December 7th, 2015 - Arang (2006)

Arang is a just fine-ish Korean ghost-tale/thriller about someone... or something... killing off a bunch of well-to-do dudes. The only connection at first seems to be the fact that they've all been instant messaged a link to this "terrifying" website. I mean, I guess it's just a tourist advertisement for this little town by the sea - particularly this one old salt house. For those of you not in the know (like me), it's an old salt storage place by the sea - in this case, it's a creepy old wooden cabin looking thing. But the website is not very effective as a marketing tool. It makes the town look creepy, and it's shot all ominously, slow panning in black-and-white. It's clearly not meant for public consumption. But these victims seem to be spooked, and it's obvious that something more is going on here than anonymous instant messaging.

Detective So-young is assigned to the case. She has just returned to the police department after a forced sabbatical. She's not necessarily a loose cannon and doesn't totally "play by her own rules," but she gets partnered with an inexperienced guy anyways. Together, they try to figure out who... or what... has committed these murders, and how they can stop them from happening again.

November 19th, 2015 - Haunt (2014)

Haunt is frustratingly middle-of-the road. The story is decent, it's competently made, and it has a little style... but there's just nothing here to get excited about at all. There's nothing too good, but also nothing bad enough that you're either angry or entertained. Haunt is just there, hitting all the beats you expect it to and moving along at a fast enough pace to kill the time, but never doing anything too engaging. It's so average it's actually kind of impressive.

The Deal? There's this house... many people assume it's cursed, because the last family that lived there (and worked there - mom & dad had a pediatrician/dentist thing going on) had three children die under mysterious circumstances. And when dad dies during in the opening scene after talking into an old school radio-wave scanner (spirit box for all you Ghost Adventures nerds), mom decides it's time to high-tail it.

November 4th, 2015 - Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)

Fair warning - I'm a pretty big fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. They're not earth-shaking films (although you'd be a fool to deny how influential the original was), but I think almost all of them (thanks for the "almost," part 4) work very well as haunted house movies. The tricks they use to build tension almost always work for me - not in a truly terrifying way, but in a fun, anticipation-building way.

So by this point in the game, you probably already have an opinion on the franchise. And The Ghost Dimension is not going to change your mind. But I'd say it knows what worked and what didn't in the last five films and uses those gimmicks effectively and occasionally creatively. It also attempts to tie up some of the convoluted mythology that has ran through the series. And while it certainly doesn't over-explain anything, as a fan I was satisfied with the explanations we get here. It seemed like a fitting end to things, should the rumors be true that this is indeed the last entry. (Until an inevitable reboot in 8-10 years, that is.)

October 31st, 2015 - Last Shift (2014)

There's definitely some shared DNA between Last Shift and Let Us Prey (which was one of the more enjoyable flicks I watched in the last couple of months). Other than the plot similarities - female rookie cop encounters crazy shit on her first night on the job - they were also purchased by me shortly before they showed up for "free" on Netflix. With Last Shift, it was like the next day or two. Oh well. Both are definitely worth your time. I think I liked Let Us Prey a little more though.

But that's not to say that Last Shift isn't enjoyable. It's just a little less ambitious and a little more contained. Basically, we're with Officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) on her first night on the job. Her assignment? Working the Last Shift at the old police station. There's a brand new station just a few blocks away, and all calls/emergencies have already been routed there. She's the only one in the building and is just there to make sure nothing crazy happens (oops! it does!) and to wait for the cleanup crew to show up and clear out the few remaining items.

October 21st, 2015 - Sodoma's Ghost (1988)

I'm not sure why they went with a font that made it look like it was a made-for-cable-access film. The rest of the film at least looks more professional.

If you're anything like me, the phrase "Nazi Ghosts" will instantly make your ears perk up. As soon as I came across the description of Sodoma's Ghost, I knew I had to check it out. And it's a Lucio Fulci joint? Even better. So despite having a rough couple of days with torturey/mean-spirited and bad movies, I went ahead and checked it out - knowing full well that Fulci can be pretty mean-spirited himself. But Sodoma's Ghost was not too rough in that respect. I'm not going to say it's a blast, but as far as Fulci's films go? It's pretty fun. It's certainly not all that good of a film, but it's not all that boring either. So that's a perk.

October 18th, 2015 - Evidence of a Haunting (2010)

While it kind of looks like it's going to be your standard ghost hunting found footager, Evidence of a Haunting has a couple of interesting things going for it. (At first, at least.) At the very outset, there's this text:

October 6th, 2015 - Alter Ego (2002)

Sometimes, when you're watching a movie every day, you are way more concerned with a movie being short than being good. And luckily for me,  Alter Ego did a fabulous job fulfilling that requirement. It's 63 minutes long, which is about as short as I'm willing to go runtime-wise and still consider it a feature film (at least for anything made in the last half-century). But it's a good thing Alter Ego is short, because man, is it ever bad.

imdb kind of cracked me up with its synopsis. The first line:

From Takashi Shimizu, the famed director behind The Grudge and Ju-On horror franchises comes one of his undiscovered films.

First off, it makes it sound like it's worth watching because it's "undiscovered." Maybe there's a reason it's undiscovered, you know? You should at least put "terrifying" in there or something. But wait, that would be a lie. Also, Takashi Shimizu is listed as a Supervising Producer on Alter Ego. I don't know an awful lot about behind the scenes roles, but I think that's stretching the "from" description about as far as it can go.

September 16th, 2015 - Dead Dudes in the House (1989)

Dead Dudes in the House is a pretty damned silly title, and the movie itself is only slightly less silly. (Before Troma got it for distribution, it was finished with the not-silly-enough title The Dead Come Home.) But the wacky name is probably for the best - it's hard to play it straight when your villain is an elderly lady who likes to stab people (obviously played by a young man in makeup doing a generic Granny impression, BTW). There's some goofy fun and cheap gore to enjoy here, but mostly it's just a little too cheesy to be all that enjoyable.

Dead Dudes is about a group of eight or so friends (not all dudes, for what it's worth) going to renovate an old house. One of them bought the house as a fixer-upper at a bargain basement price... I wonder why? If you guessed "haunted," then come up and collect your prize. There's the creepy and stabby old lady wandering around, and the house itself seems intent on keeping the friends there - once you're inside, the doors won't open and the windows don't break. But the kicker? After someone is killed, they'll come back to life and try to kill their other friends. And they're not just brainless zombies or anything - they can still talk and joke around or whatever. The only differences are (1) they look worse for wear, and (2) they want to kill you.

September 6th, 2015 - Hollows Grove (2014)

Found Footage is amongst the least-respected of all horror sub-genres, and the ghost hunting film is probably a big reason for that. I mean, all you really need to make a crummy ghost hunting film is a camera and access to an old, shitty building. A solid concept and good filmmaking skills are usually optional. It's been done to death, and generally not with the best results. As I approach a full year on this movie-a-day project and I'm looking back at what I've watched, of the (many) ghost hunting movies I've seen, I can't think of one that I could enthusiastically recommend. And maybe only one or two that I'd shrug my shoulders at. Why do I keep watching these things?

Anyways, Hollows Grove is pretty good as far as these types of things go. It's average at best for a "normal" movie, but it's pretty easily in the upper echelon of FF ghost hunter flicks. So if you're into that sort of thing, or you're like me and just feel strangely compelled to watch whatever you can, it's worth checking out.

June 16th, 2015 - The House at the End of Time (2013)

Abbreviated Entry...

May 28th, 2015 - Abandoned Mine (2012)

Abandoned Mine (aka The Mine) is pretty damned terrible in every sense of the word. Annoying and unlikeable characters, stupid story, lame and obvious plot twists... you can see the script *trying* - things get set up and paid off, so it's a little admirable in that that respect. And I guess it's pretty competently shot too. But still, it's a pretty rough and surprisingly unscary ride.

It centers around five friends in Small Town America. (Happy Valley, state unnamed. Although apparently there is a Happy Valley in Oregon, so there's that.) The friends spend the Halloween night in... you guessed it... an abandoned mine! Only this mine is haunted by a miner ghost and his daughters, because little girl ghosts are scarier than little boy ghosts. This Jarvis mine has a reputation, and none of the group, besides leader Brad, wants to even bother checking it out. (This is explained when the friends are all "you said we were going to *an* abandoned mine... but not the Jarvis mine!" You would assume their spider senses would have been tingling when Brad said "lets go to a mine on Halloween"... but whatever.)

May 14th, 2015 - Devil's Backbone, Texas (2015)

Devil's Backbone, Texas is an aggravating attempt at a meta-mockumentary. It's about a filmmaker named Jake Wade Wall - his real name, as this film attempts to blur the lines between reality and fiction. His now deceased father Bert was into some pretty crazy shit out on his 20,000 acre ranch (is that way too big? This city boy doesn't know. 2,000 maybe?). The ranch was out in a region of Texas known as the Devil's Backbone, named as such for the mountain range that juts out of nowhere. Bert went kind of crazy up there towards the end of his life... tearing up his own house, making insanely gory artwork, and insisting there are ghosts on the property. Because of Bert's erratic behavior (as well as the fact that he was kind of a dick), Jake hasn't been out to the ranch for 20 years. Now, several years after Bert's death, Jake wants to make peace (and a movie!) by bringing Bert's ashes out to the property and having an "ashes ceremony." Jake also wants to learn a little more about his father - and perhaps find out what caused him to go crazy. But what if Bert's paranormal rants weren't just delusions, but were based in reality? Wouldn't that make a good movie?

It doesn't. But Jake thinks it probably would, so he brings along an annoying group of friends and a nameless, faceless cameraman to help him investigate the property and make a little documentary in the process. But, believe it or not, things do not go as planned.

May 9th, 2015 - The Mirror (2014)

The Mirror is a pretty good found-footage film that is elevated from being just average by a couple of things. You get some pretty decent, realistic performances by the three main characters (all flatmates - it's British, so maybe I'm predisposed to liking it), but mainly? It's a found footage film that doesn't take place in a haunted house/abandoned asylum or some other creepy location (the woods, caves, catacombs, whatever). It takes place in an apartment (or "flat," if you will), but unlike Apartment 143 or the Paranormal Activity series, it's not a previously haunted place that's being investigated. Your getting into these folk's lives *before* the shit goes down, so while it's a little slow at times, you get a good feel for the calm before the storm. And in this case, the storm takes the shape of, um... a haunted mirror.

Before you start laughing - it's actually treated pretty seriously. (And looking into it a bit, there are quite a few films about haunted mirrors... not sure if it's quite a sub genre, but still.) Basically, the found footage aspect is that these three flatmates (Matt, his girlfriend Jemma, and his friend Steve) are planning to win $1,000,000 in the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge - a real contest run by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Their plan is to provide video proof of the paranormal after they purchase a haunted mirror from an eBay-ish seller online. (The real contest would not accept video-only proof, but whatever.) They've done their research and think they have the real deal - they've got some fancy-ass cameras to catch the haunted mirror in action (one static camera that just sits facing the mirror, a nice handheld, and a go-pro). And of course, since this is a horror movie, the mirror *is* actually haunted, some scary shit goes down, and things spiral out of control.

April 2nd, 2015 - The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)

The St. Francisville Experiment is not very good. Like, at all. I wanted to be really, really hard on it for being such a startlingly poor ghost-hunting movie, but then at the very end of the credits I noticed the date it was made. 1999 - released in 2000. So when I realized it was in all likelihood made as a knee-jerk reaction to The Blair Witch Project, I had to cut it a little slack. I mean, it still sucks, but at that point people hadn't really figured out just what exactly it was that made the whole found footage genre work. If The St. Francisville Experiment was released now, it would be inexcusable. But as it is, it's just a really bad, old Blair Witch knock off.

I mean, maybe my expectations were just too high. I mean, who could blame me for getting excited, after seeing this fine promotional art courtesy of Amazon Prime:

February 24th, 2015 - Dark Vision (2015)

I like watching found footage movies on my iPad. There is a certain immediacy/intimacy when watching them on a tablet... like you're just reviewing footage rather than sitting back in a comfy chair to watch a film. It sort of enhances the experience for me.

Boring story short, I had to watch today's movie on the iPad. So I cruised through my options on the amazon app, and stopped on Dark Vision. Not just one, but *five* teams of paranormal investigators compete to win their own show in the "Dark Vision Competition!" I could be getting five crappy ghost hunting movies for the price of one! (Against my better judgement, I love the damned things.) Well, the synopsis is pretty misleading - we only follow around one team as they investigate the basement/cave-like tunnels beneath "one of Britain's most haunted locations." The other four teams are only hinted at using text onscreen, and have next-to-nothing to do with the story. But I was still pleasantly surprised with Dark Vision - it's a pretty entertaining film that is moderately successful as a horror film, and probably even more successful as a comedy.

January 29th, 2015 - Ghostlight (2013)

Ghostlight is a pretty okay little indie. It leans rather heavily on the dramatic side of things, and the horror aspects of it are probably the least successful parts of the film. But it's very well-made (especially as far as indies go) and moves along fast enough to be enjoyable.

I was a little nervous going in - I haven't had a lot of luck with films from the Brain-Damage label. They are an independent horror movie distribution company based in Arizona, and specialize in low-to-no budget films. I've said before, you need to keep an open mind when checking out this type of film, but I've still had bad luck with most of their releases (the notable exception being Suburban Sasquatch, which is awesome/bad). So it may have benefitted from lowered expectations, but I still think Ghostlight was all right in the traditional sense.

January 28th, 2015 - Witchouse (1999)

For the majority of the time I've been thinking about Witchouse, I've been trying to figure out the best way to spell a noise... I think they call it a 'rasberry?' You know, when you stick out your tongue and exhale and make sort of a farting nosie? Oftentimes accompanied with a thumbs down? That should give you an idea of how compelling Witchouse is. Mmpthhthhthh. It's not very good.

Also, "Witchouse?" Why not "Witch-house?" "Witchouse" sounds like some kind of strange French method of cooking our something.

The story of Witchouse is kind of along the lines of Night of the Demons (or exactly along the lines) - a young woman is throwing a party is a spooky old house. Ostensibly to have a gay old time, but really to bring back a long dead witch from her family lineage to get revenge on the family of those who killed her 300 years ago. I would probably get a little suspicious when the hostess is all "now lets join hands around the pentagram on the floor." But maybe that's just me.

January 24th, 2015 - Dark Floors (2008)

I had completely forgotten about the concept of Dark Floors being "the Lordi Movie" until I saw that the script was based on an idea by "Mr. Lordi." Lordi, if you are unfamiliar, is basically the Finnish GWAR - a rock group who dress up as their monstrous alter egos and play rock n' roll music. I'm not a Lordi (or GWAR) aficionado, but from what I can tell, Lordi is more serious than GWAR (who mostly seem to go for laughs). Although I guess you have to have a decent sense of humor to do a press conference in full costume. Lordi also has better costumes - it turns out Mr. Lordi designs all of them and is a professional makeup artist. So it kind of makes sense that Lordi the band would eventually make their way into a horror film.

But despite being labeled as "The Lordi Movie" in a lot of the press, the band really isn't in it all that much. Dark Floors plays out a lot more like a haunted hospital movie, where the band members just show up, one at a time. Really, there could have been any ghost/creature here, and it wouldn't change the story all that much.

January 10th, 2015 - Housebound (2014)

Besides The Babadook, Housebound was probably the horror film that I had heard the most online chatter about in 2014. It won people over big-time in its festival run, and I can see why. It's a well-made and quite funny horror flick, and would probably have pretty wide-appeal - there are some scares and gore, but it would play to non-horror audiences as well.

The film starts with Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O'Reilly) and an unnamed partner trying to steal cash from an ATM.  Things go comedically awry, and she ends up getting busted by the police. It's a fun little scene, at lets you know right off the bat that Housebound isn't going to shy away from comedy. Despite being relatively young (maybe mid-twenties), Kylie has a long rap sheet and history of failed rehab assignments, so the judge sentences her to house arrest. Kylie is mortified - and seems to feel that a prison term would probably be a better thing that living at home for 8 months...