Oculus (2014)

Oculus

IMDb rate: 6,5
Genre: Supernatural
Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane

I actually never really paid a lot of attention to Oculus, because it was one of those hyped-up movies that in many cases fail to amaze. I did have it on my to-watch-list for quite some time though and I finally gave it a watch. I had no idea what Oculus was about at that time, never saw a trailer, didn't read the synopsis either, so you can say I started watching the movie with no expectations at all. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with Oculus in the end. There were a few confusing parts, but overall it was a very good ghost/supernatural movie.

The twenty-one year-old Timothy Allen Russell is discharged from a mental institution by his psychiatric Dr. Graham completely healed from a childhood trauma. His sister Kaylie welcomes him in the parking area and brings him home. Then she tells that they need to destroy an ancient mirror that she has just bought in an auction. The reluctant Tim follows his sister and has fragmented recollections from his childhood, when his mother Marie buys a mirror for the home office of his father Alan. Kaylie and Tim see a woman with their father in his office and the behaviors of Alan and Marie change, ending in a family tragedy. Kaylie blames the mirror and now she wants to destroy it with Tim. Will they succeed?

The story has a very good build-up, during the movie we get to see fragments of their childhood and their trauma with this specific mirror. Because their past is being told during the entire movie it keeps an interesting perspective on the movie, it keeps it interesting to watch. If it would've been told all in once it would make the main story of the present day kinda boring actually, so did was a great thing to keep people curious.

The power of this mirror is that it can make you see things that aren't there, so it's a great psychological horror movie. This gives a huge uneasy feeling because you never know if anything is really happening or if it's just some game the mirror plays. I must admit that when I noticed this was going to be about a haunted mirror I wasn't too excited about it, but honestly Oculus did a great job making it somewhat scary and original.

The acting is pretty good in Oculus. Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Who) plays Kaylie and I was quite impressed with her. Already saw her once in Guardians of the Galaxy (for which she shaved all her hair off!) and I think she's going to be a big star sometimes. Brenthon Thwaites (Maleficent, The Giver) plays Kylie's younger brother Tim and he did a great job as well. Most impressive though was their father played by Rory Cochrane (Argo), he played his role as uncaring/distant father extremely well, you could almost feel the tension, amazing.

Oculus was a very surprising good movie. Great acting, good tensive scenes and it's just an exciting watch overall. There was just one thing that I did not get which is why they took so long to attack the mirror, because they knew that the longer they would be with it, the crazier things would get. So that's pretty much my only objection to Oculus. I had a great time watching this movie, and I definitely recommend to watch it as well.

My rate: 8/10

Friday Night Screening: The Refrigerator 1991

The Refrigerator

Attack of the kitchen appliances from hell

You know those movies, where the name and the premise is half the fun? Like killer klown from outer space or return of the killer tomatoes?

Yeah, so here’s a movie about a killer fridge from hell, do with that information whatever you want.

Released in 1991, this weird thing I’m unsure to call a movie or a bad joke someone made on a late Saturday night after a whiskey intoxication, is brought to us by Nicholas Jacobs, who unfortunately never really did anything else worthwhile.

A movie about a killer fridge, *sight* seems like just yesterday that I used to review normal movies…wait, I never did review a movie based on any plane of normality, why am I complaining??

Ilene and Michael Bateman (not sure if it’s a reference to the book American Psycho, seen as it was published in the same year this movie came out), a young and ambitious couple decide to buy a place in the less rat infested parts of new York, little do they know that their refrigerator has a minor case of the satanz and goes around munching on unimportant extra’s during it’s free time.

But it seems Michael is getting more and more willing to listen to the little people living in his fridge telling him to kill his wife as the movie goes on, and yes, I wish I could make sh8t like this up as I go along. But thankfully, Ilene gets help from the greatest man alive, Super-plumber Juan, who with his pornstash and epic dancing skills manages to even give Bruce Campbell a run for his money. My god is that man awesome.

So what is there to say about this movie? Besides that it’s about a fridge that goes ballistic that is. Well, I guess you can say it’s about the fear of committing, as Ilene and Michael seem to take each other for granted and their relationship slowly start to break down to the simple factor of mistrust, or you could say it’s about a GODDAMN KILLER FRIDGE FROM HELL THAT EATS PEOPLE.

Seriously, do I need to say more? People, there is a motion picture in which a refrigerator eats a man whole by comically opening and shutting it’s door.

I guess I could talk about the needless dialogue or the plot that gets crammed in there too tight like it’s trying to overshadow the killer fridge, like the constant flashbacks from Ilene about her youth that ends up going, guess where? Nowhere at all of course!

I mean we get scenes upon scenes of her childhood trauma that all ends up in a big fat cry and f8ck all else. No character motivation, just the super plumber and his unusual good people skills (I’m serious, I can’t find a single flaw with this guy).

But there are some great scenes, I’ll give this cheap movie that much, there is a scene that just might be the best moment in cinematography of all time. I mean really, how can you even start to top a scene in which a depressed workaholic husband wakes up in the middle of the night with a smile that would put the Cheshire cat to shame just to say: “I am the wafflemaker”

I tip my hat off to you “The Refrigerator”, you have out random’d me mister, may the blessing of the great space homophobic squirrel lord go with you.
But all joking aside, this movie is silly, really silly. Maybe not in the way that 'Robo-Geisha' is silly in a self-acknowledged way, but more based on the premise, while the movie tries it’s darn hardest to pass a serious story about a troubled, falling apart couple that just so happen to have a killer doorway to hell located in their fridge, and also the best plumber I’ve ever seen, seriously, I can’t get over this guy, I think I have a bro-crush.

Death by fridge, now I've seen everything

So should you watch this movie?

Yes, as a matter of fact, you owe it to yourself to see this movie, simply because you’ll then be able to brag to your friends that you've seen everything. But really, it’s kinda slow and a lot of story goes nowhere, but at least you’ll see a guy gets eaten by a fridge, that’s something I guess.

Things I’ve learned from “The refrigerator”:

- I knew living in New York was tough, but damn.

- Good names don’t make good movies

- Plumbers are awesome, Bonus points for the mustache

- When little people inside you fridge start telling you how to live your life, it’s time to put down the waffle maker belt and seek some help.

- Can’t wait for “The mixer of doom” or “The little toaster massacre"

Personal rating: 6.5/10

Critical rating: 4.5/10

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

The Cabin in the Woods

IMDB rate: 7,1

Genre: Supernatural

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins

The Cabin in the Woods is easily one of the best movies made in the last couple of years. I remember sitting in the cinema because there was such a big hype about this movie, and I thought at the first half of the movie "for real, this is it? As if we haven't seen this a million times before already", but then the second half happened, and I had to take my words back because boy, was I wrong. 

Some people are complaining about some similarities between Cabin in the Woods and The Evil Dead. I have to disagree with them. Sure, there are some tiny similarities between both of them, but if you look closely into Cabin in the Woods, you recognize a lot of other horror movies too. The beauty with this movie is that it contains some elements of other amazing horror movies, without it being too obvious or annoying. And just be honest, did anyone expected that ending?

Five teenagers head off for a weekend at a secluded cabin in the woods. They arrive to find they are quite isolated with no means of communicating with the outside world. When the cellar door flings itself open, they go down to investigate. They find an odd assortment of relics and curios but when on one the women, Dana, reads from a book she awakens a family of deadly zombie killers There's far more going on however than meets the eye as the five campers are all under observation.

When I first watched this movie in the cinema, I was bored as hell the first 30 (?) minutes. As many other people  I thought it would be another cliche horror movie, and I almost wanted to leave. Luckily my boyfriend convinced me to stay, and well, I loved it. My friend, a fellow horror lover saw this movie for the first time last weekend, and he also thought he could predict how everything would end, boy, was he surprised when he was wrong. My point is, I think we all thought we could guess how it will end, it which order the people would die and such. Maybe a few people knew that it would end this way, but I don't think that would have been many. 

It has been a long time since a fairly recent horror movie entertained me. This movie finally changed that. I didn't find it a scary movie, but it was build up amazing, with some comedy in it, and some horror creatures from everybody's nightmares. I think this was a movie I've been waiting for, for a long time. Joss Whedon previously entertained me with other movies, or television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I have to say that he have outdone himself with this movie.

I love the cast of this movie. When this movie was made in 2009, nobody was really well known yet. You might have spotted Fran Kranz in The Village, but that's about it. Of course, this movie was not released until 2012. In this period of time Chris Hemsworth became a very popular actor. I think that  Chris Hemsworth's popularity contributed a bit to The Cabin in the Wood's popularity. Which is not a bad thing. I enjoy Chris Hemsworth as an actor, and this role fitted him perfectly. Fran Kranz has an amazing performance in this movie. If I never saw him in other movies I would totally believe he is this stoner-weirdo type. I was not entirely sure about Kristen Connolly. Sure she is a good actress, but I found her a bit plain to be honest. She didn't entirely convince me that she was scared. Jesse Williams played his parts very well, but at first I never saw him as the 'student' type. He seemed like another hot football player to me. I guess that's why he had glasses on in the following scenes, to make it more believable. Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford have an amazing chemistry together, they made this movie fun to watch. I would love to see the two together again in another movie. All together, a great cast.  

The music is amazingly well chosen, it fitted perfectly with every single scene. Also, the dialogues... Joss Whedon has not written the best dialogues for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in this movie it was amazing. It fitted the characters, it fitted the story. All good.

Sure, some details in those movies seem to be a bit far-fetched, and some people might get irritated by that. I don't think it was bothering though, because you can not make everything right. Look at all the terrible horror movies that have already been made, why would I look at every tiny detail in a further amazing movie? Some people are just too picky I guess. 

I would love to tell about some of the amazing things happening in this movie, but I'm afraid that I will spoil the whole movie, so I won't say anything! I saw someone say 'The less you know about The Cabin in the Woods, the better'. I'll have to agree with that, because if you know how the story will go, you won't experience the surprise of the amazing plot twist.

This movie gives a whole new look on other horror movies in my opinion. And I can only recommend this movie. But there will be many people who will tell you otherwise.

You either love it or hate it, that's the easiest explanation :).

My personal rate: 9/10