The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

2/20/2015

KINGSMAN is a movie about a secret spy service that operates under the radar and recruits through a uber-competative competition and training program.

Eggsy is a street kid who's father had been training to become an operative with the Kingsmen when he was killed. Eggsy grew up to become an honest but mischievous thief. His mother is now living with an abusive man who beats her and doesn't care for his stepson, and Eggsy feels the responsibility for keeping his mother and his little sister safe, even though he doesn't really know how to take care of himself. After a few problems with a stepbrother he lands himself a night in jail. He pulls in a favor and meets Harry Hart once again.

Harry Hart is a member of the Kingsman and he is the one who went to inform young Eggsy and his mother about the death of his father. After one of their members is brutally murdered, Hart and the other members bring their recruits to train to take the place of their fallen comrade. Eggsy does well but his sense of justice ends up getting the best of him.

Samuel L. Jackson plays the wonderfully delightful villain, Valentine, a man on a mission for domination and power. His ideas are of course insane, but after listening to him they actually make some amount of sense. Valentine hates blood, loves violence, but only when other people do it, and can't wait for his project to begin.

This movie was fun, full of action, and really quite delightful. I was expecting a James Bond type of tough-in-cheek action movie, and I got much more than that. The characters were all pretty well developed and there were parts of the movie that were incredibly humorous. The dialogue was fun and the banter was entertaining. There were many unexpected moments in the movie and it was just fun to watch. I seriously recommend this movie for anyone looking for something good to watch (and it's not even a horror movie).

Movie Review - THE PACT

2/20/2015

THE PACT is about a young woman who is trying to realign her past with her present after her mother has died. Her sister, Nichole, begs her to come to their mother's house to help sort through things and get the house ready to sell, but Annie refuses, not wanting to return to a house that haunts her. Unfortunately for Annie, Nichole disappears and she must return to the town she grew up and to her mothers house to handle things and hopefully find her sister.

Once Annie returns to her childhood home she because haunted by the things that happened there when she was young and she finds that there is a presence that is willing to terrorize her to either harm her or get her out of the house. After a night of frightening drama with her niece, and the disappearance of her cousin Liz, Annie knows that there is something in the house, something both frightening and terrible.

Annie seeks the help of a young woman she knew in High School named Stevie. Stevie has the gift of sight and can see ghosts and the past. Stevie enters the house not feeling much but finds horror that she doesn't elaborate on but feels sorry for. In the end Annie learns of a dark family secret and finally learns to hold her own.

I was hoping this movie would be a haunted house movie that would scare me, unfortunately it didn't. The tricks it used have been used before in many movies, and the situations of Annie's past were not developed. In the movie the audience is told that she had some sort of bad childhood but it is never elaborated on so the audience never really understands why they should be sympathetic towards her. The situation in the "haunted" house is never fully explained either. No one really explains why the house is haunted or who is really haunting it, plus the big bad evil is not what was expected and it was a little cliche.

This story has been told before. I wanted a new ghost story. Also the title "the pact" I didn't understand why this movie was titled that. It wasn't referenced in the movie and there was no "pact" between any of the characters unless it was an unspoken pact that the audience was just supposed to accept.

I didn't care for this one. It didn't leave much to the imagination, nor did it scare me. It was just blah.

February 17th, 2015

2/17/2015

I watched two movies today but neither of them were very good, in fact I don't want anyone to watch either of them.

The first movie was titled THE SHRINE. It was about a news reporter who decides to find a story so she takes her boyfriend and a co-worker on a trip to a foreign country to find a missing young man. There are a lot of scenes where the dialogue is not in English, and since I watched this on a streaming service, I was disappointed that there were entire scenes I couldn't understand. Maybe the director was trying to make it so the audience had to rely on the fear created by the characters, but there wasn't any. Mostly the movie revolves around demonic possession and religion. Of course, the way in which people are possessed wasn't described or expanded, and neither was the reason for this town to be built around a shrine that possesses people. The ends was disappointing, the beginning was boring and the middle was uninteresting.

The second movie was the remake of OLDBOY. I can honestly say I liked the original better. Josh Brolin was not a great actor in this movie (I preferred him in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) and the story just didn't draw me in like the original movie did. I don't know if it was the acting or the fact that there was way too much going on that just took my focus away from what was going on. I didn't care for the way the remake began, and I didn't care for the main character, or what happened to him later.

I wouldn't recommend either of these movies, especially not to anyone who enjoys the horror or thriller genre. Neither movie held my interest. The fact that neither movie held my interest really made me sad too, I had been looking forward to the remake of OLDBOY since it came out and I am sorry this was (in my eyes) wasn't good.

Movie Review - THE FINAL MEMBER

2/14/2015

Every now and then I watch something random because I either think it's odd, I think it's interesting, or I think "what the hell is this and why am I not already watching it?" Tonight it was the latter of the choices, so I watched a movie titled THE FINAL MEMBER which is all about a penile museum in Husavik, Iceland. For over 40 years Sigurour Hjartarson has been collecting mammal penises and adding them to his collection, which eventually became the Icelandic Phallological Museum, his one quest and the one thing that would make his museum complete, a human penis. This movie follows the two men who have decided to donate their member to the museum.

In the end only one man has, at this moment, donated his penis to the museum, and it took his death to get it there.

Besides being about a phallic museum the psychology behind this was quite interesting, and of course the differences in the penis sizes between a sperm whale and a hamster are quite impressive. An older man, Pall Arason, decides to donate because his penis is a well used piece of machinery and he wants the world to see what he has to offer. He talks about the women he has slept with. Unfortunately he dies not know that when a man gets older his penis shrinks, so after a point he is worried that by the time it comes to donate it will be too small to be accepted into the museum, which has a five inch limit.

The other donor wannabe is an older American male who has decided he wants to donate his penis to the museum. His penis, which he calls Elmo, is the center of his world and he is obsessed on getting it out there and famous. He even sends Hjartarson picture of his penis dressed up as Santa, a roman, and other odd costumes. He goes as far as drawing a comic for his penis (which he is trying to get published) and getting an American flag tattoo on the tip.

The movie is an interesting portrait of the penis, and the exploration of the lives of the two men who have decided to donate their members to the museum. The quest to fill the museum with as many different members as possible was also quite compelling and I personally wondered how Hjartarson was going to achieve this goal.

I really don't know what more to say about this movie. It's a great eye into the Phallic museum and into those few who want to donate to the museum.

Movie Review - JUPITER ASCENDING

2/11/2015

Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a house cleaner who was brought into the world under distressing circumstances. Once she gets to an appointment her situation becomes dangerous as the power hungry son of a specialized set of human hybrids comes to kill her. She travels the universe with a genetically engineered warrior in an effort to stop the family and the reign of the homicidal tyrant chasing her.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was a science fiction thriller that was fun to watch but not really plotted out and described well. The movie begins with a robbery, murder and toilet cleanings. Then the movie progresses to the meeting between three siblings who are intent on keeping with tradition and living life in the comfort they have grown accustomed to for thousands of years. Jupiter has no idea why she is special and her character flails through the entire movie, accepting life on other worlds and finally sticking up for herself as the VERY end of the movie

Caine (played by Channing Tatum) plays a half human, half wolf hybrid with wings. He was a member of the royal army but lost his wings due to bad behavior. He consistently comes to Jupiter's rescue and at about the third rescue it does seem a little tedious. If she is going to go through life trusting another alien race she won't life long, period.

One thing I didn't like about this movie is they explained where humans came from, but the didn't explain much about where the human-aliens got to be where they were. The technology wasn't explained or described, and while the hybrid animal-humans were interesting I didn't ever understand why they were created. Some of them seemed like experiments gone wrong, for example the elephant-man, literally a man with a small elephant trunk and elephant ears. Others just seemed like horror movie creatures.

I wanted a little bit more in the story, I wanted more story, more history and more background. However, if you are looking to go to a movie that will take you mind off of the troubles in your life I say go for it. It's not a bad movie, and I enjoyed spending the 2+ hours watching it.

Murder and Snow

2/9/2015

So I'm on the east coast for very upsetting reasons, my wonderful mother-in-law passed away a few days Friday, but I'm not here to talk about that, no, I'm here to talk about snow, the cold, and murder. It is very cold outside, at least it looks cold. It is currently 20 degrees where I am, which to me is more than cold, or freezing, I'm not sure this California girl knows exactly how to describe what 20 degrees is, but I'm wondering where the polar bears are. This cottony white stuff is falling from the sky and it itself doesn't look all that cold, it looks fluffy and fun, like I could go out and spin some yarn to make a sweater to fight the cold, but it isn't. It is dreary. I know if I were to walk outside right now I would be bitten by the cold, harsh needles would be jabbed into my skin and my fingertips would instantly redden and want to fall off.

Snow is not cotton. Snow is not friendly. Snow is the bane of my existence when I am on the east coast.

At this moment, looking out the window at the white stuff falling from the sky, I understand the meaning of cabin fever, and I understand why someone would kill those they are in a house with. It's maddening. It's too cold and wet and cold and really maybe a little dangerous to go outside right now. The snow is deep, and getting deeper with each passing second. The snowflakes whisper, "come play with us, for ever and ever and ever" just like a pair of creepy little girls in a creepy book about a haunted hotel and a sick father.

I might listen to them. The cold might be getting to me. I know why people murder people when it's snowing. It's too cold to go outside. It's too boring to stay inside all the time. Murder would give me something to do, then maybe the snow could be my graveyard.

Then again, I might just be trying to distract my self from the reality of death by thinking about the reality of the cold, homicidal snow.

Movie Review - THE RED SHOES

2/5/2015

A woman who finds a pair of pink high heels on a subway platform soon realizes that jealousy, greed, and death follow them wherever they go. This description is from IMDb.

I wondered why this movie was called THE RED SHOES when the shoes, were in fact, pink. After watching this movie I have come to believe it is called THE RED SHOES because who ever wears the shoes ends up becoming a bloody mess below the waist.

THE RED SHOES is a movie out of South Korea, and it is an interesting film about adultery, obsession and revenge. Several women find a nice looking pair of pink shoes. After noticing that the shoes seem to have no owner these women take the shoes and wear them. One woman finds them at a subway station and she ends up literally losing her feet. Another woman steals them from a friend and she ends up losing her life. Turns out the shoes have a violent history, and murder and death follow anyone who wears them without permission.

Sun-jea is trying to start a new life with her disobedient and abrasive young daughter, Tae-so. Tae-so knows many of her mother's secrets, and due to the hold the pink shoes have over her and her mother, it puts both Tae-so and Sun-Jea in danger.

The movie gets very confusing at about the 3/4 mark and goes into all sorts of directions. I wasn't sure what was going on at this point and I really wasn't sure who I was following, Sun-jea or the original owner of the pink shoes. Like many foreign films I think there is something in the cultural differences that causes a lack of understanding in some of the imagery used. However, that being said, this was an interesting movie. I was a little uncomfortable when I watched the way Sun-jea treated her young daughter, Tae-so, over a simple pair of cursed shoes. Then again, there were times throughout the movie where I think Sun-jea should have smacked the crap out of her rebellious daughter.

If you want to watch more foreign horror films I think you should give this movie a go.

The Meaning of Death

2/4/2015

I know, a lot of people will read the title and say to themselves, "Death has no meaning, it's just the ending of life." If that were true then I doubt we would be so afraid of death or mourn those who passed. Death has a meaning, the question is, what?

To each person death will mean something different. I remember the first time death left a bitter, bloody taste in my mouth. It was when I learned my sister had died. Death walked up to me, I was just a child at the time, and slapped me so hard across the face that my head was spinning for weeks. Not long after I lost two more relatives, and with each backhanded slap death hit me with my face stung as hard as the last. I wanted to crawl into the bathtub, curl into a ball, and destroy myself in the darkness. The pain of losing someone is, for the living, the hardest part of death.

As a horror writer I think about death often, maybe more than the normal person. I think of how it might feel to be stabbed, shot, garroted, set on fire, decapitated, drowned, and well you dear reader get the picture. I think about how one feels when they walk into a crime seen and see their family member, friend, lover, or just the victim, dead. I think about the pain that might cause one to seek revenge. I think about the life one might lead after losing someone. I think about death often.

Some of you will never get over the death of someone, maybe that person meant the world to you and you can't fathom life without them, maybe that person was someone who caused you pain and you wanted them to suffer more than they did, whatever the reason, you hold on. You hold on to the memory, you hold on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone got it wrong and that person isn't dead. There might not be closure. You might not get to see the body of the deceased. You might never really even get the relief of knowing, 100%, that the person you are missing is dead.

Maybe, possibly, the meaning of death is the meaning of life. Death might just be a tool, put in place to make you appreciate what you have. Everyone knows death exists, maybe the meaning of death is just living. Weird right?

Of course, I, a poor writer living in a southern town, trying to find my place in a new environment, I don't have the answer. I know one day death will come for me, I'm not sure I'll ever be ready. As I think back, and as tears tremble in my eyes, I know I will always miss those who have passed, and I hate to think about those who I am going to lose.

For me, death just means focus on life. Then again, death also means a paycheck if I twist it around enough to get you, the reader, to but into what I'm selling.

The Meaning of Horror

2/1/2015

When I got my Master's degree I wrote my thesis on the decline of horror in popular culture. I read and watched several books and movies with monsters, evil people, ghosts, and death. I was disappointed in the vampire genre and the werewolf genre and right now I have a little bit of a problem with the zombie genre. See the TWILIGHT books didn't start the problem with the horror genre by making vampires all emo and sexy, but they didn't help. Vampires have been a little sexy since Nosferatu, a little hypnotic juice to make the girls bare their lovely necks has always been a draw for the ladies. It isn't just the vampires, werewolves are sexy too. I don't know how anyone would find a very muscular man who become a fur beast sexy, but then again I don't like kissing a man and getting a mouthful of fur.

Back to the point at hand. Zombies. I am working on a zombie series, the first three books have been written and I am currently working on the last. Lately when I tell people I write zombie books I get this question, "Have you seen that one movie, the one where the zombie isn't a zombie at the end?" My answer, "Do you mean WARM BODIES?" Yes, yes they usually mean the movie WARM BODIES. Now not only are vampires and werewolves romantic ideas that women cling to, but zombies can be cute, cuddly and romantic as well?! I want to scream NO!

It's hard enough to scare people when they scream out to be bitten and used by a sexy, blond, pale, cold monster. It's harder to scare people when they want to crawl into bed with a warm-blooded, furry, beast that will keep them warm on a cold night and cover them with a blanket of fur. When you take the zombie, the one monster who's sole purpose is to eat your brain or your flesh, and turn that monster into a man who falls in love and regains his humanity, you take all the monsters away.

Mummy's are now waiting to show you their sarcophagus and have a lifetime bound to you in their beige wraps. Frankenstein's monster is a tortured man made from the body parts of murderers and rapists, and he only wants to save the rest of humanity from his creator. King Kong is a genetically altered fuzz face who only wants to know what love is by searching for his match on eharmony. The blob is using its gelatinous mass to search the ocean and save the whales. Serial killers are just sadists looking for their perfect masochist a la Christian Grey.

I feel like the horror genre is losing itself. Parts of it are sliding over to paranormal romance, parts of it are headed to general fiction just to feel like it is still on the scene, and parts of it have disappeared. When was the last time you read a really scary ghost story? It's been a while for me.

So, what is the meaning of horror? Horror is fear, shock, disgust at the disturbing. I can't tell you about the last time I was afraid, or disgusted by something not related to animal cruelty, or shocked by something I heard, saw, or read. Everyday like seems more scary than the horror genre lately. Horror authors, filmmakers, and lovers, let's get back on the wagon and scare the crap out of people again! I miss being scared.