The Lick Ness Life

Well, here we go.  The final post on the ol' blog.  I have to be honest with all of the kind folks who have read this over the years and state that I'm actually a little nervous as I type this.  Call it the weight that comes with volume, because we're definitely talking a lot of volume here.  There's no need to sugarcoat it: it's been a long road with a lot of work put into it, my friends.  Nine years, 375 posts, and a regular schedule of a single entry per week since Halloween season of 2013.  There have been times where I've hated writing this blog, there have been times where I've loved it, and then there are times where I never want to look at my keyboard again after getting done with a particularly long post.

When I perused through my history in preparation for writing this here post, I actually kinda smiled at how much it's evolved over the years.  Variety is the spice of life, after all.  It goes without saying that movie reviews were my bread and butter, but I've also done my fair share of articles and lists.  Those lists are pretty fun, both because they tend to promote discussion and because they're really easy to write.  I can be a lazy fuck.  No matter what I wrote, though, it was all about one thing: promoting horror films to people who might not have been into them before.  No exaggeration, this has been my dream for a long time, because I genuinely think that watching horror movies is such an awesome experience that I wish more people would share it. And I still do.  With 10 subscribers and enough page views to yield me 75 bucks in almost a decade...I think it's pretty safe to say that I've failed in that mission.

It all started with one idea in the fall of 2007, just a few weeks after the death of my older brother, when  my franchise reviews started cropping up on various message boards.  Those eventually turned over into slightly deeper reviews via the Flixter app on Facebook.  'Memba that?  A few people on social media liked those reviews enough that I kept doing them, and at this time I was only reviewing the cream of the crop that horror had to offer.  This was my first idea - a sort of Horror Hall of Fame, because surely that hadn't been tried before.  In time I had enough of these reviews to create this here blog site in January of 2010 and throw everything I'd written on Facebook.  It consisted of reviews of a lot of my favorite and/or classic horror movies along with a brand-new franchise review of the Friday the 13th series.  The reviews got re-christened as the International Horror Registry, and I would do 50 of these.  Yeah, in those early days of the blog, I was only reviewing films that I enjoyed.  This includes Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, a movie that is awful by any standard but should be required viewing for everyone on the planet.

After a brief break in the middle of 2011, I was ready for a fresh paint of coat, and the blog was re-christened as "Blood, Guts and Tears."  Why?  Who knows.  It sounded cool at the time.  The Registry was retired, and I was ready to start promoting horror in a different way - articles.  That trend lasted all of three weeks before I missed reviewing movies, but it was time for the horizons to broaden.  Horror fans can't just take in the good, because that's where this genre is different from anything else out there.  The quality-to-crap ratio isn't good, but when it's good, boy is it good.  But we as horror fans need to know how to separate the good from the bad while also still enjoying the bad, and now I was taking on every movie that came my way.  This resulted in the big dividend that is Basket Case, a movie that I hated upon first watching it back when I was in high school and was ready to give another chance.  To this day, I consider this to be my best review.  I dug deeper into the story, cracked some serviceable jokes, and even gave a halfway-decent analysis of why this movie is unforgettable.  A lot of my reviews after this one tried to emulate it as the posts turned MASSIVE.  This was the XXL Era, and it was not for the faint of heart.

From that point on my involvement started to get more sporadic.  There was a lot going on in the Lick Ness Life at this time.  Buying a house and moving came first.  Then came writing an actual BOOK that still sits on my laptop because it isn't any good at all.  Somewhere in the middle of all that, I cranked out my review of The Shining, the film that I consider to be the single scariest thing ever committed to celluloid.  For six months, the blog went dark.  Then came the AFOREMENTIONED (yes! one final time!) October of 2013, where I was ready for my big comeback.  And it was a comeback that LL Cool J himself would be damn proud of.  I now had a much better name for the place, I had a bunch of new DVDs on reserve, and Lick Ness Monster's Horror Movie Mayhem was born.  And it didn't stop for the next half-decade.  Unfortunately, I tinkered with the format again and started writing these weird reviews where I gave out "tiered" ratings in different categories, and yeah, that experiment was bad.  Don't read the reviews from the relaunch through June of 2014, because they SUCK.

But you can't say that I wasn't consistent.  My goal was one a week.  And I kept at it for an entire year.  And then another year.  And another.  The number kept piling up, and once I decided to start writing reviews like a normal human being again they actually started to get good.  Bro.  One thing that I'll carry with pride going on in life is that I genuinely do believe that I've done my best stuff since last summer.  All it took was to finally get a good review formula (eight paragraphs, boys and girls - that's the key) down pat and to start picking out interesting themes to give me several weeks' worth of material.  From my recent run, the reviews that I'm most proud of are Crawlspace from my Halloween Empire-a-Thon and Track of the Moon Beast from this year's MST3K March.  The reason?  Both are films that I'm positive the VAST majority of non-horror aficionados have never heard of, and I did my best to make them sound entertaining and watchable.  Gotta love that Johnny Longbow.  But as the weeks kept coming and I spent every Saturday morning churning out another post with a two-week lead time, it gradually became clear that my heart wasn't in it anymore.  I had said everything that I needed to say, and there was only so many more ways of stating it.  Does anyone else want to hear another Jon Lickness rant about how soulless action and superhero movies are in the present day?  Didn't think so.

Looking back, there are definitely some reviews that I disagree with in hindsight.  For starters, I now consider Basket Case to be a true underrated gem and I would bump up my rating another half-star to a full *** 1/2.  The sequels, though...yeah, they're not so good.  I definitely think I overrated them due to the fact that I was able to procure some rare VHS copies, so they would get knocked down to ** and * 1/2 for the second and third films, respectively.  Oh, and Piranha 2010?  Wow, what was I thinking?  That movie was HORRIBLE, and I gave it four stars!  I was truly wrapped up in the hype of that one.  Since I'm a slasher fan first and foremost, I've grown to like Night School more with subsequent viewings and it's now a solid *** 1/2 from me.  Lastly, I think I was too kind to some of the lesser Empire Pictures movies.  Don't get me wrong, I still love Charles Band and his first foray into running a movie studio, but Troll and TerrorVision aren't getting nearly as much praise from me these days.  Both are hovering around the ** range.

Horror movies and scary stories in general have always been a huge part of my life.  This goes back to being in grade school reading R.L. Stine books to discovering J-Horror as an adult.  I wouldn't even want to see the sum total of every dollar that I've spent surrounding myself with this stuff over the years, but the most important expense that comes in life is the expense of time.  Each one of us only has so many days to walk around, age, and perish, and I choose to do it watching monstrous killers in hockey masks and vengeful long-haired ghosts wreak havoc on the screen.  I enjoy being scared, and deep down I'm convinced that most people share this sentiment.  Being scared is fun, because it's a reminder that each one of us is truly alive.  This is what the horror genre and horror movies in particular are all about, and if I've helped just a few people along the way see the merit in something with the power to make you jump and scream, it's been worth it.  Thank you for reading, keep the adrenaline racing, and long live horror!

My Ten Favorite Horror Flicks

Yes, folks, it's come to this.

Interesting peek behind the curtain, folks - in the notepad file that I always copy these from, I've had a modified version of this list in a little corner of the document for something like five years in the event of a true "in case of emergency, break glass" moment.  And while that never came to pass, I always knew that if the blog ever started seeing its final days that I had to do some kind of ultimate favorite movies list.  Now there's a wrestler name just waiting to happen.  I actually had to tweak the rankings a little bit before writing it, because while a lot of my faves have stayed the same over the years there are some new arrivals to the list.  And, spoiler alert, we have a new #1 from every other time I've done one of these.  How's that for a teaser?

With that masturbatory introduction aside, welcome to My 10 Favorite Horror Flicks.  Far from any kind of authoritative quality list, these are just the movies that I enjoy the most and have found myself loaning out to people the most over the years as an introduction to what horror is all about.  There are a lot of big titles here, and also a decent amount of variety, so consider this the crash course if you're new to the genre.  Plus, I've seen every flick here at least five times on the low end of the spectrum and more than 50 up top, so it's not like they don't have replay value.  Enough waxing.  On with the list!

10.  Suspiria (1977, Directed by Dario Argento)

A few years back, I actually considered this to be the scariest movie of all time.  The ending is truly chilling.  While I can sleep like a baby immediately after watching it now, there is still no doubt that this is a bona-fide classic of the genre that remains Dario Argento's crowning achievement.  Jessica Harper is infinitely likable and relatable as American ballet student Suzy Banyon who shows way more bravery than I would have upon arriving at a prestigious dance academy in the middle of nowhere.  Surprise, surprise, this is no ordinary school.  Within 20 minutes we're treated to a murder sequence that still ranks as one of the most vicious of its kind, and while there are some good gory moments to be had it's the way that this movie is SHOT that truly makes it immortal.  Reds, greens, and kaleidoscopes of cinematography are all meant to make you feel unwelcome and jarred.  This is one of those flicks that qualifies as a pure experience, which I just can't imagine the upcoming remake managing to replicate in the least bit.

9.  Event Horizon (1997, Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson)

Back in my middle school days, this was a movie that I watched an untold amount of times.  To this day, it's still my favorite hybrid of sci-fi and horror ever made, and I'm not alone as this is a movie with major "cult" status that nonetheless took a while to get there.  The star power here is just off the charts, with Sam Neill turning in a tour-de-force performance as Dr. Weir, brilliant physicist who has invented a way for spaceships to travel through black holes and cut travel time to zero.  Also present are Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller along with Kathleen Quinlan, Sean Pertwee and Joely Richardson as his crewmates who have been recruited to accompany Weir on a salvage mission when the one ship that has ever used his technology mysteriously reappears from the nothing.  This film can best be described as The Haunting or The Amityville Horror in space, and the script by Philip Eisner has a lot of fun with that concept as whatever the ship has brought back picks them off one-by-one.  Here's hoping we get that director's cut someday.

8.  Horror of Dracula (1958, Directed by Terence Fisher)

Ladies and gentlemen, the oldest film on the list.  I didn't become a huge fan of the Hammer Studios offerings until I was well into adulthood, but once I discovered them I definitely made up for lost time.  Of all the major characters that the British cinema factory churned out, though, my favorite is definitely their take on Dracula with Christopher Lee stepping into the title role as arguably the greatest iteration of the world's most famous vampire.  The first film in the series (known simply as Dracula over the rest of the world and Horror of Dracula here in the States due to some sort of rights issue) still stands as the best.  Director Terence Fisher shoots this thing with an ungodly Gothic atmosphere.  By 1958 standards, this was also a movie that shocked audiences with its graphic gore, done live and in living color.  Finally, every role here was cast and played to perfection with Peter Cushing dominating every scene he's in as Dr. Van Helsing and, of course, Christopher Lee himself despite having very few actual lines.

7.  Sleepaway Camp (1983, Directed by Robert Hiltzik)

This is definitely a film that won't be appearing on any authoritative "Best Horror Movies" lists done by respected film critics.  From a technical standpoint, this one ain't exactly a masterpiece.  If you can look through all the flaws and appreciate it for its quirkiness, characters and sheer emotion, you'll have a lot of fun.  From a plot standpoint, it's essentially every other early '80s slasher flick for 90% of its running time as teenage cousins Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) and her cousin Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten) arrive at picturesque Camp Arawak.  We watch the mostly silent Angela deal with the local mean girls and her first romance, all while several of the campers get offed by an unseen killer.  There are some downright dopey moments contained within, as some of the dialogue and acting is rather...suspect.  But just trust me and stick with it until the final credits roll.  No matter what hoity-toity complaints I can direct at this flick, I'll never forget it for as long as I live.  Oh, and then there's the ending.

6.  The Shining (1980, Directed by Stanley Kubrick)

Here's the movie that I NOW consider to be the scariest thing ever committed to celluloid.  What we have here is essentially Suspiria on steroids, with a big budget and one of the best damn directors ever in Stanley Kubrick taking the Stephen King novel and amping up the sheer bizarre to previously unheard-of levels.  From the first time we see Jack Nicholson as troubled writer Jack Torrance, you know that something isn't quite right with him.  There are a lot of fans of the book who just absolutely DESPISE this part of the film, feeling that this wasn't in line with the "guy going slowly insane" story that King presented.  In my mind, though, this makes what happens at the Overlook Hotel in this film that much more intense.  The gauntlet that little Danny Torrance goes through here, both in the onslaught that he takes from the hotel's seemingly infinite supply of creepy ghosts and the final external threat in the form of his insane daddy is unthinkable.  Add in tons of classic scenes and an all-time performance from Nicholson and you've got a win.

5.  Psycho (1960, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

This was the first black-and-white film that I ever got really, really into.  I discovered Psycho in sixth grade, right after I read the following line in an old Roger Ebert Movie Companion in his review of the original Halloween: "It's so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho)."  Whoa.  I had to see this movie.  Not only did I watch it, I actively searched out every bit of information that there was on its production and themes, checking out a few thick books on Hitchcock from libraries and watching a documentary about its making on PBS.  Folks, it warrants all of the attention that it gets.  Is it scary in 2018?  Not especially.  But it's still one hell of a powerful suspense tale as we follow likable heroine Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) for the first trimester of the plot only for a major swerve to be introduced in the form of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and the leech-like relationship that his mother has with him.  This is another film that you'll never forget after the credits roll, with absolutely classic dialogue and characters.

4.  Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984, Directed by Joseph Zito)

This is another film that you're definitely not gonna see on any "All-Time Greatest Horror Movie" lists that pop up on, say, AMC or Sight and Sound or IMG's Official Circle Jerk of Film Snobs.  It IS, however, the absolute best of what the slasher movie subgenre has to offer, courtesy of the single greatest slasher movie franchise of all time.  This one encapsulates the true spirit of what Friday the 13th is all about better than any other movie in the series, offering up heaping helpings of sex, nudity, quirky teen characters, questionable decision-making, and, of course, a whole lot of blood and gore.  The three movies that preceded this one all had a bunch of stuff cut from them to avoid the dreaded X rating, but maybe they let this one slip due to relief that they thought the series was finally over?  Who knows.  All I know is that Jason Voorhees is simply a badass in his final foray as a human being before he went full Zombie Terminator, with Corey Feldman (!) getting the honors of being the guy to finally, unequivocally kill the bastard.  But not really.

3.  Jaws (1975, Directed by Steven Spielberg)

Now THIS flick, you will see on several of those officialized lists that I whined about in the previous paragraph.  And with good reason.  Jaws isn't just an awesome movie, it's a movie that changed the way that films are released.  For better or worse.  Before this baby came out, summer was when Hollywood would dump all of its crappy exploitation offerings.  Not that there's anything WRONG with crappy exploitation offerings, but it is when it is.  The big shark made summer movie season, well, summer movie season, and it's all courtesy of Mr. Spielberg and his dream that they could take a mechanical shark riding around on a track and make it scary and terrifying.  Not only did they succeed, they succeeded with flying colors.  They even took some of the stuff that didn't work so well in the original novel (unlikable characters and a side plot involving the Mayor being in bed with the Mafia come to mind) and improved them.  When Scheider, Dreyfuss and Shaw take to the sea to fight the shark, it's an event that you're invested in like no other.  Farewell and adieu.

2.  Halloween (1978, Directed by John Carpenter)

This was the film that occupied the #1 spot on my personal favorite list for many years.  The fact that it isn't anymore is definitely no slight to it, as you'll never find a better example of the phrase "less is more" anywhere else in the universe.  It wouldn't surprise me if John Carpenter had those words imprinted on every page of the script.  This was yet another movie that I first discovered at the end of my grade school career, and while I loved (and still love) the Friday the 13th series I noticed several things about this one that elevated it above that franchise.  Carpenter has a technique here that remains effective to this day.  The camera will remain static, then move, then come back, and something unexpected is in the background.  Of course, all these years later the story of babysitter Laurie Strode, Dr. Sam Loomis and his Captain Ahab complex and the Night that Michael Myers came home retains pretty much all of its ability to hook you in and knock you right over.  It's still essential viewing every October 31st along with its first sequel.  Which brings me to...

1.  Ju-On (2002, Directed by Takashi Shimizu)

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  A short time after my brother's untimely passing I start to collect horror movies.  It starts with all of the slasher movie franchises of my youth and some of "Best of the Best" recommendations that I gleam online.  Eventually, that gets old and I start to look into some of the films from Japan that had been really big in the U.S. a few years prior to this.  One wintery night in early 2008, I pop in a DVD that I spent $2.98 on and it's all history from there.  All of the films in the original Japanese franchise are awesome, but this one - the third in the series and the first one released theatrically - is the best.  Hell, it's my favorite horror movie of all time!  The thing that stands out about croakin' Kayako Saeki (Takako Fuji) and her son Toshio is that no one escapes.  It's a death sentence, and as each "Chapter" ticks by focusing on a single character and their run-in with with the vengeful ghosts it becomes clear that you're watching something special.  And it all wraps up in an absolutely perfect bow.

There you go, peeps.  If somebody were to ask me what movies they should check out first if their goal was to get into horror movies, these would be the ones to start with.  And now that this is out of the way, join me next week as we take a look back at the long, bloody history of the blog and put an exclamation point on this whole experience.  Here's hoping it's more of a Final Chapter and not a Jason Goes to Hell.

The Final Slash

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I'm just really, really sick of a lot of the stuff that Hollywood has doled out endlessly in recent years.  These days, it seems like all we get are superhero movies, Star Wars and the Fast and Furious films.  Of that latter franchise, I've seen a grand total of one movie.  Seriously, what keeps people coming back to them?  It's a complete and utter mystery to me, but clearly I'm in the minority since it's currently a nine-movie series with no end in sight.  Or is it just that they always gross eleventy billion dollars in China?  It just seems like it's been same old, same old for eons at the multiplex.  The message that needs to be gleamed from this particular intro paragraph: Superhero fatigue can't come soon enough for this reporter.

A while back, I wrote an article on this here blog called "A Film Exists.  Watching Not Required."  In it, I posited the theory that this is where us fans of the great, grand horror genre are a lot more savvy than the action blockbuster-viewing public at large.  Once we get sick of something, we let the bastards know about it and vote with our wallets.  As such, we get actual NEW STUFF every few years.  What a novel concept!  Yes, folks, horror fans force change, and as such it's a style of movie-making that is constantly in flux, evolving in ways way more than just the cosmetic differences of how many millions of dollars of CGI explosions can be hurled at the screen.  And there's more big changes to come, folks.  Thus, come with me as I gaze into the crystal ball and wax poetically about where I see the horror genre going in the upcoming years.

First and foremost, I wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if we see a lot more true-life styled horror in the upcoming years.  The movie Don't Breathe really was a refreshing film to come in the wake of all the ghost movies that dominated the scene for a few years, as while it was somewhat out there you could definitely see something like this happening in the real world.  Generally speaking, I'm tired of movies that focus on demons, ghosts and possessions.  Going by reactions that I see online, I'm not alone.  Focusing more on sickos that could actually be in our own backyards is likely to be the next wave that comes along, and I for one welcome it.

While found footage movies aren't quite the rage they used to be, there are still plenty of them to come down the pike every single year.  I don't see them going anywhere.  While we're pretty much done with the tried-and-true "documentary film gone wrong" approach, there is still some fun to be had with this little subgenre and you have technology to thank for it.  I can see a few movies popping up in cinemas and all the various online outlets in the not-too-distant future that take concepts like YouTube shows, Facebook Live and Periscope and just go batshit crazy with the idea of something going horribly wrong.  Much like the slasher movies of yesteryear, there is definitely ways to keep found footage movies off life support as long as you throw in a few creative wrinkles to the formula.

Time for a really out-there prediction.  Someone asked me recently when the next Friday the 13th movie was getting released, and my answer was "probably never."  Watching Paramount try to get that thing going is like watching a fine-dining chef trying to slow roast a piece of beef jerky.  Same thing goes for Nightmare on Elm Street.  However, due to the success of Stranger Things and retro-styled horror...I now see a possibility that these legendary stalwarts of horror could make a comeback.  Just imagine if some fine scholar at Netflix saw the possibility in doing more Jason or Freddy episodes, shot to look like '80s movies and with themes and special effects mirroring that period.  I actually don't think it's too far-fetched.

Speaking of the online giants, I also think we're going to get a lot more foreign imports.  While I wasn't a huge fan of Veronica, I'm clearly one of the few horror fans who wasn't, and there's a vast untapped globe out there just ripe for the picking.  These companies need content, after all.  The downside of this is that this is probably going to lead to another prolonged period of remakes at some point, since there is a pretty sizable chunk of people (including a lot that I talk to in person) who don't watch to watch movies with subtitles.  That's not to say that I won't watch them, but forewarning.  Remakes-a-coming in roughly five years or so.

The return of GOOD M. Night Shyamalan with Split set off a whole heap of possibilities in my mind.  Once the sequel is released (which will really be a lot more of an action film than a horror opus, admittedly), it remains to be seen if Mr. Night can maintain his newly-found mojo.  If he can, you can prepare yourself for your fair share of imitators just like everyone copied the "twist" post-Sixth Sense.  The result?  More heady horror, and a quality uptick.  I promise not to give Shyamalan the Lick Ness Monster Curse this time, and once again sincerely apologize for possessing the dreaded reverse Midas touch that is my opinion.

I've focused entirely on the good possibilities thus far.  Of course, not everything can be good.  I actually do feel that a lot of the bad trends in horror are pretty much played, as we're not seeing story-free torture porn films anymore and virtually every major horror movie of the past has been remade already.  However, the remakes we do get are gonna suck, as every time that a big Hollywood company touches something else they effectively strip it of everything that made it cool in the first place.  This doesn't just include the foreign movies that get the fresh paint of coat, either.  This new Suspiria?  You heard it here first, it's gonna be awful.  Same goes for the upcoming Twilight Zone reboot, as the atmosphere of the Rod Serling original just can't be topped.

Of course, this is all just my $.02 and I could be way off.  Going by my past performance record, that's probably a much more accurate expectation and we'll probably be seeing a lot of giant monster movies, or something.  One thing is certain, though: No matter where it goes, I will always look forward to more from my favorite genre, and I will always vote with my wallet whenever I get sick of the same old shit!  And with that off my chest, get ready for next week as I tackle my Ten Favorite Horror Films of All Time.  With pictures.

The Blood-Red Mine: Five Horror Movies Ripe from the Interwebz

I've talked a little about Creepypastas on the blog here before, but it bears repeating: some of the best horror stuff you'll find anywhere on the world right now is in these things.  I'll never forget the first one I ever read on some random message board.  The story, as sparse as it was, was all about a strange phenomena overtaking the entire world.  Not an epidemic, not ghosts, not zombification, but the earth.  As in, earth, not capitalized - dirt.  It just keeps rising and rising and rising, destroying everything that it touches.  Told from the perspective of a survivor hiding out on the roof of his house, it consisted of little other than watching his neighbors get sucked up by the dirt as he theorizes about why this is happening, eventually coming to the conclusion that it's a plight from God himself eating his own creation.  Brrrrr.  And then there's the Slender Man, a creepypasta that has become so popular it's getting its own movie soon.  Spoiler alert.

There's a lot of freaky stuff out there on the interwebz, though, and not all of it is via short stories told by semi-anonymous horror buffs.  A good deal of them, but not all.  There are a few true crime stories that I would not have discovered without the Internet.  You'd be surprised how many other freaks are out there who are into this kinda stuff other than myself.  Than again, maybe you're not.  Ever hear about the adult baby community?  And then there's the whole Brony...thing.  Nevertheless, there's a prime amount of material all within a few clicks that THIS REPORTER is convinced would make amazing horror movies.  Since it's been a while since I've done one of these "five suggestion" lists, you know what's coming.  Ladies and gentlemen...

FIVE STORIES FOUND ON THE INTERNET THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT HORROR MOVIE

(1) The Elisa Lam Disappearance
If you've never heard of this true-life disappearance/possible murder/possible paranormal mindfuck of the highest order, Google it and be prepared to be amazed.  The final days and death of Elisa Lam is the kind of locked door mystery that mystery buffs pine for, but the single most perplexing thing about the whole affair is surveillance footage from inside the hotel where she spent her final days.  More specifically, from the elevator.  Apparently, there is an urban legend from Japan and Korea called "The Elevator Game" that involves visiting the floors in a tall building (of at least 13 floors) in a very specific order.  And if you do it right, you get to cross the line into the afterlife.  I think a film about an amateur sleuth who gets obsessed with this case and finding a similar disappearance would be awesome, ending with said protagonist playing the Elevator Game himself.  Whether or not he talks to the woman on the fifth floor is entirely up to the screenwriter.

(2) Black-Eyed Children
This is another subject that I had never heard of in my life until something like a year ago.  And since I work third shift, there isn't a night that goes by where I don't go out to my car and think about it.  The first recorded story about children with jet black eyes has its roots in a series of mailing lists in the mid-'90s and Texas reporter Brian Bethel who related his dalliance with the little demons while exiting a movie theater late at night.  The basic legend goes like this - they suddenly appear late at night, either while you're in your car or (shudder) at your door.  All they want is to be let inside, but under no circumstances are you ever to let them in.  As you can tell, there is more than enough material here for a film to be made, and the way that I understand it is that this has already happened.  However, give this baby a budget, a decent cast and a script that takes place over a confined single night and you've got some solid nightmare fuel.

(3) The Deep Web
Just, the deep web in general.  No further explanation needed, but since I have to at least make it seem like I'm being persuasive with these things, I suppose I should elaborate a little bit.  Only something like 3% of the Internet can be found on Google.  The rest?  Well, a lot of it consists of stuff you might find via stuff like searching for hotel listings.  But then there's...the other stuff.  The stuff that you need that mysterious Tor browser that there ain't no way in hell I'm ever putting on my hard drive, because I've read the stories dammit.  A lot of these particular stories and videos fall into the "unbelievable" territory about a massive global conspiracy of deep web stalkers, but it doesn't matter, they scare me.  The movie is right there - give us a couple of young likable "righteous" hackers, have them run across the wrong people on the deep web, and begin some of the stuff that you may or may not have checked out on Tor, you sickos.

(4) The "Point-and-Click Mystery" Story
There are a few different variations of this particular creepypasta/Internet legend out there, but the most memorable one that I ever ran across involved a Jack the Ripper point-and-click game.  You know what those are, right?  Also known as "hidden object" mysteries, they're basic flash games that you can buy for something like $9.99 at every Wal-Mart in the country where you basically click everything on the screen.  Only this Jack the Ripper game apparently is SATANIC.  Taking place years after the protagonist's childhood memories of said game, he goes back to it only to find a much different version of the game that almost threatens to break through the screen and become much more than a game.  Hell, it even starts addressing the player by name.  Pretty much every aspect of the plot that you need is right there, so there isn't a need to get fancy with anything.  Give us a game about a famous killer, a likable hero and solid three-act structure and you've got a win.

(5) Obey the Walrus
Yeah, just give this a watch and try to get it burned out of your memory.  There IS a much longer version of the video out there without all of the intentionally creepy music and filters that gives the video a bit more context, but then again there are also parts of it that manage to get under your skin more than this one.  To be fair, there are also a fair amount of interviews with the actual person featured in this thing.  But if someone were to make a movie with this as their inspiration, you don't need to know any of that stuff.  This is the kind of stuff that J-horror is made for; a cursed video that first royally messes you up and then potentially kills you?  Get Hideo Nakata or Takashi Shimizu on the line, stat.  Of course, since this is MY fantasy world, those are the only two guys that I would want to take on this material.  Call it Sadako or Kayako for this generation, the urban legend that turns out to be real and makes you really, really dead.

That completes my final "horror movie ideas" post.  Get ready for more backbiting as we continue wrapping the blog up into a nice little bow.

Veronica (2017)

2017

Directed by Paco Plaza
Starring Sandra Escacena, Bruna Gonzalez, Claudia Placer, Ivan Chavero and Ana Torrent

It's pretty fitting that the final movie that I'm reviewing comes with Hype.  Capitalized because there was a lot of it.  It had been a LONG time since I heard about a movie strictly via word-of-mouth, with the kind of hushed tones usually reserved for kids telling other kids about how to summon the Candyman.  I heard about this flick from a small group of coworkers - none of which had seen the film, and all of them knew only the rumors.  That this was a movie that was, and I quote, "so scary that 99 out of 100 people can't finish watching it."  My response?  Bring it on, bitch.

Veronica is a movie that was actually released last summer in Spain, and took its native country by storm.  Slick and relatively big-budget considering the material we're dealing with, it didn't take long for the buzz to spread about it and for executives here in the States to take notice.  The most important executives to take notice, of course, are the ones who dole out big checks for the streaming rights.  Thus, if you've got Netflix, you've got access to this film, and that's where I saw it.  Remember back when I used to despise Netflix and swear that I would never, ever get it because it wasn't as pure as the virgin snow like the video stores of my youth?  Those were some good times here on the blog.  At any rate, this film got the Roman Reigns rocket push right out of the gate, and now a lot of people had seen it.  So what's it like?

Well, it's loosely based (and this is yet another example of a movie that uses the phrase "loosely based" as a cover for "pretty much entirely fictional in everything but theme") on a true story about a young girl in 1991 who mysteriously died after using a Ouija board.  In real life, she had a different name, but in the world of this film she is renamed Veronica.  The script gives us some nice early examples of "show, don't tell" as to why we should care about this character as we see her take care of her three younger siblings due to the fact that their father just passed away and the mother works long hours to pay the bills.  The character is admittedly very likable, and the actors playing the little kids (Bruna Gonzalez and Claudia Placer as twins Irene and Lucia, and Ivan Chavero as bed-wetting tyke Antonito) manage not to get too grating, a feat in and of itself when it comes to movies like this.

The plot kicks into gear in short order, with Veronica heading off to Catholic school where a solar eclipse is about to take place outside.  With everyone else on the roof doing their best not to look directly at the sun, Veronica and her friends take the opportunity to hold a Ouija seance in the creepy basement.  The goal: Contact Veronica's recently deceased father.  What actually happens: Something decidedly other than that, and I think you know where we're going from here.  Ruh-roh.  Also present in some of these early scenes is a blind nun character that everyone at the school refers to as "Sister Death," and her presence is admittedly a little unnerving the first few times you see her.  Undertaker-esque eyeballs tend to do that to the viewer.

Horror films that focus on Ouija boards and demonic phenomena are nothing new to fans here in the U.S., so it comes as no surprise as to what happens next.  Namely, a long slow burn section of the film where weird things begin happening to Veronica in and around the household.  There are two nightmare sequences that are played out in exquisite detail that are admittedly pretty bizarre, one where Veronica sees a vision of her father and the other where the younger kids, well, attempt to cannibalize her.  They were definitely prepared to go all the way with the weird in this movie, kids.  We also get some helpful exposition from Sister Blind Nun along the way to give us all of the information we need.  Namely, that Ouija boards are SRS, SRS, SRS business and that someone else now walks with Veronica. 

This all leads us to the epic finale sequence as Veronica attempts to shut the door on the demon with the help of her siblings.  I will give the movie some points here due to the fact that I actually cared about what was happening; all along the way, the script has done a good job showing us reasons why we should be invested in Veronica the person.  But I can't claim that I was biting my nails in tension as the battle with the demon plays out.  The emotional ending twist also fell flat for me, mainly because I thought I had seen the same bit done much better in Ju-On.  Now there's a blog callback that I haven't done in a long, long time.  I used to talk about those films a lot, didn't I?

To be fair, there was a lot to admire about this movie.  First and foremost is the performance of Sandra Escacena in the title role.  I've already given the screenplay its due as to taking its time and doing the work of getting you invested in this story, but it was still up to Escacena to pull it off, and she delivered.  Like a boss.  Watching her in this movie, I was reminded of how I felt about Lina Leandersson way back when I first saw Let the Right One In.  This young lady has a bright future, and let's hope that we get to see more of her.  From a film-making standpoint, this is also a pretty impressive little flick, as the directing, camera-work and atmosphere are all top notch.  In short, the movie looks great and it's competent in every way.

So why did I feel disappointed after watching it?  Well, I didn't find it scary.  At all.  Folks, let me tell you one of the great failings (and there are many) of Jon Lickness, horror movie ambassador to the world.  I've loaned out Sleepaway Camp to a few people, and with only one exception I promised them the most shocking ending in the history of cinema.  And in every case they gave the movie back to me stating that they saw it coming a mile away.  After all of those mistakes, I finally figured out that I was building the movie up too much, and eventually showed it to one friend blind.  And it ripped his face off just like it did with me.  Maybe if I'd seen this particular movie without all of that advance hype, I would have been a little more frightened by it.  But "the scariest movie ever?"  Yeah, not quite.  I was able to sleep like a baby immediately afterward.  Horror movies are the name of the game, and scary this movie is not.

With that, it's time to give out the final rating of my movie reviewing career: ** 1/2 out of ****.  I'm going out just like I came in - like an annoying contrarian.  So completes the month of May and the final series of recent movies that I wanted to cover before retirement, but we still have one month to go.  The next four posts are going to be special, as I prepare to wrap things up in a nice little bow for the few people who actually read these things.  Get ready...

Creep and Creep 2 (2014 and 2017)

2014 and 2017
Directed by Patrick Brice
Starring Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice and Desiree Akhavan

We're approaching a lot of "lasts" here on the ol' Blog.  Of which, I'm sure that exactly zero people care about.  Well, we're about to be looking at the last found footage movies that I'm going to review.  To be fair, I have a really long, love-hate relationship with this particular subgenre of horror.  I've been tired of them for a long time, and while they've kinda gone by the wayside in more recent years, there's still a decent amount of them floating around out there because they cost roughly five bucks to make and always turn a profit.  And some of them have been great.  But I walk away from a lot of them these days just thinking that the movie would have been way, way better off without the gimmick of someone walking around with a camera "filming" everything as if it's real.

In the few horror circles that I stalk around on, these particular movies actually have a decent amount of hype.  Creep and Creep 2 get a lot of praise for the performance of Mark Duplass, the lead guy who used to be one of the stars of The League and now runs a production company with his brother.  But these flicks are the brainchild of director Patrick Brice, who even co-starred in the first one along with Duplass.  I watched both movies back-to-back on the same night, an easy enough accomplishment since both are only about 75 minutes long.  They're kind of a strange beast; there were points, especially during the first movie, where I found myself hitting the pause button to check to see how much time was remaining.  But they gained momentum, and then...I thought about them when they were over.  Movies that can do that are hard to find.  So what are these movies about, and why exactly are they Creepy?  Let's find out.  Advance warning - this review is going to be spoilerific.  Like, to the max.

Well, as I previously mentioned (I suppose one could say that it was AFOREMENTIONED - aren't you glad that some of these stupid non-jokes are approaching their final days?), director Patrick Brice is your de facto protagonist in the first film.  His character's name is Aaron, and he is a videographer answering a Craigslist ad promising a decent payday if he'll only follow this mysterious guy around for a day.  Said mysterious guy is, of course, Mark Duplass under the guise of the name "Josef."  Quotation marks because there be a lot of surprises on the way.  Brice himself is likable enough in his role, but Duplass just owns this role.  You know from the first time you see him that there's something lurking under his tragic front story involving dying of cancer and recording a video for his family.

What you need to know about that first movie is this: as it goes on, it becomes apparent that Josef changes his story seemingly every ten minutes.  There are sections of it that terminally drag, particularly the whole bit where the characters go out to a local watering hole and then a restaurant for a little game of "truth and more truth."  It reaches its zenith when nightfall arrives back at Josef's amazingly large home in the woods where he tells a weird story about the fate of his wife that eventually results in Aaron hightailing it home.  The end result?  He starts getting...some DVDs in the mail from Josef, escalating into a shock ending that admittedly did catch me off guard but left me with the simple question that Josef, now exposed as a full-on serial killer who has done this sort of trick with tons of people in the past, poses to the audience - why not simply look behind?  It was a decent ending that admittedly had me intrigued for more.

The second movie carried forth on that momentum.  Unlike the first, where I was admittedly just waiting for the entire running time just to see what this dude's M.O. would turn out to be, this one was much more suspenseful specifically because you know what a sadistic f**k this guy is.  You look back on various incidents from that first movie and think just how much he enjoys scaring his victims first before killing them, and now the character really is someone that you can hate.  The setup this time involves Sara, a web show producer played by Desiree Akhavan whose series involves finding the people behind Internet personal ads and showing the world how strange they are.  As such, the ad that she gets asking for a videographer for a day and that it's a big plus if they're a fan of Interview With the Vampire is right up her alley.

This time around, the filmmakers and Duplass himself (who co-wrote the script this time around) seemed to have a lot more fun with the premise.  For starters, the character is remarkably honest with Sara from the first meeting save for a few small details, and she plays right along with the game of shooting a documentary about the world's most famous serial killer that no one knows.  There actually are a few bits where we feel the slightest amount of pity for this guy, but they're always pushed back by his constant need to scare Sara only to get the tide turned on him on more than one occasion.  For the better part of an hour, this is actually a pretty snappy little thriller, but it's one where the ending is kind of a letdown.  In that way, it's kind of an exact opposite of the first, which left me flat for its middle section only to be rescued by a slam-bang finale. 

Overall, I definitely think these are movies that are helped by the fact that they are short.  Most found footage movies are pretty short, but it's absolutely crucial to these two flicks.  We're dealing with a pretty thin premise here, after all.  It's not like we're looking at demonic possession or something.  Much like all films in this genre, you also have to get by the simple question of "why is this person still filming?"  This is especially bad in the first, when Aaron just keeps on keepin' on with his documentary of being scared despite having enough evidence that he could have called the police on no less than six different occasions before he actually does and summarily tells them nothing.  Suspending disbelief here is kind of a chore, so don't act like I didn't warn you.

Amazingly enough, though, the Creep movies manage to, well, creep past their hokey setups and stick with you despite some of the head-scratching things that the protagonists do.  There are things here that will stick with you after the end credits roll; two particularly memorable bits are a really long sequence of dialogue in the second film where Duplass espouses the virtue of his favorite song and the story that may or may not have inspired him to become a serial killer and the scene that introduces the wolf mask that he frequently wears in the first film, complete with a name ("Peach Fuzz") and a dance.  Did I mention that this dude wears a wolf mask?  Well, he does.  And it's laughable in the best way.

I award these films *** out of ****, mainly for the performances, the memorable bits of dialogue and my belief that we've all had a friend something like this guy.

Split (2016)

2016
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula

I remember a time when I used to enjoy going to movies.  Like, actually going to theaters to see them.  It seems like a long, long time ago, way back to that mystical wayback land of the early 2000s when the Lord of the Rings movies ruled the roost and the rabid anticipation for each new superhero movie to get released.  Remember that?  Remember when they were special and there weren't 27 of them per year?  But there was another ever-present thing from that time period that I was always jacked for every time it came up - the new M. Night Shyamalan movie that was about to be unleashed.

I'm sure I've told the story on this here blog in the past, but fuck it, here we go again.  Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs.  Those flicks were a breath of fresh air to me throughout high school because they were so different from any "scary" movie that I'd seen previously (although the second one isn't quite a scary movie, but stick with me).  Yeah, they had their moments of legit tension.  But they were such satisfying slow burns that spent a LOT of time on their characters and getting you emotionally invested in what you were watching.  And I loved them.  And then I made the mistake of calling Shyamalan the best director currently working, and then his career immediately took a dive for the shit.  As such, I didn't hold out much hope for Split when I heard that it was about to be released and didn't give it a chance.  But then, word of mouth came along.  Curiosity got the better of me.  And I paid the $14.99 to buy a digital copy.  Well, does it live up to the hype?

The movie opens with a scene that grabs your attention within the first five minutes.  We meet popular high school students Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula), hosting a party of sorts where shy, withdrawn Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) is also present.  Casey is waiting for someone to pick her up...and waiting...and waiting...and nobody shows, leaving it up to one of the girls' dads to drive her home.  Spoiler alert: he never makes that drive, as the dad is knocked out by mysterious man who soon incapacitates the three girls with an aerosol spray.  Cue opening credits, and I'll admit to actually being excited to see that big, giant masturbatory "Directed by M. Night Shyamalan" marquee again.

Essentially, Split is a horror flick about these three girls being trapped in an undesirable situation and trying to get out.  They wake up together in a room locked inside a smaller room, and they're aware of the guy on the other side who likely wants to do bad, bad things to them.  Spoiler alert #2: Some bad, bad things do happen in this movie, but the movie has some fun dealing with the personalities of the captives.  Almost immediately, Casey stands out as the star of the show, and played by a very game Anya Taylor-Joy she's a firecracker.  I'll admit to not caring all that much for her two companions, but amazingly enough they grew on me as the running time ticked by.  And then there's James McAvoy.

It's hard to call his character any sort of real name.  Mainly because there are 23 of them.  The title of the movie comes from the fact that he suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and that the guy who kidnapped the girls is "Dennis," an obsessive-compulsive neat freak who has a thing for underage girls.  We also get to know "Patricia," a slightly scary matriarch; "Hedwig," the child-side of the character's personality; and "Barry," the dominant personality who is a fashionista and makes a pile of money selling art.  The usual trappings of a movie like this occur as the girls attempt to escape while we get bits of McAvoy interacting with them.  Spoiler alert #3: McAvoy is fucking boss in this movie.  Like, legit it's one of the best horror movie performances I've ever seen.  On paper, some of the things he does here should make you laugh, but he manages to come off as creepy in all the right places and even relatable in some others. 

The movie has a framing device that it keeps going back to in regards to McAvoy's relationship with renowned psychologist Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who believes that DID is the key to unlocking human possibilities.  When you think about it, it really is amazing how a blind person can have an alternate personality that regains sight, isn't it?  Well, it can also be scary, as the periodic bits where we hear about a latent 24th personality named only "The Beast" become more frequent.  The final thirty minutes or so of the movie where "The Beast" shows up are absolutely electric, and while I wasn't exactly pissing myself in terror and was able to sleep like a baby immediately afterward I'll admit to being on the edge of my seat watching our characters in peril attempt to evade this guy.  And man, he has powers and abilities that rival anything the Ultimate Warrior or Hulk Hogan did in the WWF's glory days.

As a psychological horror flick, Shyamalan really managed to craft something special here.  There are scenes in this movie that would have been either utter bores or unintentionally hilarious in some of his mid-period misfires (and there's no need to bring up the names of those films - "you eyeing my lemon drink?"), but they're handled with care and restraint here.  There are also little touches that get you to genuinely project yourself up there on that screen, especially with the character of Casey.  Every once in a while, we get a glimpse into her childhood and a hunting trip that gives us all the reason we need as to why she is such a shy, introverted person.  Spoiler alert #4: this stuff also gives us an ending that while it is happy on paper also leaves us with a feeling that kicks you right in the gut unlike anything I've seen in a long time.

Yeah, dear readers, this is a movie where pretty much everything fires on all cylinders.  You get the camera work and directing chops from Shyamalan that manages to catch your eye without pounding you over the head how hard the guy was trying to create an artsy shot, you get solid performances up and down the board and a truly legendary one from McAvoy, and you get a script that shows pretty much never-ending invention and logic.  The cherry on top?  A final scene that gives us a kick-ass setup for something that I'm actually looking forward to watching in a theater.  And yes, I plan on making the 45-minute drive for this particular upcoming film, due out sometime in 2019. 

Rating time.  Wait for it...**** out of ****.  A stunning return to form for M. Night Shyamalan years after I'd written the guy off.  Let's see if I can avoid giving him the Lick Ness Monster curse this time around.