Been doing nothing much outside of watching free movies On Demand lately...
...
The Gravedancers
I came into this movie with VERY low expectations. I'm generally not a fan of supernatural films (unless their done
really well; it's just a genre of horror that I find difficult to suspend my disbelief in), but I was pleasantly surprised with the beginning of this movie. Though obviously low budget with some struggling actors, I thought that it created suspense nicely in the first two thirds of the film. However, toward the end the super natural beings began to grow into a more corporeal state to the point of being just... silly.
Not a
bad movie, but not amazing.
2.5/5
...
Wicked Little Things
Again, I went into this film with exceedingly low expectations, but would up actually fairly impressed. There's definitely suspenseful moments with a decent story and some pretty creepy-looking big bads. Also some really impressing performances overall (the main characters are a mother and two daughters; the relationship on screen was believable and touching).
Decent little horror flick. Perfect to sport in a Horrorfest and, I have to say, overall After Dark Horrorfest 2006 was, as a whole, better than Horrorfest 2007.
3/5
...
The People Under The Stairs
Wow.
Spider Baby meets
Do the Right Thing. Two years after Spike Lee's indie masterpiece chronicling racial tensions in Brooklyn, Wes Craven decides to take
his hand at portraying racial and socioeconomic tensions - in a horror movie.
Ok. I get it. I think that, at the time (1991) the allegory for class divides between the "ghettos" and the suburbs was probably a bit more poignant.
However, taken out of context, I found the metaphor played up racial stereotypes that I found unintentionally offensive and obtuse.
That and I
HATED the fact that our Victim-turned-Hero (I GET it - boy's coming-of-age blah blah blah) was a 13-year-old was silly, unnecessary, unbelievable, and ultimately
annoying.
That being said, the pulp elements of this film were absolutely incredible; what it did right, it did AMAZINGLY right, from a gimp-suit-clad Big Bad with a shotgun to the actual
people under the stairs. Call me a cheap thrill seeker - FINE. I don't need Wes Craven to preach social hierarchies to me. He's preaching to the choir. Just give me my damn horror (oh, wait,
I get it now - WE'RE THE HORROR............
sigh). Rob Zombie did it better in
House of a Thousand Corpses.
3/5