Directed By: Chris Kentis & Laura Lau
“(Female Scream)”
As a technical achievement Silent House is outstanding. It’s basically a home invasion movie that takes place in real time, all in one shot (In reality it’s broken up to about 14 shots, but it’s hidden very well) and with a great central performance by Elizabeth Olsen. As a movie I was less enamoured with it, not least of all for some choices it makes in the last act.
Directed By: Stan Winston
“God is the only thing that can stop what’s out there, Kim.”
So we’re done with found-footage (For now at least, I can’t speak as to when it’ll show up again) and moving on to affairs of a different kind. This time is Lance Henriksen in a rare hero role with the somewhat ludicrously titled Pumpkinhead. Trust me, it’s better than the title lets on (And isn’t as goofy as it lets on either) and boasts one of the more intriguing premises I can remember.
Directed By: Simon Barrett, Jason Eisner, Adam Wingard, Gareth Evans & Timo Tjahjanto, Gregg Hale & Eduardo Sanchez
Sequels are tricky things. Horror sequels are even trickier. Pick any horror sequel and it’s more than likely just more of the same. More sex, more gore, more everything. V/H/S/2 isn’t alone in that regard, but it’s one occasion where “more” has worked out in its favour. Even being a sequel to an anthology, where there’s no characters to bring back or lip service to be paid to fans can backfire, just look at Creepshow 2 or even worse Creepshow 3. Clearly they missed a trick by not calling it S-VHS but it makes up for it in other ways.
Directed By (And hold on for this one): David Bruckner, Radio Silence, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Ti West and Adam Wingard
“I Like You.”
Anthology films don’t get made that much anymore. There were a few classics like Creepshow and Asylum but it’s largely a practice that’s been left by the wayside. It’s a shame too because it gives a great excuse for everyone to put their effort into a twenty minute segment and go a little crazy. Anthology films are like a great short story collection in that it’s sometimes just condensed highlights, and you come away from it fonder than you would’ve if it was stretched out to something longer. That was sort of a metaphor right?
Directed By: Charles Torrens
“What was that?” – Ok so not all the quotes can be winners.
Here I am again with another entry into the found-footage subgenre. The problem with watching something on Netflix is you don’t quite know what you’re going into. Sure I could’ve looked it up before hand but that really takes the fun out of it. I like the idea of just pressing play and seeing what happens (Well usually the movie plays, but you know what I mean). Oh and the next two movies are also going to be found-footage, so I’ll get that out of the way now. I think then we can be done for a while.
Directed By: Scott Derrickson
“Don’t worry Daddy, I’ll make you famous.”
I can’t make another found-footage-as-train joke lets not, but know that for reasons that I can’t explain we have another entry to the genre – kind of. This time the director of Urban Legend: Final Cut and one of about eighteen Hellraiser sequels throws his hat into the ring, and brings legitimate thespian Ethan Hawke along for the ride.
Directed By; Barry Levinson
“I got some in my mouth!”
The found footage train makes its second stop in as many days with The Bay, directed by the otherwise respected Barry Levinson. I’m not sure why the director of Rain Man and Diner suddenly decided to make a found footage eco horror movie, but he did. Aside from a few glaring flaws he managed to do a pretty good job too.
Directed By: Dean Alioto
“Is this thing on?”
Found footage isn’t a new concept. Though it largely dates back to something like Cannibal Holocaust, it was really popularised with The Blair Witch Project. Though it died off for a while post release of that film it has seen a recent resurgence with seemingly every other film being filmed using the found footage conceit. It’s easy to see why: It’s cheap and you can get away with some amateurish film making. In the years between Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project there was the occasional film scattered in between. And this was one of them.
Directed By: James Wan
“In my line of work things tend to happen when it gets dark.”
Another day, another film by James Wan. This kid could go far.
After seeing the first film yesterday it seemed apt to catch the sequel while it was still showing. But first of all a brief digression: I was in the cinema alone and had the brief thought of how high would I jump if I suddenly heard someone whisper in my ear. The other thing was after about five minutes another man came into the showing and proceeding to answer any questions the characters were asking. For example:
Person on Screen: “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”
Man in Front: “No”
Thank you for that.
Directed By: James Wan
“This is the first line of a joke, right? A guy comes home to find his wife with a priest.”
If you had told me that in one year I would’ve liked two movies from the Director of Saw I would’ve told you, quite rudely, to shut up. But here I am with the first of those two films. The second was The Conjuring. A film that was a hugely enjoyable ride despite the rather spurious claims of it being a true story. But I feel that’s a story for another day.
Is This Thing On? 