i'm kael's ghost

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system  so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right  or only fair  to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th...

I learned a really interesting lesson the other night: no matter how many times you've seen a movie on a small screen, you haven't really seen it  until you've done so on the big screen. Thus begins my story of realization in which I discover Pet Sematary  (seemingly for the first time) and develop a theory that it might actually have been directed by David Lynch  (this last bit being hyperbole, of course–but I've got a strong case for it, so stick with me). Over the years, I've watched Pet Sematary a handful of times and while I know all the major plot points (and always remembered Denise Crosby  as being completely awful), I definitely feel like I've seen a completely different movie this time around. In case you're coming in late and don't know how the story goes, here's the $.25 of it: family moves into house positioned (oddly close) to an Indian burial ground. The neighbor is friendly (albeit creepy). The road they are on has absolutely  n...

Spoilers and typos! Enjoy. We often look back nostalgically on childhood, envious of the joy we felt and the boundless imaginations we possessed. How conveniently we forget the other side of that coin: as children, we experience a depth of terror our adult selves continually try to recreate for cathartic entertainment. When we try to bring those childhood fears to life on the screen, we often end up with movies about "things that go bump in the night," which is a somewhat superficial approach. While it does provide an opportunity for a supernatural experience, it ignores the root of our fear: the unknown . As children, we lack life experience. We lack nuance. We lack understanding. Not knowing creates in us fear. Yes, we fear what lurks in the darkness but we also fear the adult world because we do not understand how it works. The Babadook works to exploit both  those fears. The short story: a widowed mother of a young boy experiences a mental breakdown and tries to...

Standard disclosure: there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you? Come back after you've seen it. And - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! Enjoy! When I was like 12 years old, my young (impressionable) friends and I watched The Hand That Rocks the Cradle ;  Rebecca De Mornay  is so gloriously evil in that movie that we ended up watching it all the damn time — much to the chagrin of my mother, I assume, who got real tired (real fast) of having to see this movie about a million damn times. What can I say? She was kind of a saint that way. Looking back, unsurprisingly, it's pretty easy to see that The Hand That Rocks the Cradle isn't really a terrific movie — although it's still pretty solid for a 90's thriller. Certainly it boasted some fairly well-known cast ( Ernie Hudson  and  Julianne Moore  — whom my regular readers know that I absolutely hate, in particular.) but, the plot is actually pretty convolut...

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you? Come back after you've seen it. And - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! Enjoy! The Invitation is about an LA dinner party gone terribly wrong. Six couples pile into an extravagant house tucked away in the LA hills – as the night progresses suspicion, fake smiles, and traumatic memories turn their conversation from friendly to incredibly tense. Through flashbacks and terse snippets of character interaction we discover the ties binding each character to the others; one couple (Will and Eden) lost a child and some of the group have joined a self-help group that sounds like a cult. Hidden sexual desires are exposed and everyone is made to feel uncomfortable. In the end, folks become murderous and we realize that no amount of red velvet cake can make up for the loss of a child or combat years of brainwashing.  The Invitation falls within the sub-genre ...

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! Enjoy! Have you guys seen Repulsion ? It's part of Polanski 's "apartment" trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby , and The Tenant ) and is often considered to be one of the great "descent into madness" films. You seriously ain't seen nothin' until you've watched Catherine Deneuve lose her shit in that movie. But of course, I bring it up because Darling wants desperately to be a part of that trilogy. The best I can figure is that if Repulsion and The Shining had a boring baby they gave up for adoption and it was raised by Psycho , that baby would be named  Darling .  The rough plot line goes: young woman accepts job as caretaker in a big, old house in NYC. When she arrives for the job, the owner tells her that the last caretaker threw...

You know the drill - there's ALWAYS spoilers. Don't want the movie ruined for you, come back after you've seen it. Also - I'm still without an editor - typos and bad grammar await you! I keep hoping that the cultural obsession with zombies will end; literally every other damn movie that comes 'round seems to feature some sort of shambling, undead being bent on devouring the weak flesh of regular humans. Once upon a time, zombies have have been used as a metaphor for the blind consumerism created by our capitalist society, or the perceived depletion of resources by immigrants, or even the ravages of time and disease on our frail bodies. Now it seems that the deeper social commentary has been lost as audiences mindlessly consume "zombie fiction" in an attempt to keep up with trends. ( How very meta - a film buddy of mine commented on this assessment! ) All of this is just a sideways rant, leading up to my actual point: it seems that zombie may actually...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. I remember a time when horror was still a relatively underground genre and fans slunk around in the shadows, keeping their fandom to themselves for fear of judgement. Now, it seems everyone and their mother is a horror fan and has something to say about the genre - for better or worse. While this does mean horror movies (and related goodies) are easier for long-time genre fans to get their hands on, it also means an over-saturation of the market (leading to an excess of crap.) It also means tons of great opportunities (like festivals and conventions) have cropped up all over the place.  The After Dark Horrorfest (or "8 Films to Die For") was at the forefront of the horror festival circuit and offered directors (and audiences alike) a terrific venue for checkin out new, original horror films. Pros and cons aside, I've often avoided the movies coming out of this festival - not because of the hype and ...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. I don't know why I continually do this to myself but, I watched another made for TV, Stephen King "movie" this week. I think I'm just a glutton for punishment; I know what I'm getting into when I do this, but my morbid curiosity always gets the best of me. On the chopping block tonight is A Good Marriage .  A little leg work tells me that this movie is based on a novella. I often question that translation process and this movie is a good example of why - I'm not convinced that there is enough in a novella to merit 2 hours of film. That's not always  the case but, it certainly seems to be in this instance - and I write that not having read the source material. You regular readers know how I feel about Stephen King . Even in the context of made for TV material, this movie was complete shit. It has some of the worst, stilted acting I have even seen. Joan Allen  (Darcy) & Anthony ...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. I like a good haunted house movie. The problem is that there are significantly more shitty haunted house movies out there than good ones. I also think tonight's offering was sold as a haunted house movie in order to preserve the "twist ending." ( I'm going to reveal that twist herein. Don't want me to ruin it for you? You should stop reading now.) The story of  Dream House  (perhaps better called " Daniel Craig  has a mental breakdown") runs something like this: A successful man (Will) retires from his job and heads off to celebrate with his family in their new country home. This idyllic life soon becomes plagued by a mysterious stalker. As the mystery begins to unfold, we realize this standard little home invasion thriller may be something supernatural which gives way to a plot twist anyone can see coming a mile away. Our hero isn't the quiet family man we believed him to be, nor...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. When I added The Oxford Murders to my list, I couldn’t remember if I’d seen it already or not. Then I realized that the cover does look somewhat like The Skulls (which I DO KNOW I’ve seen). Writing that here probably makes me sound like an ass because the version of the cover I grabbed for this post VERY CLEARLY does not look like The Skulls cover - so you'll just have to trust me on this one. Okay - on to a review. The basics go like this: An American student (played by  Elija Wood  - we'll come back to this in a moment) moves to England to study under a famous mathematician (played by the AMAZING  John Hurt ). This plan goes slightly awry when he realizes the home he's staying in is hiding a dysfunctional family situation that soon turns into a murder. It seems the murder is just the first in a string of serial killings. He and the mathematician become entangled in an attempt to solve the murder. Des...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. I've learned, over the years, that walking into a movie with too many expectations leads to my displeasure. In the case of Late Phases , I had read a couple of good reviews and was only hoping I wouldn't hate it too much - and I'll tell you what, I was quite pleased with the movie overall. The short version of the story reads like this: Getting old sucks. The slightly longer version of the story reads more like: a blind, aging veteran ( Nick Damici of Stake Land ) is sent to live in a remote, assisted living community by his son ( Ethan Embry - who I always think of as just a shitty comedic actor from the 90's). It'll come as no surprise to any horror fan that this "out of the way" village is plagued by "something terrible" and the Norman Rockwell exterior is shattered pretty quickly by a series of gruesome "animal attacks." I think  Eric Stolze  took some risk...

Spoilers, typos, and bad grammar ahead. You've been warned. Tonight's tale of Good and Evil comes to you from the UK. The difficulty with this type of story is that there are really only a couple of ways that they can end: either Good wins, Evil wins, or it's a "draw" and you know  that the fight will be revisited another time (in the sequel, of course.) There's an even greater challenge faced by any  filmmaker these days: creating a compelling story that isn't just a "rip off" or retelling of a story that has already been told . There's this really fine line that exists between being inspired by previous works and not being creative enough to write something unique . I was surprised to find that - for me - Let Us Prey  stayed comfortably on the side of inspired by . Here's how it plays out: Two strangers come to a remote island town. One is a rookie cop (played by Pollyanna McIntosh ), the other is an imposing man of few words ...

Since the untimely passing of my blog editor, I've been having difficulty getting back into reviewing movies. I was actually starting to believe that some part of me had just died off, as well. Today, while working from home, I dove head first into Lazarus Effect . 35 or so minutes from the end of it - I realized that I do, indeed, still have the desire to dissect movies. Alleluia. Hold that praise a moment: I've got to admit, this movie is way too easy a target to really count as "inspiring me to return to my blogging greatness." Regardless, I'll count this as progress. Here's the gist: if Pet Cemetery  had an illegitimate baby with Flatliners  and that baby got hot and heavy with Hollow Man  - the resulting creation might look something like Lazarus Effect. But, I suppose that really just scratches the surface of it. At the heart of this movie is a morality tale known well by horror fans: play god and you'll be punished. The creation of life must...

Even knowing logically that I can't watch EVERY horror movie out there, I still feel disappointed in myself when I only SUSPECT a movie is a remake. When I started watching The Town That Dreaded Sundown , I couldn't quite remember if it was a remake  or just a cheap knock off  of Texas Chainsaw Massacre  (TCM). I will say that the upside of my not being able to remember these things is that I then get to go research them before blogging. The answer to today's question: "is it a remake or is it a cheap imitation" is "yes." - meaning it's totally both. Although, to be completely fair, some might consider TCM to be a rip off (or homage ) of the original Town That Dreaded Sundown (as it pre-dates TCM by a few years). Perhaps this whole situation just got super meta... which, as it turns out, is what filmmakers were going for...  if you know me in the really, real world - you know that I'm rolling my eyes right now. I think they even went so far as ...

Historically, Australia hasn't been a huge producer of horror. Were you to catalog their film offerings, they'd fall more into that post apocalyptic, punk-rock, dystopian bucket. I remain unsurprised that such an empty, harsh place would have a soft spot in its heart for a wasteland of a world. What is actually kind of strange is that a place so full of poisonous and deadly wildlife has yet to really throw their hat into the killer creature ring. The horror that does come out of Australia is typically populated by human killers of the psychotic variety. Were you to ask me, I never would have expected a Tucker and Dale VS Evil caliber horror comedy to come roaring out of Australia. Yet it happened. 100 Bloody Acres is equal parts hilarious and gruesome. While Tucker and Dale plays heavily off the established stereotypes of the horror genre, 100 Bloody Acres finds pleasure in poking fun at our obsession with "free range" and "organic," in the perils of o...