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Cherylpongrass
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Reviews
Grave Encounters (2011)
Outstanding
Found-footage films are on the rise nowadays, god knows why. There's probably some cinematography professor somewhere preaching about how it brings a feeling of unease to the viewers, but that's not true at all; most of the time it just leaves them trying not to vomit up their overpriced theater popcorn onto the gentleman in front of them, or asking what they missed. This film may be cheesy, filled with clichés for haunts and psychological terror, but it does a damn good job making you remember exactly why those elements became popularized enough to become clichés in the first place. It takes Found-Footage in a whole new direction; instead of shaky "first person" views, we get sentry oriented cameras on some occasions, video logs, and some honest-to-god quality footage.
There are a few things that take the possible ten down to an eight for me-- first off, a few obnoxious things that I straight up just do not like. There's too much cursing in it for me-- not that it's cursing, but that it's so emphasized and articulated. It just irks me. Also, the way they say the girl's name, 'Sasha'. I just honestly hate that they say it 'Sash-Uh' with the weird short-a sound. It takes the horror out of it when someone goes around calling for a sash. As for the actual non-personal views, there are some things that are clearly stolen from other movies and games. Silent Hill plot twists, especially near the end, and then the very chunky transition from strange happenings to outright attacks does not make for good storytelling.
Grave Encounters 2 (2012)
I am literally embarrassed for the producers.
I'm going to try and hit every bad point in this movie (in general terms, without spoilers, of course) for any prospective viewers. Don't get me wrong. I feel like this is something you need to see in order to make sense of the first film's happenings, but don't expect anything. First off, it's like a nine year old's vlog post for the first forty minutes of the film and I seriously thought I had somehow gotten on youtube and not Grave Encounters 2. The storytelling was terrible and lethargic, the 'horror' went from reasonably scary monsters and demons to the boogeyman, the main character was eclectic and quite possibly the stupidest narrator and protagonist I've ever seen. It's like I was watching every single episode of Marble Hornets but all of the script was read in a bad stage whisper. I am literally ashamed of this film for existing, and I wish they would have melded two movies into just one so that the story didn't so heavily depend on this piece of garbage.
The Devil Inside (2012)
A six for effort.
I try not to be too harsh when I watch horror movies, because lets be real here; I'm the lazy one that's spending nine bucks a months on netflix or shamelessly borrowing my friends DVDs to get an adrenaline rush that I'm too poor and too disinclined to go and find through recreational activities like bungee jumping. Whereas I stay in my room and watch horror movies all night and never contribute to society or interact with another human being in person unless I absolutely have to, people in their hundreds come together to supply my need for adrenal exertion so that I can go online and post reviews about what they spent eight months making and I spent eighty minutes watching.
That said, I'm trying to be nice with this move. I really, really am. I saw the trailers for this... erm... 'film' all over youtube back before it's release, when I was terrified of horror movies and I had to turn off my speakers AND my monitor until the ad had passed by and I could get to my actual content. Back then, I thought it was possibly the scariest movie ever!
I was also still living in fear of The Blair Witch Project's VHS dust slip. All things considered I have to give this movie some points for effort-- I haven't seen too much of science and religion in horror movies, at least not on the exorcism front. Though, this movie is just riddled with tropes and the ending is absolutely terrible from all angles. Story architecture is supposed to work like a hill-- you work up to the main conflict and afterwards everything starts to calm down. However, in this story, we work up to the main conflict and instead of being able to step off the escalator it keeps going, and now you're looking down at your family and friends who have watched normal movies with normal story arcs who are on the way back down the hill and you're frantic and panicking because you're supposed to be down there-- This is not how stories work! This crazy ride was supposed to go back down!-- And all you can do is helplessly keep walking because there's no way back down now, you've already crossed over the point of no return and sealed your fate in the realm of bad storytelling.
Alien Abduction (2014)
There's nothing outstanding about this film.
I was really hoping to see the next Signs, but what I got instead was Cloverfield. The acting was actually pretty great, all things considered, you could tell that if they were scripted it either wasn't heavily so or they're just really good at portraying their scripts. Their location was great, and the focus on tiny details and accuracies were what gave it the four stars it got. It only got the four stars because of it's over all MOVIE quality. For a horror film, it's lacking atmosphere and tone, and it's sort of stereotypical, but in a bad way. In a bad way twice. First, because even in a stereotypical horror movie there are some thrills you can drag out of them, a few gut-wrenching moments when you have to close your jaw so you don't bite your tongue cause you know something's about to jump-- but this movie somehow manages to not only be stereotypical of a found-footage horror film, but also miss that mark completely. It came close to being a B-rate horror film about aliens, but in the end, there was no cigar for them.