Darlin

It was a tragic loss to the Horror world when Jack Ketchum passed away, back in 2018, doubly sad because he remains fairly lesser-known outside of the most obsessive fans. Over the course of his career, he penned many a gruesome tale of violence, rarely dipping his toes into the supernatural and instead focusing his witty and unflinching eye over the extreme fringes of the North American family unit. In the 90s, filmmakers saw the untapped potential in his works and began adapting for screen. Viewers and critics were suitably disgusted and delighted and equal measure. Perhaps his biggest hit came in 2011, when long-time fan and friend Lucky McKee directed The Woman, having co-conspired on the book of the same name. The Woman was the Pollyanna McIntosh led sequel to Offspring and continued the story of a cannibal living in the Northeast of the USA. Darlin, concludes (maybe) the story and picks up a number of years after the events of The Woman.

You can probably get away with watching any entry in the trilogy without knowing anything about the other films, or the books. They stand alone fairly well, but knowing the history of the characters and world definitely helps in your potential enjoyment. Pollyanna McIntosh returns as The Woman once again, this time riding shotgun in front of the camera so that she can direct. The first thing that is obvious about the direction and the script is that this is, and I hesitate to use the word ‘lighter’ given the material, but it is a funnier film. There wasn’t much to laugh about in The Woman, but Darlin works well as a comedy in places. When McIntosh is on screen, she is treated, perhaps uncomfortably, as a bit of a Freddy Krueger icon in the Elm Street sequels. She’s still terrifying, she’s still mostly mute, but her interactions with certain characters and the situations she finds herself in, from sitting in a car to leading a ragtag group of homeless people, are all amusing. I was expecting another grim tale with little redemption or light, but I found myself enjoying the character play as much as the gore gags.

We open with some vague nods to events which have transpired since the end of the last movie, before a teenage girl (one of the daughters from The Woman, now grown up) appears at a hospital and is hit by an ambulance. She is messy, dirty, and feral. The hospital cleans her, tries to communicate with her, and eventually sends her to a nearby Catholic Boarding school. At the School, the staff try to turn her into a regular member of society, help her reclaim her speech, and teach her in the ways of the Catholic God (read – sexually abuse her). While she meets some sympathetic staff and kids, there is a history and system of abuse which members have been quiet about. The top dog is horrified when he learns that the girl, now called Darlin, is pregnant.

If you’re familiar with the lore of the world, you’ll know that the cannibal family needs babies to keep their line alive, and they’re not picky with how they get them. We learn in flashbacks that previous attempts to grow the family met with tragedy, leading to The Woman sending Darlin to hospital, so they could ensure her baby was born, and so The Woman could take it. While Darlin has been learning how to become a human again, The Woman has been watching, following, and killing anyone who gets in her way. She strikes up a loose partnership with some other women who think they want to be part of a revolution, and it all comes to a head at Darlin’s (insert weird religious ceremony).

The film is not as grim as the last two, and as mentioned, has an amount of humour that I wasn’t expecting. Also unexpected was the performance of Lauryn Canny as Darlin – an exceptional, and hopefully breakthrough showing where she is perfectly believable as the confused, traumatised girl coming to grips with her past, present, and potential future. She’s the star of the movie, and more than deserves praise, attention, and future hit roles. Elsewhere, fellow Walking Dead alumni Cooper Andrews plays a pivotal part, Nora Jane Noone is as good as always, and Bryan Batt ably fills in as the slimy, hands-on Bishop.

While you can take or leave the social commentary aspects of the movie, it’s worthwhile calling out that Darlin isn’t just a story about a bunch of cannibals clashing with society. Like much of Ketchum’s work, even though this isn’t a Ketchum original, it has something to say about Othering, about civilized society, and about who the bad guys really are or whether or not there’s much difference between civilization and barbarity or good and evil. The blood still flows freely, though it isn’t as bleak or cynical an outlook as what you would typically find coming from Ketchum’s brain, and in McIntosh we have an accomplished actor showing she can be equally interesting as a writer/director, and a breakout star in Canny.

Let us know what you think of Darlin in the comments!

I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House

Oz Perkins has four features to his name so far, this his second effort after the generally well received The Blackcoat’s Daughter. While I appreciated the atmosphere and look and idea of that film, I felt that it lacks scares, direction, and it failed to have the impact on me that it did on others. In I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, I can essentially copy and paste those exact comments and be done with the review. I write more than is necessary though, so here we go.

The film has something of a dual narrative, but mostly follows the experiences of a live-in nurse who stays in a grand old house to attend to the palliative care of an elderly horror writer suffering from dementia. The nurse, Lily, is an odd one; prone to flights of fancy, talking to herself, and with an aversion to anything spooky. In haunted house fashion, strange things start happening. In horror movie fashion, the protagonist does nothing about it.

Meanwhile we learn that Iris, the writer, wrote a story about a man who murders his wife and buries her in the walls of the house. So far, so Poe. Iris refers to Lily by the name of the murdered wife, Lily begins to notice mould on one of the walls of the house, and… well, you see where this is going.

I’ve no idea if the movie was supposed to be so telegraphed or if the ending was intended to be a surprise. In any case, none of what happens is a surprise, even as details are drip-fed and we crawl backwards at the inevitable conclusion. I didn’t have issues with the glacial pace, but the lack of scares, of tension, and the abundance of emptiness suggests that the film would have been much more suited to being part of an anthology or a TV episode rather than a feature. It’s a story which will be familiar to every horror fan, and if it’s horror fans that the movie is targeted at then the lack of scares and pacing will likely frustrate.

As interesting as it was to see Paula Prentiss back on screen, Ruth Wilson is horribly miscast, the incessant mumbling and whispering becomes irritating very quickly, and by the time the 30 minute mark ticks around and you’ve worked out both the tricks and the conclusion of the story, you’ll spend the remaining time clock-watching. The initial gloss and beauty of the film is rotted by the director’s pretensions, the atmosphere set up for a tension between threat and loss acquiesces into monotony, and the early promise of an interesting setting and hope for a modern take on an old-fashioned ghost story fades as quickly as my interest in whatever Perkins does next.

Let us know in the comments what you think of I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House.

The Haunting Of Goodnight Lane

I get it; it’s hard being an actor skirting the outer rim of the A List. You’ve had a taste of fame and success, and you have a bunch of weirdo fans obsessing over you but you don’t quite have the clout to be on the cover of the best mags, appear on stage at the best awards ceremonies, star in the top grossing blockbusters, or pour from the lips of every water cooler denizen keen for the latest nugget of Hollywood goss. But you make a living. You have enough to get by, to be happy and to feed your family, and you’re content with the performances you’ve given and the legacy you’ll leave behind, even if there is that one final splash you’d love to make.

There’s an argument which states that the movie business doesn’t survive due to the big hitters,  rather it’s the smaller films which are underseen and rarely make much money, but often propel the next big name upwards and keep the industry’s moving parts churning. If it feels like I’m trying to make a point, I’m not. I’ll continue anyway. When you’re a fan of these types of performers and these types of movies, you have to wade through a detestable amount of wank to find something worth the stench. The Haunting Of Goodnight Lane contains several not quite A Listers who’ve had their taste of glory, didn’t make a lot of money, and you won’t hear people talking about it unless someone makes a viral meme from one of the very gif and meme-worthy scenes within. It’s a very odd movie because on one hand it looks very cheap, but on the other it stars Billy Zane, Lacey Chabert, and Danielle Harris, and it’s your standard haunted house movie, but everyone involved seems to know how cheesy it is and plays up to the nonsense to create an entirely entertaining slice of whatthefuckery.

Set in the admittedly sort of interesting location of a low budget recording studio, it follows the employees of studio being tormented, possessed, and murdered by an annoying little girl ghost who’s having a strop because the studio replaced her old home and now it’s being sold or something. It’s hard to say because little girl ghosts get pissed off as irrationally as little girl non-ghosts. Billy Zane’s Alan is even more pissed off because he just wants to keep his deadlines met and schedule moving so that he can drink and bang the models. He also seems to be highly amused that he has landed this gig an is masterfully hamming up every single piece of dialogue he is given, and reacting with gloriously overwrought passivity to everything going on around him. It’s a comedy masterclass.

Joining him on his one man stand up show is Lacey Chabert as some sort of employee who wants to understand the girly ghost, Danielle Harris as a model/actress/dancer type and a bunch of unfamiliar faces there to have their faces smashed into nails in walls or exposed electric fans. There’s a smidge of gore here and there, plenty of jumpscares as the ghost seems to have a deep knowledge of cameras and computers, and an unnecessary backstory to fill in just why she’s so evil (spoiler alert – her daddy was Chuck Manson). There’s also the girl’s surviving relative, a grandmother who is inexplicably some sort of crazed medium instead a woman wracked with the pain and guilt of losing both a child and a grandchild. It doesn’t matter – you get gratuitous boob shots, shaky-head Tool video twisty twisty bits, and the cast having a lot of fun making what feels like a boozy weekend shoot by a bunch of mates done for fun in between filming something important.

It is fun. It’s silly, it doesn’t amount to much, but it is fun. I laughed more than I usually do at the big hit comedies which are supposed to make me laugh and it was cool to see Lacey in something that wasn’t a Hallmark movie. Danielle is always great, Billy Z deserves all the praise for his line about the ghost hating doors, and it’s short enough that if you hate it you won’t lose much of your life by watching it. Enjoy?

The Wisher

*Originally written in 2003

Another cheap horror movie which borrows heavily from both big and cult hits of the genre, but one which manages to be quite enjoyable even if we have seen it all before. There are some good performances, some not so good, a few typical scares and jokes (some which hit, some which miss), a fair amount of blood, a simple but well executed story, and quite a creepy bad guy. Probably not worth searching for, but worth watching if it is on TV especially if you are a horror fan.

Mary is a teenage girl with a love for horror movies, always searching for the next scare. When she hears about a new film called The Wisher which has been getting good reviews from terrified audiences, she and her friends go to see it, against her father’s wishes. Mary has a habit of sleepwalking which her father believes is caused by all the rubbish she watches. A short time into the movie, Mary vomits and leaves knowing the film is too much for her. After an argument with her father she wishes he would just go away. Soon her father is dead, and Mary believes she keeps seeing the Wisher creature from the movie. She becomes paranoid and after a few more gory events related to what she has innocently wished for, she believes that The Wisher, or someone dressed up as him is stalking her, obsessively carrying out her wishes in the worst way possible. She finds out that the film makers imbued the film with subliminal messages, and thinks that school hunk Brad, who likes her, has been hypnotised by the film. She tries to find a way to reverse the process, planning to watch the film to see how it ended. The Wisher is on to her plan though…

Although everything is pretty predictable there is still enough fun to warrant watching this. There is some cheesy dialogue and effects, and you would think that once you believed that your wishes were coming true you would immediately wish for The Wisher to leave. Liane Balaban is very good as Mary, at times carrying the film on her own, and Ron Silver is good though seems uninterested in a smaller role. The rest of the cast are OK, but the film is quick and never tries to over-achieve. The Wisher itself does look scarier than your typical cheap horror movie bad guy, and the director’s best moments are when the Wisher is stalking in the shadows or on reflections. There is not much heavy violence and nothing is over-the-top. Give it a go if it’s on, but do not expect a masterpiece, just a quick piece of entertainment.

Let us know in the comments what you think of The Wisher!

The Slumber Party Massacre

When you call your movie ‘The Slumber Party Massacre’, there are certain things an audience might expect; namely, a slumber party, possibly some sort of massacre, and perhaps that massacre will happen at a slumber party. The periphery information – what the theme of the Slumber Party is, who is in attendance, who is doing the massacring, and why these people are being massacred – well that’s left to the excited viewer to uncover, but presumably each of these questions would also be answered. The Slumber Party Massacre answers every one of these questions – there is a slumber party (attended by a bunch of peppy high school seniors), there is a massacre (instigated by a good old fashioned escaped crim who takes a liking to this particular group of friends), the massacre does happen at the slumber party (and a little precursor or two beforehand), the theme of the slumber party is simply to drink and get stoned and bitch about people – and some of these people even show up to be massacred too. Basically, there’s a whole lot of massacring at this slumber party.

What else should be in a film with this name? If you answered boobs, then you’re correct! Boobs should be present, and boobs are present. Quite often in fact. If you’re wondering why I’m asking all these bizarre, vaguely humours questions – it’s not merely because I’m a lazy, unfunny writer, but it’s because they’re actually relevant to the context of the movie. The film was originally written as a parody or satire of the booming slasher genre – while it was never going to be as meta as Scream, it was still designed to poke fun at the exploitative nature of the genre – the male gaze and full frontal antics, the ludicrous violence, the empty-headed characters, nonsensical plots, and the killers and their ridiculous agenda/weapons/masks/unkillability. At some point between script and filming the unthinkable happened and the film instead switched into being the exact sort of film it was meant to be satirizing. What this means is that we have a film filled with the blood, guts, bad guys, killings, and boobs of your usual sleaze’n’slash-fest, but a script with strange in-jokes, characters who seem more savvy than they should be, and some proto-feminist turns. In short, it’s fucking bizarre.

While you’re not going to highlight any of the performances as notable, everyone here is passable and entertaining, from the cannon fodder to the cannon. As bad as you’re expecting a film with this title to be, you’ll enjoy it in spite of yourself. Horror fans will enjoy the niche it owns along with the kills, the various trappings and tropes, and any non-horror fans will get a kick out of how silly it all is. On the surface it’s a typical slasher following a bunch of girls being stalked by a crazed killer and his powerdrill (shlong), and as they get picked off one by one the survivors begin to fight back in a last gasp attempt at survival. It’s just over an hour long, and as such makes for a curious and simple good time – the perfect horror party movie before moving on to something more substantial.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Slumber Party Massacre!

Blood Fest

I seem to start a lot of posts these days with the phrase ‘if you’re a regular to this blog’, which suggests I’m covering a lot of the same topics on a loop, but if you’re a regular to this blog then you’ll know I love fiction and movies set around theme parks, fun parks, carnivals and the like. In recent years we’ve had a few films in this vein, expanding out to also cover the Escape Room craze, and in 2018 alone we confusingly had Hell Fest and Blood Fest – two films set inside the curious theme parky world of Horror-Cons.

Blood Fest begins promisingly, with a mother and son snuggled up watching horror movies on the sofa. The mum goes into the kitchen to grab more popcorn, and when she doesn’t come back the son goes to the kitchen only to find a masked killer standing over his mum’s bloodied body. Flashforward to present day and the boy is now a teenager obsessed with Horror movies, while his dad is a psychologist who argues against Horror and other violent forms of media as they lead to the sort of disorders or crimes which led to his wife’s death. It’s a decent setup, and even though all I expect or want from a movie like this is some fun chase and kill shenanigans using the location in an interesting way, this had the potential to discuss some deeper topics.

It’s odd then that the setup doesn’t really go anywhere. There’s no sense of grief within the family, there’s little real discussion on the ills, perceived or otherwise, of Horror movies on impressionable people – which is especially strange because the entire plot hinges on that exact device – and it means that I was left a little disappointed by the final product. Had a more generic setup been in place I would have taken this as a simple fun slasher, but as it suggests its going to have more depth – when it doesn’t deliver on that promise I ask what the point of it all was.

We should bear in mind though that the movie is a comedy – it’s a comedy set in the world of Horror and Horror fandom, with plenty of nods and in jokes both broad enough for casual fans to get, and more specific such as a moment recalling The Exorcist 3’s famous jump scare. There’s quite a lot of gore – of the over the top, spurting Asian variety – but there isn’t an ounce of tension or true horror here. It’s 100% in the Comedy genre, like a poor man’s Shaun Of The Dead. The teenager hero and his two friends are planning to attend Blood Fest – a celebration of all things Horror, with rides, celeb meet and greets, booze, music, and everything else you would expect from an overblown Con. The twist is that once the guests arrive, all doors are locked, all gates are electrified, and all bets are off as the Con’s host – an overly camp Owen Edgerton – wants to film the greatest Horror movie of all time by killing all of the guests throughout the different areas of the park. The park is split into different areas matching a particular Horror theme or trope – zombies, vampires, killer clowns – and each area is filled with maniacal killers or monsters. Again, there’s a cool idea in here – a Horror based Battle Royale – but we focus on our small group of survivors, and the park’s areas are only given cursory glances. I’d have enjoyed more of a thorough Running Man style chase through these areas with a sense of progress and threat and a chance to feel the different atmosphere of each. A larger group of survivors, seeing them get whittled down as they make their way towards the Exit or the centre, would have been cool.

Our heroes are not the most exciting bunch – lead horror geek, his feisty love interest, his geeky friend, the hot blonde, and ostensibly the hot blonde’s jerk boyfriend and a cowardly horror actor. They never feel like they are in any real danger, and even when they begin to get picked off we’re not given any reason to care – and the survivors don’t react much. A sharper script would have improved matters, but there’s a much better film in here as I’ve alluded to; that idea of survival in a Horror version of Disneyland, complete with cameos from famous faces from within the genre, and by all means spice it up with social commentary or meta influence. As it stands, Blood Fest is a let down on most fronts – the laughs are flat, the commentary may as well not be there, the gore is silly, the plot is uninteresting, and the location is underused and not fleshed out. Still, it’s a brief enough watch and if you’re into films set in the same sort of universe and location as this, you’ll likely get some basic enjoyment out of it.

Let us know what you thought of Blood Fest in the comments!

#Alive

It’s true that there is a fatigue for zombie movies at the moment. In truth, that fatigue set in over a decade ago, but that hasn’t stopped movie-makers still attempting to find a new spin on the formula or drop their own mangey undead copycat. #Alive lies somewhere in the No Man’s Land between these two camps, bringing in drones and vlogging and a different type of location, yet not really doing anything radically different from a narrative or character perspective. It’s essentially the same survivalist shtick of Night Of The Living Dead, set in a South Korean apartment block with a (mostly) single protagonist whose incompetence is his most notable trait. Luckily, the film is not overlong and is told with a certain amount of energy which compliments the youthful nature of its hero.

#Alive doesn’t take long to get to the point. A typical twenty something social media gamer type is just setting up for another day of streaming videogames with his friends and subscribers when one of his gang notices something strange on the news. As they question the validity of what they’re seeing, our protagonist hears the sudden sounds of carnage coming from outside; screams, car crashes, stampeding crowds. He looks out of his balcony to see people running and attacking each other from a few storeys below, and similar sounds are coming from right outside his door. It’s zombies, of the 28 Days Later variety. So begins the usual barricading of doors and windows, setting out food and water, and preparing weapons for an eventual attack and inevitable step outside. All the while he keeps checking his mobile, hoping for a signal, hoping for news from his family who had already left for the day when the attack began.

The Night Eats The World follows a very similar premise to this, but the two films are very different in tone and approach. #Alive is more action heavy and only half-heartedly deals with the psychological aspects of being trapped, terrified, and alone – not knowing if you’re the only person left alive in your city. The Night Eats The World is much more successful in this regard, and feels like the fresher movie even if it is the slower, more drama focused. Yoo Ah-in is perfectly serviceable as our lone survivor, suitably clumsy and naïve, yet capable of bravery when desperation calls for it. The story doesn’t truly explore his character beyond the fleeting looks at family photos or checking for texts, and I feel like the better film would have been him keeping in contact with each of the streamer friends from the start of the movie, follows their daily updates from his perspective until the power eventually goes out. The apartment location isn’t used to its full potential, at least not until the second half of the movie, and when certain reveals are made, you expect them and any twists which come along. It’s not a game-changer, but in terms of a Netflix Korean zombie movie in a contemporary setting, it manages to remain watchable without ever being scary or gruesome or particularly thought-provoking. It’s a one-off popcorn movie for people not familiar with the genre or who have a particular affinity of South Korean actors.

Let us know in the comments what you though of #Alive!

 

Excision

Controversy is a funny thing. Subjects deemed controversial hundreds of years, or even mere decades ago, are now spoken of fondly in polite conversation while the number of taboo topics grows ever smaller. When you through artistic license into the mix, the boundaries become further blurred. While these shifts in opinion are largely governed by the wider shifts of the religious, political, moral, and cultural landscapes, film, music, and art have each made a significant impact. In this enlightened (or corrupt, depending on which side of the argument you may be on) 21st Century, everything is fair game in Cinema as long as you’re not breaking any laws. And as long as the censors are cool with it. It’s unusual then that a film such as Excision garnered so much controversy upon release given that it was, for my money, a fairly tame and humourous trip down a filthy suburban lane.

Excision is as camp as a Drama teacher named Joan. You could be mistaken for thinking it was a lost John Waters movie from the 90s, such is the comedic and dramatic tone. Indeed, Waters himself appears as a bewildered church minister trying to lead one of his flock back to the path of righteousness. That particular lost lamb is an outcast teenager, a rebellious young woman by the name of Pauline who has nightly sexual fantasies about mutilation and medical operations. These scenes attempt to show the degree of her disturbed mind, but for the majority of the film I found her to be a relatively normal teen archetype. Plagued by cold sores for most of her life after her similarly afflicted father saved her from drowning as a child, she is depicted as a moderately gruesome physical presence – at least when viewed alongside her innocent young sister, the cool kids in school, and the pretty jump-roping neighbour across the street. Given that Pauline is played by professional model AnnaLynne McCord, it’s an effective make-up job. McCord gives a snarling and emotive performance as the troubled teen whose only goal in life is to become a doctor (primarily so that she can cut shit up) and to protect her sister, whose cystic fibrosis could snatch her life at any moment. Surrounding McCord we have a range of familiar faces – Traci Lords is well suited as the middle class soccer mom trying to live the American Dream and constantly sniping at her bored and whipped husband (a slumped Roger Bart). Elsewhere, Malcolm McDowell, Ray Wise, and Marlee Matlin pop up.

The funny thing about the controversy, mainly in the form of reviews, is that a lot of these came from seasoned horror fans and websites claiming the film is both unforgettable and difficult to stomach. In truth, the scattered scenes of gore are shot beautifully – as the dream sequences that they are – and everything is most definitely played for tongue in cheek shocks, such as Pauline choosing to lose her virginity to a local jock and asking him to go down on her knowing she is having her period. The only real shock, which felt inevitable throughout the entire film, is the ending. Indeed it’s an ending I wasn’t offended by in a graphical sense – there’s nothing even a generic horror fan hasn’t seen before – but more because of the tragedy of it, although I don’t believe there was a confirmation that one of the characters involved is actually dead even if it is implied.

My main issue with the film came from my uncertainty over how I was meant to feel in certain moments – was I meant to side with Pauline and feel her pain, or see her as a mentally disturbed figure? Beyond the ending, I didn’t feel any true insanity within her. Was I supposed to be shock by the gore and the actions of certain characters, when the tone is so blatantly humorous? Director/writer Richard Bates Jr manages to pull together a stellar indie cast who all revel in the script, and it is clear he has a fondness for the seedier underbelly of suburbia and the modern world – especially when we are aware of his more recent works. Anyone who may have been put off by some of the negative or more finger-wagging reviews should consider those as somewhat over the top – if you’re a John Waters or a Horror fan then you’ll probably get a kick out of Excision, but it’s difficult to see an audience beyond those hallowed, unfazed groups.

Let us know in the comments what you think of Excision!

Megan Is Missing

Every so often a film comes around, dragging such a weight of hype behind it that it begins to resemble a cannibalistic graverobber hauling a couple of corpses through a dank and hilly moor. Then there are those films which fly under the radar, only picking up a few glowing reviews sporadically and becoming something of an urban myth. Megan Is Missing falls into the second category – a film heard of, in whispers, but rarely seen. It has been years since Megan Is Missing was released, but every few years the film seems to strike a connection with the latest viral trend, and pops up again in social media feeds from concerned parents, duped tweens, and disgruntled critics. In recent weeks, the film has once again resurfaced thanks to kids on Tik Tok (whatever that is) watching it, being shocked by it, sharing it, and watching each other be shocked by it. But what does a seasoned horror fan make of it all? Spoiler Alert: it’s not very good.

Megan Is Missing is less of a movie and more of a masterclass in exploiting viral media and its audience. I was very impressed by director Michael Goi’s Twitter comments, advising viewers to switch off the film if they see the number ‘1’ appear on screen at any point, as they would have a few seconds to shut it off before being scarred for life – especially if what they had seen up to that point had disturbed them. Having already seen the movie and being aware of what he was talking about, this was actually quite a shrewd and amusing tactic to get more kids to watch it. Disingenuous or not, that seems to be the goal of the film – to get as many kids as possible to see it, and their parents, to warn them over the dangers of blind online interaction. 

The film follows a couple of girls as they meet a man online who claims to be the same age as they are and strikes up a friendship. If someone says their webcam is broken or doesn’t want to share their cam even as you share yours…. it’s probably not a good idea to continue communicating with them. Megan is popular with peers, but has a hidden history of abuse and clearly enjoys attention. Her best friend Amy doesn’t necessarily approve of Megan’s sudden change in behaviour and the online relationship she is beginning, but she is shown to be somewhat naive and jealous. Before long, Megan disappears and Amy takes it upon herself to launch an online and offline search for her friend, believing the guy Megan was talking to is responsible for her disappearance.

The film is made up of mobile phone footage, laptop cams, news reports and vlogs. Normally this would be a jarring experience – and here it is – but at least the simple narrative is kept coherent. The quality of acting is a low point throughout, though I didn’t have as much of an issue with this as most reviewers (although the guy playing Josh off screen is notably cringeworthy and a creep from first breath making me question the intelligence of anyone sucked in my his shite), and I was more accepting of the obvious low budget and attempts at authenticity. Certainly many of the recent batch of viewers have inexplicably been convinced of the film being a true story, or even going as far as somehow believing the final 15 minutes or so to be genuine crime footage retrieved by the FBI. Sometimes I despair at the youth of today, dagnamit.

The film doesn’t try to make us feel any sympathy for Megan – some for Amy – and maybe it’s the generational gap, but their behaviour, their dialogue, it’s all grating and off-putting, and the same is true for the surrounding cast. More than that, it seems to revel with salacious glee of it’s detailed descriptions (and thankfully less detailed depictions) of pre-teen sex. It’s a catalogue of annoyances before we get to any real pay-off for the horror fan – the infamous final scenes.

Those scenes have of course been hyped far beyond what they are deserving of, and have spun off already into a multitude of memes. I can only hope that those genuinely shocked by, or claiming to have been traumatised by these images subsequently move on to some good horror movies. What is there that is so shocking? We get a couple of photos of torture, which I can only assume are shocking due to the suddenness of their appearance, and there is a muffled yet exploitative rape scene towards the end which reviewers have highlighted as offering zero merit – admittedly it’s tough to portray such things with any true merit or purpose. We get the final split second reveal of what happened to Megan, followed by an excessively drawn out scene which was done with far greater potency decades earlier in The Vanishing. It’s far too little, and far too late, and having to sit through a lot of padding and a lot of inane conversations with general unlikeable people to get to this point, I’d have at least wanted a stampede of zombie dinosaur sharks to liven the thing up. 

Is it worth the hype? Of course not. Is it worth watching? Not really. There are better examples of similar plots and the technical ability on show is extremely limited. The filmmakers will defend this by pointing to the low budget and the fact that it is supposed to be a compilation of unprofessional bits – that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t make the end product any more worthy or worthwhile. Honestly, there are a tonne of more potent, more powerful, more emotionally devastating documentaries out there made with genuine craft and artistry which make this look like the half-assed mess that it is. Did I enjoy it? Unusually, I didn’t hate it. I have a low bar of expectation for this sort of thing anyway and it’s clearly not good, but if I’m honest it did set me loose on the internet for a few weeks binge on real life cases of abduction and missing persons. I’m not convinced that the reasoning behind the film was to highlight to impressionable kids the dangers of online interaction, if it smacks of ‘old man is scared of new technology/young people’, or if it was a cheap and cynical cash-in on real life tragedy at the boom of the found footage phenomenon. If there’s any positive from it all, it’s that you can easily watch it for free online – seriously, if you have to see it, don’t pay for it. 

To sum it all up – if you’re curious about the hype, by all means watch it. If you’re a seasoned horror fan you will absolutely be disappointed and confused by such hype. There are better things to do with your time, and better movies to watch. Let us know in the comments what you thought of Megan Is Missing!

The Blair Witch Project

*Originally written in 2003

The wild hysteria surrounding this movie proves that the majority of the cinema going audience can still be fooled into believing anything they see or hear, or think they do, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an extremely convincing and effective horror flick. A certain number of people on these boards (written originally on IMDb so refers to IMDb message boards), and who have reviewed Blair Witch Project HATE the film for varying, understandable reasons. When I first watched this, I watched intently, knowing exactly what the directors were playing at, and I found great enjoyment in watching the reactions of those who thought it was real. Did it unsettle me? No. Did it make me jump like the horror movies that rely on loud noises to scare (the recent Ring remake) – no. But it was the first horror movie in a very long time to put a smile on my face, and make me shiver. If you can remember back to when you played hide and seek as a kid – the feeling you had when the person looking for you was 10 feet away and coming closer – that is what this film gives, in a much greater quantity.

It is slow moving, and if you do not enjoy the pace, then you may not enjoy the film, but it compensates this by being short and concise, juxtaposed against how the 3 campers must have felt as the hours dragged by – the point I take from this is that in life we only remember a series of memories, images pasted together to make little sense, and life seems much shorter than it actually was.

The camera use and grainy feel again may be fuel for hatred or love, but it works perfectly – they don’t know what is going on, and neither do we, but that doesn’t matter because in an uncertain and threatening situation, the natural human reaction is to run or fight. Drained, exhausted, paranoid, they run. Ever had a nightmare about running away from something, but not knowing exactly what it was, or why you are running?

The best part of the movie (apart from the hilarious ‘I kicked the map into the river’ scene) is the last few minutes when Michael and Heather enter the house following Josh’s screams. This is perfectly spine tingling, and the ending is excellent as our feelings and fear somehow build and climax  in perfect harmony with what is happening on screen. The actors are clearly convincing, again look at the audience hysteria for proof, and although they are not called upon to do much, they do it well. Few great horror films come along these days, this is one- embrace it, let yourself be sucked in to feel the full effect, don’t be critical, and realize how good it is.

Let us know what you think of The Blair Witch Project in the comments!