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Category: Movies

DON’T KNOCK TWICE Trailer Checks Off a Few of My Boxes

Published by Johnny Compton on January 2, 2017

Spindly-limbed creature? Check.

Title that doubles as a warning? Check.

Black-and-white ink illustrations that look like they could be pulled from a fake grimoire? Pretty damn specific, and yet, that’s a check.

This isn’t a particularly great trailer. Pretty by the numbers, in fact. But I’m a sucker for the things that I am a sucker for, so it’s a given that I’ll be at least slightly interested in Don’t Knock Twice based just the small sample of it shown here.

There are some elements present here that I’ve come to  be wary of over the years, in particular the whole “incredibly powerful supernatural being is summoned by the most mundane action” thing. On one hand, I have a soft spot for such summoning, since Bloody Mary might be the first major fear I can remember in my life, and probably should be a subject of a future Confessions of a Fearphile entry. On the other hand, for many stories it makes very little sense, particularly when the supernatural creature is summoned to do someone’s specific bidding.  That said, the act of knocking on a door may not be what actually summons our supernatural antagonist at all, so I won’t hold that against the movie just yet. READ MORE

‘Baskin’ May be as Close as We’ll Get to a Good Silent Hill Movie

‘Baskin’ May be as Close as We’ll Get to a Good Silent Hill Movie

Published by Johnny Compton on March 2, 2016

While the pull-quotes in the trailer for the Turkish horror film Baskin compare it to Hellraiser, the actual content of the trailer is more reminiscent of the best of the Silent Hill games. It appears to be a story about location that is damnation incarnate, and the story kicks off due to a car accident involving someone suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. Check out the IFC Midnight trailer and the shorter, TIFF trailer below. Neither is graphic enough to enter red-band territory, but if you’re on the squeamish side of things, you may want to brace yourself. READ MORE

DiCaprio Gets Bear Mauled and Buried Alive in ‘The Revenant’

Published by Johnny Compton on September 29, 2015

Bears are mankind’s most beloved incredibly dangerous animals. We’ve made the world’s most famous stuffed toy out of them. We’ve made several lovable cartoon characters out of them.  We’ve tamed them to do circus tricks. We named an embrace after them that’s supposed to be a wrestling hold, but do a Google image search for “bear hug” and it’s 95% cuddly friendliness. Bears are great, except for when they remember that they’re unstoppable, overpowering mounds of muscle, jaws and claws that would easily win the 100-meters in the Olympics. READ MORE

And Now a Perfectly Morbid ‘House on Haunted Hill’ PosterHouse on Haunted Hill color poster Jonathan Burton

And Now a Perfectly Morbid ‘House on Haunted Hill’ Poster

Published by Johnny Compton on March 6, 2015

The original House on Haunted Hill is one of those horror classics that’s more famous than it is genuinely “good.” It has a 96% rating over on Rotten Tomatoes, but even many of the good reviews are quick to deploy adjectives such as, “cheesy,” and “campy.” Most people who’ve seen the movie probably come away with the same impression. It’s fun, even memorable, and has some good, spooky ideas and moments, but for the most part it’s also shamelessly silly. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; not every horror flick should be an earnest affair. House on Haunted Hill was one of William Castle’s many gimmick-driven fright flicks, and it’s perfectly fine with being a morbid joke. READ MORE

About That Crimson Peak Trailer…

About That Crimson Peak Trailer…

Published by Johnny Compton on February 17, 2015

Over on the BNC, I wrote about the trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak (if you haven’t seen it, you can watch it at the bottom of this post). Having rewatched it now, I feel like there a few more things I want to mention.

This cast is interesting. It occurs to me that I’ve only seen Hiddleston as Loki and in Midnight in Paris. So while my initial reaction is to say he’ll be great, I don’t have a very large body of work to personally base that opinion on. Jessica Chastain is a force. First thing I saw her in must have been Take Shelter, and she’s been good to excellent in everything since. Charlie Hunnam has a presence to him. I’m not going to hold the last few seasons of Sons of Anarchy against him, any more than I’m going to hold Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland against Mia Wasikowska. I don’t know how big of a role Jim Beaver will have in this–in a way he feels like the odd man out–but he might be my favorite actor in the cast. All in all, if the film doesn’t live up to its potential, it doesn’t appear that performances will be to blame. READ MORE

Halloween Recommendation: Trick ‘r Treat (The movie, not the activity)

Halloween Recommendation: Trick ‘r Treat (The movie, not the activity)

Published by Johnny Compton on October 18, 2014

If you haven’t done so, do yourself a favor and pick up Trick ‘r Treat for annual Halloween viewing. It’s a pretty perfect horror love letter to the season of jack-o-lanterns and gratuitously sexy costumes for the ladies.

Anthology horror films are often uneven. One good story here, one or two bad stories there, then one or two middling “could take it or leave it” stories and voila, there’s your film. Trick ‘r Treat doesn’t much suffer from unevenness, in part because all of its stories improbably belong to a shared universe–hell, not even a universe; all these separate Halloween horror hi-jinks happen in the same small town and on the same night–and the movie is cleverly presented in a non-linear fashion. You get a snippet of a story here, a bit more of another one there, then that segues into the third, then eventually we lock in for an extended stretch on one tale or another, see it through to its climax before moving on yet again. Then toward the end there’s a satisfying denouement for everything we’ve witnessed. READ MORE

Halloween Recommendation: “Kill, Baby, Kill”

Halloween Recommendation: “Kill, Baby, Kill”

Published by Johnny Compton on October 3, 2014

Horror fiction comes in a lot of different flavors: ideal Halloween horror is, I think, suitably scary, but not oppressively dire. It’s a fairly festive time of year, after all. I want to watch or read something that makes my skin crawl, but not necessarily something that makes me want to weep for humanity. I have no problem with “heavier” horror stories, but there’s a time and place for everything, and I’m not sure Halloween is quite the time for Ligotti levels of  super-grim, gut-punching, mind-chewing horror. That said, everybody’s tolerance level for that sort of thing is different, so just bear all of that in mind as I pitch these books, movies and random other things to you for the rest of the month. READ MORE

Quick Movie Recommendation: Pontypool

Quick Movie Recommendation: Pontypool

Published by Johnny Compton on December 24, 2013

Pontypool is a horror movie (labeled a “psychological thriller” on Wikipedia… presumably because it has really good reviews, and is intelligently and patiently presented, so clearly it can’t be a horror story, even though it has all of the obvious qualities of a horror story. Okay, rant over), that you can watch right now on Netflix.

Set in the small town of Pontypool, Ontario in the midst of a mini-blizzard, it takes places almost entirely within a radio station where a “no punches pulled” talk radio host finds himself besieged with reports of strange and violent happenings taking place in the typically quiet little town. Much of the story’s initial dread is built up through second-hand accounts of what’s taking place outside the walls of the radio station (which is actually located in the basement of a church), which would seem to violate the “show don’t tell” rule that is particularly applicable to films, but it’s insanely effective nonetheless. In fact, hearing about what’s happening builds up the tension better than seeing might, given how often and unimaginatively such scenes of horror are often presented in movies. I’ll spare you the spoilers, but it’s well acted overall (the leads in particular are excellent), sells the hell out of the scares when they start coming. It’s witty, it’s creative, it’s stark, and it’s reasonably unpredictable. It has a moment or two of needless exposition (one that clumsily and abruptly spells out the whole mystery a little early in the film, when there was still a bit more suspense to be mined). But it also has some moments of sincere emotion, which is something too many horror movies don’t seem all that interested in at all (odd, given that horror is an emotion). Not much more you can ask for. READ MORE