VOD Review: Satanic (2016)

"Well, that was underwhelming."

(aka Why?)
Release Date: July 1st.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Anthony Jaswinski.
Directed by: Jeffrey G. Hunt.
Starring: Sarah Hyland, Steven Krueger, Justin Chon, Clara Mamet, and Sophie Dalah.

Satanic was originally supposed to come out last August, but was pushed back nearly a year. Now, movies get delayed all the time, and that doesn't mean that they're complete shit just because they do, but having seen this generic shocker, we're pretty sure that it sat on the shelf for so long because they knew it just wasn't that good. Shocker, I know.

Five friends on Spring Break are heading to Coachella, but the plan is to stop off in LA first for two days of occult sightseeing, because it sounds much better than shitty Coachella does. They rent room 204 at The Flower Hotel, where some girl named Lainey Gore slit her throat for Satan, and proceed to try and contact her via Parker Bros. Ouija Board.

"KEEP TRYING, MORTICIA, YOU'VE ALMOST GOT IT!"

As if that isn't edgelord enough of them, they head over to the local Satanic church to take selfies; visit the scene of the Manson Murders, to take selfies; and visit a local Satanic thrift shop, where they act like assholes to the dude who works there, and almost get stabbed for their efforts. Later that night, after deciding that all of this isn't quite enough, they follow the dude from the Satan shop out into the boonies to a ramshackle cabin and interrupt the Satanic Sacrifice party that he and his 20 closest, creepiest friends are having, because the guy was an asshole, and he's got to be taught a lesson!

Had everyone died right then, as a sort of "this is what you get for being retarded" kind of lesson, we'd have probably given this movie a B+.

DON'T DO IT, MAN, SHE'S TOO HOT TO KILL!

But no, it doesn't end there. They girl that they "saved" from being sacrificed contacts them (via the cellphone that one of them left behind while escaping the Satanists), comes to hang with them in Lainey Gore's room, leads them in a group ritual, and then proceeds to slit her throat with the parting words of "I'll see you soon." That's when things truly get Satanic, as the disposable teens are haunted and hunted down by some ghostly force that begins killing them off, one by one.

Finally.

YEAH, US TOO.

This could have been a good movie. It was written by the guy who write The Shallows (which we really liked), so we know he has it in him to construct a solid story; and it was directed by a guy who has directed a ton of hours worth of TV, so we're not sure what went so wrong here. Come to think of it, this movie played like an over-long episode of some teen-friendly CW show, so maybe it was generic by design? If so, then kudos to all involved.

The story itself isn't all that bad; it's the typical "Idiot teens get stalked and slashed" kind of story, and those can be entertaining enough, even if most of them are generic as hell. Satanic though, doesn't do what most Teen Terror flicks do to make themselves tolerable, which is show a bunch of kids getting naked and getting killed in horrific ways. When people die in this movie (which save for one, doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes or so), we see nothing. One of them goes into a port-a-potty, and disappears; another goes off alone, only to show up dead later; yet another simply disappears; and the Final Girl, which you can probably guess is Sarah Hyland's character... well she gets to be a part of a cheesy twist that leads to an ending that is open to interpretation. 

If we have to sit through a movie with a half-assed script that is populated by unlikable, generic characters, at least give us some blood & gore to make it all worthwhile. Visceral thrills, you know?

While the story isn't that great to begin with, it's really the characters that make it such a painful watch. All Sarah Hyland's Chloe really does throughout the whole thing is scream, and she's the best of them; Elise, her cousin, is one of those goth posers who tries to act smarter than she is, and is way too-creepy-for-you, but ends up being tits on a bull when the actually Supernatural shit starts to go down; David is a dude-bro turn who whines the whole time about how lame his girlfriend's goth poser friends are, and about how bad he wants to go to Coachella, which should tell you everything you need to know about him; and Seth, the asshole, needs-to-catch-a-smack-in-the-mouth hipster, is too cool for everyone, has respect for nothing, and spends the entire movie making us ask "How does this tool have friends, let alone a girl who actually likes him?"

Sophie Dalah's crazy Satanist chick was the best character in the movie, and she basically existed as a plot device. The girl out-acted everyone.

DON'T WORRY, GIRL, YOU'VE STILL GOT MODERN FAMILY...

The throat-slitting part was pretty cool, but aside from that, we get very little in the way of gore, unless you count a pool full of CGI birds and blood, which you shouldn't.

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT SHE'S NOT COMMITTED.

Sophie Dalah gets mostly naked and kisses some girls, but that's it. 

YES, YOU WERE THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE.

This movie really could have been a decent B-Grade Supernatural flick had the characters not been so annoying, and had they, you know, actually shown the killings happen on-screen, but as it stands, it's a bit of a disappointing mess. You can give Satanic a rent of you want to, but waiting until it hits Netflix might be the best was to view this clunker.

D

Satanic is available now on VOD, as well as in limited theaters.

The girls of Satanic.

VOD Review: #Horror (2015)

We applaud first time director Tara Subkoff for trying to make a unique movie that offers commentary about cyberbullying, but overall, #Horror was #Horrible.

This movie is supposed to be a Slasher flick, I suppose, but in the end it's really no more than a mean-spirited remake of The Babysitters Club, except in this one, the babysitters are all socially retarded asshole kids who get stabbed to death at the end.

It also may be a live-action version of the game Candy Crush. And one of the worst movie that either Timothy Hutton or Chloe Sevigny have ever starred in.

The movie centers around a group of 12-year-old privileged girls, who gather at a mansion to have a sleepover. This sleepover mostly involves calling each other names like "Fat Tranny" and viciously insulting each other, but hey, maybe that's what pre-teen girls are into these days. And of course every single thing that they do has to be uploaded online, because what is life without having your posts liked on the Twitters and Facebooks of the world?

WHY?

When the alcoholic mother of the girl who is hosting the sleepover leaves them alone to "go do her," the bullying between them escalates to the point where one girls is told to leave. A house full of young girls left all alone, and one wandering int he wintry woods by herself, add up to bad things to come... mainly because there's someone who wants to kill them all.

Frustration ensues.

WILL SHE SURVIVE?

I get that Tara Subkoff was trying to make a statement about cyberbullyng, bullying in general, and how the younger generation is obsessed with the world of Social Media (likes, Tweets, favorites, etc...), but damn, couldn't she have done so within the confines of a better movie? Or even a more watchable one?

I'll go ahead and give her credit for going for something that was completely out of the box with this movie, at least in a visual sense. It's definitely stylish, and it certainly plays by its own rules, for better or worse. I'll also give her credit for making a movie in which a bunch of younger kids get killed on-screen, because that's a tough thing to attempt, even in a satirical movie like this. If nothing else, this movie had balls.

YEAH, SHE'S 12.

#Horror was a grating experience for us though. The story itself wasn't bad, and the point(s) that the movie was tying to make were absolutely valid, but everything was a total mess: the way that the movie is edited; the random, Candy Crush-like graphics that popped up on screen every two minutes; the lack of any sort of incident until the very end; the slow, almost non-existent plot; the over-the-top and purposefully silly acting by Timothy Hutton... it felt more like an artistic experiment than it did a movie.

And then we have the characters...

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie where I wanted all of its characters to die painfully from the get-go like I did with this one. The fact that most of the main characters are 12-years-old makes it even worse, because we're not usually interested in seeing a bunch of kids killed on screen, but the girls in this movie were so abhorrent and frustratingly aggravating, that their impending deaths were all we had to hang on to as the movie wore on.

SO BRAVE. SO UNIQUE. SO PRETENTIOUS.

Honestly, the first hour and fifteen minutes of this movie is little more than a group of 12-year-old girls bullying, harassing, and generally being shitty to each other. Illustrating their horrible behavior towards one another, and how Social Media fits into it all, was the point of the movie, but after 10 minutes of that we were contemplating scratching our eyes out and/or hitting mute.

And when the killing did start (in earnest at least), it was far too late to save things. At least the last 15-minutes or so were a bit more exciting than everything that came before it.

Lots of ideas look good on paper but just don't work in practice, and #Horror is surely an example of that.

WE KNOW, KID. WE CRIED TOO.

I'm honestly being generous by not giving #Horror a lower grade, but as horrible as it was for us to watch, it's not without merit. We applaud the movie for making a statement about bullying, and the dumbing-down of America by way of Social Media addiction, but for the most part though, this movie is little more than an exercise in style over substance. At least that's how it felt to us.

Some will dig it, but for most Horror fans in general, #Horror will feel like watching someone scratch their nails on a chalkboard for 90 minutes. #NoThankYou #RentSomethingElse

D

#Horror is available now on VOD.

The Incomparable Chloe Sevigny.

VOD Review: Ghoul (2015)

Oh, Found Footage, why hast thou forsaken me?

We know that most FF/POV Horror flicks tend to suck, and we know that they aren't going to stop being made any time soon, but for the love of all that is holy, can we at least start trying to make them worthwhile?

The real problem with most FF flicks, aside from the fact that most of them are ridiculously unbelievable, is that they all basically do the same thing, in just about the same way. Some try admirably to be different and put a unique spin on things, but most never manage to be anything but predictable. That's pretty much the story with Ghoul.

Ghoul at least has an interesting premise going for it, in which a group of wannabe documentary filmmakers travel to the Ukraine, to investigate the rumors of mass cannibalism that happened there in the 30's. Aside from the fact that shooting a TV Pilot based on real-life cannibalism is about the dumbest idea that we've ever heard, the Ukraine is a great setting in which to unleash such disturbing subject matter. So, so far, so good.

The crew is lured to a remote farmhouse that was the site of a gruesome murder, with the promise of hearing the actual murderer's tale of death and cannibalism, first-hand. There, they meet a local witch, and decide to have a seance using a Russian Ouija Board carved into an old table, and an upside-down glass. Alright, still with you, I suppose.

WHAT KIND OF HALF-ASSED OUIJA BOARD IS THIS?

During the seance, they make contact with the spirit of Andrei Chikatilo; a prolific Russian Serial Killer who sexually assaulted and murdered more than 50 women and children between 1978-1990. We're not sure what that has to do with cannibalism that happened way back in the 1930's, or with Boris, the cannibalistic murderer who they're there to interview about his crimes, but hey, the dude was terrifying in life, so he has to be even more terrifying as a malicious spirit, right?

Well...

BORIS OR ANDREI?

The ghost of Chikatilo tells them they can't leave the farmhouse (something that the witch reaffirms over, and over, and over again), and that he wants them to eat each other, or some such shit. When you find out that one of the girls on the film crew is pregnant, then you can pretty much guess where the movie is going to go from there: Nowhere good.

WHAT WAS WITH THAT COAT?

Ghoul is actually a well-made movie that boasts a fantastic location which makes for the perfect setting for this kind of Horror flick. Early on, Ghoul is also a fairly creepy movie that builds up a decent amount of tension, even if that tension doesn't last all that long. The cast is surprisingly good in this one too, all of them bringing a natural feel to things. Of course, some of them turn out to be stereotypical Horror movie tools, but that's par for the course.

Ghoul's biggest problem was that it tried to do too much. It complicated things by complicating things, if that makes any sense. Was it about cannibalism, Serial Killers, ghosts, or Demonic possession? Yes! It's about all of those things, but not enough about any of them to make for a very coherent story.

The movie worked well enough until Chikatilo was brought in the story, where everything takes a turn for the mundane. The spirit of Chikatilo really serves no purpose here other than to bring some name recognition to the story, and I suppose, give us something even greater to to fear. When Chikatilo's evil plan is revealed though, it only serves to make things even more lame. This movie went from promising, to Genre Trope City, in a short time.

IN UKRAINE, MAN ONLY CRY WHEN DEATH.

To its credit, Ghoul actually built up a little bit if steam heading into its ending, but all of that quickly went away when we were treated to another shaky-cam trip through some winding corridors, only to find a "shocking" fate waiting for our characters at their end... and of course everything ends in an abrupt jump scare, and then the camera cuts to black.

Sound familiar? Well that's because 498 other Found Footage movies have ended in just about the same way.

YEAH, US TOO.

Ghoul is a decent enough movie that buckled under the weight of its own mechanics. Maybe at this point we're just burned out on Found Footage movies, and their overly-familiar tricks and tropes, but as the movie wore on it became less and less enjoyable, and got to the point where it was obvious how it was going to end.

At this point, I think we're far too jaded to be objective about a Found Footage flick like this, especially when it feels like every other one we've ever watched. Sorry, Ghoul, at last you had us going for a while.

You might like it though. You never know.

D

Ghoul is available now on DVD and VOD.

If nothing else, Jennifer Armour was the bright spot in this movie.

Theatrical Review: Poltergeist (2015)

We've come to accept that remakes are a big thing in Hollywood, and in the Horror Genre especially. People want what's familiar, and Hollywood wants to make movies that are "safer" from a financial standpoint, so it makes sense that they want to remake everything that people have already seen.

We can bitch and moan all we want to, but until the day comes when people stop paying to see remakes, and reboots, and re-whatevers, and instead start spending their money on more "original" properties, they are never going to stop.

That being said, if Hollywood is going to endlessly remake the hit movies & TV shows of yesteryear, then they could at least put more care into them than they did with this Poltergeist redux. I mean, it's a Steven Spielberg movie, for crying out loud, you have to show it a certain amount of respect, or don't remake it to begin with.

And before someone comes along and says "But Poltergeist was a Tobe Hopper movie!" please know that Spielberg was the heart and soul of the original, not Hooper. Tobe is crazy cool, and we love him, but Poltergeist was not his movie.

You pretty much know the story of Poltergeist already, but if you don't, then here you go:

A young family moves into a beautiful home on the cheap, hoping to live the American dream. In this version, they're cash-strapped, and the husband is out of work, but they have love to pay the bills, so why not move into a big house in a decent neighborhood?

Once they move in, strange and scary things begin to happen all around them, but nobody seems to care all that much until their youngest daughter, Maddy, goes missing. When they realize that Poltergeists have taken her into their TV, they call on a crack team of Paranormal Investigators to help them get her back. Together they must travel into the spiritual netherworld to save Maddy, which might just see them all dead. Or scared. Or something.

No scares whatsoever ensue.

AS THEY WATCHED THE ORIGINAL POLTERGEIST TOGETHER, THEY BEGAN TO REALIZE THAT EVERYTHING THEY WERE DOING WAS WRONG.

The main problem with this Poltergeist remake, is that it doesn't really feel like a Poltergeist movie at all. Instead, it feels more like a typical modern day Haunted House flick that borrowed the Poltergeist name to drum up some extra interest in itself. Sure, some of the same plot elements are there, but only because they have to be; otherwise, this would be a generic, PG-13 ghost story, and nothing more. Which it really is anyhow, so...

This movie isn't scary, creepy, or even mildly frightening. The story feels convenient, its characters are bland and unsympathetic, and everything feels forced together in such a haphazard way, that the movie never really gives itself a chance to work. It really felt like someone took the good scenes from the original, updated them for the modern audience, and just strung them together with any stereotypical plot elements that they could think of.

It also felt really rushed.

SORRY CLOWNY, BUT YOU WERE NOT SCARY.

The original Poltergeist was a clever, witty, exciting and fun movie, that also knew how to scare us (and still does, for the record.) This remake though doesn't have any of the Spielberg magic that made the original so damned good, and helped it become one of the most popular Horror flicks of the 80's.

• The family isn't all that likable in this one. In the original, they were a normal, All-American family whom we got to know and like. Eventually, we even came to fear for their safety. In this one, Dad is an unemployed smart-ass; Mom is just kind of there; the oldest daughter needs a smack; the son is afraid of everything; and little Carol Anne Madison is little more than cute. We never once felt like they were people that we should be afraid for, but stereotypes that existed only because the scary stuff needed to happen to somebody.
• And I'm still not sure how a family that is essentially broke could afford to move into a house that looks like it costs at least 500k.
• The clown bit in the remake was horrible compared to the one in the original. In the original, the clown was there for most of the movie, creeping people out, and slowly building up our dread and anticipation... and then at the end it finally attacks, and we shit our pants. Here, the clown is found, attacks the kid, and that's it. No one  even really comments on it. It happened early, it happened quick, it wasn't very scary, and it had almost no impact. It felt like just another random jump-scare. 
• The tree attack screen in this one was half-assed too. 
• In the original, the whole "you moved the headstones!" thing was given much more weight, and it also made for one hell of a reveal. Here? Basically an afterthought. 
• Remember in the original how JoBeth Williams put her life on the line to save her baby girl, and ends up essentially trying to "fight" the evil spirits? You know, because any Mom worth their salt would fight to the death for their kids? Well in this one we get a mechanical drone heading into the netherworld to look for the girl, while Mom just stands around looking concerned, and screaming "Save my baby!" I know we live in an age where technology rules, but it should never replace the human element in a story about humans. It just kills the impact.
• And the ending felt almost tacked-on. It was almost like "Oh shit, we forgot to do the part where everyone thinks that it's all over, but it really isn't!"  
• Let's not remake any other Steven Spielberg movies, alright, Hollywood? 

LIKE THAT SCREEN, THIS MOVIE IS FLAT.

The one bright spot of this movie is Jared Harris. Not only is he a great actor, but his Carrigan Burke was the only character that ever really woke us up during this one. The rest of the cast was fine in this one too, even if their characters weren't anything great, but Jared Harris was the best of them, by far.

NICE JOB, OLD BOY.

The bottom line is that this movie is one that you'll forget about as soon as it's over. It's not a horribly bad movie, as it's well-made and boasts a pretty strong cast, but it's not scary, it feels rushed, and it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. For a remake, that last thing is absolutely unforgivable.

Skip this one and watch the original instead. There's honestly no reason why you should do otherwise.

D

Poltergeist is in theaters now.

Rosemarie DeWitt makes for a hot Soccer Mom.