the early part of the book really ever seemed ambiguous or actually creepy.

Once they're actually in Dead House and have met the other kids in town, that's when the story both picks up and grows much more interesting. I mean, it still largely falls flat around the edges, but it also starts having some personality. The set-pieces are well done, starting with Amanda's nightmare and the way she vividly describes it. Her not being able to move in the nightmare is a sticking point for me since that actually happens in real life, and it is legitimately terrifying. I know this from personal experience.

Petey's "death," or at least the kids finding him dead is also awful. I can't think of many other children's horror books (or adult horror books) that have the steel determination to actually do that and pull it off well. It's awful, but effective at being the turning point of the book.

Honestly, the second half is much better than the first at being an action piece, but the beginning is much better at having a creeping fear in the back of the mind. Both parts of the book undermine one another though, with neither coming off quite as effectively because of the other. The heavy characterizations of the first half are thrown out for action set-pieces in the second, whereas the action set-pieces are fun but are undermined by the slow-paced trudge of the first half. Many elements of the story never come back into play, for instance Kathy, Amanda's bets friend who she talks about at decent length in an early chapter, has no significance to the story besides showing up in her nightmare. The parents likewise have no real use to them, only showing up as damsels in distress at the end of the book, but having no real characterization besides that.

The cemetery, while a good set-piece, literally is never scary. There is never one moment that the cemetery is supposed to be scary. It is almost the most friendly and inviting part of the entire story, which should never be the case. It's a graveyard. They're supposed to be creepy and uninviting. Part of that is in the descriptions, which seem so strong for the nightmare and the skulls of the dead people, but seems very flat for the environments and locales. From my memory R. L. Stine fixes this very soon, but right here it's very evident that he had very odd priorities while writing this one. The transition from teenage horror and adult horror to kid horror must have been a difficult one, and this book hasn't seemed to quite hit the mark.

The story is pretty obvious. Parents and two kids move into a house supposedly left to them by a great-uncle. It's in a town called Dark Falls surrounded by shade. They meet some odd kids, see that the town is kind of dead, think that the house is haunted, and eventually are surprised when all their worst fears are realized. Their dog is killed because it can sense the dead people. And the family is ready to be put up as a sacrifice for the town, the newest dead people to enter and never leave, but Amanda and Josh save the day, the dead people are killed yet again, and they leave the house forever just as another family goes to check it out.

The twist at the end, with the question of whether or not everybody in the town is truly the at rest kind of dead, is a good one, but this town is not truly scary, and I never found investment in the story anyway.

This book is okay. It leads me to many questions about the logic of the story, but that's to be expected at times, especially with stories of this nature. I can't really use those problems as sticking points though. It would be as unfair as using cold hard logic against a Twilight Zone episode. It would unfair. And it would not be what the story was trying to do or say. Instead I focus on the parts of the Goosebumps books I used to like, and where I think this one didn't hit its marks. The characters are mostly very flat, the set-pieces, although good at times, are not consistent, and the goriness seems to be there for shock value but not really for good writing or storytelling. It's a quick, non-nonsense story that has little to offer beyond a little shock and awe and some dry characters.

As a kid, I didn't like it. As an adult, I'm not in love with it, but I see its value. It's not bad even if it has a ton of problems. The writing is mostly solid, and the issues there are seem more related to the nature of a kid's horror novel and what that means than to anything else. I think I appreciate this book slightly more now than I did as a kid, but I doubt I'd ever read it again. I don't really like it so much as tolerate it and understand its important as the first one. It's a weak book of the original series, but one worth starting out to read. They seriously can only get better from here.

Movie Appraisal: Pulse (Kairo) (回路) (2001)

Pulse (or Kairo) is an incredibly melancholic Japanese horror movie released in the early 2000s. While it is not much of a technical majesty by any means, it relies on mood, atmosphere, and characters and situations that an average person can easily relate with. I cannot say that this is that scariest or most horrific film of all time, nor can I say that this film really scared me all that much at all. What I can say is that the entire film is unsettling, and that's really all one needs in a great horror movie.

And you know what? This movie, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, delivers on every front. It is a great horror movie, not precisely because it's scary or it made me urinate myself from fear... but because it is both unsettling and unforgettable. See, I've watched a great many horror films over the course of my life. (I have to point that out here to make my ultimate point.) I've watched horror films from all over the world, from any decade you could name. I've watched monster movies, slashers, gore films, psychological horror, drive-in horror, B-movies, space horror, and all other kinds of films besides. Very few stick out in my mind, and very few stay in my mind for years after I've forgotten even the name of the movie. But Pulse stuck in my mind. It stayed there like some kind of mental brick. I had seen this movie years ago, probably while I was still in high school, but possibly before even that. And I remembered certain scenes in it, but the ending specifically stood out... the ending and the final scenes in the abandoned factory. And for years those scenes stuck in my head without a name to attach to them. I had forgotten what this movie was called, but the story, the scenes, and the scares stayed behind. Very few movies have done that.

For instance I can look through all the movies I've reviewed over the course of two-and-some-odd-years, and I might remember a scene or two here and there. Hell, maybe I could even name them simply because I wrote about them, but before this blog existed, I was just a dude who liked horror movies. Invariably I would forget some of them. Hell, I've forgotten many more horror movies than most people have even watched. But Pulse stood in my mind. Sure, the title of the film was entirely forgotten, but the content certainly wasn't. And so now I'm revisiting this film years later, ready to talk about it, review it, and tell my impressions to any that would read them.While this movie is not perfect or wonderful or even good looking, it works as exactly what it is, and it remains memorable because of that.

I have to mention that I searched for the name of this film for years, simply wanting to see it again, but never remembering what it was called. I, completely accidentally, watched a "scariest horror movie clips" kind of video on YouTube a little while ago and recognized a scene from this film, saw the title, and whooped with joy. Then I proceeded to track this movie down by any means necessary. I still have a few movies like that, movies stuck in my head without names to them, and maybe someday I'll find them too... until then though, this is a success story for the past.

Pulse is a fine movie by the way. Its parts are better than the whole of it, and taken alone some of the scenes could be quite terrifying. But as a whole the movie kind of loses its terror. All I could see while watching it was a social commentary rather than a horror movie, and that was an absolute shame. If I could take my head out of why this movie was made and look at it on the merits of the plot and characters alone I could really see this as an effective horror movie. Try as I might though, all I could see was social commentary using ghosts. A heavy hammer seemed to pound thoughts into my head... thoughts like: "The Internet isolates and makes people lonely and terrified, ghosts within their own houses," "The culture of Japan seems to be so focused on work, school, and things that aren't people, and that relationships, friendships, and love in general are lacking to an extreme degree," and mostly ""If the world keeps moving in this direction, the world will be as good as empty, each person committing a social suicide, being stuck to a computer forever rather than with people, caring and helping and even dying as they ought to." Those are the comments I kept seeing with every scene. There were comparisons between the living and the dead, but it was saying that both the living and the dead are both dead... dead, cold, and lonely... so what does life even matter if there are no relationships, no meaningful meetings, nothing but strangers and websites without names?

While I think it's an incredibly astute commentary, it hits like a steel beam. There is no real subtlety there, and also no real point but to stick a middle finger at the technological world. It makes an interesting tech-ghost story into something with meaning, yes, but it kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing, which is a bit of a negative. The characters don't matter.... and neither do their struggles... since the commentary is first and foremost what can be, and is, seen. I find that disappointing even if it doesn't take anything away from the movie. Most people watching it probably just watch a kind of creepy apocalyptic ghost story, and good for them. I'm glad that they can enjoy the film without seeing too far into it. As for me, the film was more mediocre. It didn't really do anything I haven't seen before. The ghosts were sometimes creepy, but never scary. The music was sometimes out of place. The sounds and voices never quite worked for me. And the characters never truly felt real. I couldn't imagine most of them outside of this movie, hanging out with friends or going to a movie, playing a video game or just screwing around on scooters or something. They were too self-contained within this movie, and that is the biggest negative about this film. I wanted to see some life in the characters or the story or something... but I never felt anything. I never cared about the characters or the story. The only thing I truly cared about, thought about, was the social commentary, which, while interesting, does not a great movie make.

So, I'm contradicting myself, saying that this is a great movie and not a great movie at the same time. And that kind of sums up my thoughts of this film. I loved the creepy aspects of this film. I loved how technology (and a creepy ghost within that technology) was shown as this evil and malignant force that could easily overpower any person. I loved the ghosts and the people fading into a dark stain upon the walls. The suicides were incredibly well done, specifically the woman who jumps off of the side of a building. That looked amazing. And I loved a lot of the idea of ghosts being just as real as the living. That concept and execution worked so well it made the entire movie worth watching for that alone. The story itself was complex in its own right as well, but not precisely as confusing as many comments seem to think of it as. The whole story is there, but some things are simply not told to the audience. I think the movie not showing its entire hand is not a bad thing. In fact, I liked that about the movie as well... the fact that there were still mysteries within this universe.

This movie was made when the internet was still not quite the monster and behemoth it is today. It was still big and used for many things, but it wasn't as practical, nor was it quite as easy to find all the information you could ever want. Chat rooms were the standard for talking to people online, forums were getting off of the ground, but the internet as a whole was still this undiscovered country. Very little social media existed, and certainly nothing like Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Tumblr. Nothing that could so easily encompass all of your social and practical needs all in one website. Isolation was what computers were for. They were for putting you further from society, not linking you up... but that's not true, is it? The internet is used to connect us all together... but not together at the same time. We are always separated by a great curtain of space, and those who frequent the internet are nothing more than the norm now. Looking at that student, the main male character, Ryosuke, who had his first experience with the internet ever... so much so that he didn't know what "bookmarks" were, well, that just doesn't happen in society today. We're born knowing more than we could ever effectively use about technology... and yet more frequently we find ourselves not understanding each other, becoming more and more isolated from the very people we think we are getting closer to by using the internet. Okay, I should stop my diatribe on today's culture. Let me just finish this paragraph by saying that if that were my first experience with the internet like it was Ryosuke's, seeing creepy people on the internet and a dude with a bag over his head before I even had my entire internet hooked up correctly, I'd need a smoke too.

Ultimately the movie succeeds at doing something. I don't know if I'll ever be able to say what. Maybe I simply love the ideas presented in the movie and that's it. But maybe it's something more. The movie looks creepy, not crisp and sharp, but muddy and always dark. The sounds are off. The music doesn't fit. Unsettling is the word of the day for this flick. The use of sound (or lack thereof) is also very well done. It both unsettles and startles without the movie itself having to do much at all but exist in the background.

This is a hard movie to review and a hard movie to rate. I have no idea if I should recommend it or not. I enjoyed watching it even though some major parts of the film are incredibly flawed. I think it is one of the creepier Japanese horror movies even though I was never scared. And I think it is incredibly effective even though it is overlong. If you like social commentary in your horror movies, this is a good one to watch. If you like a creepy ghost movie without any social commentary, you might like this film too though. Just turn your brain off. As for Japanese horror, this is one of the best I've seen, easily up there with Noroi. So, I guess check it out if you find all this 3-5AM ramble-writing-dissecting-reviewing interesting. Or not. I liked the movie well enough. It still is a great movie even if it isn't perfect.

Mini Movie Appraisals Part 2: Lifeforce (1985), Eden Log (2007), and The Sixth Sense (1999)

I'd like to do another session of a bunch of extra movies I saw this October that I couldn't necessarily milk long reviews out of. These three movies: Lifeforce, Eden Log, and The Sixth Sense have literally almost nothing in common. Lifeforce is a weird vampire alien sci-fi horror movie from the 1980s. It is both slow-paced and well acted, definitely reminiscent of earlier films of the sci-fi horror genre, particularly the slow-paced 1950s sci-fi horror movies that more often than not involved scientists standing around talking to one another. Eden Log is a heavily stylized, almost avant-garde movie involving a man with amnesia and monstrosities hunting both him and the others in the cave he happens to be in. It is an incredibly different kind of movie, I'll give it that. And The Sixth Sense is The Sixth Sense, but I'll talk about that one quickly too.

Despite the title sounding like a group of cheesy superheroes, Lifeforce is actually very staunchly in the realm of sci-fi horror. Well... I probably should say that I use both of those terms very lightly in this case. Lifeforce is a long and unassuming movie that plays like a much more epic film than it could ever be. The "Lifeforce" in this case is human life energy or soul energy or whatever you'd like to call it, and the villains are space vampires. It's an absolutely ridiculous premise, certainly calling on certain sci-fi drive-in B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s as places to start from.

The whole movie has the feel of a modern-day 1950s sci-fi B-movie, like The Thing From Another World or Them! With an incredibly slow pace and most of the movie spent talking or talking about talking, it can be fairly dry at times (Okay, incredibly dry, even boring might be more accurate). The effects are cheesy, the acting somewhat overdone, but still believable for most characters, and the whole movie mostly feels like an experiment gone wrong. So many scenes make little to no sense that I found large portions of the movie insulting to my intelligence. All the while the movie talked down to me! Despite all of this, the British actors and Tobe Hooper made this movie classy even with the gratuitous amounts of nudity, both male and female.

While I somewhat enjoyed the ridiculousness of this film, it really isn't a great movie. I do enjoy the Britishness of the film though. And the actors were really doing their best to make the plot enjoyable. The space-vampire premise is silly and ridiculous, but when the astronauts find them in the first place it is appropriately weird. I liked the oddity of it all. It's average at best despite some interesting moments. I did find some enjoyment in it though, so if you want to see an odd, 1950s sci-fi paced movie made in the mid-1980s with space-vampires, this may well be the movie for you.

 Eden Log is both beautiful and dark as a movie. I think the visuals and the cinematography are the absolute best parts of the film. When the main character, Tolbiac, wakes up in a dank cave without any memories lying next to a dead man, you almost know the movie is going to be a bit interesting. And it kind of is. With elements of sci-fi horror, and psychological horror, it actually reminds me a great deal of the later Pandorum. While I absolutely love Pandorum with a passion nearly unrivaled by any other film, this one is a great deal more forgettable. Despite the initial promise of the plot, I found the look of the movie to work against itself. It seemed to become less horror as the plot wore on, and a great deal more convoluted and frankly less interesting. The monsters seemed to be hastily done albino creatures and they didn't do to much for me. There never seemed to be any tension when viewing them, unlike Pandorum and that just took me right out of the horror.

As for character, well, none of them are really all that interesting. The plot is a simple one of escape and getting to the surface, but it is accomplished by a minimalist script with very little actual spoken dialogue. I really liked this aspect of the film even if it did make the entire movie drag slowly at times. The scientist that Tolbiac meets up with about halfway or so through the movie is just about the most interesting character. She hold him despite his strength in semi-captivity because... well, the cave complex seems to make people go insane and turn into subhuman monsters. And he kind of is a monster but not a monster at the same time? I have no idea... but she's scared of him a bit. Eventually she runs away when her tent is attacked by the creatures and Tolbiac follows her, and then the best scene in the movie happens as Tolbiac catches up with her in the elevator and simultaneously makes love to her and rapes her. This is incredibly well shot, incredibly and darkly psychological, and appropriately painful for both parties involved. The horror that crosses Tolbiac's face when he realizes what he has done is palpable, as is her hatred for him.

The plot staggers towards the end, becoming far more complex than it should be, making Tolbiac the hero without any real buildup of his character, but most of the movie is a fun ride. The lack of dialogue and actual horror can be seen as a major downside here, but I think parts of the movie work quite well, and although never scary, it does tension fairly well. The psychological aspects of the movie are by far my favorites, and it is a ride of a movie, even if it isn't always a fun or enjoyable one.

I seem to be praising this movie a lot, but despite the artistry and everything else about it that I liked, I found this movie hard to focus on at times. The lack of dialogue, characters, or plot really made this one a much longer movie for me than it should have been. I was more often confused than anything else, and I came out of this film with a bad taste in my mouth. I really wouldn't recommend it unless the premise sounds incredibly fascinating. It's an artistic film, I'll give it that, but for what end? I have no idea.

Look, if you don't know anything about The Sixth Sense, you shouldn't even be reading this blog. It's as near to a classic horror film as the 1990s can offer. Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment are nearly pitch perfect in their roles as respectively a child psychologist and a troubled young boy. I won't spoil this movie on the crazy off-chance you've never heard of it. I have no idea how you wouldn't know about it, but... I'd rather be safe... and it's about as good a twist as a twist can be. I actually saw this movie in theatres back when it was actually in theatres, so I actually experienced the twist first hand.

Anyway, I haven't seen the movie since that time I saw it in the movie theatre. And while I liked it when I was ten, I had no idea what I would think about it at twenty-three. I think I love this movie even more now than I did then. I certainly appreciate it a lot more now. The acting is incredibly solid, easily one of the better performances from every actor in the production that I have ever seen. The plot is consistent and very good all around, and the writing is pretty spot-on. While I think the dialogue is a little clunky at times, and the directing can sometimes be shock-and-awe over consistency if that makes any sense at all, M. Night Shyamalan does a great job all around. This twist made him the master of twists for a time, even if that time didn't last for long. He was a master nonetheless and this movie stands as testament to that mastery over the artform of movie-making.

I don't even know what else to say. I love this movie. Everybody, horror fan or not, should watch it at least once in their lifetimes. It is brilliant and beautiful and needs to be enjoyed by everyone. I wish I could add more, but I think everything about this movie has already been said. I really liked it, and that's all there is.

Movie Appraisal: The Innkeepers (2011)

Every once in a while a movie comes along that I absolutely cannot stand on any level. The Innkeepers is that movie for this October. While I'm unsure of exactly what I was expecting from this movie, it certainly wasn't whatever I just saw. Almost nothing about this movie is good. The pacing is terrible. The acting is nearly atrocious in all given cases. The characters are unlikable at best and unfathomable at worst. None of the decisions made by the characters, particularly towards the end of the film, make any sense whatsoever, and there are long periods of time when nothing at all happens.

I happen to love atmospheric horror, but this is  atmospheric horror without atmosphere. It's a ghost story without a purpose. It's a character study without character. This movie is inept. It doesn't work, wither as a movie or as a horror movie. It's boring, predictable, and somewhat pathetic. Ti West, a director I've heard a great deal of very good things about, is about the only reason this movie is even watchable. His direction is passable, even good at times, particularly when the old man shows up dead. Besides that though, none of the actors even seem to be trying. Well, that's not true, Sarah Paxton, who plays Claire, is trying way too hard. She needs to tone her acting down a notch. All I received from her character is that she was twitchy, impulsive, and really dumb. I'm sure many people are like that, but this just felt like overacting to the extreme.  Pat Healy, playing Luke, does a better job, but there are times, particularly when he is scared in the basement of the inn, where it is painfully obvious what's going on in his acting. I like subtlety in movies of this nature, but this movie looked at the word "subtle," didn't understand it, probably never even heard of it, and moved on.

The plot largely centers around the last weekend of the Yankee Pedlar Inn (incidentally in my home state of Connecticut). I have seen the inn before in Torrington, and I guess it could be creepy. Honestly, anything set in this godforsaken state could be creepy, but for the most part this movie was decidedly not creepy at all. Anyway, this last weekend, involves a bunch of shenanigans, ranging from Claire freaking out constantly, to an actress who happens to be psychic, to ghosts and spooks jumping out from all angles. Luke and Claire have attempted to try to find ghosts in the hotel before, and Luke is even in the process of making a spooky late 1990s internet page about the ghosts in the hotel despite it being 2010/2011 when the movie takes place. Ugh. The inn is supposedly haunted, but they've caught very little in the way of evidence, and near the end of the movie you find that Luke doesn't even believe in the ghosts. He's more than likely doing all of this stuff to appeal to Claire, whom he has a thing for. Claire, on the other hand, is a ball full of twitch. The girl can't stand still. She can't stop touching things and moving and twitching and screaming, and it distracted the absolute hell out of me. I didn't connect with her character at all. I didn't like her at all. I had no emotional connection with her, and that was an absolute shame.

I don't think this movie had a promising premise in any case, with or without great characters. Some ghost stories work, but one that seems based on lack of creepy visuals, lack of atmosphere, and lack of actual subtle scares is absolutely doomed to fail. Now, I generally don't like ghost movies anyway, but I had this movie recommended to me by a source I generally trust for compelling spooks and creepy stories. Not this time, it seems. This movie is so devoid of character, scares, or investment that I found myself frequently getting bored, and wishing the movie would just end already. I never do that. Hell, even The Reaping and Marronnier were compelling enough to watch the whole way through. This movie just had nothing for me. It could have been okay. I do like a well handled ghost story... and I happen to watch Ghost Hunters too, so I should love a movie like this if it is well done. But this one was not.

I don't even have more of a plot analysis than that. I have no idea if the ghosts Claire saw were real or not. That seemed to be something the movie was trying to put a question mark on. But the end of the movie completely invalidated any question of the validity of the ghost sightings... or at least of the psychic sights. And that just took away any interest I was clinging too. I figured, "Oh, it might all be in her head. She might be cracking a little. She might be making it all up." But no. Just ghosts scaring her to death because she didn't have her inhaler (since she has asthma). Another thing I have to mention is that my girlfriend had mild asthma. I see her using her inhaler every once in a while. And although Claire uses her inhaler correctly in a few scenes, there are quite a few others when she doesn't use it effectively at all. That bothered me like mad.

There is also forced humor throughout this movie that completely undermines the horror elements. Sometimes humor can be used well with horror, see The Cabin in the Woods or Hausu, but more often than not, humor is not encouraged for movies like this, particularly if it isn't well acted in the first place. I was incredibly disappointed with this piece of garbage movie even though I wasn't expecting anything but some ghosts. The tension was never there; the horror was never there. I would rather watch almost any other horror movie than this one. Avoid it. Don't see it. Don't watch it. Don't encourage it.

Oh, and just to point this out, because I love feeling superior to movie critics who are precisely the worst kinds of people. This terrible movie? Yeah, it has almost an 80% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie that I hated because it was a poorly made, poorly acted, poorly executed horror movie? Yeah, give it an almost stunningly positive review number. But great movies like Silent Hill: Revelation, Ghost Ship, 1408, or even the near-classic Jacob's Ladder all have worst scores. Never trust critics. Seriously. If someone tells you a horror movie has a great score, just pretend it's a bad movie. Do the opposite for films that have terrible scores. Nobody seems to know how to precisely score horror movies, especially when most critics already hate them. Well, horror movies are awesome, and true horror movies need to be known. I will always call out the crap and praise the great ones. And this movie is absolute garbage.

Movie Appraisal: Insidious (2011)

I went into this film thinking I would dislike it like crazy. It's a PG-13 rated horror movie, and none of those seem to be any good at all. The tend to be watered down garbage without any real promise of terror. But this movie... this movie delivered in the most unexpected way. Not only is this a pretty stellar independent horror film, it works on almost every level. Sure, there are some laughably funny moments that are not intended to be funny, and the CGI is sometimes a bit of a mess, but this movie really delivers as both a good movie and a creepy one.

I'm not used to saying that. I mean, it's not as though this flick scared my pants off or anything. Honestly I wasn't really all that scared at all, but it had some great little ideas and it had such creepy moments that it kept me watching. This is definitely a movie I will be watching again and again. While a slow-paced movie, it works very well at bringing the tension and being, for all intent purposes, basically a non-found footage Paranormal Activity, which is a amusing because the director of that movie, Oren Peli, produced this one, and his influence can be seen all over the place. What surprised me the most is that the director of the film, James Wan, is best known for the first Saw movie (which is of a franchise that I do not enjoy), but is also known for the pretty good movie Dead Silence, which I thought had some great direction to it, even if it's bogged down by other things. James Wan has some incredibly good direction in this film, and it is apparent that he is a master of the craft of horror movies. I mean, his shots are superb, evoking all kinds of terrifying images within the viewers' heads. Leigh Whannel (who also plays a large acting roll in the movie) wrote the script, and the dude knows his stuff as well, creating a really horrific movie from beginning to end. They both have worked together before for Saw and Dead Silence, and they seem to work with and off one another very well in general.

I've seen some people criticize the second half of this film, saying that the ball was dropped or that the second half doesn't live up to the first half. Now, while I don't agree with that statement, I can see where it comes from. The second half rolls with a plot premise that many people may not like. It's kind of a Paranormal Activity type of plot twist that really isn't for everybody. I really thought that this plot point was brought forward well and was really effective. But I also have always had a vested interest in the paranormal (whether I believe it or not) and astral projection has always been of special interest to me. The second half may not be as unnerving as the first half, but it really delivers in stellar imagery and an utterly terrifying premise. I know many might not agree with me there, but I found it incredibly effective.

Now, of course there are moments which are not as effective horror-wise. The ending is very predictable. I mean, really really predictable. And if they hadn't gone in that direction I would have been utterly disappointed. But that doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly predictable. I liked it well enough, but would have hated the alternatives, so I guess that's a plus all the way around. The zombie-ghosts were a little too amusing for my taste and the fight scene between ghost-skeleton man and Patrick Wilson's character of Josh is downright silly. The jump scares are kooky for the most part and do not work on any level. I would have preferred subtler scares all around, much like the earlier parts of the film... but on the other hand I can definitely see why the decision was made to make the latter half of the film more "traditionally" scary. They needed to up the tension and create something scarier for everybody, not just me. While it didn't do much for me in general, I suspect a lot of people would enjoy the later scares. And I enjoyed the latter half of the movie anyway... just not as much as maybe I would have otherwise.

The best part of the movie by far was when Josh enters the astral plane and deals with all of the nonsense there. The dreamlike quality of this part as well as the fog and horrific faces he sees are something out of some deep nightmares. I love the lack of explanation as to what's going on. It works really well and I found the whole thing unsettling and deeply awesome. I was also glad- and I almost hate to say this, but I was glad so I will say it- that Rose Byrne wasn't screaming her head off and going into the astral plane with her bra and panties or something else. While I am a straight hot-blooded American male, I hate when horror movies feel that they need to show "sexy" half-naked ladies fighting demons or whatever. I find it insipid and insulting to myself as a far of horror. There are times for naked characters in movies. It is not when that movie is trying to be scary. So, I liked how Patrick Wilson took the reigns and how neither him or Rose Byrne, both good actors and attractive people, took their clothes off or posed for the camera. They seemed like regular people and that worked incredibly well for me. Lin Shaye had the real breakout performance for me though, being the psychic lady of this film, Elise, who knows everything and is basically pretty awesome. Her two investigators were also really well done, with one played by the writer of the film and the other by Angus Sampson. All the parts flowed together and worked quite nicely, even the children of the film, although, thankfully, there was little of them to see. The picture up there of the little boy on the cover art is basically a misrepresentation of the film, again something I am thankful for because LITTLE CHILDREN ARE NOT SCARY!!! So, instead the horror comes wholly from things that could be pretty creepy, none of which are little children.

While the ending is predictable, the story is incredibly well done. It flows nicely, is cleanly edited, and has effective scenes and scares. The dreamlike quality of parts of the film as well as the dark imagery really works wonders for this story as well. Also, just as an aside there are parts of this movie that remind me of a much better done Drag Me to Hell. I have to point that out. While I liked the Sam Raimi flick, it wasn't very memorable, with more ridiculousness than scary moments. This movie seems to have scenes that are similar to that other film, but played straight and effectively, which I really liked. The acting is solid, the sounds are solid, the scares are well done, not neutered as I thought it might be. There is very little to complain about here and a lot to like. I have to recommend this movie to anybody who likes horror. It's a very good watch.

Movie Appraisal: Apartment 1303 (2007)

Apartment 1303 is yet another Japanese ghost tale set in some sort of apartment. It revolves around a restless spirit doing far too much damage for something incorporeal and unreal. And by my quickened tone and brisk pacing of the words you are reading at this very moment, you may be able to tell that I'm a little sick of the Japanese ghost story genre. They do this same kind of story far too often to be scary, thrilling, or fun anymore. When the only Japanese horror movie I had ever seen was The Ring and the original Ringu, I was perfectly fine. The movies both worked quite well, but now after watching countless Japanese horror movies, I find myself sick of young girls haunting and being murderous to other young girls. I know it's part of the mythology of Japan, part of the culture, but it makes for very uninteresting movies at times.

I mean, yes, some of the movies shake it up. The Ring movies pioneered the genre and were really special because of that. A few of the movies of this type I've been more positive on (like The Haunted Apartments) are good because they do change things up, maybe changing the tone or having some kind of twist or something... but I'm finding myself getting bored by these movies, being able to tell everything that will happen from beginning to end, yawning endlessly because I want to see something creative, something different... something meaningful. Is that so much to ask? I guess it must be.

Oh boy. This movie tells the story of a haunted apartment. If you could here my voice right now reading these sentences to you, it would be as if I were falling asleep and dying a little bit with every passing word. Keep that in mind. The apartment is haunted and young women just keep dying. Every time one of them dies, it's incredibly obvious that that particular girl is going to die. They just jump for some reason off of the thirteenth floor and nobody ever really tries to stop them or anything. Nope. These girls are too wily and too fast. No man can even hope to restrain a small Japanese girl. I'm sorry if I'm being a little offensive here, but there has to be some element of reality here. A ghost isn't just going to make a chick commit suicide (kind of?) right in front of her friends or significant other. A ghost will drive the girl mad over time, having her jump while she's both alone and vulnerable. Having it happen in full view of other people makes the suicide less shocking and sillier than it has any right to be.

There are some shocking moments in the film, and yes, it can be somewhat creepy when it isn't obvious and predictable, but it has trouble staying consistent. The plot is so easy to predict that it's absolutely laughable. I could predict jump scares and crazy scenes, moments of blood, or whatever else... and it really took away from any immersion I could have had in this movie. All I wanted to do was curl up and fall asleep because the movie was so much less interesting than anything else.

...fine... I'm being a little harsh here, but I'm going through a lot with these movies, okay? This movie in particular put me through hell by reminding me of 1408, one of my favorite horror stories and horror movies, but being terrible in basically every way that 1408 is good. Hell, even the wall crumbling bits at the end were worse in this film. And the death/suicide scenes were so much less shocking and so much schlockier. That's a word now by the way. A comparative of schlocky, which is the adjective form of schlock. Oh boy, when will this movie get out of my brain?

The ending was awful, making the entire movie pointless. It was needlessly confusing at points. The acting was inconsistent, with some actors doing okay and others going over-the-top. The ghosts are never scary despite the fact that they are MURDEROUS GHOSTS, POSSESSING GIRLS AND MAKING THEM PLUMMET TO THEIR DEATHS. Those kind of entities should be the MOST terrifying rather than silly and hard to take seriously.

The direction of the film, by Ataru Oikawa, is pretty decent though despite my complaints. The deaths scenes are pretty horrid, but the movie has very good lighting for its genre, and if there were no noises in the film, no voices, no awkward sounds, etc. I could see the film being quite effective for the little tension it does have. Some of the gorier effects are also well done, especially of note is the chewed-on bloody bottle that becomes a minor plot point. I found myself kind of shying away from that image, finding it fairly well done.

The story though is... well, not good. It involves an abusive mother and her daughter. The daughter eventually kills the mother, then as she's about to lose everything, she kills herself. The mother's body, for some reason, isn't found until after the girl's suicide. You'd think it would smell or something... Then a series of girls move into the apartment. The ones that have the apartment as their first place of living once they leave home soon find themselves dead, killed by the jealous girl who could never get out from under her mother's thumb, in life or in death. The main character of the movie, Mariko, eventually is introduced as the sister of one of the false protagonists in the beginning of the film, Sayaka. Sayaka has killed herself by jumping from the balcony of the apartment while her friends and boyfriend look on with horror on their faces. Mariko investigates, eventually finding out the truth with the help of a friendly (and kind of creepy in a weird pervert way) detective. (Maybe it's just me. He gave me a weird vibe in the movie.) Mariko finds some common ground with the ghost girl in that they have similar relationships with their mothers, but all of that is for nothing. All of Mariko's character development, all of the searching for the plot... yeah, that's all meaningless the second Mariko is killed by the ghost and all of her knowledge dies with her.

I don't even want to talk about this movie anymore. It's not a bad movie necessarily, and some might even really enjoy it. It does have quality to it despite my complaints, but I almost dislike this movie viscerally, finding most of it unimaginative and utterly devoid of any emotions from any of the characters. It's the same as so many other Japanese ghost horror movies, and I'm sick to death of watching these kinds of movies. I don't suspect I'll be watching too many more unless there are some that really switch up the formulaic approach that most of these movies take. I can't and won't recommend this movie. Go watch 1408 for a better movie with a similar plot. Go watch The Haunted Apartments if you want an utterly better Japanese ghost story that has to do with apartments... if that's your thing. I mean, it's an oddly specific genre to like, but I won't judge. I love space horror movies that take place in space, on a spaceship, and psychological horror that involves little to no psychology. I'm not one to judge.

Movie Appraisal: Ghost Ship (2002)

Now, here's an interesting movie to discuss. Is this a good movie, a bad one, or only a simple failure as a film? Some, no, most of the reviews for this film peg it as a pretty bad film. Hell, the scores of this film give it so low a score that it's practically in the same league of film as Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, which I think must be some kind of awful insult. My point is that this film is almost universally panned by critics, and I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm here to tell you what I think.


Ghost Ship is a ghost film, first and foremost, something that is fairly rare as a film genre today. I'm not ready to speak about the film's quality yet as both a movie and as a ghost film, but I can say that it does, at the very least, try very hard to be a ghost film. But in another way this film is much more than a ghost film. It's a film that has a very interesting story, reminiscent of 1408 and The Shining at the very least. It has a very psychological horror aspect to it without actually having any psychological horror. It's a ghost movie that uses the psychology of the characters within it to actually have the audience as well as the characters see things that either are not there, or are just in their respective minds. I feel that comparing this film to The Shining and 1408 is apt. The films all share very similar themes and ideas, except that I will admit that not only are both of those other films better than this one, but also that this film is much more of a downer movie compared to either of the others.

See, a ghost film, in this case, is not necessarily a horror film, even if it does try to be. This film is not scary at all. I do mean that. I would find it difficult to find one scene that I can definitively say is supposed to be scary. It simply was not a scary film, and yet it is listed as a horror film. I think that's wrong. This is a ghost film, which is not necessarily horror film. I'll show you what I mean.

Ghost Ship has some very strange ideas and scenes, and some very psychological moments, but that does not mean that it ever really finds its way to scary. I don't know if this movie is trying to be scary either, which is kind of the problem I'm having in reviewing it. If it was trying to be scary, it failed completely. If it was trying to be a ghost story, it succeeded even though it isn't scary. In my mind a ghost story doesn't have to be scary to be good, and that's kind of what I'm feeling at this point. I feel that this was not a bad film in any sense of the word. It certainly was not as bad as The Reaping, which I still hate even after all this time. I actually will even go and say that I liked this film. It wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but I thought it had a lot of great ideas and worked them all out really well. In my mind the film itself isn't the highpoint of this film, but rather the ideas and implications raised by the film. Again it's very reminiscent of 1408 in that way, except that 1408 was very good within the film as well.

Like 1408 though, I feel that this film has a heavy disconnect between the genre it is and the genre it's trying to be. This film is a ghost story, but has far too many elements of straight horror and comedy. Those things don't work in this film. If the filmmakers had decided to try and make a good film they would have focused more on the psychological implications and made this a psychological horror ghost film, but that wasn't the case. I feel that this film may be one of the more controversial reviews I might do, simply because I strongly disagree with the consensus, in much the same way I disagreed with the consensus about Blair Witch 2.

Does it work as a movie? I don't know. I found it enjoyable to watch. I liked it. To me it was memorable. I wouldn't have thought it would have been memorable, and at first I really did think this film wasn't fantastic, even if it was enjoyable to watch. But in seeing the ending and thinking about it, the movie really does appeal to me at a visceral level. I like the ideas of the movie probably much more than the movie itself, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In watching this movie, you must be able to keep an opened mind and try and see what's going on and think about it rather than just dismissing the whole thing as completely stupid. The movie holds up much better that way. Is this ever going to be one of my favorite movies? No, but I do think it is one that should be watched for the sheer ideas of the story.

The story is pretty good, involving a salvage crew being told by a pilot that a big damn luxury ship is sitting out in the Bering Strait just ready to be salvaged. The crew comes aboard the ship and starts experiencing very strange things, eventually coming to a end with a confrontation with something that is beyond the living. I love how it was done. I love how the acting was surprisingly good even from the smaller parts. I do tend to like Karl Urban and Gabriel Byrne, and they were both very good in this film, although it could never be considered their best roles. Desmond Harrington, playing Jack Ferriman (Now, that's a name to run away from if I've ever heard one.), really brings out his acting pants. At first I thought this guy was easily the worst actor I have ever seen, but as the movie progressed I could see exactly what he was going for and it was unsettling. I was unsettled, not scared, but very nervous about his role in everything. Hell, he's one of the reasons I liked this film as much as I did. His performance was really very well done, and I'm glad I had the chance to watch it.

As for the cinematography, and I do feel I have to mention it, even quickly, it was not amazing, but also not terrible. I thought that some of the shots and CGI were incredibly well done and other parts of it, such as the shots of the characters, were not as well done. I like the scenery of this film as well. I especially like it for the kind of film I do believe this film was trying to be. Some of the ruined environments look really good, and realistic even, which is always a plus in a movie like this. Also as a point, why do movies like this have this idea of showing a topless woman against the backdrop of a ruined place? I mention that because it was something I was hanging my head about as I was watching the film. it always seems that in some stanky, nasty, dank, and dark environment some chick needs to be getting her top off. I know it show a contrast between ruin and beauty... or whatever... but I think it's a little sick. It doesn't matter that the chick who was doing it was a ghost... well, I guess it kind of does actually... but my point is that some filmmaker was probably getting off on it and that kind of makes me uncomfortable for so many reasons.

Anyway, I did like this film. I felt that although it was not as good as 1408 or The Shining, Ghost Ship can draw some pretty  heavy and serious comparisons to those films. If you enjoyed either of those films or their original stories, go and check out Ghost Ship. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Movie Appraisal: Dead Silence (2007)

Okay... well, this certainly was a movie. (I start with that line a lot, don't I?) It was... well, I guess it was kind of good, maybe? I think?

The pacing, for one, was all over the place. The fear and suspense could have been there, the story was certainly compelling enough in a fairy-tale kind of way, but the pacing just blew the whole thing to Hell. I guess that Dead Silence just felt like a movie that was all over the place. Yes, it uses an interesting premise and has creepy moments, but the plot is so convoluted and complicated that it gets confusing quickly. the characters as well are all kind of... well, just there. They exist, but they really have no personality. The main character... I can barely even remember what his personality was supposed to be like. He just seemed so bland. The dialogue was bland. Everything was bland except for the idea and the visuals.

And I did like the visuals. They reminded me of some creepy fairy-tale, and that was really cool. I don't really remember any other horror movie feeling quite so much like a fairy-tale... maybe Sauna, but Sauna was also much lighter (as in tones of the visuals, not subject-matter) than Dead Silence, which seemed altogether darker and grittier, but still felt very much like a fairy-tale... like Hansel and Gretel scared in the middle of the woods... maybe that's just what it made me think, but I did like it.

So, this movie involves ventriloquist dummies, ghosts, tongues being ripped out, and... uh... the "prefect" puppet. Uh... yeah... it involves the protagonist going back to his home and his hometown after his wife is murdered by a dummy that was sent in the mail. Yeah. I guess the whole quality of the movie is incredibly unrealistic, and maybe that's why I see it as fairy-tale logic. The protagonist is suspected of murdering his wife, BUT HE DIDN'T IT WAS A SUPERNATURAL GHOST-DUMMY-THING, YOU MORONS! WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? Oh, whoops... I seem to have forgotten my "Let's Go Ahead And Believe This Bull-Crap" Pills today.

The visuals are good and the film can be creepy at times, but the whole thing seems undermined by two things. The first is that the movie ends with A TWIST and THE TWIST is really kind of silly. I mean, I kind of liked it, but I can see most people rolling their eyes to it and they wouldn't be wrong. The second thing is that ghosts are silly and stupid and this was not an effective ghost movie in the slightest. Okay, that's kind of partially my opinion, so let me re-phrase that: This movie does not use its ghost(s)/puppets in a logical or understandable way. They don't follow the rules. They don't follow any rules. They just do whatever they want to do. The main ghost, the old lady, Mary Shaw, is completely unstoppable. Now, yes, I know that there are entire horror franchises based upon having an antagonist not being able to be stopped, but those are not movie I like anyway. Slasher films are altogether kind of boring to me. I want to see character development, an arc, a plot that is more than just running away, searching around, and dying. Maybe that's too much to ask. Maybe I'm just too finicky, but I think that I should get that out of these movies. Give me something more than fairy-tale drivel in my horror films, please.

Did I like this film? I......... I guess? I'm not really sure. It wasn't terrible. It had some good scares, but felt... well, it felt soulless. It felt like it didn't have any passion to it, and maybe that's really my biggest problem rather than the nigh-unstoppable cursed ghost-thing or whatever the Hell it was. The acting was lackluster and completely forgettable. The plot had the ability to be good, but was bogged down by bad writing and absolutely horrid pacing, and there was nothing that really engaged me to this movie. I felt wholly removed from it, and I should never feel that way when watching a horror movie. I should be engrossed in it, feeling what the character's are feeling, jumping when they are jumping. When I feel the same thing that is on screen, then the horror movie, or the movie in general, has succeeded admirably, but this movie fell flat.

If you want something mindless which you will ultimately be disappointed with, go ahead and watch this movie, but if not, then it's no great loss if you don't see it.

Movie Appraisal: Below (2002)

What a strange movie. I'm not entirely certain how I should review Below. Should I review it as a World War II movie? A submarine movie? A horror movie? A psychological horror movie? A ghost movie? Or some combination of all of those? I just don't know. I don't know what genre this movie is trying to be besides regular creepy.

Below reminds me of Event Horizon in many ways, except it's not even close to as good and is a bit more psychological in some aspects. I don't think it's a bad film per se, but it isn't a great film either. The acting shouldn't even be talked about. The characters were forgettable. The plot was a bit ridiculous. The horror wasn't fantastic (although it was decent), and the best thing this movie had going for it was the claustrophobia.

As a World War II movie, this one has just enough of that era's plot to get by. Honestly though, I can see a movie like this taking place during any era. The few parts that are really World War II era specific aren't done incredibly well. I like the era talk and what I'm supposed to believe are the era's clothing, but besides that this movie really has nothing to do with the era it supposedly is in.

As a submarine movie, it's not a bad flick, showing the claustrophobia and nervousness in such tight quarters. I actually think that the claustrophobic elements in the film are the best things in the film. Most of the imagery involving the limited space is quite well done.

This movie is not really a horror movie. Oh, it has elements of horror, but it's more a thriller... and even that is being generous. It does have a jump scare from time to time and it wants you to believe it's building up the scares for the climax, but it's not. It's just playing games and pretending to be something it isn't. Sad really.

Psychological horror? Ha! This is weaksauce psychological thriller material at absolute best. This is the kind of film that would make Jacob's Ladder laugh with rage! Anybody who even compares this film with a gem like Jacob's Ladder is confused and probably insane.

I guess there are ghosts? I don't really know... It's never explained, which is fine, but it's also not done well which isn't fine at all. I do like the banging coming from outside the submarine. I thought the sounds were very well done, but the imagery really does leave something to be desired. As a horror film it falls apart, but I think it would stand up fairly well if it were a creepy radio drama. As I said, the sounds are actually fantastic.

This is not a great film and I don't have much to say about it. It's decent, but there are so many better films out there... why would somebody watch this over any other given movie? Hell, I only watched this because I was going to watch and review The Beyond by Lucio Fulci and I couldn't because my television was in use. So, I had to freaking settles for watching this on my laptop. Yeah. That's my story for watching this piece of crap movie... Anyway, it's not unwatchable, just not great. Watch it in the background while you're doing something else and you'll have much more fun than if you're watching it.