i'm kael's ghost

Recently, it has become fairly common for me to start watching a movie only to realize (45 minutes later) that I'm watching a zombie movie . Not nearly as common is my watching a movie only to discover that it's a vampire movie . I think it's easier for folks to craft a story that uses the concepts or elements of a zombie movie in other contexts than it is to create a more abstracted vampire story; zombies  can take the form of slack-jawed movie watchers or glass-eyed mall shoppers not just  shambling flesh eaters. When people attempt to explore the depths of vampirism, they tend to fall into one other bucket - that of the succubus. The set up for The Hamiltons is designed to lead us to believe that that family we're watching is made up of socially awkward cannibals, like the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre , or perhaps just deranged serial killer's like in House of 1000 Corpses . There is no immediate indication of the "big reveal" - as it will...

I initially found Dead Silence to be a potentially exciting prospect - YAY! A killer doll movie! At the same time, on the other end of the spectrum, I'm a jaded old lady who know's enough to predict it would be another terrible, modern, jump-scare filled little horror flick designed to fill some seats BUT not challenge anyone. In finally watching the movie, I found it to be as uninspired as I imagined it to be. For no reason other then poor writing, the plot is tissue paper thin. Who can fuck up killer dolls? Killers dolls are every child's nightmare. Every normal kid, I guess. I loved the idea that my dolls may be alive and may have personalities. I loved the idea that they could be harnessed as minions to do one's bidding. Who would ever suspect or believe that dolls killed someone? As a kid, I watched about a billion hours of The Twilight Zone . One of my favorites was always " The Living Doll " where a mean step-father is menaced and murdere...

Often, I find myself asking things like, "How did I accidentally pick another  zombie movie to watch?" or "How did I accidentally pick another found footage movie to watch?" Tonight, on the heels of watching The Taking of Deborah Logan , I have to pose the question, "How did I accidentally pick another Stephen King  movie  and  another possession movie to watch?" There was very little I could turn up on the internet about this movie, leading me to believe no one really gives a crap about it. There's good reason for this: like most movie adaptations of King's stories, the plot is convoluted, the tone is that of a made for tv movie, the writing is childish, and the acting is uneven (at best). I have never seen such pathetic fake crying before this.  Alright, here's the gist:  A woman must move back to her childhood home to care for her ailing mother. Which is pretty much the identical story of Deborah Logan.  "Ailing," in this ca...

I'm two minutes into this movie and I'm thinking: "Oh great, another group of teenagers in a van  movie". There's the smart quiet one and the annoying (sort of stupid) one and one with documented mental health problems AND one who is "kind of psychic" and so on and so forth. These kids look like they climbed down off some GAP billboard and drove off into the woods for an ill fated vacation. Mine Games  is like the strange bastard offspring of  The Ruins  and  Donnie Darko  (with a dash of  The Butterfly Effect  thrown in). Trying desperately to be a great "timelines aren't linear BUT circular" movie (like  Twelve Monkeys  or  Timecrimes ), Mine Games just ends up feeling amateurish and half-baked. On paper, there's something really compelling about this movie - being stuck an in infinite loop is a great story line. There's a great opportunity for the characters and the audience to uncover bits of the mystery as the story cycle...