Posts Tagged ‘supernatural horror’

THE FIRST OMEN: 3 STARS. “has too many devils in the details.”

The release of “The Omen” in 1976, made the name Damien synonymous with darkness and evil. Unbeknownst to wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Thorp (Gregory Peck) and wife Katherine (Lee Remick), their adopted son, five-year-old Damien (Harvey Stephens), is the Antichrist, the ultimate agent of anarchy.

That movie was a controversial sensation, and before you could chant, “Sanguis Bibimus,” it spawned big box office, a few sequels, a remake, a television show and a series of books.

A new prequel to the original film, “The First Omen,” now playing in theatres, aims to respond to a question left unanswered by all that came before it: How and why did Damien come into existence?

Set in 1971, the new movie stars Nell Tiger Free as American novitiate nun Margaret Daino, a young woman with a troubled past that includes hallucinations that she sometimes thinks are real.

Sent to work in an orphanage in Rome, she arrives as a general strike has brought the city to a standstill. Workers want more money, while students are protesting, rejecting authority and, more troubling to Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), the church. “The world is changing fast,” he says. “The young are no longer turning to us.”

Her faith is rocked when she uncovers a conspiracy to conjure up an antichrist to sow the seeds of chaos, and drive people back to the church.

“How do you control people who no longer believe?” asks Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson). “You create something to fear.”

“The First Omen” is an origin story that casts a wide net as it explores themes of both religious and body horror and a detective story of a sort. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s movie dovetails nicely into the original, using some of the same characters and new twists on some of the most memorable scenes from the 1976 film. But it also takes a helluva lot of time getting where it is going.

Like the recent, and similarly themed “Immaculate,” the juicy stuff is saved for the third act. Until then, it more or less marinates in the idea of evil, throwing a clue here, a bit of gore there. It’s uneven, but sets the scene, provides a scare or two and proves Free is capable of carrying the mystery at the centre of the story, even if it goes on a bit too long.

But it is in its exploration of body horror and the anguish of abuse that “The First Omen” finds its feet. For a time anyway. The climatic sequence is shocking, with disturbing images that provide a horrific payoff. If it ended there, “The First Omen” would go out with a visceral and thematic bang.

But the devil is in the details, and there are a few too many details and false endings before the end credits roll, blunting the primeval effectiveness of the climax.

You do not have to have seen “The Omen” to understand “The First Omen.” The new film has enough disturbing ideas to stand on its own, but feels protracted and lacks the gothic elegance of the original.

IMAGINARY: 2 ½ STARS. “isn’t imaginative enough to do anything really new.”

As the title “Imaginary” suggests, the new Blumhouse horror film, now playing in theatres, is all about the power of imagination. Strange then, that so little imagination went into the story.

DeWanda Wise stars as Jessica, children’s book author and artist of the “Molly the Milliped” series and stepmom to preteen Alice (Pyper Braun) and fifteen-year-old Taylor (Taegen Burns). Jess and new husband Max (Tom Payne) are on “operation relocation,” moving into the house she grew up after her father is sent to a long-term care facility.

Jess has happy memories of living there, but may be looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. “No child should ever have to go through what you did,” says Gloria (Betty Buckley), an elderly neighbor who used to babysit Jess.

Soon, Alice hears voices coming from the basement. She investigates and finds Chauncey, a harmless looking, oversized Teddy Bear who becomes her constant companion.

“I found someone else to play with,” she says when Jess suggests they do something together.

Alice and the bear have long conversations, have pretend tea parties and Chauncey even creates a scavenger hunt, so Alice can show him how brave she is. If she completes it, they’ll go together on a trip to where Chauncey came from.

“Nobody loves Alice except for Chauncey,” he says.

As Jess, Taylor and the nosey neighbor do a deep dive into Alice and Chauncey’s imaginary world, the trauma of the past becomes the key that unlocks the secrets of the present.

The PG-13 rated “Imaginary” feels like a reworked “insidious” with less atmosphere and a new, cuddlier malevolent entity. A few twists cut through, providing some grabby moments in a movie that doesn’t deliver the promised scares.

Wise hands in a sturdy performance and Braun does a pretty good creepy kid voice as she utters some of Chauncey’s lines, but none of that matters much by the time the complicated, incomprehensible supernatural stuff really kicks in.

It’s “Insidious” lite, a revamped mythology about the rage unleashed when a friendship bond is broken. Not only do the main players immediately buy into the loopy rationalization for the “Twilight Zonesque” goings-on, but poor Buckley is saddled with the unenviable task of delivering horror movie balderdash about just how imaginary Alice’s new friend really is. The reliance on exposition over scares in the film’s final third blunts the effectiveness of those scenes.

In its examination of childhood trauma and unresolved issues from the past, “Imaginary” has the elements of a good horror film but isn’t imaginative enough to do anything really new.

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S: 3 STARS. “fans will enjoy the film’s Easter eggs.”

“Five Nights at Freddy’s,” is a new horror film starring Josh Hutcherson now playing in theatres, but it may feel familiar to some movie goers.

Referred to as “FNaF” by fans, it began life in 2014 as a popular video game that has since spawned a number of sequels, including “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted.”

With the game’s creator Scott Cawthon signed on as co-writer and producer, the new film version offers up recognizable visual and audio call-backs to the video game series.

Then, there is the strange case of “Willy’s Wonderland,” a 2021 Nic Cage cult film that fills its lungs with much of the same fetid air as “FNaF.” It’s like “Freddy’s” brother from another mother.

So, with so much history, is the new movie fresh enough to get a fresh rating?

On the big screen Hutcherson plays Mike Schmidt, a down-on-his luck guy desperate to make some cash and look after his withdrawn sister Abby (Piper Rubio). How desperate is he? Desperate enough to take a nighttime gig as a security guard at a family entertainment center called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. “I’ll take anything,” he tells job counselor Steve (Matthew Lillard).

The run-down and shut-down facility was a once-popular hot spot but now sits empty save for four animatronic mascots, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy.

Turns out, these mascots are anything but good luck charms. They used to entertain the kids who once flocked to the restaurant, but these days they’re possessed by the spirits of the children who disappeared during Fazbear’s glory days.

“The police searched Freddy’s top to bottom,” says enigmatic local police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail). “They never found them. That’s why the place shut down.”

What Vanessa doesn’t know, but Mike is about to find out, at night the mascots come alive, and have set their eyes on a new victim, little, innocent Abby.

Fans of the video game may get an extra charge out of the film’s Easter eggs. Director Emma Tammi provides fan service while the screenplay by Cawthon, Seth Cuddeback and Emma Tammi go hard on the psychological drama.

Determined to figure out who abducted his kid brother Garrett years before, Mike uses his dreams to relive the experience and find new clues. It his attempt to fix the sins of the past, but the drawn-out sequences drag the movie down. Ditto a subplot involving Mike and Abby’s nasty Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). Both take valuable screen time away from the main attraction, and that is Abby—Rubio is especially effective as the open-hearted youngster—and her relationship with the creepy mascots. Abby has a connection with them, and also, perhaps, a connection to the abduction of Garrett. That’s where the action is, not in the dreary flashback dream sequences.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is being billed as a horror film, but other than a few jump scares, there isn’t much here to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Instead, it’s generically atmospheric with little-to-no actual fear factor.

THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER: 2 STARS. “all the shock value of AAA battery.”

Fifty years after its release, William Friedkin’s horror classic “The Exorcist” is still scary enough to frighten the twists out of your Twizzlers. The story of a 12-year-old girl, possessed by the Devil, and her mother Chris MacNeil’s attempt to rescue her through an exorcism, inspired nightmares and even reports of audiences becoming physically ill at screenings.

The four sequels spawned by the success of the original, not so much.

Coming back for another shout at the Devil is “The Exorcist: Believer,” the sixth installment in “The Exorcist” franchise.

The spirited new film, a direct sequel to the original, sees single father Victor Fielding (Tony winner and Oscar nominee Leslie Odom, Jr) raising daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett) after the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago.

When Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) disappear for three days, they come back changed, with no memory of what happened to them.

“Wherever those girls went,” says Katherine’s father Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), “they brought back something with them.”

Victor believes they are possessed by the Devil, and, in desperation, seeks help from someone who has been there, done that.

“You have some experience with possession?” Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the mother who battled the Devil in the original film, is asked.

“Yes,” she replies, “more than I’d like.”

MacNeil understands the devilish happenings, and thinks she knows how to help. “Exorcism is a ritual,” she says. “Every culture, every religion, they all use different methods. It’s going to take all of them.”

Did the Devil make director David Gordon Green do it? That might be the only way to explain the hellishly dull experience of watching “The Exorcist: Believer.”

The movie begins with promise as Green sets up the story and a sense of foreboding, only to have it go all to heck once Angela and Katherine come back from the woods worse for the wear and tear.

From that point on, “The Exorcist: Believer” is a soulless collection of William Friedkin’s greatest hits. The inverted crosses, bloated faces, waggling tongues and spinning heads had real shock value 50 years ago when “The Exorcist” traumatized a generation of moviegoers, but today they are cliches with the shock value of AAA battery.

So, instead of terror, we’re given jump scares. Instead of the ultimate good vs. evil showdown, we’re treated to a mish mash of overlapping theological blather that makes very little sense. The Devil, Green seems to suggest, can be defeated by community but the exploration of faith that made Friedkin’s film a classic is nowhere to be seen.

Burstyn provides franchise continuity, but little else. She’s brought in as an expert of exorcisms, but isn’t given much to do other than serve as a touchstone to a different, better film.

If you go see “The Exorcist: Believer” you may have a hard time believing what a mess they made of it.

THE BOOGEYMAN: 3 ½ STARS. “effective slow-burn tale of terror.”

The Boogeyman may be the most prevalent and terrifying creature to haunt the night. With no specific appearance, the Boogeyman can be anyone or anything that hides in the dark recesses of your mind, or under your bed.

In the new horror film, “The Boogeyman,” based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name from the 1978 anthology “Night Shift,” and now playing in theatres, the titular character is a murderous, malevolent force who feeds off grief.

The movie focusses on 16-year-old Sadie (“Yellowjackets” star Sophie Thatcher) and younger sister Sawyer Harper (Vivien Lyra Blair), both still smarting from the tragic death of the mother. Their father, therapist Will (Chris Messina), is so consumed by his own grief he is unable to provide the support his daughters need.

When Lester (David Dastmalchian), a disturbed man who claims that someone or something killed his children, shows up at their home, desperate for help, he unwittingly brings with him a dangerous entity that feasts on their anguish.

At first Sadie and Sawyer’s fear of this mysterious presence is brushed off as a “manifestation” of their imaginations. “When there are scary things we don’t understand,” says Dr. Weller (LisaGay Hamilton), “our minds try and fill in the blanks.”

As the terror continues, however, Will begins to take the danger seriously, as Sadie seeks ways to neutralize the threat.

“The Boogeyman” is another entry in the low light horror movie sweepstakes. Director Rob Savage keeps the aperture turned down, shooting in most scenes in the near dark, which is a perfect incubator for horror, but begs the question, “If the boogeyman only comes in the dark, why not turn on the lights?”

That quibble aside, “The Boogeyman” is an effective slow-burn tale of terror. It takes its time with the scares, introducing jump scares and slamming doors early on, building anxiety and tension, before getting face-to-face with the face of evil.

The monster itself is nothing much special, but the idea of it is the stuff of nightmares. A creature that feeds off you at your lowest point, that “likes to play with its food” to “scare them until they’re done,” is something that can burrow its way deep into your subconscious. It is at the center of the film, but Savage opts for jump scares over the psychological, blunting some of the story’s true emotional horror.

Having said that, the relationship between the two sisters ups the ante as Sadie risks it all to protect her younger sibling.

“The Boogeyman” is more anxiety inducing than actually scary, but it is an interesting take on grief, and how sometimes you have to put the past behind you to move forward.

THE BLACK PHONE: 4 STARS. “an unsettling horror thriller that doesn’t rely on gore.”

Ethan Hawke appears to have entered the bad guy phase of his movie career. After a popular turn as religious zealot and cult leader Arthur Harrow on Disney+’s “Moon Knight,” he returns to haunt your dreams as a masked serial killer nicknamed The Grabber in “The Black Phone,” now playing in theatres.

Adapted from a short story of the same name by acclaimed author, and Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, and set in 1978, “The Black Phone” centers on shy baseball pitcher Finney (Mason Thames, who resembles a teen Patrick Swayze).

Bullied at school and ostracized by his classmates, things aren’t much better at home where his abusive, alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies) doesn’t seem to have a clue how to be a parent to him or his potty-mouthed sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw).

In town, kids are disappearing, lured away by The Grabber, a serial killer who approaches his prey dressed as a macabre children’s entertainer and a question. “Wanna see a magic trick?”

Finney becomes the sixth victim when The Grabber knocks him unconscious and whisks the boy away to a soundproof basement with an antique black phone on the wall. Although disconnected, Finney soon discovers he can communicate with The Grabber’s previous victims on the phone. In the dungeon the voices of the dead attempt to help him escape, while sister Gwen looks for clues in a series of very vivid psychic dreams. “Please, please,” she says, “let the dreams be true.”

“The Black Phone” is an intense, efficiently told horror story of captivity, dread and friendship. Finney spends most of the film trapped in the Grabber’s basement, relying on ingenuity, a little help from some otherworldly entities and an untapped reserve of courage to survive.

The creepy supernatural element aside, it’s the real-life terror of the very earthbound Grabber that shocks. With no motive other than satisfying is own twisted desires, he is the specter of mindless malevolence. Hawke, performing through a mask for 99.9% of the film, projects pure evil. Most of his dialogue might sound almost innocent on the page, but add a high-pitched affectation and expert delivery, and a line like, “I will never make you do anything you won’t like,” becomes, “I will never make you do anything you won’t… like.” That pause is where the menace is, and Hawke plays those goose-bump raising moments beautifully.

Thames hands in an authentic and resource performance, but it is McGraw as the firebrand Gwen who steals the show. She wouldn’t have been out of place in any number of 80s Amblin flicks. She s resilient, has a way with a cuss word and brings the heart and soul to her dysfunctional family unit.

Director Scott Derrickson faithfully recreates an inviting 1970s backdrop, painted with a mix of teen concerns, like bullies and the cute girl in lab class, edged with a darker, more violent hue. It may have been a simpler time, but Derrickson isn’t all about nostalgia. You might still get beaten up on the way home from school, or worse. It feels authentic, and when the real horror enters the picture, it hits hard.

“The Black Phone” is an unsettling horror thriller that doesn’t rely on gore, just heaps of tension, suspense, atmospherics and fright that doesn’t rely on a supernatural entity to terrify.

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT: 3 ½ STARS. “unlikely horror heroes.”

Eight movies into “The Conjuring” franchise the ghostbusting Warrens, Ed and Lorraine, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, face their most daunting adversary yet. They’ve battled evil in the form of haunted houses, supernatural spirits and a nasty doll named Annabelle, but in “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” now playing in theatres, the married demonologists investigate a murder and a suspect who claims the devil made him do it.

Set in 1981 Connecticut, “The Devil Made Me Do It” is based on the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, the first case to attempt a defense claim of demonic possession.

The movie begins with a priest and the Warrens performing an exorcism on eight-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard) that would give Regan MacNeil a run for her money. As all hell breaks loose, the demon leaves the youngster’s body and, after Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), the boyfriend of David’s sister taunts it, takes control of the older man. “Leave him alone!” Arne says to the demon. “He’s just a little boy you coward! Leave him alone and take me!”

Soon Arne’s behaviour changes and when he stabs his landlord twenty-two times, the Warrens set out to prove he is not guilty by reason of demonic possession. “The court accepts the existence of God every time a witness swears to tell the truth,” Ed says. “I think it’s about time they accept the existence of the Devil.”

When Arne is charged in a Death penalty case, the Warrens spring into action to prove his innocence. “We won’t let him down,” Ed says. As the couple work to discover what is real and what is not, the case presents ever increasing personal danger.

“The Devil Made Me Do It” is more a procedural prompted by Arne’s actions than Arne’s story. He disappears for forty-five minutes or so as the Warrens decipher the mystery surrounding his crime. Director Michael Chaves keeps up the atmosphere of dread with a series of well-executed lighting effects, jump scares and eerie sound cues but, while he delivers some shocks, he knows that the real reason the “Conjuring” movies work is the relationship between Wilson and Farmiga. As the Warrens they are the earthbound anchor who add humanity to the supernatural goings on.

Sure, there is a devilish waterbed—anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s already knew waterbeds were bad, but the movie makes a convincing case for them as evil as well—and lots of Satanic Panic, but “The Devil Made Me Do It” isn’t all pentagrams and inverted crosses. It flags in the midsection, but by the time the end credits roll the relationship between the demon hunters is front and centre, a testament to the power of love. It may be a cliché but it adds some light to the film’s dark elements and gives Wilson and Farmiga some nice character-building moments.

The Warrens are unlikely horror heroes, but “The Devil Made Me Do It” proves you don’t have to be creepy to deliver the thrills.

IT: CHAPTER TWO: 2 STARS. “Pennywise’s red balloon has finally popped.”   

The first instalment of “It,” Stephen King’s scary clown epic, was about overcoming fears. Specifically, the shape-shifting Pennywise the Dancing Clown a.k.a. It (Bill Skarsgård), the manifestation of all the character’s fears. The new film, inventively titled “It: Chapter Two,” is about resilience, about sticking your neck out for your friends.

The new one is set in 2016, twenty-seven years after the preteen Loser’s Club battled Pennywise in his sewers lair and kept the town of Derry, Maine safe from the child gobbling monster. Now, the childhood friends have gone their separate ways. Loser’s leader Bill (James McAvoy) is now a successful mystery novelist. Sexual abuse survivor Beverly (Jessica Chastain) went on to become a fashion designer, while Ben (Jay Ryan), the overweight, bullied kid is now an architect living in Nebraska and loud-mouth Richie (Bill Hader) is a DJ in Los Angeles. Other members fled town as well. Hypochondriac Eddie (James Ransone) runs a NYC limousine company and Stanley (Andy Bean) is now an Atlanta-based accountant.

Only Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) stayed in Derry. Traumatized by the events of his youth he battles a substance abuse problem but stays on top of Pennyworth’s existence by sleeping next to a police scanner. “Something happens when you leave this town,” says Mike. “The farther away, the hazier it all gets. But me, I never left. I remember all of it.” When trouble in the form of a clown comes back to town Mike summons the others Losers to come back home to conquer their fears, bond together and do battle with their old foe. “Did you miss me?” taunts Pennywise. “No one wants to play with me anymore.”

At almost three hours “It: Chapter Two” is an overindulgent mish mash, part horror, a splash of comedy and heaping helping of pop psychology. Oh, and a clown. To say the movie takes it’s time is an understatement along the lines of suggesting Pennnywise floss more often. It almost feels like you’re binging several episodes of a serialized version of the story without the benefit of being able to switch channels when the going gets repetitive.

And it gets repetitive. We are endlessly reminded of the character’s childhood traumas, told of Pennywise’s evil and if someone said to me, “We’ve got to stick together,” as many times Bill says it here, I would make a run for it and never look back. The movie says it best when Ritchie exasperatedly says, “We’re caught up, OK!” over an hour in, and yet the exposition and repetition continues.

There are several striking nightmarish images and Hader provides some much-needed comic relief but it feels as though director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman regarded King’s novel as some sort of sacred text and where unable to stray from the written word. One of the enjoyable things about King’s novels are there world building, his attention to detail and skill for weaving mythology into real(ish) world situations. The best adaptations of his work carefully parse these elements to boil down the essence of the story. “It: Chapter Two” does not make the effort. Instead it laboriously recreates the novel, frills and all. It may have worked in print but here it feels the running gag about Bill’s inability to properly end his stories has come to life, manifesting itself in the CGI heavy climax and the extended coda.

In this sequel Pennywise’s red balloon has finally popped.

ANNABELLE COMES HOME: 3 ½ STARS. “will leave you queasy and uneasy.”

Toys rule at the box office these days. “Toy Story 4” and “Child’s Play” made big bank last weekend. This week marks the return of Annabelle, the $1 billion devil dolly. The wickedest toy since Chucky she’s the creepy, glassy-eyed star of “The Conjuring” prequels.

On screen Annabelle, an old-fashioned doll possessed by evil spirits, has raised all manner of havoc. Before she was captured by “self-described “demonologists, ghost hunters and kooks” Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) she terrorized orphans and haunted children. “The doll,” says Lorraine, “is a beacon for other spirits.”

To keep the world safe from the demonic doll the Warrens stored her in a glass box at their Occult Museum (a basement that looks like a prop warehouse run by Bella Lugosi) in Connecticut. There she is controlled by chapel glass from an old church blessed by a priest to prevent her from causing any more trouble. But what happens if the spell wears off?

In “Annabelle Comes Home” a babysitter’s (Madison Iseman) snooping friend (Katie Sarife) upsets the spiritual balance of the museum, allowing the artefacts to do what they’re meant to do, cause trouble. Now everyone in the house, including the Warrens’ ten-year-old daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace), is a target of evil. “Annabelle. She’s doing all this,” says Judy. “She wants a soul today.”

As with all other “Conjuring” universe movies “Annabelle Come Home” takes its sweet time building an atmosphere of dread to leave you queasy and uneasy. For much of the running time the weirdest thing that happens is an invisible, ghostly hand breaking a glass of milk and starting the stereo. There are jump scares but they don’t deliver much of a payoff. Nothing is singularly shocking, it’s more the cumulative effect of evil versus innocence that disturbs. Director Gary Dauberman knows that the long game, the gradual reveal of evil, complete with the old-school now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t-theatrics, is creepier than overt scares.

“Annabelle Comes Home” works because it creates a mini universe with its own set of rules and God help you if you break them. Best of all it’s an old-fashioned film that doesn’t rely on gore to sell the thrills. Instead there’s lots of laboured breathing, wide eyed disbelief, low-fi drive-in thrills and characters you want to survive.