Thursday, October 27, 2011

2011 October Horror Movie Challenge Movie 65: Masters of Horror: Valerie on the Stairs



This is one of those movies I'll probably have to give another chance later, because I was really impatient with it when I first watched it, so I probably didn't give it the fair chance I should have, and it kind of pissed me off, to be honest. Here's the thing. It's about a young man who is a struggling writer, and he moves into a halfway house for other struggling writers, with the stipulation that if he ever becomes a published author he has to move out and find somewhere else to live. so he moves in and starts working on his novel, but he starts having visions of a beautiful, naked woman on the stairs outside his room, and as he talks to her more, he finds out she is in danger. all the other residents of the house deny that they've ever seen anything ghostly and they call him crazy, but as time goes on it seems they all might know more about her than they're letting on. The premise is intriguing, and I can't really point to one thing that doesn't work in this movie. I can see a lot of Clive Barker in it, with its sly commentary about writers (we're all crazy, you know) and aside from Tony todd being kind of silly in this movie (I love him, I really do, but I kept wanting to crack up because his character is supposed to be scary but when he's just sitting around trying to look menacing he looks like one of the gargoyles from Disney's animated "Hunchback of Notre Dame" movie and it ruins the effect) but the movie just came off as...kind of silly when it was supposed to be scary. I'll likely give it another chance, but it really rubbed me the wrong way and made me roll my eyes into the next century, so I'd caution people not to expect too much lest they be disappointed.

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