Drag Me To Hell (2009)

I have a buddy. He and I thoroughly enjoy watching scary movies with other people. Mostly because he and I aren't scared by most of them and we like to watch how other people get freaked pout by them. Occasionally though, we will find a horror movie that entertains us. Not because it's scary, but because it just has so much made up "horror" that it makes us laugh until we cry.  Some movies just do entirely too much. They throw every creepy thing they can think of at you in an attempt to make you scream. Unfortunately, this usually back fires and anyone can predict everything that is about to happen in the movie. Drag Me To Hell is this type of movie.

Case in point, after the initial flashback, opening scene we meet an old woman begging for help from a bank's loan officer, Christine (Alison Lohman). While talking the woman is almost constantly hacking up phlegm into her handkerchief  and when Christine steps away she removes her teeth and sucks on a piece of candy. Only to replace the candy and her teeth when Christine comes back. So now here comes the basic plot of this movie. Christine tells the woman the bank cannot help her anymore and that she is going to lose her house. The woman begs and grovels and Christine has her escorted out by security. The woman then places a curse on her, but it doesn't exactly happen like that. She waits until Christine is leaving that evening and when Christine gets in her car she see that disgusting handkerchief floating in the parking garage. Only to turn around and see who in her back seat? That's right. The old lady, Mrs. Ganush. An epic brawl ensues and it's honestly hysterical to watch. Christine's only weapon is a stapler and a ruler. So of course the woman gets  some staples in the face. The Christine starts the car and crashes into things. Mrs Ganush's teeth fall out when she hits the dashboard of the car and then she falls on Christine and tries to gum her to death. Yes, she quite literally sucks and drools on her chin for a disgusting five seconds. Anyway, that battle is probably the most entertained you will ever be by a horror movie. At least in that manner.

The movie really gets no better from there. The woman dies and Christine happens to stop by the family on the day of the funeral. She falls on the casket and Mrs. Ganush falls on her and explodes bodily fluids from her mouth onto Christine's face. Christine realizes she's been cursed and looks for ways to get rid of it before she is dragged to hell. Everything in this movie is kind of comical. Everything from Mrs. Ganush always trying to French Christine, to the evil talking goat at the end. There's a lot of CG and it really does take away from a movie that could have been scary if they had just toned it down a bit. Too many cliches, too many disgusting scenes, and too many overly exaggerated, clearly fake incidents make this movie almost a B list horror.

The Strangers (2008)

This movie....oh this movie scared the crap out of me when it first came out. After watching it again I can't see why the movie scared me so much. I'm guessing it was mostly the idea of the movie itself. The fact that at any time someone could just decide to break into my home and murder me. Well, after screwing with my head all night. Literally every sound I heard at night for the next week kept me up. I was on edge for a while. Again, I guess it was more the idea behind the movie rather than the movie itself. Anyway, here we go.

James Hoyt and his girlfriend Kristen McKay have just left a wedding reception. She's crying and he looks demoralized. We learn very soon it's because he proposed, and she said no. Sucks for him because he had his family's vacation home all romanticized for the occasion, expecting her to say yes. Instead she takes a bath and he eats a gallon of ice cream. Girl. At any rate, once the awkwardness wears off James and Kristen decide to have one more go at each other. I shan't be any more detailed than that. Then there's a knock on the door. At four in the morning. now, here's the moral of this story kids. Do not, under any circumstances, answer the door at four in the morning. Psychos are out then. This is when things pick up. The girls claims to be looking for someone and then leaves after being told she has the wrong house. James leaves for some unknown reason and doesn't come back for a while. In the time he's gone Kristen probably pisses herself about five times.

Some shuts the flu and the smoke alarm goes off. A man in a mask is seen behind her in the hall. The smoke alarm is picked up when she's not looking. Her phone disappears from the charger and when she calls James from the home phone the phone line gets cut. She hides in the bedroom and someone comes down the hall. Luckily for her, it's James. By now you can see where this is going. Now that James is back the real fun for the psychos begins. They screw with these peoples heads for the rest of the night. Then they finally tie them up and stab them repeatedly. All this just because they were home.

That's what scared me the most about this movie. Demons and ghosts and pure evil I can handle. But sick people, I will never understand. This movie could've been a lot scarier, but it was still done masterfully. The way the masked murderers appear never fails to surprise. The mind games they play with James and Kristen make you wonder just how long these people have been killing. They literally think of everything and every way to make these people scream and fill them with terror. I was all for giving this movie an eight before I watched it again. I guess I over-exaggerated it in my head. Still, it's not like I was too far off.

The Exorcist (1973)

I'll keep this one short. If you're looking for a scary movie to watch tonight, this isn't it. Maybe 30 years ago this movie scared our parents, but knowing my parents I doubt it. I honestly cannot think of a single moment of this movie that made me jump, or even twitch for that matter. So here's the synopsis of the movie.

There's a demon. It becomes unearthed. It possesses a little girl in Georgetown. Her mother gets worried. She talks to tons of doctors. No one knows what's wrong. She determines her daughter is possessed. She calls a priests. He doesn't want to do the exorcism. She convinces him to. He bring along an older father with him. They perform the exorcism. The demon kills the older priest and possesses the younger one. He then throws himself out of the window. The girl and her mother move away and all is well with the world.

So that's it. It is exactly what you think it is. A movie about a demon that has to be exercised. The demon really doesn't do anything scary and then it's gone. It's not scary. Not anymore.

The Ring (2002)

A movie about a movie that kills people. We could be on to something here.... It just has to be done properly. So, was it? Short answer?

Almost.

When this movie released in 2002 it was supposed to be the scariest movie ever made up until then. Ten years later however, it's not quite Insidious. Or Amittyville for that matter. Once again, this is a great movie, but it's not as scary as it could've been. So here's the synopsis.

Rachel is a journalist whose 16 year old niece just dropped dead for no apparent reason at all. Sixteen year olds' hearts don't just stop. Rachel knows this and, being a journalist, she begins to ask around. She talks to some of Katie's, her niece, friends who say she died because she watched a video. A video that kills you exactly seven days after you watch it. As she digs she find that Katie and three other friends watched the video and that they all died at the same time. Four kids, all watch the same video, and all die at the same time one week later. Well that's enough to get any journalist going. She sets off to discover just what's going on.

Rachel starts by going to the cabin that Katie and her friends stayed at. After talking to the owner, she find a tape she assumes contains the video. She rents the very same cabin as Katie and her friends and takes the tape and watches it. The tape is just a bunch of images that make no sense whatsoever. She asks a friend of hers, Noah, to help her analyze the tape. So together they set off on this quest to discover where the tape came from and why it kills people. She makes a copy of the tape so Noah can analyze some more, but then gets mad at him because of some other girl and takes it with her.

While working with Noah, they discover something on the tape so she takes it to work with her where she can analyze it herself. By this point she is convinced that she is going to die by day seven so she reaches out to Noah to help her again. She figures out where the tape comes from and that unlocks everything she needs to know. She finds out who the person is in the video. She figures out what happened to her and finds the house the woman lived in. Sometime during her investigation she walks into the living room and finds her son, Aidan, watching the tape. Her investigation becomes desperate now. She has to figure out what's killing everyone that watches the tape and stop it from killing her and her son. Her and Noah split up. She travels to the estate of the woman in the video, Anna Morgan. The Morgans used to breed horses, but something happened to their horses. They all went crazy and threw themselves into the ocean. No one knew why but it turns out the Morgans did. Anna Morgan was unable to have children, so her and her husband, Richard, adopted a little girl and named her Samara. According to everyone on the island, things started getting bad on the island when Samara showed up. Then Samara disappeared and things got better.

Rachel explores the Morgans house some more and Richard catches her. He hits her with a TV and walks upstairs where he electrocutes himself in front of Rachel. Noah comes rushing in and consoles her and they set off to the barn to check it out. They find a loft where the Morgans used to keep Samara. There they find a tree burned into the wall and Rachel recognizes it. It's from the cabin she started her investigation at. They travel back to the cabin to look for anything else they can find.

It's now day seven for Rachel. If she doesn't figure it out by sunset she's dead. I don't feel like ruining the ending for you because it is all really good and the way everything finally ties together is kind of clever. So the only thing I'll give away is that Rachel saves herself and Aidan, but at the cost of someone else.

So how do I rate this movie? It was a good horror movie. There were virtually no cliched horror movie shots or lines. There was no overuse of blood and gore. It was very well done, but it still wasn't as scary as it could've been. I wanted this movie to make me feel like I only had seven days to live. Of course I took the precaution necessary to survive, but I can't give that away. So, my rating?

1408 (2007)

Before I begin, let me be absolutely clear about one thing. This movie is amazing! I mean, just beyond belief amazing. The story line is quite basic, but the twists and turns made by the haunted hotel room are done spectacularly. It will both confuse and delight you, and if you're like me you'll love almost every second of it. That being said I can now get down to the actual review of this movie.

This movie, as a horror movie, is terrible. (Now you see why I made the other point earlier.)

John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, a writer who is known for debunking paranormal occurrences in hotels and B&Bs. He's currently working on a new book when he gets wind of the insanely haunted room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. The hotel's manager,Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), refuses to let him stay in the room because of the activity that usually occurs in the room. As a matter of fact he has never let anyone stay in the room since he has become manager, but Mike gets a lawyer in on it and forces his way into staying. Once he arrives at the hotel Gerald tries one last time to get him to stay in a different room. He tells him of the many deaths no one can explain that have happened in the room. This only makes Mike want in more. He is adamant that it's all a ruse and that he'll debunk it all. Gerald gives in and takes him up to the room and tells him most people don't last an hour.

Begin the mayhem. Mike notices some small things as he explores the room. He believes someone is in the room with him. The radio keeps turning on. Chocolates are placed on his pillow and the bed turned down. The toilet paper roll is delicately folded. He decides he's all right with a poltergeist maid and begins to settle in. But then things start getting weird. The clock resets and starts counting down from an hour. He sees ghosts reenacting their suicides. A window slams on his hand. He sees flashback of his life. His home videos play on the television. He's locked in the room and when he tries to go out the window he finds that there are now no more windows on the hotel but his. He's chased through the duct work by what can only be described as a zombie. As the hour begins to draw near its end Mike decides he wants out. He reaches out to his wife who he hasn't talked to since their daughter died and she says she'll call the police for him but the hotel play another trick on him and the police say the room is empty. His wife says she'll be there in fifteen minutes. The clock says he has about five.

Then the room plays its cruelest trick yet. Mike wakes up on a beach, only to pass out and wake up in a hospital bed. His wife is there. She flew from New York to Los Angeles when the hospital called her. She tells him he hit his head on his surf board. He assumes everything was just a bad dream. Then his life pulls a Ground Hog Day on him and he relives the day he was told of The Dolphin Hotel, but no one mentions The Dolphin. When he starts looking for it, the room reveals itself. It has become a burned out shell of a room and his daughter is there now too. Like the room has done most of this time, she tries to convince him to kill himself and join her. The countdown ends and the room resets itself to the way it was before. The phone rings and he answers it. The room tells him he can relive this last hour over and over again or kill himself. That's when he decides to take matters into his on hand. In true "man" fashion, he Molotov cocktails the room and burns it and himself alive. Thus ending the evil activity of the room.

The end. Basically. I mean there are a few more bits of the movie but that's basically the end of the story line. Like I said before, this movie is great. Amazingly written and very well done. But it isn't scary. It's suspenseful at best but it by no means frightened me. Would I recommend it? Yes, but not as a horror movie. It's a great suspense thriller. For some reason this movie is number one on IMDB's "True Horror Movies That Will Scare the Crap Out of You" list. Insidious is number two. After watching it I have to disagree. It's a great movie but not scary in the least. On a scale of 1-10?