Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)

A classic example of a sequel that doesn't work.

I loved Pitch Perfect. I avoided watching that movie for some time, because I didn't think it was my cup of tea kind of movie. It came on HBO one day, I had some free time, and I was hooked. The odd humor and interactions between characters, falling in love with Fat Amy, the mash-up of traditional characters from the beauty queen, to the awkward girl, the lesbian to the nympho, it just worked.

But all that was lost in Pitch Perfect 2. One of the biggest tragedies to me was how they took edgy Beca who was sharp and quick witted in PP, and by PP2 they turned her into this awkward ill-tongued character in her interactions with a tall blond Russian. It was awkward and not funny. In fact, it was almost painful to watch.

The humor that flowed so freely in the first film, was lost to me in the sequel. I didn't even get a good laugh out of Fat Amy serenading Bumper, and frankly, I don't even know why they put Jesse in this sequel.

The only parts of PP2 that I truly loved were all the scenes with Keegan-Michael Key. Out of all the characters, his was the truest representation of being in the "industry."

I hated the addition of Emily to the Bella's, which to me was a very tired attempt of molding her into another Beca. Why?

Even the final competition, which was really under-whelming, left me feeling disappointed.

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

I didn't enjoy this movie. It felt to be a reboot/mashup of other movies in similar style. Though Olivia Wilde is beautiful, and at least gave a sense of glamour to the movie.

One sentence pretty much sums up this whole film. They bring the dead back to life.

Seen it. Seen it many times and in a much better production than this.

Even with resurrecting a dead character, and she comes back with supernatural powers, this has also been done before in other movies. Even down to the big black eyes, again, this has already been done in other films. In fact, I think this movie should have been re-titled The Plagiarism Effect.

I wouldn't label this as a waste of time to watch. On the other hand, it won't make its way into the I have to watch this a second time category either.

Time Lapse (2014)

I caught this one on Netflix, and it was an interesting watch. It's not an all together different story than some other films, but there were a few interesting twists.

There are three main characters; Callie (Danielle Panabaker), Finn (Matt O'Leary), and Jasper (George Finn).

Danielle Panabaker is a familiar face to me. She starred in the re-boot of Friday the 13th (2009) and The Crazies.

Here is the breakdown of the story. The three live together, Callie and Finn as boyfriend/girlfriend, and Jasper as friend of Finn. A neighbor in their living complex mysteriously disappeared and Callie goes to check on him. What she finds in his apartment is an elaborate polaroid machine, and a wall full of polaroid photos, of the three of them; Callie, Finn and Jasper.

They start to analyze the photos and machine and realize it's taking a picture into their apartment every night at 8 p.m. Then they come to realize this machine is taking photos 24 hours into the future.

They soon plot to use this to their advantage, and Jasper starts betting on races where he can see who wins 24 hours ahead of time, and it's their get rich scheme.

The Polaroids start getting more and more disturbing. Hints of infidelity, being threatened by a bookie, the fact that the owner of this time machine camera is lying dead in a storage unit, all start leading them to make drastic choices, altering their futures.

The part I liked best was the ending. It was an ending I should have seen coming, and I did start to get a hint of in the last photo they showed, but I was still pleasantly surprised by the level of deceit that was underlying these pictures.

I would rate this movie 3 stars. It's not a stellar piece of work, but it's not boring either.

Snowpiercer (2013)

I watched this movie before reading the cast list and I'm very glad I did. I will explain why later on.
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I don't recall any commercials for it really, though I tend to fast-forward through commercials. I saw a very brief mention of it as a preview on some other DVD and I thought it looked mildly interesting, but also in the theme of other movies in which there are class divisions between the have and have-not's. Nothing too original there.

There was a grittiness and movies that tend to only have one location, in this case a train, tends to get a little stale, but this one stayed varied enough to keep it interesting.

You see almost right away the lower class people, kept in the rear of a train, who are there because of an ice age that has killed and frozen anything outside the train. They are forced to eat these black rectangles of Jell-O looking stuff that is supposed to be "protein," but apparently is pretty awful. They are all dirty and in cramped quarters. There are guards with guns who won't let them past their quarters, and they can see
glimpses of the quarters beyond.

The story line propels when Claude (a woman) comes in and starts measuring the height and arm span of children under the age of 5. She snatches two boys away, one from Andrew (Ewen Brenner) and one from Tanya (Octavia Spencer). This infuriates our two lead characters which are Curtis and Edgar.

They come up with a plan to start a rebellion and make their way through these gates. The action is pretty good. Once they break through the first set of gates, there are several fight scenes which are pretty brutal and somewhat riveting.

They find as they start to make their way through the length of this very long train, that there is a whole other world going on. Where their space is dark, grimy, cramped, no windows, terrible food, where your children are snatched away or you're beaten at any moment, they find that there are sections of the train that are growing fresh fruit and vegetables, a sushi bar, an aquarium bridge, classrooms, rave's, high end luxury.

As you see them progress through more and more areas that they can't believe exist and as more and more of their original group is killed, Curtis finally makes it to the engine room (the front of the train).

There is a really interesting conversation that takes place between Curtis and Namgoong (Song Kang-Ho), where you learn that Curtis, who is this very strong, brave, fierce leader, had a very dark and disturbing past. You learn his connection to Edgar and Gilliam (John Hurt) and it had some emotion to it.

Then Curtis breaks through to meet the designer and operator of the train, the one who has been keeping them enslaved in the tail and made them live the way they had been, the one who gives the orders for how many of them are to be killed, and the one responsible for taking children away from their parents, Wilford (Ed Harris).

Again, I didn't know any of the cast for this movie ahead of time. I was very surprised to see Ed Harris at the end. I knew that Mason was Tilda Swinson, you could make that out easily enough, though her make-up was very good at making her look like someone else.

I really liked the ending of the movie. There was one particular scene where Curtis, Namgoong, Yona, and Tanya's little boy all embrace before an explosion. It was extremely powerful imagery.

By the time the movie was over, I was very pleased by the whole thing. Then I look online to see the cast, and when I find out who played Curtis, I about shit myself.

Curtis to me looked like a knock off Ryan Reynolds. This guy was dark. This guy seemed to be maybe in his 40s. This guy seemed tough, athletic, a strong male lead. Who plays Curtis?

None other than Captain America himself, Chris Evans. He is so transformed in this role, it was just utterly surprising to me. I don't like Chris Evans as an actor, and I still don't, but this role definitely gave him some street cred in my opinion and it worked.

I would love to give it a 4 out of 5, but I generally do save those for really, really good movies, but I will give it a 3.5, and say that at the very least, it's not a waste of time to watch. Would I have wanted to see it in the theaters? No. Was I happy to see it from Netflix? Absolutely.

IMDB gave it 7 stars. I think that's very fair.

It Follows (2014)

I am positive there was a misprint in this movie title. Surely after watching it, it should be called Shit Follows.
This was a terrible movie. I wouldn't even be able to give it a 1 star. I can only warn you that there are so many better things you can do with 1-1/2 hours, like watching paint dry for example.

The plot is rather basic. Some guy had a one night stand. The one night stand told him she was being followed by some supernatural thing that "moves slow." She passed this thing on to him, telling him to pass this off to someone else, by sleeping with them. He then slept with another girl and passed this supernatural thing to her.

The next 75 minutes is watching an old lady, a variety of semi-nude other women, some guy dressed in long john's, some naked guy on a roof, and some other guy in a wife beater tank, all chasing this girl throughout the movie.

This movie basically shows one time tested knowledge--males will do anything for sex.

This girl's friends know she has been chased by something, and though they can't see it, they have some idea it's there. She has already told them all the story that she has to have sex with someone and pass this thing on to them. The guys in this movie fucking volunteer!

Oh, you're being traumatized by some supernatural thing that wants to kill you and has killed others. Wait, did you say you need to have sex to get rid of it? So, you're saying I will inherit this thing after I sleep with you? You know what, I'm man enough to bite the bullet on this one. I mean it's to help you of course. And we have sex right...I mean we have sex, right?

So naturally he dies.

So the only other guy in this movie, her long time male friend, who of course has a crush on her for years, who knows this other guy has died after sleeping with her, practically begs her to sleep with him, and kind of gets pissed off when she doesn't.

Then the movie moves into even more ridiculousness. There's what appears to be an abandoned building, except it has a pristine pool and electricity. If it was not an abandoned building, it was somehow a large school that has no security system.

This is the group's big plan. They place the girl in the pool and line electrical appliances all around the edge of the pool and plug them in. Fans, lamps, hairdryers. Where the fuck did they get all those hairdryers?

My best guess is they were going to lead this thing into the pool and electrocute it. Except, this thing started throwing all the items into the pool trying to electrocute her instead. Brilliant. She even got hit in the head a few times. Her male friend decides to start randomly firing shots at this thing with a gun. He can't see it mind you. The girl is just shouting out random directions like, over there, over there. So he ends up shooting one of their friend's in the leg, and she's actually cool with it. She doesn't even cry.

In this group there is our female victim, her sister, another female friend, and the guy. They see something invisible attacking the girl. They throw a blanket over it and get an idea of a shape. Despite all this crazy shit, they are the calmest group of friends I have ever seen in a horror movie. No one is freaking out. No one is running away. I don't even think any of her friends scream during this.

I have screamed when a tiny itty, bitty spider jumps on my arm when I didn't expect it and run around in spasms for 5 minutes. Over a spider. They see some invisible thing attacking their friend, and they're all acting like it's just any other day.

This movie also garners the worst ending ever. The main character goes ahead and sleeps with her male friend. See, not every guy is doomed to the friend zone forever. She asks him, "Do you feel different?" He says no. He looks at her and says "Do you feel different?" She says no. Cut to them walking down the street holding hands and running the credits. I shit you not.

This movie got decent and even ecstatic reviews in some reputable online articles. Did they see some version of the movie I didn't see?

My favorite review of this film came from Netflix where someone wrote "This movie has no point except to promote abstinence."

And another question I have, now that I think back on it. What the hell is that clamshell thing the friend keeps carrying around with her? No cell phone looks like that. Is it some magic mirror that she keeps staring into? Seriously.

Terminator: Genisys (2015)

I liked the new Terminator movie. I really enjoyed how they spliced some of the original film into this new version. I also enjoyed the little nuances like Kyle Reese in the 84 version stealing a pair of pants from a homeless man, and Kyle in this new version doing the same thing. Those small touches made you feel connected to the original story.

While I love Emily Clarke, I did think her acting at times was a little flat and strained, but we know she's a great actress, so I think it was just lackluster writing.

I told myself that I would not try to dissect the time travel timelines and just accept it for what it was, but once home, I couldn't help but think about it. I think the hardest part of this movie is that for all intents and purposes, the John Connor we know is dead. Even if Sarah and Kyle do have a baby together in this new future, and it happens to be a boy, the original John Connor was born around 1985. Any child born to them now will be born 2017 and after, so John will no longer fit into the existing timelines. That's a bit of a mind bend.

And what the fuck? Dr. Who took down the legend, John Connor?! Well played Matt Smith, well played. And stop going by Matthew. It confuses people.

Probably the most egregious issue though, is now there are two Kyle Reese's and that defies any time travel conundrums. How in the hell is there an older version of Reese at the exact same time as a younger Reese, occupying the same space and time? This is just wrong.

Then when you start taking into account Rise of the Machines and Salvation, you'll actually get trapped in a death spiral of convoluted thoughts which will make you question everything you know about the Terminator franchise.

Final thoughts though; I loved how they allowed in for the aging of Arnold, I loved seeing Khaleesi holding a big gun and she looked good. I think she can hold her own in future action movies. I do think they overused and abused the words theoretically and nexus a bit much. I also thought Pops was used a bit more than necessary, though I did enjoy seeing a T-800 Model 101 lovingly refer to Sarah as his Sarah.

I don't think it was necessary for them to keep the T-800 alive for the end of this film. My best guess is people were so crushed to watch him melt away in Judgement Day that they decided on a more or less happy ending for this movie, with the exception of course of the little Easter egg at the end of the film. For those of you who leave the theater as soon as the credits start to roll, shame on you. Always, ALWAYS wait for the Easter eggs!

I'm going to give this a 3.9 out of 5. I think it was a great reboot. I loved the special effects. It won't be a waste of your time to watch it, though you may waste some time dissecting the plot afterwards.

Annabelle (2014)

The conjuring was much better, and if you think by watching Annabelle, it will give you a greater appreciation of The Conjuring, it won't. The movie, though billing Annabelle, the story of a doll possessed with evil spirits is true, the entire rest of the movie is all fiction.

Annabelle starts out with the first few minutes being the same first few minutes of The Conjuring. That was a nice touch for continuity.

One of the things I did enjoy about the movie was over the course of the film, Annabelle's skin actually gets darker and bluer. It added a sense of creepiness, but overall, I felt the movie was a boring snoozefest. It started out well enough too. The first 20 or so minutes is actually the best part.

One of the biggest issues I had with the film was set design. This movie is supposed to be taking place in the 1960s. Yet, the paint colors on the walls of their home, though beautiful, were not at all colors that would have been available back in the 60s. Also, the lead actress, her clothes were not very original to the 60s. She actually looked very modern. Even her hair was a modern cut, with just a hint of 60s bounce.

This is where The Conjuring movie far exceeded in it's believability. From the clothing, to the hairstyles, to the muted colors of browns and oranges, The Conjuring feels more like the decade it was supposed to represent than Annabelle.

I can't say I would recommend this movie for watching, especially if your time is valuable and you want to spend it watching something you care to remember, rather than easily forget.

Below is the picture of the real Annabelle, which is a Raggedy Anne doll. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been scarier for the movie had they just used a replica doll. There is something more eerie about the sweet appearance of Anne. The doll they used in the movie looks creepy as shit, but imagine how surprised you would have been if this sweet pristine looking Raggedy doll (I had one myself growing up), I think that would have added more to this movie, than the doll they decided to use.

Deliver us from Evil (2014)

I've seen practically every possession movie out there for the last 30 years. This one was totally different than anything else. This really felt more like an action movie with some possession thrown in and I have to say, it works.

It is in the vein of every single demon possession movie that bills itself as "based on a true story," when in fact, if you Google it, nearly everything in the movie is fictional.

One thing that this movie shows is that Eric Bana can do any acting job he wants to! I thought he killed it in this movie. I almost felt like I was watching some alter ego of Avner Kaufman from Munich. Just bad ass.
There's not really enough plot line for me to write a very informative summary, only to say that the movie is based on an NYPD cop who keeps entering crime scenes that are looking more and more evil, and he eventually teams up with one who performs exorcisms, and eventually officer Ralph Sarchie leaves the NYPD to assist on other worldly events.

It won't waste your time to watch. I think anyone can find some merit to calling this movie good, not great, but good. Did I mention that Bana is bad ass in this movie?

Friday the 13th pt. 2

Okay, so Friday the 13th part two (1981), had a very interesting continuity, sort of in the footsteps of Halloween 1 and 2, and in later films like Scream and Saw.

Part two opens with Alice, the sole survivor of part one. I must say though, if I talked to my mom the way she talked to her mom on the phone in the opening scene, it would be my head in the refrigerator that she stumbles upon.

I am a little curious as to how Jason figured out where she lives, given he is a mongoloid (I know it's an insensitive term, but he doesn't have Down's syndrome. He was meant to be disfigured beyond anything nature would really do) and he wears some type of potato sack over his head. It's not like he had access to the internet or WiFi in 1981.

So a few funny things regarding Alice. She survived a brutal serial killer and all her co-camp counselors died. You would think that would make her overprotective and extremely cautious, but it's after her shower, that she then decides to use the chain on her door and realizes she left a window open.

Alice then gets a screwdriver or something like that through her temple. The whole time her cat is sitting on the countertop, like hey, I don't care if you murder my owner, but would you mind filling my cat food bowl, please.

They start the movie almost in the same situation as Friday the 13th one, there are two guys and a girl in a truck driving by a gas station, only no Kevin Bacon this time, but much how I mentioned in my last post about your typical cast members, right away we have the couple who is destined to have sex and die (Sandra and Jeff).

You have another crazy old drunk guy telling everyone "you're doomed, doomed." Remember, always believe the crazy old drunk guy.

We have another prankster just like in Friday the 13th, part one, Ted, but oddly enough, Ted lives. The smart bastard decides to stay at a bar in town while everyone he knows at camp is being butchered. It's a great day to be a binge drinker.

We've got our standard hot chick Terry, who not only wears the shortest shorts I have seen in any horror movie, but also makes one ask the question, how many crop tops does this lady have anyway. She does however, show proper Mickey Mouse placement across her chest.

We have Jinny and Paul. Jinny is the one destined to be the survivor. Book smart, studying child psychology and follows the typical traits of being modest and sympathetic. Jinny is played by Amy Steel. Amy Steel was a great 80s actress. She was in a movie called April Fool's Day which is one of my favorite movies from the 80s. Paul interestingly enough has a scene where he looks a lot like Sting.





Friday the 13th part two embarked upon what would be a tradition for their next movies which is, the cop always dies.

Also another tradition that will show up in future films is the female nude swimming scene.

We move into probably what is the cruelest of all scenes in the Friday franchise. We have the hunky wheelchair bound Mark. He's getting hit on pretty heavily by the perky and flirty Vickie. First, they settle on the fact that they'll find an empty cabin and do it, but before they do, she feels the need to go change her clothes and spray on perfume. Why? All those clothes are going to come off anyway. One of the rules horror movies teach us is try to stay together. It won't save your life, but you may live a little longer. Vickie decides to spray some perfume on her vagina. Never spray the vag! That shit burns, Vickie.

While Vickie is off spraying her vagina with perfume, poor Scott gets a machete to the head and is thrown backwards down dozens of stair steps, still in his wheelchair. Who in the hell kills a handicapped person in a horror movie?! Shame on you Steve Miner.

Okay, so Jinny and Paul decide to go back to camp after drinking at a bar, they stumble upon the ever popular bloody scene, where the standard question must always be asked, "Is this some kind of a joke?"

Jinny wins the "worst girlfriend" award for this movie.  She was worthless when it came to trying to save Paul's life. When he was being attacked, she just watched. She didn't hesitate to leave his ass behind either when Jason decided to go after her.

Now you would think Jason would be a better fighter, but he is actually more than a little clumsy and awkward in this movie. It is his debut killing spree after all. Jason actually trips and falls, just like the women always do in horror movies. One of the more humorous dilemma's Jinny faces is how to keep her hand on the doorknob, and reach way across to try and close an open window at the same time. It's futile by the way.

Of course, her Volkwswagen won't start up. Typical car scene for a horror movie. Isn't that just life. Her car didn't break down at the bar where they would have probably gotten a hotel or at least stayed long enough to get it started that maybe they would have missed some of the killing spree. Oh no. The car started up fine, just to get Jinny and Paul back to camp for attempted murder.

One of questions I have always pondered when Jinny is hiding under a bed and just as Jason is about to leave, he notices a puddle spreading out from under the bed. Is Jinny pissing or is it the rat that crawled under their with her?

Jason decides to try to hide from her for an ambush, and this huge seemingly 200 pound muscular guy decides to stand on a wicker chair? Are you shitting me?

The rest of the movie moves through scenes of Jinny trying to pull a child psychology trick and put on the sweater Jason's mother died in, ick, and towards the end of the movie we see Jason crash through a window to grab Jinny and we see his face, one of the few times you will ever see his actual face and it's pretty horrific. Like something out of one of the mutated humans you see out of the Wrong Turn movies.

We are left with the question of wondering if Paul lived, but we think probably not.

Friday the 13th, pt 1.

Jason Voorhees has long been a favorite movie arc of mine, some good, some bad, well a lot bad, but it is a very traditional horror story franchise, that I hope will be reborn again following the 2009 release.
Let's start out with Friday the 13th review. Well, actually I don't think review is a good word for what I'm going to do. Perhaps, collective musings is a better term.

An interesting story for its time, 1980. A little boy drowns in Crystal Lake and the mother seeks revenge on camp counselors, the ones she ultimately blames for the accidental drowning of her son. There are some questions I have, like first they show Jason drowning at night in her memory. It makes me wonder first, why he was swimming at night and why the mother herself wasn't there watching him. I think there may be some internal guilt she has, then she uses the camp counselors as the focus of her blame. Regardless, Jason drowns, or that's the plot line anyway.

Friday the 13th has your very typical characters. You have the virginal appearing, modest, do-gooder Alice. You have the couple who is destined to have sex, Jack (played by Kevin Bacon) and Marcie. You have the very happy, sweet, and unfortunate first to die before she even makes it to camp, Annie. You have the goof who is always playing pranks Ned, the camp headmaster, sort of, Steve, the really nice character that you don't want to see get killed, Brenda. The rest are just fillers really, the crazy old drunk man, the guy you don't really care what happens to (Bill) and of course Jason's mom, Pamela Voorhees.

Annie is one of the camp counselors who is hitchhiking her way to Camp Crystal Lake. She gets dropped off in front of a cemetery and frankly, this probably was a bad foreboding for her. She later gets picked up by a stranger, and when the stranger won't let her out of the Jeep as they pass by the exit, she jumps from the car (good move, I would do it too), but does eventually get hunted down and killed.

Does anyone else get the feeling that Steve, in his cut off denim shorts and red bandana tied around his neck, the way he leers at Alice, that he's a sex offender in the making?

There's always a prankster in the group who dies, that would be you Ned who pretends to drown. This is not the first time you will see a "pretend drowning" in the Friday the 13th franchise. The prankster always dies, always.

We learned how many camp counselors does it take to kill a snake, which is six.

We learn, always, always believe the crazy old drunk man who screams "you're all doomed." This is also not the first time you will see this sort of character in the Friday the 13th realm. Get used to it.

We see the merits of playing strip Monopoly and have added this to our bucket list.

Alice was destined from the beginning to be the victor of this movie and she chops of the head of the serial killer, none other than Jason's mom (a huge surprise for the 1980 flick)and before the movie ends, and you see this nice serene lake scene with Alice in a boat before little Jason pulls her out and tries to drown her, then fast forward to where she's in a hospital bed, the sole survivor and she's told, "we didn't see any little boy," and she looks off in the distance and mutters "then he's still out there." Cue Friday the 13th theme song.

High tension (2003)

For a movie from 2003, this really holds up still. I'm not even sure how I came across the suggestion for this movie, but it ended up in my Netflix queue and finally made it's way to the top of the list. The description stated this movie had a twist ending, and I should have seen it coming. Shame on me for not, but I credit the director for keeping my mind so busy on some details that I didn't see the twist ending coming, at all! In fact, it surprised me so much, I think I'm going to have to watch it a second time, just to see how it feels the second time around knowing what the ending is.

I definitely recommend this movie. It is suspenseful enough to keep you interested. It is a French film, but only small parts here and there are actually subtitled. I didn't pay too much attention to the dubbing, but Rotten Tomatoes had a lot of negative things to say about it.

Apparently there was some controversy that this movie was plagiarized from Dean Koontz novel Intensity. The director, Aja, admitted their were similarities. I have not read Intensity, so I may have to check it out.
This movie was also listed in Time Magazine as being ridiculously violent. It is violent, but no more so than Hostel. Either you like this genre of movie or you don't.

So, quick plot of the movie.

Two college friends go to a remote country house to study for upcoming exams. A violent killer enters the home, kills nearly everyone in it and the rest is your typical, girls running from killer, girl almost killing killer, super plot twist, the end.

Since it was not the most original story line I would give it a two stars, but because the gore and violence was so gruesome, I'm bumping my overall assessment of this movie to a three stars.

Storm Warning (2007)

Storm Warning (2007)is an Australian suspense film, that's a bit hard for me to describe. I would definitely recommend watching it, because there is some gore factor in there that was a bit surprising, but it really doesn't hit until the last 30 minutes of the film or so. I am still a bit perplexed about what the lead female character stashed between her legs to avoid being raped. It looks like a bottle of some sort, but again, still pondering the physics and reality behind that one.

A brief synopsis of this movie, is a married couple who goes out on the water in a boat, ends up getting off course. They find some dry land, get a little lost and happen upon a house occupied by two brothers and a father who are all Australian, uh, let's say hicks, barbaric hicks at that. They do the typical fear and physical abuse that most suspense movies which involve plots with isolated hicks who like to torture and kill people, nothing very original there.

I do have a few issues with some of the plot in this movie, namely that if you are going to throw a husband and wife in an outside shed and they know you intend to harm them at your leisure, you probably shouldn't lock them up in a shed that has actual weapons. There were sharp metal equipment pieces, heavy chains, a plethora of huge fishing hooks, and just a number of impaling, bludgeoning, strangling items made available to these two who were locked up with apparently enough free time to fashion a number of weapons to defend themselves.

The one thing I found truly amusing, is how the wife, a very beautiful actress named Nadia Farès, it was painfully obvious that she was probably going to be brutally raped in this movie. Her husband, a fairly big athletic Aussie, proved absolutely worthless in doing anything to help her out, she took matters into her own hands, and said fuck it, I'll kill them on my own. Aussie women must be bad ass!

One of the other bits of info that makes this movie interesting to watch is actor David Lyons is in it. He starred in TV shows like Revolution and E.R. and a few movies; Safe Haven and Eat, Pray, Love to name just a few. Trust me, you have never seen him like this, and you will never want to again. The makeup they did to transform him into a brown toothed, dirty Australian, possibly inbred torturer, is a little overwhelming.

Oculus (2013)

As far as scary mirror movies go, it wasn't horrible to watch. If you're looking for a bone chilling, cowering in the corner of your couch shivering type of scary movie, you won't get it with this. It is a slow to build movie.

A brief synopsis is a haunted mirror is to blame for a man who becomes possessed of sorts, and goes on a murderous rampage. Flash forward many, many years and one of the children, who is convinced of the mirror's evil, decides to video chronicle any abnormalities with the mirror, emotionally manipulating her brother to be a part of something he really should have stayed away from.

I did like the blending of flashbacks from an ill-fated night, being overlaid with present night happenings, and this hallucination/psychological trauma this haunted mirror is causing is somewhat interesting for the first 45 minutes or so, but then it gets old and rather cliche.

The actors were decent, and I think there was a good storyline that could have made for a more suspenseful movie.

If you have some time to kill (no pun intended), it's just suspenseful enough to warrant two hours of watching, but if you're a scary movie enthusiast (as I am), you will be a tad disappointed by the lack of a true chiller.

Having said that, the director of this movie Mike Flanagan, also did an underground movie called Absentia. Again, not something I would label a horror movie, but there is quite a bit of psychological drama and just enough visual imagery disturbance that did actually kind of creep me out by the end of the movie. What I really liked about Absentia is, the actors are not anyone who is well known, and I think that added a realism to the movie that was quite unique.