Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2013

Ambitious but Rubbish: Silent House

The usual warning - there are spoilers ahead. I keep running across horror movies where the "monster" is actually some sort of apparition or "shadow" or lingering energy or "bad vibe" created by some sort of domestic violence in the protagonist's past. For the most part, it's some form of molestation. ( An American Haunting , Absentia , Silent House , and another one that I'm honestly drawing a blank on because I watch so many terrible movies! To that end, I wish I could sort my "recently watched" by "genre" on my Netflix; seeing the cover of a crappy movie often jogs my piss-poor memory!) Moving on! I'm not about to try and tell you that I think groping little kids is okay or anything, but I will tell you that I'm already tired of this metaphor. I mean, all these movies start with trailers / synopsis that claim to be something they are not; they look like haunted house movies  or possession movies but tu

House at the End of the Street, Nearly too Generic for Words.

What's worse than a bad movie? One so generic and boring that you forget about it as soon as the end credits roll. Thus is how it went with House at the End of the Street . Pre-Watching Thoughts Somehow, "House at the End of the Street" sounds like it wants me to believe it's like " Last House on the Left ." Okay. If that's your schtick, I'm possibly interested. So how do they compare? I could read into them both and say that they (thematically) deal with, "the horror next door." Or that they deal with "regular, every day people" being pushed so far that they do something horrible. They both feature an element of "violence against young women." But all that esoteric reaching is really the extent of it. Post-Watch Thoughts Overall, this movie felt more like The Stepfather  (or, more recently, Disturbia .) It's one of those standard, PG13 "horror" flicks that hit screens, lure in some kids who hav

I am not a nerd or Please don't ever make me watch John Dies at the End EVER again

Like many of my friends, I tend to think of myself as, "an outsider." My circle of friends is always relatively small and shifts a bit over time but is always composed of rogues, misfits, and otherwise "strange" individuals. The commonality of individuals that I like spending time with is intelligence. This means I have generally found myself amongst the nerdy kids; the geeks who read and draw and game. And I admit, I'm a bit of a nerd myself. But when faced with the truly, deeply, excessively nerdy, I realize just how far from it I really am. Some undefined amount of time ago, I started reading about John Dies At The End  and I was entertained. I like a movie that isn't every other movie. I like a movie that offers me something new. I appreciate absurdity. But I can tell you that the amount of ranting provoked by finally watching this movie is enough to make my roommates wish they'd never put it on in the first place. I knew, without a doubt,