Soulmate (2013): Suicide-Crossed Lovers

After losing her husband and surviving a brutal suicide attempt, Audrey (Anna Walton) relocates to a remote cabin to take some time to heal from both her physical and mental wounds. While there, however, she discovers that her new abode is filled with a horrific past of its own when she begins to hear strange sounds. 

Writer director Axelle Carolyn’s Soulmate (2013) opens with the graphic image of Audrey attempting to take her own life. It’s a visual that leaves quite a visceral impact as well as nicely sets up the unstable mindset of Audrey, who is clearly not dealing with the death of her husband all too well. Surviving by the skin of her teeth, she’s a shattered woman who could fall back into a suicidal mindset at any second. Whether it be her current state of vulnerability, the dark nature of her recent past or a mixture of the two, Audrey is left wide open to the spirit that comes to haunt her. And it is this element of the film where its biggest strength lies. On the other hand, however, there is an inconsistent tone that hinders the film, and while there are certainly moments of horror, Soulmate is far from what one would consider a proper horror film.

Soulmate takes a classic approach to creating atmosphere, and the entirety of the film’s first act is effectively creepy as a result. With a dreary English countryside filled with howling winds painting the backdrop, Soulmate is simply saturated with dread. The slow and steady camerawork paired with endless silence and impressive sound design allows the viewer to be swept up into the mystery set up early in the film. Unfortunately, however, at the point when the ghostly apparition is revealed, things take an odd turn into near romantic drama territory, something that results in the film losing any sense of fear that was previously built.

The depiction of the ghostly apparition is specifically startling in how underwhelming it is, in that it’s simply a slightly translucent guy wearing some old fashioned clothing. The interactions between the apparition and Audrey are also a little silly, but that is nearly unavoidable when talking about a ghost and human having in-depth conversations about life, love and the failed pursuit of happiness that has led them both to the point in which their lives are now. Now, as a relationship-driven, character-based ghost film, these interactions work for what they are, but the fact that the film postures as a horror piece for the first act, they are tonally problematic.

While Soulmate is ultimately a bit of a failure, there is still much to glean from the final product in terms of filmmaking, atmosphere and a solid performance from Anna Walton. In the end, Soulmate feels very much like a very well-made lifetime movie. And that's not necessarily a dismissive statement as much as its simply the perfect way to describe the tone of the film. It should also be a good indicator as to whether or not the film is the right choice for you or not.

You can find Soulmate on Amazon and iTunes

100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts

When it comes to horror, nothing is more iconic than a ghost. From Slimer and Samara to Beetlejuice and Sam Wheat, a ghost can come in all shapes and sizes, but if there is one depiction of a ghost that is most recognizable, it is that of the white bed sheet with two eye holes cut into it. This ghostly image has been around for so long that it’s difficult to pinpoint when it began being used to frighten people, and to this day it is still one of the most prevalent pop culture icons associated with horror and Halloween alike.

This classic ghostly figure is the basis for 100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts, a humorous and often delightful look at the versatility of the bed sheet ghost. Written and illustrated by Doogie Horner, 100 Ghosts takes the traditional bed sheet ghost and places it in various comedic situations. These range from a ‘Jellyfish’ ghost, which comes complete with little ghost like tendrils, to a one-eyed ‘Cyclops’ ghost.

100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts is the perfect coffee table book for the coming Halloween season and could just as well find a nice home at the bedside of a young child. It’s charm is in its creative simplicity, and the wit that Horner injects into each and every one of these 100 ghosts makes the book enjoyable to spend as little or as much time with as the reader would like.

Here are a few examples of what you’ll find in 100 Ghosts:

100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

If these images are your cup of bed sheet covered tea, then 100 Ghosts: A Gallery of Harmless Haunts goes on sale September 10 from Quirk Books publishing. Furthermore, you can pre-order it right now for a very reasonable price of $8.96 over at Amazon.

Insidious: More Like In-shitty-ous

I knew nothing of James Wan's Insidious up until I started to actually see trailers for it on television. I can't say that it completely grabbed my attention right away, but I did wonder what this film was that flew so stealthily under my radar up until that point. It looked as if it could be promising, but I paid little attention until mostly positive reviews started to roll in from fellow bloggers and other such reviewers. That, and how the film had a strong and long stay at the box office, making it one of the most profitable films of the year (and in comparison to its budget, a relative success) certainly got me very interested in seeing what was being described as a solid, spooky haunted house tale.

When the DVD saw release this passed Tuesday, I was pumped to finally have the chance to catch the biggest horror movie of the year, thus far, and I even made it my GBtMC DVD pick of the week. Sweet, right? Well, maybe not so much.  

This has been a big film for people within the horror community, so I would assume that most of you that haven't already seen it have a good idea what it's about. However, this review is better suited for those that have indeed seen Insidious; with that being the case, I'd rather not waste keystrokes on a plot and just get right into the shit.

Right off the bat I was a little concerned about the film's dialogue and some sketchy performances, specifically that of Dalton as played by Ty Simpkins. The kid sucked, plain and simple, and that is always a bad thing with any movie that has a child as its focus. Luckily, that bad performance goes into a coma, so I didn't have to deal with him too much after the first twenty some odd minutes. However, Leigh Whannell's weak and hokey sounding dialogue rears its ugly head enough times to cause multiple groans from this one man audience, and I couldn't help but feel sympathy for the actors that had to deliver some of these lines. And unlike Dalton, the dialogue never goes into any sort of coma, no matter how hard I wished it would.

Now, before I move onto my other problems, now would be a great time to praise the film for what it does right, though, this will certainly work as a great segue into other issues I have. One thing that many had claimed about Insidious is that it is a genuinely creepy haunted house film, and that is, in fact, where it does work best. Wan uses a great mixture of music (at first) and film to disorient the audience effectively in a few early, key scenes, and this was a nice and welcome surprise coming from the man that directed Saw. Unfortunately, this leads into one of my biggest issues with Wan's direction in Insidious, and that is his lack of restraint.

Wan has no clue how to pull his punches, and there are some standout and very terrifying moments in Insidious that are slightly tarnished by taking the viewer one-step too far and into a place that's basically silly. For instance, there are two (of the film's better) scenes in particular where a little too much is shown "spirit" wise. One of the scenes is when Renai (Rose Byrne) is seeing someone walking back and forth outside of her window at an alarming rate. The person is going faster and faster when suddenly they appear inside of the house, which is a shit worthy moment until a second later when the apparition is revealed to be this weird, longhaired European guy who growls and attacks Renai before disappearing. Guess what? Leather jacket clad European dudes aren't scary unless you're bombed and at a club in Prague or in a Hostel film. 

The other scene also involves Renai (who spells their name like that? And please don't say your mom. in that case, I'm kidding), and this is when she is in the new house alone, and that little creepy dude drops a beat and starts dancing like the dancing queen he was always meant to be. Now, this moment is a bit out there, but it was still pretty chilling in its oddness. However…Wan WANce again (ha!) goes too far when he has Renai look into a cabinet, only to have the little guy pop out and run away while giggling, and it's at this point that the tension of the scene is lost and I began to smile in disbelief. 

Things don't get much better when it comes to the main villain (?) of Insidious, the fire creature that haunts Dalton in the further (yeah, we'll get to the further soon enough). I actually thought the Darth Maul-esque monster was somewhat cool looking at first, but that was until I got a good look at his forked tongue and stomping hooved feet in the film's horrible climax. By this point, all I could think was really?

Everything about Insidious simply piles on waaay more than the audience needs to see, and far more than what is necessary to make a successful scary film. Too much is shown and way too much is explained, and it's all done with a drop of shitty dialogue mixed in for good measure. 

Key moment of bad dialogue meets way too much explanation: "I call it the further" Really. You call it the further, huh? Hey, since you gave it a name, why don't you go ahead and explain it to us? Oh, you will? I was kidding. Damn. 

Now, was any of that necessary? I mean, even if you blew your load over Insidious, can you really find any reason as to why any of that needed to be explained, let alone giving it a name such as the further?! I need to understand WHY!! In addition, it should be said that those whacky ghost hunters were a great way to break up the horror. When they showed up on screen, it really felt as if I was suddenly watching a scene from The Happening, and we all know how awesome that movie was.

I have one last order of business to attend to before I finish up here, and this is exactly where both Whannell's bad dialogue and the Wan's lack of restraint come together to fully fill up the toilet bowl in a way that only they, as a team, can. This is a small moment, but in many ways, this moment perfectly sums up the ridiculousness of Insidious for me.

*SPOLIERS*

There is one key moment of awfulness involving Josh (Patrick Wilson) and that European longhaired guy as they are fighting to the death (or whatever) in THE FURTHER! Josh, being afraid and in THE FURTHER, is getting his ass kicked, however, thanks to some coaching and inspiration that explains to him that he is strong enough to beat the European dude, he summons the power of Gayskull and effeminately pushes the European guy away while yelping: "Get away from me!" I could not believe my eyes and ears. This moment was so laughable I thought I lived in an alternate universe where bad was good, up was down and my farts smelled nice. It has the same impact as one of those rape protection self defense videos that teach women to protect themselves by fighting back using assertive verbal skills as they punch their trainer in the cock.

           

And yet, this chick has way more balls than Josh does

I could go on and on and on and on about how troubled Insidious is. From the horrendous final act to the even worse ending, Insidious had so much potential to be a great, frightening horror film, but instead it turns out to be a yet another disappointment from the guys that have led me down this path more than once before. Despite showing some incredible diversity in style (the film looks quite incredible overall) and being able to genuinely create some truly eerie moments, team Wan and Whannell have once again duped me into believing they might have made a great horror movie. However, maybe it's not so much their fault as it seems as if many fans really enjoyed this film. Maybe it's me; maybe I'm the one that's wrong here…

Nah. 

 

(You can rent Insidious as well as over 70,000 other titles at www.lovefilm.com)

Paranormal Activity

There are enough spoilers in this review to warrant a warning to anyone that has not yet seen the film...sorry.

When you have a movie such as Paranormal Activity, you are going to run into a wide variety of reactions from an even wider variety of people. Whether it be genre fans, or just your average casual moviegoer, it is almost fascinating what one person finds frightening and another person doesn't. Much like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity is a story of success, a story of simplicity delivered through a means created by budgetary restraints and a desire to make a movie no matter how many roadblocks were faced. And of course, the desire to scare people.

Written and directed by Oren Peli, Paranormal Activity has a plot as basic as my cable. Katie (Katie Featherston) and her semi-long-term boy toy, Micah (Micah Sloat) have been experiencing...ahem, some Paranormal Activity (I suck) when they decide that they want to try to capture these ghostly-goings-ons on video tape. Of course, they do capture something and this something they capture might not be the friendliest of ghosts, and things escalate for Micah and Katie as they try to deal with this unwanted visitor.

Easy enough, right? Sure, but here's the thing, the ghost, or spirit, or whatever, has been following Katie around since she was a little girl, creating havoc for her throughout her entire life. With Katie dealing with such torture for so long, she has grown very fearful of this invisible antagonist, almost to the point where she knows not to instigate it anymore than need be. Micah, on the other hand, is fascinated by this unseen menace and not having the same history as Katie has had with this haunting, he has no real fear of it, nor any sense of respect for what it is capable of...whether or not Katie warns him before hand.

This is really where some of the strength in Paranormal Activity lies, the characters are extremely well written and very realistic in many ways that some would not like to admit. You are seeing very broad typical characterizations of the average man and women, and how they interact with one another, especially when faced with trauma.

Katie is a little whiny, needy, and open to any sort of suggestion, that isn't coming from the man she loves, Micah. She will only rely on him for protection when she chooses - shuts him down when she doesn't need it and she is easily irritated by anything he does, almost to the point that it is unfair to Micah. Katie has every reason to be scared by what is going on in a way since she has been plagued by this menace for so long, but it is unfair for her to think Micah can fully understand what is going on, when this is his first exposure to such events. The fact that she didn't share her past haunting experience with Micah until she has already moved in with him and it started happening to them both shows her selfishness also.

Micah is not afraid of the haunting's so much as he is fascinated by them. It is his idea to set up the cameras and even when Katie constantly warns they are making things worse, he still continues to use them. Micah is all for communicating with the ghost via a Ouija board no matter what the warning are, and much like a child, he almost sees it as fun at first and it shows his immaturity. When things do escalate, he feels it is up to him to take care of the situation, he feels he must protect his girlfriend and his home without any help from anyone else. Like most men, including myself, Micah is slightly egotistical and his ego clouds what would be better judgment for the fear of not being in control. He constantly promises Katie that he will figure this out for her and he really does try to, because he cares about her, but he also doesn't want to not be in control of the situation as much as he wants to protect her.

Now, do I think the film is scary? Paranormal Activity has been heralded as the scariest movie of all time, or of this decade and so on, whatever. How any movie can live up to that expectation is unfair to say the least. Especially when "average asshole Joe" has no clue about the movie outside of it being referred to as the "scariest movie of all time," then seeing Paranormal Activity and ultimately being disappointed by the lack of visual apparitions. This is the same shit that happened with Blair Witch...many disliked it saying that it wasn't scary because they didn't see anything, because nowadays, people are so used to seeing everything, that when challenged to use their imagination, they are not capable of doing so.

What you are seeing in this film is what I would guess you would see (or not see) in real life and that is what either frightens people, or completely turns them off. For me, I find the simplicity of a door shutting by itself, or a chandelier rocking back and forth from an unknown force to be scary, as opposed to being shown an actual ghost or having a creature be shown. Being shown something can be scary too, if done well of course, but it is easier to distance myself from the events in a movie like The Orphanage, for example, than it is a film set in a normal everyday house with a faceless assailant. This almost goes back to what worked in the first half of Jaws; it was more frightening to see the results and actions of the shark, without actually seeing the shark itself. You know what's there creating the chaos without seeing it, and it's what it is capable of that is the most effective aspect.

Some can say you do not see anything in Paranormal Activity, yet when you do in the form of a possessed Katie; it is the worst part of the film and seems like an unnecessary sight used just to put a face to the menace. Putting a face to the menace to appease moviegoers who want to see "something." That is really my only complaint about the film and I much prefer the alternative endings that I have seen/read about, but it is what it is. I found Paranormal Activity to be quite scary and it is a scary that has lasted with me for a few days...it is easy to relate to the events because they are plausible and they can happen to you in your natural setting. I will forever be creeped out by the often-used static camera shot from inside Katie and Micah's bedroom, waiting to see what was going to happen next in what area of the hallway...or seeing nothing, and only hearing loud bangs or footsteps, not knowing what was to come from those noises.

As I have expressed in a recent post, I am extremely happy that Paranormal Activity has done so well and this is the second film in ten years to come from nothing and sweep the nation. This film is the opposite of Hollywood and for it to do well almost balances things out in the big picture. It takes thing back a little and shows that you can do so much with so little, and I don't completely mean money wise either so much as I mean what can be done to scare people with simple film making techniques. Whether or not it scared you is one thing, but it has put a little poopie in a whole lotta moviegoers pants to make it one of the most successful films of the year...so it has done something right. Word is born.

Lake Mungo

After Dark Films has just announced the third film in their already very strong looking 2010 After Dark Horrorfest: 8 Films to Die For lineup (Jan 29th - Feb 5th). Clive Barkers Dread, and a movie that I recently posted about, The Graves will be joined by the Australian thriller/ghost story, Lake Mungo. Lake Mungo is written and helmed by first time director, Joel Anderson and stars Talia Zucker, Rosie Traynor, David Pledger and Martin Sharpe. The story follows a family dealing with the drowning death of their sixteen-year-old daughter, Alice Palmer. After her body is buried, the family experiences a series of strange and eerie events that give them no choice but to seek the help of a psychic/parapsychologist named, Ray Kemeny. His investigation leads to Lake Mungo where a secret past and double life once lived by Alice comes to fruition.

Sounds interesting - right? You may be even more interested after watching the trailer for the film. And that trailer is provided for your viewing pleasure right here - ya know, just in case you didn't already notice it sitting there, all lonely, waiting for you to accept it with your mouse. Click that shit, son!


Bleh...so creepy!! I love that entire goose bump promoting paranormal stuff, and I almost thought that Lake Mungo was a documentary at first, because it looks so convincing as one. It is of course, a mockumentary style film that looks like it will be very effective in the scare department, and some of those background apparition shots are just downright frightening. I was already excited for both Dread and The Graves, but this is a nice surprise to have a very scary looking movie like Lake Mungo added to a lineup that is certainly shaping up very nicely.

Apparently, Paramount is developing a remake of Lake Mungo with writer David Leslie Johnson, whose previous effort, Orphan was released to solid reviews and was a movie that I personally quite enjoyed. This being put out by After Dark Films though is a very good thing, because this film very much reminds me of another low-budget ghost mockumentary film, Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity had gotten rave reviews, and the trailer was scary as shit, but when the remake (also Paramount) started to make way, the original film had, like a ghost, been left in limbo with no release after what is a few years now (though there have been rumblings of a small theatrical release forthcoming). Wicked annoying if you ask me. So thankfully this will not be the case with Lake Mungo, as we now know that it will be in theaters, and eventually on DVD, without having to wait two or three years for a remake to come out and suck balls.

Here is a link to the films official site for more info!