Movie Review || Homebound 2014

  (this is about 7 months old but hey I'm posting it anyway)

I don't know why, but I had a sudden urge to watch movies again recently (I have a very love/hate relationship with them) so I went for Homebound just because it was in my suggestions on Netflix. Although, I really hate sex/nudity films so with some small exceptions most of the films I 'review' or talk about on this blog won't have sex or nudity in them. 

This is about a woman called Kylie who is a bit of an adrenaline-junkie. She and this male friend (who seemed to just disappear after this one scene) blew up an ATM but she didn't manage to escape on time. Having a lot of previous problems with drugs and alcohol, her punishment is an eight month house arrest with her mother. The worst kind of house arrest, if you ask me. 

 

Her mother is a very superstitious person and, since Kylie was a little girl, the house has been having some strange happenings. 

There isn't much I can really say about this movie without giving it all away but I found it very entertaining. It was funny but not in (what I would call) a stupid, college-humor kind of way. It was funny from the start to the end. It has minimal gore factor, it mostly happened at the end. 

It was the kind of movie that made fun of home-life and how chaotic some families can be, in a very comedic way. It was dark, and sort of instantly jumped into the plot rather then giving us too long in background story. As far as the plot goes, I would rate it 6/10 because - and much contradictory given what I just said - it wasn't junked up enough, it was a very vague plot-line. 

Overall, in the comedy section, I'd give this movie an 8/10. As a thriller, or a horror, I would give it 6/10.

The Woman in Black 2 | Angel of Death (2014)

Director Tom Harper. 

Starring Helen McCrory as Jean Hogg, Jeremy Irvine as Harry Burnstow, and Phoebe Fox as Eve Parkins. 

This is, as obvious, the follow-up movie to Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe. This happens some time in the future, during World War Two, where a woman named Eve accompanies several evacuees and a woman to Eel Marsh House where they'll be staying until it is safe to be moved somewhere else. They instantly become the target of Jeanette, The Woman in Black. Along with her, she brings the past of Eve and the child she is looking after, Edward (Oaklee Pendergast). 

Overall, I'd say this movie was disappointing because I was expecting a lot more. I'm really into ghosts and the overall paranormal genre, hence why most of the horror movies I watch are from that genre (and I'm even trying to write a book about it), but it was just...predictable. The whole Eve-and-Edward thing kind of caught me by surprise, but as far as plot goes, it wasn't that great. 

Nothing really scared me, there was no jumpscares and when I tried watching it a second time to write this review, I couldn't watch all of it. There was a lot more things I thought would be more interesting. Same as the first movie, it is very slow to get into it.

Not that it was all a fail. It did bring back the old story and I think it wove very well into the new story they created, and the acting wasn't half-bad. Also, no nudity or sex scenes, which always gains a movie an extra point from me!

Overall movie performance - 4/10
Would I watch it again? - Nope. 

Clown (2014) - Spoiler Free.

Starring Eli Roth. 

A typical horror/thriller movie of a white suburban, wealthy family who have been unaware of an unknown curse nobody else has heard about apart from creepy, middle aged men. Meg (Laura Allen) has set up a birthday party for her son, Jack (Christian Distefano), who is obsessed with clowns...for some reason. The clown Meg originally hired for the job is unable to make it, bringing home Meg's husband to hurriedly find a clown costume to take over. I'm assuming he's some sort of architect or land owner, as he goes into one of his multiple houses to find a very old and very pretty costume in one of the basements to make it to Jack's birthday just in time as "Frowny the Clown". Except, when the birthday party is over, he can't take the costume off and it begins to consume him so the demon can feed. 

For a movie called "Clown" and about clowns, it actually wasn't half bad. This might have been because I jumped into the movie thinking it would be bad for obvious reasons so I could have a nice laugh at it, but that's not what happened. Now, as a thriller/horror...this is bad. The first half of the movie was just a comedy. No gory or sadistic action going on there, really. Just "Frowny" continuing his life and trying to figure out how to get the costume off. The second half was a bit more exiting, but nothing to keep you up at night or to make you jump. It's something someone who was starting to watch horror movies would enjoy, but no horror-movie-fantic would be raving about any time soon.

Gore factor was minimal. Bit of blood, bit of guts, but if you molded that together, it would probably create a five minute YouTube clip and even that might be pushing it. Plot line was probably a 4/5 out of 10. It was something I have heard before, something I wasn't gripped into - it was very under-complex, it was the skeleton structure with none of the meat or vessel added to it. Jumpscares, none at all. Luckily for me (as someone who really hates movie sex/nudity scenes), there was no sex or nudity at all. 

Overall movie rating 5/10. 

Would I watch it again? No.

Apartment 143 (2011) - Spoiler Free.

I'm going to give credit to the director and the actresses/actors of this movie at the end of this post, so fear not, I'm not ignoring them. 

Anyway, this was a 1.5/5 star movie on Netflix, and after checking out a few positive reviews, me and my boyfriend Austin decided to go ahead and watch it - let me tell you, it was worth it. 

It's not the most amazing horror/thriller movie you will ever see, and especially with the word "Apartment" in the name, it can't be mind-blowing, can it? It was decent and definitely worth watching though. 

It's about this little family - the father Alan, the daughter Caitlin, the young son Benny and their cute little dog Zelda - who temporarily move to an monitored apartment over the weekend after noting some paranormal activity taking place in their household, shortly after their mother died. 

A lot of people commented on this movie saying it was slow and I have to say I disagree, I actually thought it was very fast paced and if they meant the story was slow, I only kind of agree - the story was released at a reasonable pace, and was probably the most interesting part of the movie, although not too filled with information. I feel like they could have added a good section more to the plot to make it more interesting.

I don't know why they thought the damaged relationship between a teenage girl and her father after a major death in the family was a huge thing to focus on. Of course, we do learn why their relationship was important to note during the scene of interrogation, but if this in any other sort of circumstance, people would overlook it and put it down to guilt and having feelings they don't know how to deal with, as one man in the movie pointed out and everyone else ignored. Alan's abusive behavior throughout the movie was also a dead give-away to what happened previously before the activity had started to happen, along with Caitlin's snappy comments here and there, and Benny's comments to the camera early on in the movie. 

I think this can easily be compared to Paranormal Activity with the way the family setting is and how the cameras are, but it's easily better then Paranormal Activity - I mean, not to say that I didn't like that movie, it just wasn't given enough to make me want to see it again.

As the actual jumpscares, horror/thriller aspect of this goes...not great. I watched this in a house on my own with moody lighting and in partial darkness, I wasn't scared and I am quite easy to scare when it's dark. However, I do think it had a good thriller aspect but not the best I have ever seen. 

This movie is a 3/5 overall and if you just want something okay to watch when you have nothing else to watch, go over to the UK Netflix and have a fun hour watching this. ;)

Director - Carles Torrens.

Fiona Glascott as Ellen Keegan. 

Rick Gonzalez as Paul Ortega. 

Kai Lennox as Alan White. 

Gia Mantegna as Caitlin White. 

Damian Roman as Benny White. 

Mama (2013) - Spoilers

I'm not sure if this was meant to be a horror or a thriller, but to me, it was definitely more of a thriller - and a pretty good one, at that. 

There are spoilers in this review. 

It focuses on the story of two young girls. Lily, aged six, and Victoria, aged eight. Five years earlier, their father went on a wild killing spree, then decided to speed down an icy road with the two girls (then one and three years old), crashing into a woody area where an abandoned small house was. The father had planned on killing Victoria, but a mysterious monster appears and kills him instead, leaving the two young girls alone with the monster for five years. They were found and brought home where they were cared for by the fathers' brother, Lucas, and his not-so child friendly girlfriend, Anabel (that's how the subtitles spelt it, I'm not sure if that spelling is correct). 

I'm not sure if this was how the story was meant to be received, but to me, it came across to show the true beauty of a mother-child bond, even after death. For this reason, I found myself on several occasions feeling sympathy for the monster - a monster who we later learn is called Edith, a woman who used to live in a hospital for the insane, where she took her baby the nuns were caring for and jumped off a cliff, killing her - especially the connection she had with the youngest of the girls, Lily. 

Similarly, I found the bond later formed between Anabel and Victoria an even more beautiful bond (mostly because it wasn't morally wrong and didn't end in death). I, too, don't want kids and never do so hopefully the message here was not women have maternal instincts, whether they realise it or not but rather love can form an unlikely bond. It also reminds me of the dance done in Sia's music video, Elastic Heart, which also makes my heart feel weird things. 

As the actual thriller part of the movie goes, it was pretty wonderful. It had plenty of jump scares. It didn't contain anything terrifying, nothing to keep you up at night, but what it did have was parts to make your heart beat a little faster and your brain wondering what would happen next. The wolf-like nature the girls were in when they were first found, I found particularally interesting (and that whole Victoria thing called Lucas her dad just broke my heart, if these kids don't grow up with deep phsychological problems, they escaped a very narrow door).