FEBRUARY

So today I came across this movie from which I didn´t expect much from it at first but in the end turned out to be great though It isn´t for everyone and not by the typical reasons in horror movies

The movie starts with a nightmare where we find out about the car  accident Kat´s parents had and that for some reason she is marking days in her calendar hoping for february the 22th to come as she expects them to come for some reason .

If we can say something about this movie is that it is very ambiguous and that is something that I love in horror and we don´t get to see it often unfortunately .


The movie tells us the story of three girls : Kat played by Kiernan Shipka (which I thought was great)
Rose played by Lucy Boynton and Joan played by Emma Roberts who is the most known actress in this indie movie .

Though It isn´t much clear and I´m talking about my own theories ; when Rose and Kat get to spend the holiday In this boarding school as their parents aren´t coming over yet I couldn´t help but think of the shining because what you get to hear and see for pretty much the first hour of this movie is snow and the sound of blowing wind . Empty dark corridors , creepy talk about devil posession and ambiguity define the first hour of this movie which is very slow but brilliantly creepy in my opinion.

The movie divides into three acts for one of the girls and the ones Involving Kat are the most unsetelling and creepy I´ve seen in a while in fact It reminded me a lot from Ty West´s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL which I think is an underrated masterpiece in mother horror after we left the torture porn and the supernatural-posession genre .

Kat starts to get this phonecalls from suposedly her parents but ...how can that be ? her parents are dead right ? well We don´t know exactly who she´s talking to but there seems to be some sort of creature or demon which looked like a got or a giant black bunny that reminded me of the one in Donnie Darko for some reason . Kat is brilliantly creepy in this in fact , there´s a scene where she tells Rose that her parents are dead too which we don´t know for certain at the time but we do find out later .

Then there´s the character of Joan who we first get to know in a bus station freezing and something that this movie made me feel is cold because of its awesome atmosphere that was also helped by its soundtrack ; it´s amazing to see horror movies this days that are not just about jmpscares and gore .

Later on we´ll discover that Joan is a runaway mental patient who took some doctor´s ID and then went with this couple who then turn out to be Rose´s parents who are brutally murdered by Joan and oh boy the movie became much darker in the last half hour .

I wonder what the connection between Joan and Kat is ; is it this creature or spectre ? are they sisters? we don´t know for sure but they proceed to commit the crimes almost simultaneously and man! this killings were brutal ! we don´t see them at first because the editing in the movie is kinda confusing but the one where Kat butchered Rose was really creepy and she looked like Jack Torrance in the Overlook which I thought was a great movie .

There´s also a few scenes in the movie In which we see Kat coming down to the boiler room and after she killed Rose and two members of the faculty staff she stared at the three heads when found by the police .

After that she is taken to the hospital and whe get a quick exsorcism where a priest supossedly takes away the spectre that was possessing Kat which I thought was sort of cheesy but at least it sort of told us what was going on .

I have to say this movie is not for everyone because of how slooow it is ! especially in its first hour but please give it a try and you will enjoy an awesome last half hour with one of the creepiest scenes I´ve seen in a while .

So as they say in Land of the creeps : KEEP HORROR ALIVE !

Was 2016 the best year in Horror ? Part 2

DON´T BREATHE

Directed by the guy who brought us The Evil Dead remake a few years ago which is considered one of the best horror remakes in recent history came Don´t Breathe this summer which is probably in the top 3 of movies last year and not just horror

Don´t Breathe comes from a very simple premise , a bunch of kids try to steal from a blind veteran which seemed like the easiest job ever except it became a nightmare for the kids and a pleasure for the viewer. One of the things I love most about this movie is that is settled in detroit , yes you guessed right , exactly like in IT FOLLOWS for which I think both have the same spirit. The characters here (specially rookie ) wish they could get away from they life they have and in "It Follows " the characters wish they could get back to the life they had when they were kids .

However , one of the things that this movie outbeats any other horror movie is in its atmosphere and its villain ( which may be one of the best in recent years except from perhaps Mick Taylor ) someone that knows his place and despite being blind is always aware of where this guys are (check out the pitch black scene in the basement )

I had one of the best theatre experiences last year with this gem and they were many reasons for going to the theater to watch horror movies last year believe me .

THE SHALLOWS

This two movies came out from the same premise (fear of sharks) though In the Deep  didn´t get the same praise and distribution as the Shallows , it is  equally as good in my opinion .

The Shallows shows the fear of sharks from a surfer´s perspective (Blake Lively ) who goes to a beach somewhere in mexico to catch some waves . The character of Nancy is a medcal student in this movie and I empathised a lot with her as I have the same struggles in school . Anyways the strenght of this movie I believe it is not only its beautiful photography but also how well paced it is as it might be a boring premise to watch a girl in a rock for and hour and a half but ; did we mention there is a shark in this ? and what a shark ! might be as big as jaws !

Intense , beautiful and fun ! clearly one of the best shark movies in recent years and one of the top horror films in 2016 !

IN THE DEEP / 47 METERS DOWN

This movie needs to be written and talked about ! seriously ! one of the best ideas for a shark movie has been overshadowed by the shallows ; in fact , both of them were called "In the deep " when they were written .

What is the best about In the deep ? the genious Idea of being in a shark cage with scuba gear , little diving experience and 47 meters down . You can´t reach to de top or you will get decompression sickness and your air is running down and the fastest you breathe the sooner It will run out in a sea full of sharks where the only safe place is a rusty shark cage.

Our charaters in this movie are played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt who are two sisters in vacation ; guess where ? Mexico ! exactly like in the shallows ! They both decide to go on a boat trip to see the sharks in a shark cage with scuba tanks and the rest of the film you can guess easily , though it has a surprise in the emd .

As a diver , I can tell the movie is pretty realistic about decompression sickness , buoyancy and nitrogen narcosis for which there´s a great surprise at the end ! I strongly recommend you to start your open water diver course ; just please don´t do it in a shark cage 47 meters down !

Please don´t be afraid of diving because of this movie ! It is the best thing ever I can tell you ! 

Was 2016 the best year for horror ? PART 1

As you my fellow horror fans would probably already know 2016 was an incredible year for us as we had a reason every month to check a new horror movie but this time was actually worth it ! and don´t get me wrong I´m a big fan of the cheesy low budget part of the genre but when you get to watch quality stuff lie THE WITCH , THE SHALLOWS , DON´T BREATHE and LIGHTS OUT for an instance you realise that the genre has a lot more to offer than it usually does.

THE FOREST :

We kicked of this awesome year in horror with a movie that came to surprise me as I didn´t expect much from it to be honest . What I thought was great about this was the atmosphere of the Aokigahara Forest which is actually a real place in Japan where people are somehow compelled to commit suicide there and for what I thought was an awesome premise for the movie .

Then there´s these two Identical twins ; Sarah and Jess who went to Japan as an english teacher and went to the forest to fight her own demons as Sarah suspected . It certainly wasn´t the best from last year as you had your stereotypical jump scares somehow for some reason but the connection the twins as one knew exacly how the other was feeling when they were close and also the silence they felt when the other was in trouble or about to die .

I know many people wouldn´t consider it as good as the rest of movies we got last year but still is a guilty pleasure of mine because of how easy it is to identify yourself with the characters for some reason and also the fact that the reality of this place around mount Fuji is scarier that what any movie may portray .

THE WITCH : a New-England Folktale

The Witch came out as a small indie film that made people cheered in festivals such as Sundance and Sitges yet again for its atmosphere , in fact , you may rarely get a jumpscare at all in this movie but everything about it is astonishlingly  creepy from the woods to the witch that barely appears in the movie to the family relected from their New England puritan community .

Some of the best characters in he movie was Thomasin played by Anya Taylor-Joy , in fact she was so good that Shyamalan cast her for Split for which she was amazing as well .
We have a family that is forced to leave their community and dive into the madness of isolation in which their only hope were their prayers that didn´t seem to help after all hell broke loose when the baby was abducted from the witch as part of some sort of ritual that wasn´t really explicit at all.

Robert Eggers writer and director of this films is one of those people that knows that horror movies is all about the unexpected , the movie may remind you of The house of the devil and Rosemary´s baby both or which are slow burn movies that are loved and hated by some but personally I think it´s great that there´s still some visionaries like Ty West and Eggers himself . Our imagination is the engine of terror no matter how disturbed the images they show us may  be .

My Theory on IT FOLLOWS

Not many horror films in recent years have remindend as much of horror films from the 80´s ; you might have checked Ty West´s the house of the devil ; which was an awesome slow-burn horror movie that came out in 2009 and made a great impact on the horror community.

Sex , virginity ; some of the rules of the horror genre that Kevin Williamson introduced back in 96 with SCREAM or its original title SCARY MOVIE ; have usually been  considered as the key to survive this movies but the menace behind them was never explained  ; except from perhaps the original halloween in which carpenter represented in the character of Jamie Lee Curtis the fear of giving yourself to someone or even having a crush on a guy as Michael Myers represented something which could take both her virginity and her life .

WATER AND NOSTALGIA

Another big topic in this movie is nostalgia ; (as Jay said during her encounter with Jeff ) she always dreamed about being old enough to go on dates with a cute guy or someone she could empathise with and somehow it wasn´t as good as she expected .

The need of coming back to a time that we used to dread and now we miss .

In fact most of the conversations throughout the move are about what they used to do as  kids ; right at the time when Paul spends the night at Jay´s in a remarkable Nightmare on elm street omage i might say.

Another character right at the end of the movie as they approach the pool ; Jara ; about how her parents did not allow her to go to the 8th mile when she was young just for the state fair . Nostalgia is a recurrent topic in David Robert Mitchell´s movies such as THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER which kinda works as it follows but without ghosts and killings

-still from the myth of the american sleepover

Is there anything creepier than the thought that there´s nothing left to life ? well kinda ; actually this has something to do with the director as his characters can only look back and try to reflect in their past lives eventhough they can´t be more than in their 20´s .

THE INFLUENCE OF HALLOWEEN AND CARPENTER


The shape haunts laurie in JOHN CARPENTER´S HALLOWEEN (1978)

     Jay and Paul in IT FOLLOWS (2015)

Those wide angle panavision shots that made halloween so special are also an important part of it follows ; so much in fact that these 180º camera moves really give the movie a sense of place. The killer´s POV that black christmas started back in the day are also in both movies although we don´t know excactly what´s haunting these teenagers on it follows .

Another connection between these two movies is sexuality ; as Hugh says in the beginning of the movie ; this curse is given to you by someone and you can also give it to someone else ; except here is not just the shape trying to get laure but also on the whole lot of these teenagers .


80´S HORROR RULES

It wasn´t until Kevin Williamson wrote down the rules of horror in 1996 SCREAM  that a movie was self reflexive of these rules ; none the less the seem pretty obvious for any 80´s horror fan ; sex , drugs , a masked killer and a lake or any isolated location .

Mitchell must have been inspired by these rules ; specially by the whole if you have sex you die or the virginity issue on the original halloween .




The genius of this film is that it makes a whole story from one of the basic horror movie rules as I said before ; what happens to your soul or your conscience knowing that you´ve cursed someone else trying to save yourself from this "ghost " or whatever you think it is .