MelvinJ0's Horror Movie Reviews

Hey everyone and welcome to my review thread, I am a huge horror nut so I figured I would make a thread dedicated to only reviewing horror movies. For the most part I will only be reviewing new releases, although I do plan on reviewing some classics down the road.



Baskin (2015)



Baskin is a fairly new Turkish horror film from director Can Evrenol, it is his first feature film and it is based on a short he did in 2013 of the same name. The film follows 5 police officers who are just finishing up their shift when they receive a call on their radio requesting back up at an old abandoned police station. On the way to their destination the police officers crash their van and from there pretty much all hell breaks loose.

My major complaint with Baskin would be it's pacing, the first 50 minutes or so are rather dull, there are a few redeeming scenes however for the most part the first half of the movie is uneventful filler. They kind of make an attempt to get you attached to the characters but none of them are really that likeable to be honest. This is something that is present in a lot of horror movies, a dull first half that leads up to an exciting finale. I have never been a fan of this style of pacing, some would say it's a way to build tension but in my opinion it just seems like an easy way to eat up film time with cheap easy to shoot scenes.

So after quite a bit of dullness the police officers finally arrive at the abandoned police station, from here the film does a complete 180, the boring filler scenes are replaced with scenes of chaos and gore. The film does a good job of making this abandoned police station really feel like a living hell, and it actually made me feel a sense of dread for the characters experiencing this nightmare. Pretty much all the scenes in the police station are done very well, costume design on the baddies is cool, gore looks real enough, and the main bad guy is fairly creepy and interesting. The only problem during this portion of the film is that they keep cutting away from the chaos to these dream scenes (I guess that is what they are, it's never fully explained), and that really kind of kills the chaotic mood of the second half.

Overall Baskin is a mixed bag, the second half is pretty insane and should please most horror junkies/gore hounds, but some may be deterred by the slow humdrum first half. Still I would suggest checking it out for the last half alone.

Most Likely To Die (2015)




Anthony Diblasi's film "The Last Shift" was one of my favorite horror films of 2015 and was a nice surprise, it was one of the few recent horror films that was actually able to creep me out a bit. So when I saw that Diblasi had recently released another horror movie I jumped at the chance to see it even though there were quite a few red flags, Jake Busey and Perez Hilton on the cast list plus a very generic teen slasher type plot, lets just say I should have listened to the warning signs.

The film starts out with a very cliche slasher type opening scene, an attractive blonde arriving at an seemingly empty house where she was suppose to meet up with her old classmates for a reunion, she strips down into almost nothing and roams around the house until she is eventually killed. From there the rest of the classmates begin to arrive and this is where the film really started to fall apart, we are introduced to all the characters and it becomes very clear that none of them are going to be interesting at all. Usually in a slasher film unlikable characters are not necessarily a big deal since you are there to simply watch them get brutally killed, however this film desperately tries to get you attached to these boring characters, this would be ok if their stories/relationships were interesting but it all just feels like a bad soap opera episode.

So after about forty five minutes or so of our characters discussing the past and having dull conversations the killings finally start, really only one of the kills is well done and brutal, however none of the cast really seems to care all that much that their friends are being murdered. There is one scene in particular where they find the dead body of one of their classmates, then literally like five minutes later two of the characters start having a nice reminiscent conversation about their highschool days as they sit outside a shack that houses the body of their dead friend. After a bunch of sloppy dialogue and running around the killer's identity is finally revealed, but at this point you won't really care, his/her motive doesn't really make any sense and their attempt at acting like a psychotic frantic killer is pretty pathetic.

Overall this was just a mess of a slasher film, which is disappointing because I know Anthony Diblasi is capable of making a quality horror film, shame to see his talent wasted on such a generic flick.

The Other Side Of The Door (2016)



The first word that comes to my mind after watching Johannes Robert's new film "The Other Side Of The Door" is standard, this by the books horror movie never tries anything new and mostly piggy backs off of things more successful horror films have done.

The story is about a couple who loses one of their children in a tragic accident, unable to live with the loss of her child the mother Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) seeks out a way to see her son one last time (I think we can all see where this is going). Maria conjures up the soul of her dead son and things start to go downhill from there. Sound familiar? Yeah this is basically a more paranormal version of Pet Semetary. Don't get me wrong, this is not nearly as good as Pet Sematary, it just has a lot of similarities.

Well once all the haunting stuff gets going it is pretty cliche, things moving by themselves, other child starts acting odd, and *insert scary girl ghost with hair in front of her face*. I found it hard to really get into the film due to it just feeling like every other ghost movie that has come out in the past 15 years. It never tries anything new and seems to follow every ghost movie cliche down to the tee. There were a few things I liked about the film, Sarah Wayne Callies performance is pretty solid and showed that she can carry a film alright even if the film isn't very good, plus the film is set in India and I thought that was pretty cool.

"The Other Side Of The Door" is pretty much every modern day ghost movie, if you enjoy those types of films and want to see more of the same then you will probably enjoy this film. However for me I was just kind of bored by it, everything the film does has been done better in different films.

The Break In (2016)



Awh Found footage, a genre that at one point I was very interested/obsessed with, after I watched Blair Witch project I was very interested in finding other movies similar to it. Some years back I remember searching for similar films and really only being able to find like 4 or 5 legit ones. Then Paranormal Activity was released and the genre became extremely over-saturated, now a new found footage movie is released just about every week and the vast majority of them are absolute crap. Is "The Break In" a fresh new take on the genre, or is it more or less the same old crap we have been fed in recent times.

The film follows Jeff Anderson (played by Justin Doescher who also directs the film) who has just gotten a new smart phone which has prompted him to film every little thing in his house for really no reason at all. He has a cute wife named Melissa (Maggie Binkely) who is pretty much the most understanding/calm female I have ever seen in a horror film. Jeff has just recently installed security cameras in his house due to their being a break in in the area. Ultimately these cameras prove to be useless since the high majority of the movie is filmed from the perspective of Jeff's phone.

The Break In suffers from the same things that plague all these types of movies, more filler than actually thrills, no interesting characters, and a bland shock ending that is meant to leave you on the edge of your seat but really only left me shrugging and bored. That's really all there is to this flick, you spend the majority of the film watching Jeff and his Girlfriend kill time by shopping, hanging out with their friends, and talking about the fact that Melissa is pregnant. All that leads up to one big shock in the last 3 or 4 minutes of the film.

The Break In had me slightly intrigued when it first started, non paranormal story line and some decent acting, but in the end it was just another bland found footage film. I think it's time we let this genre die, at least for while.

February (2015)



One my my favorite horror films of the last decade was 2015's "The Witch", I loved how the movie set a dark tone that continued to get darker and darker as the movie progressed. I don't mind horror films that are a little lighthearted or even a bit humorous, however I really love when a horror film decides to just be dark & dreary as possible without ever really making you feel like things are going to get better. "February" does not quite pack the punch the The Witch had but it is still a very interesting film with a pitch black tone.

The film follows Kat and Rose, two girls at an all female boarding school who are left alone at the school when their parents fail to pick them up for break. From there things take a bit to really get going, the film moves at a very slow pace however I thought that worked and matched the tone well. There really isn't much action or shock scenes, but for me that just made the shock scenes even better when they finally did happen. There was one scene in particular that kind of just pops out of nowhere and actually gave me chills a bit.

I honestly don't have a lot to say about this film, but at the same time I really felt the need to write review because this is one that stuck with me and had me still thinking about it a few days after viewing it. It's not perfect, the pacing won't be for everybody and I'm sure many people will find it too drab and depressing to get any enjoyment out of it. But I really liked it and think it does a good job of standing out in a genre that is filled with too many cliche films.

Have you seen The Last Broadcast? It came out just before Blair Witch. If not, give it a go.

February sounds like something I might like.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Never heard of it, I'll have to check it out.

The Tag Along (2015)



I don't watch a lot of Asian horror films, mainly because I have never really been much of a fan of paranormal movies, and for the most part Asian horror films tend to focus on paranormal type things (mostly scary little kid ghosts). But the other night I was bored and in the mood for a horror film, I decided to not be picky at all and basically just randomly pick one of the newer releases from the genre. I stumbled onto a Taiwanese film called "The Tag Along" and honestly I am glad I did.

The film follows Zhi-wei He, a young adult who lives a fairly busy life trying to juggle his job, his girlfriend, and spending time with his grandmother who lives with him. Zhi-wei He's life is turned upside down when a little ghost girl in a red dress shows up and takes his grandmother away. From there things get pretty wild as the little ghost girl makes multiple appearances to terrorize Zhi-wei and the other people in his life.

Early on "The Tag Along" does a lot of things right, the characters are interesting and the story is set up well, plus there are a lot of very well done subtle scare scenes that did a good job of catching me off guard. Unfortunately as the film progresses it becomes more and more dependent on CGI and less on practical scares. At this point it was still entertaining, however the CGI caused the film to lose a lot of it's creepiness. There are actually quite a few scenes that had me giggling a bit due to the goofy effects.

I liked "The Tag Along", overall it was a pretty fun ghost story that was clever at times and didn't rely too much on the normal Ghost Movie cliches (even though there are quite a few present here). Without the CGI I feel like this could have been a lot better, but even with it the film is still entertaining and worth checking out.

I've not heard of the Tag Along before now, but I might have to check it out. I used to be a big fan of Asian horror films, because unlike you I am very much a fan of the more paranormal stories. (:

I kind of wanted to see this despite thinking exactly what you said here when I saw the trailer. Still not sure if I should watch it or not.

I think you would definitely like The Tag Along.

Other Side Of The Door isn't awful, just a little too cliche for me and plus I'm already not big on ghost stories. If you really like ghost movies you will probably get some enjoyment out of it.

Carnage Park (2016)



Carnage Park is a brand new horror film from Director Mickey Keating. Keating put out two pretty solid horror films last year, Pod and Darling, so I was pretty excited check out his latest offering. Plus from the trailer the film looked to have a grindhouse type feel to it, that combined with the fact that the cast featured Pat Healy (Innkeepers, Cheap Thills, Compliance) and Ashley Bell (Last Exorcism, Last Exorcism Part 2, The Day) was enough to make me want to see this on it's release.

Almost immediately the film had me interested, the opening scene does a good job of setting the tone of the film, then from there they jump right into a homage to one of the great scenes from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". The first thirty minutes or so were very Grind house esque, I liked that a lot. The first character we are introduced to (Scorpion Joe) is a very cool character, the type of character that we usually don't see in horror films like this. Then we are introduced to our leading lady Vivian (Ashley Bell), Bell plays the part well but her character was pretty uninteresting in my opinion. Unfortunately though right at the thirty minute point the film started to get pretty bland. The Grind house style is thrown to the side and instead we are treated to a rather familiar scenario of a cat and mouse game between an attractive female lead and a crazy psychopath. Pat Healy does a decent job as the Killer, he is under used though and does not get enough screen time.

Of Keating's three most recent films (Carnage Park, Pod, and Darling) I would say that Carnage Park is the weakest. It really borrows too much from other movies and fails to do anything of it's own. It's not a terrible movie, as I said the first thirty minutes were done very well, but the last hour or so of the film is just basically a rinse and repeat of so many other cat and mouse type flicks. Probably worth watching for die hard horror fans who need their horror fix, but outside of that I think most people will find "Carnage Park" fairly bland and boring.

Clinger (2015)



Horror Comedies have a reputation of either being great or terrible, the mix of genres can work and has in the past but a lot of the times (especially in low budget films) the comedy just seems forced and lame. With Clinger (a new horror comedy from first time director Michael Steves) there are glimpses of a really good movie, but there are also a lot of very sloppy attempts at comedy.

The story follows Fern Peterson (player by Jennifer Laporte who did a really good job in her first feature film), Fern meets Robert Klingher (played by Vincent Martella who is best known for his appearance in the show "Everybody Hates Chris"), Fern and Robert are both fairly inexperienced when it comes to dating and they quickly fall for each other. Everything goes great at first but Robert begins to become much more invested in the relationship than Fern, it doesn't take Fern long to realize that it's time to break things off with Robert. However during the break up Robert is killed in a freak accident, now he is back as a ghost and more obsessed than ever. I really liked the plot line, it's one of the best parts of the movie in my opinion. They really do a good job of capturing the awkwardness of teenage relationships and that really gave the movie some charm.

While there is a decent amount of stuff to like in "Clinger" there is also quite a bit of stuff that really throws the film off and prevents it from being great. One of the big negatives that really stood out for me was the fact the two of the characters (Fern's Sister and Fern's Coach) were extremely obnoxious. You can tell that these were the two characters that were suppose to bring most of the laughs, everything they say is an attempt at comedy but 95% of it fell flat on me and after a while it just got really annoying. There are definitely some funny parts in the film, the more subtle jokes and even some of the psychical comedy worked really well, but too many times the film tried a bit too hard to be hilarious.

Parts of "Clinger" were extremely fun, gory, and entertaining as hell, unfortunately a few poor characters and a few too many bad jokes really prevented this from being a great low budget gem. Nevertheless this was still an entertaining Horror/Comedy, just a few steps away from being more than that.

The story behind it wasn't that bad (though not exactly original or refreshing in any way) and it actually had some decent scares. But I agree with you on the CGI. I hated the fact that they used mostly CGI and pretty bad CGI at that. It was odd watching an Asian horror film dominated with it considering most of the time they go with practical effects. You were slightly more forgiving than I was with the rating.

The Purge: Election Year (2016)



So I'll start off by saying that I actually liked the original Purge, I know many people were expecting it to be a bit bigger and to expand more on the premise but I still enjoyed it and thought it was a pretty fun Horror/Thriller. Then the second Purge (which really wasn't a sequel, more of just a separate movie set in the same universe apart from one little tie in) came out and I enjoyed that one as well, however I thought it was a bit more cheesy than the original and it was really more of an Action/Thriller than a horror movie. I was pretty set with those two, I didn't think there was any need to continue on with the franchise, but we rarely ever get big release horror movies anymore so I decided to just suck it up and give The Purge: Election Year a chance.

So the premise was actually pretty interesting, a Senator whose family was slaughtered in front of her on Purge night is running for president in an effort to stop the Purge. However from there things start to get really really stupid. Since her opposition wants to keep her out of office they decide to disband the law that protects political officials on Purge night, thus making her fair game. When this news is shared with the Senator she decides that instead of locking herself up in a safe house (which would keep her and her dream to stop the purge alive) she'll just put the life of herself and the lives of her security team in jeopardy by just hanging out at her house on Purge night. This is one of many stupid decisions made by the Senator, and that is one of the main reasons why I found it very hard to root for her. Luckily she has a bad ass security guard (the main character from the second film) who is there to rescue her when things go south on Purge night, from there the film basically just becomes a rinse and repeat of the second film. There is also a sub plot about a extremely cookie cutter deli owner who will do anything in his power to protect his deli.

I think my main issue with the film is that the characters were just so cheesy and unrealistic. All the good guys who we are suppose to care for just ooze cheese and almost every line that comes out of their mouths is cringe worthy. The is one character in particular (the deli owner) who I found myself rooting against because he was just such a lame and unbelievable character, they actually tried to give this guy catch phrases. These felt like characters out of a bad action movie, and that's really what this film was at it's core, a lousy action movie in a horror setting. The villains weren't much better, at one point they try to pass off a group of obnoxious teenage girl as villains, the scenes with these girls were drawn out and extremely irritating, these characters belonged in a teen comedy not a R rated "Horror" film.

All in all I thought this was a lousy sequel and that the Purge Franchise would have been better after just being two films. They basically just repackaged The Purge: Anarchy with worse characters and a little bit more of an expansion on the story. The worst part is they will probably make more of these, they will run this franchise into the dirt just like the Paranormal Activity franchise. My expectations were not very high, yet I was still pretty disappointed.

Lights Out (2016)



When it comes to horror movies I personally prefer more psychological scares/thrills rather than movies that just constantly try to get a cheap jump scare out of you. I thought "The Ring" was pretty ok but after that came a string of poorly done (mostly remakes of asian films) PG-13 Horror films that all had similar stories and similar cliches. For a while we saw a decrease in these types of movies, but recently they have made a comeback and "Lights Out" is one of the newest releases in the "Jump Scare-athon" Genre. Surprisingly though this film actually does do some things very well and managed to exceed my expectations (they weren't really all that high though).

I was a big fan of the opening scene, it is spoiled a bit by the trailer but it still did a good job of packing a pretty brutal punch for a PG-13 movie and getting me immediately interested in the movie. From there the pace continues to move very quickly, they do not hold back from showing the Shadow'd baddie multiple times in the first fifteen minutes. The fact that they showed her so often early on did make her less scary but it also made the movie much more entertaining in my opinion. As the story began to unfold I was actually fairly pleased with it, it's not a extremely original story but it does have more depth than stories in these kinds of movies usually do.

Then we are introduced to the movie's first big problem, the main character Rebecca (played by Teresa Palmer), she is just so bland and mono toned through out the whole film. Just about every other character in the film is more interesting than her yet she gets the majority of the screen time/lines. Usually in these kinds of movies it's the young child actors who ruin it but honestly I thought the character Martin (played by Gabriel Bateman) was actually done pretty well and succeeded in not being too obnoxious or annoying. The kooky mom (Maria Bello) and the picture perfect boyfriend (Alexander Dipersia) were so-so characters, didn't really add much to the film but also didn't really take anything away from it.

Aside from a super bland main character another big problem that the film had was it's pacing. As I mentioned above it does pace itself very well in the beginning, unfortunately from there we are treated to some very long, drawn out, uninteresting scenes that felt unnecessary. The first fifteen minutes are good and the last fifteen minutes are great, however in the in-between was a bit lackluster. The movie is at it's best when Danielle (Shadow'd baddie) is going after people and wreaking havoc, however instead of making those scenes the key points of the film we instead have to sit through a lot of meh jump scares and shotty attempts at character development. Had there been more victims for Danielle to go after I think the film would have been much better, an R rating wouldn't have hurt either.

All in all it's really not a bad film for what it is, it does stand out from the other jump scare movies by having some very well done scenes, a pretty ok story, and a few brutal moments for a PG-13 film. But was definitely held back by it's rating, the lackluster small cast, and too many boring scenes.

Scare Campaign (2016)



"Scare Campaign" is a new Slasher flick from Directors (& brothers) Colin and Cameron Cairnes. Their first film "100 Bloody Acres" was a great horror/comedy that got slightly over shadowed by "Tucker & Dale Vs Evil" due to having a similar tone/storyline. I really enjoyed their first film a lot so I was excited to see what else they had to offer, and "Scare Campaign" definitely did not disappoint.

So the storyline follows the cast and crew of a TV show called Scare Campaign (a prank show that aims to scare the hell out of it's stooge), very similar to the real life TV show Scare Tactics, they are in their fifth season and the show has gotten a bit stale so they are asked to step up their game. So the creator of the show hatches a plan to boost ratings and things don't exactly go as planned. I liked the storyline, it's kind of simple and I saw most of the twists coming from a mile away, but it's a solid backdrop for a slasher movie and kept me interested as I sat their waiting for the killing to start.

Once things get going (and they do fairly quickly) the whole thing turns into a very entertaining blood bath, just about all the kills were done really well and the gore level was pretty high. For a lower budget flick the cast, effects, etc were all very impressive. Really from start to finish "Scare Campaign" had me entertained and interested to see what would happen next. The ending could have been better though, was kind of hoping they would go another way with it but it didn't really take too much away from the film.

If you are a fan of gory slasher movies that don't take themselves too seriously then you will most likely enjoy this film, one of the better slasher flicks to come in recently.

Sounds middle-whelming. I really liked The Conuring 2, had more hopes for him. I see that Wan's next project is a movie do-over of the classic TV show Macgyver. I'll be curious to see how that comes out. It's rare that a TV character's name becomes a verb in common language.

The Funhouse Massacre (2015)



I tend to love cheesy slasher flicks that don't take themselves too seriously so I was excited to check out "The Fun House Massacre". After seeing some trailers and reading some reviews this seemed like it would be right up my alley. Story seemed somewhat interesting and there were some very interesting names on the cast list (Robert Englund and Clint Howard), but for the most part I was just excited to see some over the top gory kills and from the looks of it I figured this movie would definitely deliver in that department, it did somewhat but it was also a bit of a disappointment.

Six psychotic maniacs have broken out of a secret asylum that houses people who too violent for modern society, from there they descend upon a Fun house (haunted house) on Halloween and take the place of the staff so that they can have their violent psychotic fun without arousing too much suspicion (since people just assume it is part of the act). So the film does a great job of setting the scene for an ultra blood bath, but I think the main problem here (for me at least) is that the kills just weren't all that fun to watch. The effects weren't terrible but every kill was just kind of generic or not brutal at all. Of the six killers I really only felt like two of them were worthwhile, the rest just kind of felt pointless.

The cast was ok, unfortunately the guys I was looking forward to seeing the most (Englund and Howard) had very little screen time, although the little screen time they had was pretty solid. Everyone else does their parts well enough aside from a few people who tried a little hard to be funny (although I would blame the cheesy dialogue for that). I felt like the killers could have had a bit more personality. It seemed like they wanted The Stitched Face killer to be the stand out but she just wasn't an interesting character and really just ended up feeling like a watered down version of Harley Quinn.

"The Fun House Massacre" isn't an awful movie, it does have points where it is fun and entertaining but with the story line and cast they had at their disposal I feel like this could have been a much better slasher movie. They were headed in the right direction with it but at some point they took a wrong turn and the movie definitely suffers from that. In the end it's just another cheesy slasher movie that has a few redeeming qualities but is far from being anything special.

I went ahead and put Scare Campaign on my watchlist. This is a good thread to find under the radar horror.

Sweet let me know what you think, I really enjoyed it.

Thanks, I like bringing attention to the lesser known horror films, unfortunately that also means I end up watching a lot of crap, some of which is so bad that it wouldn't even be worth reviewing.