I Spit on Your Grave...

I like to revisit the cult classics every so often. This one I think is better left in the vault. Why? Let me count the ways (in no particular order)...


1) 1970's nudity. Nuff said.

2) I wasn't sure if the men in this movie were supposed to be human...or chimpanzees. They certainly sounded like jungle animals at times. I'm sitting there thinking, I've seen bad male behavior at its finest, but I've never seen or heard anything like that. Outside of the Discovery Channel, that is.

3)Matthew a.k.a. 'Forrest Gump' the rapist. Okay, I get the whole premise of this movie--woman is brutally attacked/raped by a bunch of hicks and gets her revenge by killing them. But what's up with the slow guy? Why is he even there? The other guys convince 'Forrest' to have his way with the girl, which, almost comically he can't 'finish' because they're 'watching' him. THEN they give him a knife and tell him to go back and kill her, which he doesn't do. So...he's the reason she's still alive to exact revenge.

4)Did I mention the bad acting? Dialogue was terrible. And not that I actually wanted to see someone raped, but other than the removal of clothing, there was nothing that resembled sex about it...consensual or otherwise. It was actually funny. Which is sad, in light of the subject.

5)Jeans, suspenders and no shirt. I don't remember the seventies. Was this normal? Was it just a  hillbilly thing? Deliverance chic, perhaps?

6)WHY did she stay? They might not have meant to, but they LEFT HER ALIVE, and she could've hopped into her car and gotten the hell out of there. I sure would have. But no. She stays in the secluded cabin and pieces together the torn remnants of her novel.

ANYWAY...I feel like I missed the boat on this one. I vaguely remember watching it when I was in high school, then again, a friend and I used to rent horror movies like there was no tomorrow.

Hangin' with my bad self

So I'm flipping through the selection of new releases on demand and feeling pretty 'meh' about it. I'm beginning to think I might be getting too picky, but then I remember the last movie I watched (can't remember the title, but it took place in Wales and it involved teenagers, a couple of whack jobs, an abandoned orphanage and people dying violent deaths) soooo, yeah. Still, every title I look under reveals something unpleasant. What's this... wait, it's got Julia Roberts in it?! Oh HELL no. Dwayne Johnson? Really? Do we need to go there? It's  been several years and I still don't smell whatever the hell the Rock is cooking (or want to...). And Bindlestiffs? What the hell does that even mean? All I know is the description lost me at 'The story unfolds as they surrender their virginities to hobos, prostitutes and crack fiends'. Oooohkay. I think I'm all set.

I switched to Netflix, and yeah, we've already discussed the 'categories' that pop up {insert evil laughter here} but you know what? They don't change films often enough. And I'm not interested in sequels to movies like Hostel or the Human Centipede. I'm also kind of sick of the same old same old with horror flicks. You know what I mean:

1. Found footage! Yep, I think we need to lay this one to rest for a while. It was fine with the low budget filmmakers who were trying to be innovative and create a good story with the bare minimum. It worked with the Blair Witch Project. It worked with Paranormal Activity (the first one, anyway). Now it seems like everyone's doing them and *yawn* they're just not bringing anything new to the table.

2. Abandoned mental hospital. Word of advice if you happen to find one of these bad boys in your travels? DON'T GO INSIDE! I mean, duh, these people were nuts, of course their ghosts will be too. If I counted the horror movies  that used this as a setting, I'd be convinced that there are haunted asylums everywhere.

3. A parent (or parents) moves to the country after the death of their child( or a divorce) to start fresh. Then bad things happen. Really bad things. Half the movies I looked at had this in their description.

4. Zombies. I hate myself for saying this, but zombies really have taken over the world and I'm not sure I like it, because they make a lot of really shitty movies. I'll take Night of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later, or even Walking Dead any day. But there's just too much other stuff and most of it sucks. Even George Romero's most recent film Survival of the Dead was one big giant suckfest (A whole other rant...)

Ah, hell, I could go on, but do I really want to? I need a glass of wine...

Woman in Black...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596365/

I watched this over the weekend because a) I like a good ghost story b) I wanted to see if Daniel Radcliffe could take the Harry Potter out of Daniel Radcliffe...(er something). So what did I think? On a a whole it was entertaining. Not THE best movie, but it held my interest and had some good points. Let me preface this by saying that I have watched sooooo many horror movies that I've pretty much seen it all. So yes, it had some typical and cliche elements:

•  The ghost appearances, particularly near the beginning, were just what you'd expect: glimpses from the corner of the eye, a sudden flash of movement or a shadow, emphasized by some strategically placed music. I often wondered if these scenes would be as creepy without the music. I mean, where would Paranormal Activity be without it? (which I did like by the way, at least the first one...but they relied TOO much on shock music to emphasize that the door opened by itself. Really. Just stop it.)
• It takes place in a remote village where people seem generally distrustful of outsiders. No fooling. They told him to go home several times. But he didn't listen. If he had, there wouldn't have been a movie.
• There's an ominous message written on the wall in the house--in blood, no less. At least the woman was kind enough to hide it under the wallpaper. Not suprisingly, Harry...er, "Arthur" peels away the wallpaper and...cue the dramatic heart-jumping-in-your-throat music. It is, of course, a pivotal moment. Otherwise he wouldn't have known how crazy the woman was when she was alive.
• The family has conveniently left behind a multitude of letters, cards and documents that explain the mystery behind why this ghost is doing what she's doing. So basically they did all the work for him--he just needed to find the bodies and bury them together to make peace for the ghost lady. (Ironically the boy's body was quite easy to find, all Harry...er, "Arthur" had to do was dig in the mud a little. AND he was able to figure out exactly where, even though years had gone by and nobody else had been able to.)
• Children are suffer cruel and unusual deaths and come back as ghosts. Evil-ish creepy little ghosts. Think the twin girls in The Shining before the tomato juice tidal wave comes down the hallway.

You said you liked it but you're making fun of it, you say!!!! Yes, well, that's how I roll. I will say this--They did a good job with mood and setting. Nice creepy atmosphere and suspense building. It was all sufficently haunted-housey. It also seemed authentic to the time period (early 20th century)

Mr. Radcliffe successfully escaped Voldemort and became a full fledged adult male--actually, if I hadn't already known he was the star of the movie, I probably wouldn't have realized who he was in the first five minutes. It would've been like 'damn, he looks familiar...' and it would've bugged me until I googled it and found out who he actually was. So YAY! I think Daniel Radcliffe really can be de-Harry Pottered.

 I did find it hard to believe that he had a child, so the father/son thing didn't really jive for me. And honestly, I don't think the plot would've been affected if they'd left out the whole dead wife thing either. YES, he was supposed to be tortured, and he did come across that way...sorta...but the movie wouldn't have lacked anything without it. There was a nice twist at the end, though (dampened a bit by the appearance of his dead wife) that I hadn't expected. I won't give it away.

So would I recommend it? Yes. If you like ghost stories, watch it. It's well done, just not overly original.

You gotta wonder if there's something wrong

Just poking around my Netflix account. These are the categories that showed up on the home page:

1. Scary supernatural TV series
2. Raunchy dysfunctional animated Family TV Series
3. Dark suspenseful ghost-story movies
4. Cult serial killer horror movies
5. Gory supernatural horror movies
6. Critically acclaimed gory horror movies
7. Violent revenge movies based on a book

So...yeah.