The Veil

Title: The Veil
Release Date: 2016
Score: 3.5 out of 4


I love it when around half-way through a haunted house movie the characters actually realize the place is haunted, and aren't pretending its normal rational explainable stuff. This is one of those movies and so it satisfied me greatly. In this case, its a haunted compound in the middle of the woods that was the site of a Jonestown-esque massive cult suicide, which, to no audience member's surprise - is haunted.

An obsessed filmmaker who lost her father after his deep obsession with the case, and the girl who was the only survivor, now all grown-up are the main drivers of the plot, and are reasonably well developed. The film crew is much less fleshed out, and seem to be merely fodder for the evil presence still infesting the camp. But there's way more going on in this movie than a simple haunting, or psychological obsession, or gruesome found footage (which are all present). There are mysteries, and questions raised that kept me engaged until the end.

It features a surprisingly strong performance from Jessica Alba as the filmmaker, but the definite star was Lily Rabe, a relative new-comer, who played the mysterious girl Sarah Hope, now an adult with some serious neuroses.

What I liked the most was how normal-person the characters acted. While they certainly should have left the compound several times, there were compelling reasons for them to stay. They reacted like real people would do the situations that arose and that was great. Too many times have I seem movies where they think they can get away with characters who make decisions on a sub-moronic level because its "just" a horror movie.

So, it had me rolling my eyes a few times but it was a pretty good movie. I can't say that it actually scared me on any level but it was refreshing to see realistic characters dealing with a horror movie scenario, and it enough interesting subplots to keep the movie from going stale with slow pacing.

I would love to see more mid-budget horror movies with professional actors, especially if they're as good as this or better.

Shadow People

TITLE: Shadow People
RELEASE DATE: 2013
SCORE: 3.5 out of 4

I am getting really tired of the "fauxumentary" style. By this I mean a film that splices regular movie footage in with obviously fake "documentary" footage. It takes you out of the film and unless you film the regular movie specifically like a TV-movie and have "reenactment" warnings at the bottom its totally incongruous.

I guess some filmmakers feel that it amps up the suspense. Using low-fi video and handcam for select shots does indeed have a tendency to build suspense, but that is just using the techniques of a documentary film to make your film more realistic, and thus scary. Unless its specifically a found footage movie and plays by all the rules of one, adding actual documentary-style scenes into a fictional film is ridiculous and confusing, and this movie suffers from this heavily. Its torn between being a found footage fake documentary and a regular feature film, this confuses the audience member and is distracting (especially when they're different aspect ratios -- yeeesh!!)

Aside from its narrative troubles, this makes for a tight and taught little thriller. "Shadow people," of course, have existed in popular urban lore for a few decades now -- something other than ghosts and demons, those beings that seem to exist just out of the corner of your eye and disappear quickly when looked at head on. At least, those are what shadow people are in the real world; in this film they are much more malevolent paranormal beings - in fact they KILL PEOPLE!!!! Ahhhhhhh!

These shadow people conform much closer to "the watchers" that people report during incidents of night terrors and sleep paralysis -- beings present in their rooms, eerily watching over them. But then they also stalk them during the day like a vengeful spirit or perhaps an MIB would... this film is very novel in its approach to a boogeyman that already has some mythos built up in the real world. I have no doubt that this film could have real impact on the kinds of things people actually report going bump in the night.

Humorously it also parallels the very real success of radio legend Art Bell, who's Coast to Coast show was primarily politics-based until the Oklahoma City bombing, when classic anti-government rhetoric became unfashionable, he started shifting his show to the paranormal, with a handful of topics being classic staples of discussion - including shadow people! This shift in formats led to a major rise in listeners and propelled the show into mainstream American consciousness. Unlike the character in our film however, Mr. Bell did not become personally obsessed with the subjects of his late night talk show.

Our main character, Charlie Crowe, is more like a John Keel type -- someone who stumbles onto a dark mystery and can't let go, letting the mystery consume his whole life. Of course, Mr. Keel makes a very good living writing his various scary books on possibly real things -- which is another problem of this film. Let me explain...

When you use a documentary style, you bring the film into our world - the real world of consensual reality. And here we have a fairly common paranormal phenomena and our film is devoid of any Brad Steigers, Whitley Striebers, Nick Redferns or or John Keels here. Just some dusty notes from an old sleep disorder study and the diary of a teenager to tie this whole thing together. Yet this revolves around a late night talk radio show -- where are the paranormal investigators?! If this were a straight film we might suspend our disbelief and be happy to think "in this movies' universe, this is a new phenomena," but we aren't afforded such a luxury.

But for its faults it is a very entertaining film and it does its job on the horror side of things - it left me feeling spooked and unsettled. Like many films I review, I wish this had been given another editing once over before  it went out for release. However it does have snappy dialogue, exposition that doesn't bog down too badly, and without need for a lot of splatter the minor effects present in the film are very very effective. There's also very little lag or pacing problems.

Still makes no sense that a wannabe Fox Mulder doesn't show up on the scene though, or why seemingly real footage is mixed with obvious film footage without any explanation... This is why I feel like I have to detract points.

The Skeptic

Title: The Skeptic
Release Date: 2009
Score: 1 out of 4

After an obnoxiously long and boring white text on black screen opening credits bonanza featuring an uninspired theme for a looong fucking time we are treated to some in media res - a cop trying to locate a woman in her dark, seemingly empty house... you get the idea...

We are soon introduced to our jackass "atheist" skeptic. His friend "Sully" is a superstitious paranoid played by Tom Arnold. Tom Arnold is difficult to deal with, as his presence in the film is noxious and nauseating, yet he becomes the essential forwarder of plot throughout the first part of the movie. I assume he is the ghost, with his presence driving the skeptic further towards insanity. Or at least that is what would happen to me if my friend was fucking TOM ARNOLD!! Christ why would you cast him in a horror movie? In any movie?

Unfortunately Mr. Skeptic is pretty boring throughout his haunted house existentialist breakdown, although the scenery is pretty and very chilling. Still, Tim Daly displays little depth in his acting, giving only occasional glimmers of technical excellence.

Daly also has little to work with, the dialog is banal and cheap. His possession and the progression of the ghost house trappings come along so slow that he generally just comes across as a violent creep, rather than a creature worth pitying.

The film is actually quite boring for most of the time. It doesn't really shape up high in any area, except for "crazy" points and "psychic" points or whatever. Actually from my own knowledge of general ghost theory, this movie is rather inaccurate as to how a parapsychologist and even a genuine skeptic would act in such situations they are found in.

Like the sleep lab psi op being run by the creepy parapsychologist, the whole movie is a machination of torture; it punishes the viewer at every turn with terrible lines, bad sets, and a girl who randomly shouts and shit. The basic gist is the concept that repressed memories cause psychokinetic outbursts -- or is it something else?!? Something more supernatural or worse, more psychopathological? What should be days in movie time is hours in this. The plot is like a short story lengthened to its breaking point and the payoff is hardly worth it... pretty boring actually.

I would avoid it, its pretty much pure shit. Bad writing, bad acting, and its not scary. Booooo! Go watch Shock Corridor instead! At least it has some laughs in it.

The Uninvited

Title: The Uninvited
Release Date: 2009
Score: 0 out of 4

This film gets no points at all whatsoever. None of the characters were in anyway believable, did anything in a manner any human being would go about things, nor was there any reason for about half the fucking movie other than to set-up things around a highly contrived bullshit plot that wasn't even good to begin with.

Then they have a twist ending that feels completely tacked on after making you wait a full hour and fifteen minutes before something interesting happens, and instead of being scary or even a mindfuck - it's a trite little turd and an unnecessary bummer.

The movie is trash. Dreamworks is trash.

No fucking point to the movie but, hey, plenty of shots of supposedly young teenage girls in bikinis and short shorts and revealing skimpy dresses! I assume what directors "the Guard brothers" were trying to say with all that footage is that they're pedophiles.

Whoever cast fucking Elizabeth Banks as a cold-blooded psychopath needs to be out of a fucking job -- possibly euthanized. I don't know how much research or preparation Banks put into her role but it doesn't take a fucking Special Agent at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit to know her performance was completely flat and unbelievable.

As for David Strathairn, I hope he is ashamed of himself for the complete phone-in he gave for this film.

Altogether worthless. I have no idea why it currently has a 6.8/10 at IMDB. Oh wait, unfortunately I do. Its probably the disgusting horde of perverted old fucks who masturbate to Emily Browning.