MST3K: Final Justice

This is another one of those movies that's just plain horrendous, and I wonder sometimes how movies this terrible get made now that we don't even have the Mystery Science theater 3000 gang to release pre-mocked versions for us.  We just have to sit and mock the movies ourselves now, and that's sad.  But this was funny to watch for the most part, except that the humor relied a little too heavily on fat jokes.  Ok, the main actor is fat, we get it, can we move on please?  They literally bring it up every five minutes (I started timing it after awhile) and it gets old when your only comedic commentary can be reduced to "hurr hurr, he's fat!"  Though I did enjoy the snarking of the ending credits theme song where they warned people to "hide your sandwich, he's coming!"

Descent

Totally out of the blue today, it occurred to me that while I've surpassed 100 horror movies this month, I haven't yet watched a "rape revenge" flick.  Typically that's one of my favorite sub-subgenres, so it's usually one of the first ones I go to every year, and I bust out "The Hills Have Eyes" remake, or "I Spit on Your Grave" (original or remake) or "Thriller: A Cruel Picture."  I own so many of these flicks that there aren't many I haven't seen.   That probably sounds messed up to some of you.  For those who don't know, "rape revenge" flicks feature a character who is raped, the character survives, then the character gets revenge on the rapists (or someone gets revenge on behalf of the victim, like the parents in "Last House on the Left" who systematically murder the people who are responsible for raping and killing their daughter).  Doesn't sound like fun viewing, and it's not most of the time, because it's harsh and violent and brutal, seeing someone violated like that, and it's hard to watch even the revenge, because it's usually violent and nasty and even revenge can't make up for what happened.

Mostly that's what I need to see in these movies, I think, the reminder that even if we get revenge on those who hurt us, it still doesn't erase the pain we went through, and vengeance is never sated.  It doesn't make things better.  Not all "rape revenge" flicks get to this deep point, of course, but the good ones, the ones that are worth watching more than once, show me the dark side of humanity and how it can degrade someone, and how even when revenge sounds like a great idea, it doesn't erase the pain the rape has caused to the main character.  The good movies show how sometimes we have to fight back, but if we take revenge too far, we run the risk of becoming what we were fighting against in the first place.

Forgive my wordiness.  I'm so used to having to defend why I want to watch these movies in the first place that I have these ideas at the forefront of my mind a lot of the time, so I have a response ready when someone vehemently asks "How can you WATCH that stuff?" or something to that effect.  I wince, and then I take a deep breath, turn around, and try to explain.  Sometimes it comes out better than others, but most of the time I don't think other people really understand, and that's ok.  I don't need everyone to agree with me that these movies are good, as long as they don't condemn me for finding value in such films.  And "Descent" definitely does have value.  I've heard of it before, of course, being something of a connoisseur of such films, but I'd forgotten all about it until recently when I added it to my stash of movies to watch this October, then got distracted by shiny objects and forgot about it again until today, when I read over my list and realized it was missing something.  It had MUCH less rape than usual, and that just won't do.

This movie has a lot of rape in it.  It's about a shy, dedicated young college student played by Rosario Dawson who doesn't get out much, and on one of the rare nights when she does go out, she is brutally raped.  She sinks into a depression after this attack, turning to drugs and promiscuity to dull her pain, until one night, by chance, she gets an opportunity to exact revenge.  The movie is difficult to watch.  I love Rosario Dawson, and I identified with her character, since I was once a shy, dedicated young college student.  It's hard watching her be violated like this, and it's hard watching the pain in her eyes afterward and seeing her try to find ways to escape.  Dawson gives a hell of a performance here.  everyone in this film gives a hell of a performance, actually, I don't think there's one bad actor in the bunch here.

The performances sucked me into the story, and this is the first film in a long time that actually felt shorter than its running time of an hour and 41 minutes.  When you watch 100+ movies in a month, they do start to drag a bit after awhile, but this one didn't.  Someone told me how this movie ends, or rather, part of what happens in the end, but even knowing that, I wasn't prepared for the "revenge" part of the movie.  I never am.  It's pretty harsh, let me tell you.  There is a very good reason why this movie has an NC-17 rating.  Some movies make me look away or wince, but this one had me staring at the screen with my jaw hanging open, and that's difficult to achieve (I've seen a lot, ya know).  I can't really recommend this movie, because it's not horror enough for the people who want to see someone's face get eaten, and it's too rape-y for the average person, but for someone who takes an interest in dark, violent films like this, I will say that the movie has a lot of value.  I can't say I "enjoyed" is, but I AM glad I finally checked it out.

Kevin smith Burn in Hell

Now listen, it's not my fault that Netflix pitched this movie to me as a "horror documentary" so I watched it thinking that's what it would be.  I'm counting it for my horror movie month, and that's that.  Though really, it's not horror related.  Sure, Kevin Smith talks here about how he conceived the movie "Red State" and why he considers it a horror movie, and how he got the idea, and how the Westboro Baptist Church has reacted to the movie (which features a church that reminds viewers a lot of them with their "AIDS Cures Fags" rhetoric).  I would agree with him that this kind of rhetoric is more horrific than a lot of what I see in horror movies (though to be honest, the WBC kind of seem like caricatures of themselves at this point, so their signs don't affect me the way they used to).  Smith also talks here about filmmaking, why it's important to have passion for what you do in life, and how his family, friends, and fans have inspired him throughout the year.  It's a good watch for fans of Smith's work.

MST3K: Soultaker

Sometimes the movies this show lampoons are so bad that I really can't believe that they were ever intended to be serious films in the first place, and this is one of those times.  Joe Estevez plays a black trenchcoat wearing invisible guy who walks the corridors of hospitals and other places where people die, ready to take their souls because you see, if you kill people or cause their deaths while human on earth, when you die, you become a "soultaker" and have to suck one soul for every person whose death you caused, so he keeps this little plastic looking black ring in his pocket, and when he takes the souls, he places it over the dying person's chest and it sucks out the soul and turns the ring neon green...are you still reading this?  Can you believe someone pitched this movie, and not only did they not get booted out on their ass immediately, but the movie actually got MADE?  I'm in the wrong line of work if this shit can pay the bills.  Anyway, the movie is terrible, but the commentary is funny, so I had fun with it.

Paranormal Activity 2

This is the installment of the movie that everyone seems to hate the most.  A lot of people called it stupid after it came out, and I bought it when it was released on DVD but waited like 6 months to watch it.  Partly I was scared it would terrify me as much as the original had, and partly because I was scared it would bore me to tears and make me regret buying it.  I watched it for the first time last Halloween before seeing part 3, and I remember liking it, but thinking it was a lot of filler in between parts 1 and 3 (which is how a lot of second movies are, honestly) and not thinking it was really scary.  I popped it in tonight wondering how I would see it now knowing a lot more of the story than I did when I saw it last year.

In this movie, the events take place before the events of the movie (and a little bit during, and a little bit directly after).  Kristi, Katie's little sister, is married to a man with a teenage daughter from a previous marriage, and she and he have just welcomed a new baby boy, so of course they're taking lots of video to document his first weeks with them.  Then something bad happens, their house is burgled one night when they are gone, and the father installs six security cameras around the house to catch any more nighttime predators in the act (I presume he installs alarms and stuff too, because just installing cameras doesn't make much sense, but whatever).  The cameras start to pick up more than just household happenings, though.  Something bad seems to be in the house, and as the paranormal events get worse and worse, the family has to make a terrifying decision about what to do to fight back.

More than this movie just being filler in between the first and third movies, I noticed tonight that a whole lot of nothing happens in this movie, and that might be part of why people don't like it very much.  This movie is 12 minutes longer than the original film, and there are definitely lots of scenes that could have been cut.  There are so many shots showing that nothing is happening outside, yep, the yard is still quiet, and I don't get why those shots are there.  We don't want to see NOTHING happen, you dildobrains, we want to see SOMETHING happen, something scary.  Maybe this was supposed to build tension or something, but it mostly got real boring, real quick.

Also the characters in this movie are kind of unlikable.  Ok, mostly just the dad.  I understand that he has to make a tough choice near the end, but what he decides to do is just plain terrible, and seriously, how did he think nothing bad was going to happen to HIM as a result of his decision?  You can't just do evil shit like that and expect no bad repercussions to come back to bite you in the ass.  Even if you don't believe in karma, you need to have more common sense than that, because "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" comes from science, not the supernatural, you tool.  Also, he annoyed me because he kept whining that he didn't believe in anything supernatural, even after confronted with truckloads of evidence, until I just wanted to stab him.  Plus they have a nanny who advises them about the occult, but she could see enough into the supernatural to see what they had to do, yet not enough to warn them about what might happen as a result?  You suck at this, lady.  Jeeze.

The movie had some good chill scenes.  There were actually some scenes that startled me, even though I knew they were coming because I remembered them from seeing them last time.  Plus there were a few scenes, like the Ouija board scene, that I totally didn't remember from last year.  This movie isn't all bad, but it does pale in comparison to parts 1 and 3.  I still liked it enough to appreciate watching it tonight, though.  Now let's see if I ever sleep again after watching 4 of these movies in one night.  Nighty-nightmares!

Paranormal Activity

I like this poster because I want to remind people that when this movie came out, it was a big deal.  People may hate on this series now, but when it hit the horror movie festivals, people were screaming and running in the aisles.  Big, strong, macho guys I worked with were so scared after they saw this movie that they slept with the lights on for a week.  It was THAT freaky to people.  I actually haven't watched this movie since I bought the DVD and watched it the first time, because it scared me so badly that I was messed up for a week afterward, too, and I really didn't want to relive that experience.  I popped it in with trepidation today.  Would it hold up or would it really suck, thus letting me down for being a "one-trick pony"?

The movie is about a woman and her boyfriend who've recently moved in together and they've noticed some strange and possibly supernatural phenomena in their house.  The boyfriend wants to investigate, so he buys a camera to set up in their bedroom to record all night and see if he can catch anything happening on camera so he can study it and maybe figure out what it is and how to stop it.  The woman has had some phenomena like this happen to her before, in fact we learn it has happened a few times throughout her life, and a supernatural expert they invite into their home posits the idea that this isn't a ghost they are dealing with, it is a demon, a non-human entity bent on destruction, and it probably wants to take the woman's soul.  The boyfriend is skeptical of this at first, but as the scary events escalate, the pair become more and more convinced that something terrible is stalking them and it will harm them if they don't put a stop to it.

This movie definitely has a "slow build."  By that I mean it was almost boring at times, because I was waiting for something to happen.  I think it's because I watched part 3 first, and while that's technically chronological, I don't think it's such a good idea.  In part 3, you learn a lot of stuff, so it feels like going backward in part 1, even if the events happened years later.  There's a lot of character development going on in part 1, quiet moments where we get to know Micah and Katie, the couple with the strange events happening to them, and I appreciated it the first time I watched the movie, but this time I kept wanting the movie to get on with it.  I think if I do a future marathon viewing of these movies, I'll just watch them in the order in which they were released.

Once things get going, they really get going, and I felt really bad for these two.  the movie also does a good job of answering the question of why they don't just leave the house: it wouldn't help.  The demon wants Katie, and it will follow her if they try to escape.  I also just watched the third movie before this one, and in that one, they DO try to leave the house, and it doesn't help.  The scares in this movie feel a little bland after seeing the scares in part 2, which is further proof that I need to watch the movies in a different order next time.  the third one had bigger spectacle because it kind of needed to after building audience expectations with two movies before it.  This one is quieter.  The movie still felt creepy though, and I can see why it affected me so badly after I first saw it.  The idea of a demon attaching to a person and following her throughout life, and getting more violent after she tries to communicate with it (which a lot of people will tell you to do to get rid of a demon, tell it to leave, but here the movie says that will just piss it off more).  It's creepy and it hold up better than I thought it would, so I was happy.

Paranormal Activity 3

This movie really really terrified me when I saw it last year.  I was actually cringing and tears sprang to my eyes at one part because I was so freaked out.  Going home wasn't much fun after the movie was over, because I was alone and scared and of course everything in my apartment conspired against me to make weird noises and terrify me into a coma.  I wasn't relishing the experience of watching this movie again this year, but after seeing part 4 and having a lackluster reaction to it, I wanted to remind myself why I liked the third installment so much, plus chronologically the films should be ordered 3, 1, 2, and 4, so I wanted to watch the other films in this series in that order.  It was a good experience.  This movie didn't terrify me as much as it did the first time I saw it (which was actually a good thing) but it definitely gave me chills.

This movie is a prequel.  After an opening sequence kind of setting up the idea, the movie goes back to when Katie and Kristi, the women from the first and second movies, were little girls.  the first and second movies give us an idea that something supernatural and terrifying happened to the girls when they were little and changed their lives forever, and we get the idea that whatever happened set a demon upon them which followed them throughout their lives thereafter, and this is the story of what happened back then.  It's actually kind of tragic, because when the home movies begin, we meet the man who is their mom's new boyfriend (the first man she's dated after their father died) and we get to like him, and we know that things aren't going to be pleasant for him in this movie.  After accidentally videotaping something in the house that appears to be supernatural phenomena, the boyfriend decides to set up cameras around the house to record and see if he can catch anything else.  He's a videographer, so it's fun for him at first, until things get increasingly scary and it becomes clear that whatever is in the house is dangerous and might mean the family actual harm.

This movie is cool for me partly because I was the same age as the little girl Kristi in 1988, so I remember the toys and things she has around her room, and her actions and reactions ring true to me because I probably would have said and done the same things she did in a lot of this movie.  Seeing little kids around evil things always freaks me out, and hearing Kristi's conversations with Toby, her "imaginary friend" in this movie, give me the chills.  I also remember playing "Bloody Mary" like Katie does in this movie, so that gives me a nostalgic twinge.  I probably would have thought it was cool to have a ghost in the apartment until it got too scary and freaked me out.  everything rings pretty true and makes me like this movie more.  There are also little touches throughout the movie that really get under my skin and freak me out, like the scene with the sheet.  That haunted me for weeks after I saw the movie and still gets to me now.  I noticed more about it this year than I did when I saw it last year (probably was too busy crying and hyperventilating back then to pay much attention).

There are some caveats, of course.  The movie stretches the limits of plausibility a bit by having people carry the camera around when they totally would have dropped it and ran.  throughout the movie, the cameras stay where they're set up around the house, so that doesn't bother me, but in the end they break this by having people carry the camera around long after any other person would have dropped it and bolted, so it's a little ridiculous.  I can think of some ways they could have gotten around it, so it's kind of lazy on the part of the filmmakers to leave it in that way.  Other than those few minor quibbles though, I really enjoyed this movie, even the second time around.  It holds up well, and I was afraid it wouldn't, so I was grateful.