Gingersnaps 2

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Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed follows the story of Brigitte from the first movie Ginger Snaps, who, after killing her werewolf sister Ginger, starts becoming a wolf herself. In the second movie, she doses herself with the antidote that she has discovered in the first movie. However, she ends up in a drug rehab center that is also a facility for chronic patients, and apparently, a home for young children. She met Ghost, a burn victim who also lives there. They escaped together. In the end of the crazy movie, Brigitte fully becomes a werewolf.

The film contains a lot of gruesome violence, drug use, and sexual situations. Some characters like Tyler and Alice were killed in a very violent way. When the other werewolf pursued Brigitte, many brutal scenes followed. These characteristics do not usually appear on horror movies that I normally watch. So it horrifies me in a distasteful manner that the movie is full of these things.

The genre of feminism might not have been prominent in horror films, but Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed intensifies the feminism conveyed in the first movie. Viewers see that most of the characters are women, Ginger, Brigitte, Ghost, Barabara, Beth-Ann, Alice, etc. Also, there was a scene where Tyler asked Brigitte to have sexual encounters in exchange to the drugs that treats her. Brigitte refused; this is a form of women empowerment. Another incident is when Brigitte stabs the werewolf when it attempted to get her. Women are also depicted here as monsters, first was Ginger, now it’s Brigitte. Having a monstrous identity gives women a higher status than men. This gives them the privilege to act superior than men, just like what was shown in the movie.

The film do not really caught my attention in terms of quality. Yes, it is full of mysteries, but full of satire. The first movie was less satiric than the second one. For me, this kind of horror film is weird because why does it have to be sexually inclined. But then, this made me realize that horror films are not just about scaring people with ghosts, but also showing the horror of humanity that humans can act monstrously, like how Ghost acted towards Brigitte and other characters. Horror film have a wide variety, it may be about ghosts, monsters, insane people, cult, etc. Each person has his/her own taste in movies, and for me, movies with gruesome violence are too harsh to take. It is so horrifying to know that people do really have very wide imaginations.

 

Grace

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Grace

This is probably the most unsettling in the worst unlikeable sense possible.

The movie didn’t quite reach to me or did not may an impact. It went along very dragging in most parts of the movie, divided into segments and hard to understand motives in scenarios such as the old woman suddenly grabs the crotch of her husband while sleeping and the husband then sucks on her breasts. The movie was poorly directed and planned in my opinion. There were a lot of moments for me of not looking at the screen anymore because finding sense in the plot and “turning events” were just almost impossible to understand and appreciate. There were also a lot of things in the movie that were just pure disturbing and disgusting and not in the horror-movie sense.

I didn’t like this movie at all. The movie was really dragging because it had a lot of segments that had to sense to me at all on how it contributed to the plot of the movie.

The reason, also, that I cannot write something long about this is because of the fact that it was not memorable and I really think that it failed to touch the audience with authentic scare and blood & gore with sense.

Pontypool

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Pontypool is one of those claustrophobic movies which I am a fan of in certain kinds of movie themes. It started with Grant driving along a dark road, I think at early at dawn, and encountering a troubled woman calling for help. This part of the movie created a glimpse for me of what was to be expected later in the film. The movie’s setting was all the way sun-less , very dark and gloomy all throughout the film.

The film was the kind of movie of being trapped and being outnumbered by infected beings or zombies and in the case of Pontypool the cause is very strange and unique.

Grant starts doing his normal routine, which is gruff-country radio voice, but clearly bothered by what he encountered. They later heard the news afterwards that there was a going on epidemic not very far from where they stationed. The stress and tense of the characters connected to me, suspensed of what is set to happen, impatiently waiting and hoping for the “best” ; a satisfying, bloody, haunting of the living dead, preying on the helpless.

Though Pontypool was not exactly what I expected, it had its own unique concept of portraying horror with the hunting of zombies. It wasn’t usual cliché kind. The ones where the virus is spread through bites and infection. This movie, stood out and exhibited something out of the usual and with outstanding creativity. Though the concept of “infecting” passed on through words specifically the English language. It was kind of strange, but I really liked it simply because it was unique and clearly well thought of.

As they sit there, idle and lost of what to do in that kind of situation, the young girl, Laurel-Ann gets out of control with herself and starts to act crazy while bumping her head against walls and mirrors. She then later puked a huge amount of blood before falling down dead. I guess she died because the infecting words in her was failed to be passed on to other people.

Pontypool required the audience a lot of thinking and observation. There were parts of it that left me confused such as the phrase “Sydney Briar is alive” said to be repeated all over and over in the radio, broadcasted everywhere. Also, the “kill now means kiss” and the things one of the characters wrote. However, these aspects of the movie did not turn me off.

I can say that I like Pontypool because it was the horror of zombie haunting the minority trapped in a small area but the plot of the movie was a bit short for me leaving me wanting more. I also liked the fact that the movie seemed to be created by a genius and was not afraid to step out of the usual virus infecting zombie movies.

The movie always left me hanging for answers and sparking my curiosity and it also ended that way especially when Grant and the other woman appeared in black in white, high contrast as if it came from a different action movie.

May

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May

The move May is one of the movies that will make you feel that you want to clean yourself after watching. May gave me the cringe as well as the laughter and sympathy for the main character.

The movie starts of with foreshadowing what is to happen at the end of the movie when May as a little girl observes her lazy eye at a mirror and then suddenly we are shown her present self stabbing her lazy eye then back at the young may. I knew this movie has something dark and crazy that will go along with it prior to the plot.

May was a very unusual person, shaped the way she is since her childhood of not having anyone at all to be with her and being friendless at school.

When the infamous plot setter, the doll, given to her by her mom, in which its box is written “if you don’t have any friends, make one”, was very weird and creepy enough. Also the way the doll looked was a clear giveaway that it is hiding something unwanted and evil.

She grew up very weird and just plain odd even as a woman. May had these weird fetishes for bodyparts; hands, feet, ears etc although she looks very charming, innocent cute girl on the outside.

Her awkward personality was weird enough but the presence of her weird fetishes and homosexual tendencies made it much more uncanny.

I guess this is just how she is and us audience accepted her that way but what comes after when May does not get what she wants still even after teenage years? May starts to kill people who neglects her for being “her” . This is when things gets weird and disgusting because of he gore and blood involved done by her suppressed for years,mixed and radical emotions in approaching things.

The movie was really difficult to watch especially when it came towards the end. A new level of morbid and gruesome is shown when she kills the punk guy, and all the other people surrounding her and putting and stitching all the body parts together was just plain sick. Sick yet genius because of that it brought back the audience to our first part of the movie to the quote written on the doll’s box “to make a friend” . Yet despite these horrific things, i still can feel sympathy for such person. A person who is disliked by society because of her lazy eye and now developed into something more unacceptable. I can’t help but to feel sorry for her because she was not in control of how she was raised and how society influenced her process of maturity.

I think the movie was still creatively made and very well thought of and also “cute” only to some extent  although there were parts of it that were a bit dragging, may is still one of the horror movies that scare, not us, but our stomachs and appetite away.

The Inn Keepers

 

                                                The Inn Keepers

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The movie The Inn Keepers may have just a small setting which is just a small Inn or motel but has what it takes to capture the audiences liking. At first the movie wasn’t all what I expected. I expected an utterly old motel filled with ghosts’ haunting kind of recipe in it but as the movie unfolds it packed not just what was mentioned but also comedy, tragedy and the feeling of dismay for the audience as the ever so innocent, young, teenage blonde girl hotel employee dies.

First the comedy in this film is seen especially with the male employee. A possible drunkard geek who doesn’t do his job at the hotel at all. He just sits there infront of the computer, does not mind the guests and also he has his own part of being scared where we all laugh at. He also appeared a brave “professional” or someone used to all the supernatural happenings inside the hotel but soon exposed as a big lie and a coward. For the girl, we laugh at her innocence, (when they were drunk and the guy thought they were both going to have a good time together but what the girl thinking was go on a ghost haunting) and more. The movie showed comedy in a very unusual manner another one it was set for us to think that the old man was a ghost especially when he suddenly disappeared and when the old lady (well for me) appeared to be someone who practices devil rituals or may have caused more hauntings in the hotel. The movie did a great job turning our prejudices of the characters and played with our thoughts and made us think. This made me more into the film and having more of the feeling of being a part of it.
I liked the movie The Inn Keepers because it portrayed the kind of horror I am looking for in a horror movie. Though I still find the amount and quality of scaring in the movie was not sufficient and I believe it could’ve been better if it had more, it still had its own style of mixing the feelings of the audiences. For some reason, the movie somehow though supposedly set at a present time, had a sense that it took me back in time especially when I got curious about the story and the past of the old man in the building and also the story and the happenings of the building itself

The movie ended with the feeling of loss and the feeling of depression when an innocent, cheerful, charming, young teenage blond girl suddenly dies as tragedy struck. Though it is still confusing for me what actually killed the girl, by asthma attack or some supernatural shock attack caused by the actual ghost, I think this is a very unique style of capturing the audience’s attention even after the movie. It makes us think if it was just their imaginations or an actual haunting.

Martyrs

Martyrs

The movie Martyrs started out as something creepy. There’s a little girl named Lucie, who experienced torture that was being haunted and hurt by a monster. Viewers will easily interpret the film as a suspense horror type. As the story progresses, however, there is a sudden plot twist. From a suspense type, the film becomes a gruesome and cruel when the tortured little girl, after fifteen years, finds the home of the people who tortured her then ends up killing her torturers as well as the children

It was a bit confusing at first because viewers may interpret the said character as mentally ill. She has a friend that has been with her since the day she was rescued, Anna. Until now her friend is helping her in her pursuit of finding the people who made her suffer. After Lucie murdered the whole family, Anna went there to check Lucie and what she has done. She thought that Lucie was just insane and has killed innocent people. Anna also saw that there was really no monster that haunts and tortures Lucie. It was just herself. Lucie eventually committed suicide.

The major plot twist is when Anna discovered that Lucie was right. Under the house, there is an underground “torture place”. She tried to rescue the woman who is suffering from torture. The leader of the group that has been torturing people for years caught her and told her the information about the “martyrs”. Viewers then now realize that this is not a suspense horror movie. It is about the pursuit of the knowledge of an afterlife. The group believes that in experiencing severe suffering, people may experience the afterworld. This explains why they have been torturing numerous people for years. It was also explained why Lucie sees a monster, it was an effect of the suffering she has experienced years ago. Anna became the new recruit and she was the very first successful experiment that has spoken a testimony about the afterlife.

The film is a mixture of science and religion. People have been experimenting on people to know if there is an afterlife. We can say that it was done for “a good purpose” that can contribute to human knowledge and humankind but it was done in the most brutal way possible.

I liked the film not because of the slashing, the blood and the dead, but because it was very technically made and very creative. It played with my feelings, whether I should hate those who put up this chamber underground or appreciate them for this very “special” contribution to science. Also whether I should pity Anna or be proud at her perseverance and strong heart knowing she was the first to pass all the 5 levels of the test. The film was not only the horror movie out to scare but it also sparked curiosity and deep thinking for the audience about their concern. It was a very meaningful horror movie to say the least. It connected brutal torture scientifically with probably the biggest question of human’s “Is there life after death?”

EVIL DEAD

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Though I have no means to compare this Evil Dead movie with the original Evil dead which they say was better in most aspects, This Evil Dead by itself was overall fair and “the usual”

Evil Dead remade for me is only as good as its character’s acting. I personally found the movie plain and blunt with the way the characters act out their roles. I didn’t find as much color and it was just difficult for me to connect with the feelings of the characters of the movie in that situation. It was set in just a small log-house deep inside some forest. A group of friends decided to take theirs friend’s sister who had drug addiction issues away with them to help her get life straight.

The start of the movie was really terrifying. It was spectacular, and just freakily amazing in a horror sense, seeing the odd faces of the people of mixed ages doing some anti-witch/ evil rituals to kill the tied devil who we all presumed at first was a victim of a human sacrifice until she curses her own father. That part had me expecting a similar feature from the movie but for me most of it didn’t go according to how it started

However, setting that aside, the effects : blood, dismembering effects and brutality that were clearly seen was a positive aspect of the film. There was, again, a protagonist domination to the wicked, the evil in the movie who happens to be their friends who were possessed by the old witch’s spirit burnt and killed in the basement of the house.

I can also say that Evil dead, though it seemed like a low budget film, it had me always wondering what will come next. And what happened last was the very unexpected; the “main” protagonist dead and his sister the first body to be possessed by evil and the one who contributes to the cause of all the disasters turns out to be the only one who survives it all after being attempted to be revived by some do it yourself heart restarter or whatever you call it. When she woke up from death, I was scared for the guy because that girl could not be trusted anymore because of the possessing devil that fooled the people just like in the introduction of the movie, when the devil witch asked her father what he was doing to her, Now, the younger sister asking for mercy whenever she was trapped somewhere in the house. She just couldn’t be trusted

In summary of my review for this movie, I liked all the nail shooting weapons, I cringed at the tongue being sliced by the blade, syringe piercing the eye but this movie almost had me chuckling because of the way the characters think on how to approach such situations. Well I guess the partner of almost every horror movie is characters’ stupidity ( not bravery ) well for the sake of something to happen that is why they have to sacrifice themselves and continue to go down there alone (don’t open that evil looking book) despite us shouting to them not to.

[•REC]

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REC

From the title itself, the movie did a very creative job since this movie had everything to do with a camera, it was a very unique style of a horror film since it made us felt that it was us she is directing and leading. It was really exciting to be more of a follow than a viewer and it also appeared to be very interactive with the audience

Rec is probably one of the better horror movies I have watched in this class. Like any movie, however, it has its good and it also has its bad. First, the good about this movie is it somehow managed to satisfy my horror film expectations: small building, trapped, zombies inside, you’re dead kind of suspense and Rec showed it all. The movie stars a very youthful young cute Spanish girl reporter taking an interview tour inside a fire station. It starts out calmly with her cameraman filming it all. I liked the concept of Rec because it was almost close to real and very convincing that it was an actual news report. The acting of the main character was great. The manner how she act on and off camera somehow made the audience closer to believing that this was a real thing since she can act very natural when the camera was off.

The movie was a bit dragging before they went into the ground zero of the incident reported but it all paid off because of the suspense and excitement I felt when they entered the apartment building. The emotions and character portrayal of the people inside was very good even the old lady who was the first victim of the disease.

As they made their way to the rooms, I could feel goosebumps and my heart beating faster and faster as they saw the old lady.

I felt affected on the death of the main character, the girl reporter, well because she seemed so innocent and new to the work. She was also there infront of the camera, literally most of the movie, that acted as our tour guide within the whole film. She points to us where to look and where to go

Rec did a very good job in teleporting the audience right into the film and feeling the atmosphere of the setting and the situation

Rec was A very good horror film that successfully did its job as a horror film and also had a slight mix of comedy and that sense of dominance of the uninfected to the infected that gave me satisfaction seeing them shooting and punching the infected victims which is always followed by a good laugh or a chuckle atleast.

Rec’s “bad” side is only that it was spoken in Spanish and I had to move my head to see and read the subtitles. Also, another thing is that it was set in a very small building but this also had its benefits. Other than the two not so good parts of Rec, the movie was very good and I really enjoyed watching it.

Let The Right One In

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The film Let The Right One In had a very gloomy, cold mood in a very quiet town. It revolves around the life of a frail looking defenseless awkward boy who gets bullied in school and finds his own ways to release his stress and anger. The film starts with the murmurs “squeal like a pig!” which he reenacts the school bully’s words when he (oskar) is being taunted. The boy seems to have difficulties coping up to get that sense of acceptance, affection and understanding which he does not get at home with is mom who is divorced from her husband. Oskar, often times, spends moments outside the snow reenacting and sometimes just playing with his rubiks cube when he meets a newly transferred “girl” nextdoor.

Starting from this point, I knew there was something strange going on when the girl said that they cannot be friends and there is no reason why, she claims. She also appeared to be freeze-proof and she explained that she just forgot how to feel cold. This was somehow ironic in a figurative sense since she later then presented herself to be the cold blooded killer/mastermind in the town or neighborhood. I think this was more of saying that she really had no feelings whatsoever then, whether it was physical or emotional.

I enjoyed the movie but I still found it a weird horror movie because not only it was horror, it also appeared to be somehow a child romantic movie that exhibits unconditional acceptance of children (found in Oskar and Eli) when Oskar soon later found out about the reality of being of his friend Eli and when he was ready to accept her even if she wasn’t a “girl”. Eli also became stronger than her vampire instincts and learned to have affection and love for Oskar when she became not only his friend but his girlfriend and protector.

The film by itself is morbid, gory and just plain weird. It pretty much sums up a bloody movie and a normal (maybe not so normal) life of a pre-teen boy who at a young age may not have sexual desires but just sexual curiousity. Another odd thing about this movie, considering it is foreign made (Swedish), is that they shown the private parts of the “girl” Eli but this was to show the castration scar a vampire did to Eli. This is moving for the audience because we are left with an unanswered thought, whether Eli was not a girl because she was not a normal girl but a vampire, or a boy whose genitals have been cut off by some vampire in the past which makes us a lot more curious about the film and with Eli specifically the story behind him/her.

DEADGIRL

DEADGIRL

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One may say that deadgirl is a very tasteless kind of horror film with a very grotesque and politically incorrect concept. The movie poster of the film is a teaser of what is all coming up in the film. The poster shows the lips of a woman sideways and at the first glance, it can undoubtedly be perceived as a vagina rather than a mouth. And added to all the hints of what its going to be like, is the very obvious title itself a “dead girl”

The movie starts of with two young teenagers, typical, life-curious, immature punks whose main goal in life is probably, girls, drugs, alcohol, and rock and roll. Out of their wandering inside an abandoned hospital, they encountered a very strange creature tied down naked and wrapped in plastic inside the underground of the building.

My first expectation of this movie was that it was going to go similarly with the flow of Gingersnaps since it also had to do with teenagers who were out to explore stuff. I also expected a very “ghost-haunting” experience in this film since it showed an abandoned hospital.

Deadgirl eventually revealed to me as what it is, a very disturbing, gross, and freaky kind of horror film. Though personally I didn’t get scared in this movie, I somehow still managed to connect with the characters and had a sense of what they probably felt in the events of the movie.

Two nobodies. One gains “power” and dominance over a what seemed like a sick science experiment done in that hospital or a failed procedure done to a girl monster who was just tied up underground because they couldn’t handle her strength. And another boy trying to be the hero of it all but ends up falling into temptation when it was his longtime, lust-crush who was then the “dead girl”

Personally, I didn’t really enjoy the movie, I feel that it was poorly directed and thought of. I felt that it was one of those “Are you afraid of the dark” kids’ series shows (well, minus the naked woman and the raping). I think that Deadgirl had a very shallow plot and story and setting. Having ghosts and hauntings and killings is unusual but having a super strong “dead”girl-monster tied up being raped is a lot more absurd However, I liked the thrill and suspense I felt as the movie unfolds with uncertainty of what is to come. There was this feeling of regret and dismay for the protagonist when he finally gives into his lustful temptations and disgregarding everything moral he has done to save the “deadgirl” from his friends.