Devil’s Knot is a movie based on a true crime. The story revolves around the murder of three young boys who were out riding their bikes. Another boy states that he saw what happened, and that it was a satanic ritual. This was also during part of the crisis when lots of people were being accused of being satanic worshipers. The three teenagers accused of the crime were convicted and later released, which is not a spoiler because you can look the story up and get all of this information.
 
The movie stars Reese Witherspoon as one of the mothers and Colin Firth as an investigator of sorts. The town screams that the teenagers were all involved, yet one mother isn’t sure (Reese Witherspoon’s character) because one of the boys, Jesse, has the IQ of a ten year old, and he gets a lot of the details wrong when he is telling the police of being at the murder.
 
There is also the interview of a child, and children are often unreliable witnesses. All of the evidence used against the three teenagers was circumstantial, and there wasn’t any concrete evidence. It turns out that the mother of this child was trying to get out of some legal trouble of her own.
 
The movie was an interesting look into the legal system, and how broken it really is. People judge things that they don’t understand, and they always think that Satanism is evil, which it is not (just look it up if you don’t believe me).
 
The beginning of the movie is very suspenseful, and even heartbreaking. When the bodies of the boys are found and one boy is brought out of the water he was placed in, it is a horrifying moment that would touch even the hardest soul. Throughout the movie the audience is left to wonder who is guilty of the murders, as even some of the parents (besides Witherspoon’s character) doubt the guilt of the three convicted of killing their boys. Then again, maybe they doubted the guilt of the teenagers because they themselves were the murderers.
 
Since this movie is based on a true story, there isn’t really an ending to it. It is still ongoing, and there are suspects, but the truth may never be found. The movie was interesting, and well done. It showed the limits of the justice system, and really why innocent people are convicted. In a murder this heinous, everyone wants to find the guilty party as soon as they can, so that everyone else with a child can feel as if their child is safe. But if we rush to accuse and convict, sometimes we miss important things, like who might have actually committed the crime. This is one of the reason crimes from fifty plus years ago are still unsolved, or are just not being solved.
 
A good, if not heart strangling movie.

I don't write much poetry, but I thought I'd share this one here. If you like you can tell me what you think, or if it is good or godawful! I've written few poems in my adult life, and when I was a teenager my poems were called disgusting ad gross. I was told to never write again, and that was the first time, but not the last. So I share with a little bit of hesitation, because a lot of my work is not well received. Later, if I can find it, I will share a story that got me kicked out of one writer's group.

Anyway, here is the poem:

Tin Soldiers
 
Bright and shiny, new in box
Unused soldiers waiting for their day.
Opened plastic, rosy cheeks,
Wide innocent eyes, waiting to be deployed.
A moment later, battle bound,
Shiny faces dimmed down,
Soldiers waiting, cheeks tanned and brown
Standing, watching,
Battle found.
One year later, homeward on,
Sinking soldiers,
Broken down.
Boxes beaten, weathered and faded,
Soldiers begging, brains broken,
Guns in hand.
No one helping, paint fading,
Tiny tin soldiers,
In the graveyard now.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey was an interesting zombie book about a bunch of children who don’t know they are anything but. The characters are there to protect themselves, teach the children, and to use the children to find a way to save humanity. Dr. Caldwell has one mission, and she keeps doing it, even if it goes against everything else everyone else wants. She doesn’t care about the cost, or repercussions of what she has and continues to do. Melanie is the main character, and the smartest child in the classroom. She waits every day for her favorite teacher, Miss Justineau. Justineau shows that she cares for the children, but she isn’t supposed to care, nor is she supposed to forget what they are – monsters.
 
The characters were all very interesting, although I did get frustrated with Dr. Caldwell and Sargent Parks. Caldwell is over and over only concerned with the children, and when she loses some of them she treats Melanie like property. I know this was part of the book, and that Dr. Caldwell had a purpose and wasn’t supposed to be liked. I realize that she was there to find the answers for the greater good. But, there could have been one moment of humanity from her, one moment, that made me not dislike her, one moment where she learned something from what she had been doing.
 
Sargent Parks could have been a little more interesting as well. He was the typical military man, only doing what his orders required him to do. Keeping the humans safe, not worrying about the “Hungaries” or zombies, and watching out for the “Junkers” – the men and women who survived the infection and live their lives as scavengers. I do get a little tired of seeing stringent military men, who follow the code, no matter what happens. They always end up the same way in books like this, dead, learning slowly along the way that they don’t have to treat the monsters as they do, because in reality, the monsters are the humans.
 
The relationship between Melanie and Miss Justineau was interesting, as it did make me wonder where the children who these people are using came from. Justineau was a mother figure to some, and a savior to at least one. The mother/daughter relationship develops in a way, that in the end one wonders who is the mother and who is the daughter.
 
The idea of the “Hungaries” in this book was interesting, although I would have like a little more backstory, as I didn’t see enough of what made the zombies different, besides a desire to eat human flesh. However, the idea of how these children will develop, and what they will do for the future. It all brings up the question, how will humanity save humanity? In the end will the human race find their humanity, or will they find ways to continue to destroy it.
 
In today’s society, and the political and moral climate that we currently live in, this book begs the question: how should we treat those who are different? And what steps should we take to protect and save those who can’t always save or protect themselves. It’s a frightening time, and this book, again about an apocalypse, makes one thing about their own humanity.

The synopsis for Ouija Summoning from IMDb is: A beautiful woman is haunted by an evil spirit after an innocent game of Ouija board goes horribly wrong.
 
First off, in this day and age are there any “innocent” games of Ouija. I mean I am sure everyone has read the warnings and seen the other movies where teens have played with an Ouija board and have died.
 
Ouija Summoning begins in an older house where one women arrives and is attacked by another. As things happen the police arrive, and the crazy woman is arrested, all while chanting that it had to be done.
 
This was a problem for me as I had no idea who these people were, or why this was happening. So while it starts in the action, it doesn’t do anything me because I have no idea what is going on, or really why I should care. Plus, this isn’t something that is returned to later in the movie, so it is a scene that doesn’t matter. Later three young college age students stop at the house because one of them needs to pee. They don’t stay in the house but they do step in, and from there bad things happen.
 
The main character, Sara, is haunted by someone crying and telling her to kill people. As people start dying around her, she is viewed as insane and her parents seek help for her. Her parents, who are divorced, attempt to help their daughter, but they find that they don’t really know how, and then they decide that they think she might actually be killing people.
 
Bad acting and a bad story line were the biggest issues throughout this movie. There was a lot going on and nothing was explained. The audience has no idea what is up with this specific Ouija board, or why it is the one that is haunted, or who the woman that keep crying is. With so little information the movie doesn’t make much sense. It also isn’t very interesting as a horror movie because there is nothing scary throughout it.
 
I felt that this movie seemed like a half-hearted attempt to make a scary movie that was attempting to bank on the Ouija board fears created by other movies. However, there was no character or story development, nor was there any reason for the audience to feel fear or suspense. So there wasn’t anything to redeem this movie to the audience, and there was nothing to make it worth watching.
 
I absolutely do no recommend this movie to anyone, not even if you are bored and looking to watch something on streaming. If you watch it you have been warned that it is a waste of an hour and a half.

A group of tourists on a New Orleans haunted swamp tour find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Their evening of fun and spooks turns into a horrific nightmare when their boat is stranded and they must find a way back to civilization, all in the movie Hatchet, from 2006.
 
As a horror movie this doesn’t really stand out, using the same tropes often used in a horror movie about a monster human. It does give backstory to the villain/monster, Victor Crowley, but not really enough to state why he goes about killing everyone. I understand revenge doesn’t always have a sensible reason, but there wasn’t much for this movie and it seemed like a stretch.
 
Now, I also know that this movie is becoming, or already is a cult classic, but that could be because it is so badly acted, and it has a ton of boobs. I know when a movie has a lot of nudity sometimes it becomes a cult classic just for that. The acting was dry, mostly from Joel David Moore, who often plays dry, monotone characters. This movie also has a cameo by Robert Englund and Kane Hodder (as Victor Crowley), so there are some horror icons in it, which should bring credence to the movie. The “young” women in the movie are provoked into showing their boobs in almost every scene, and Misty the blond, played by Mercedes McNab, is a stereotype blond bimbo who cries and screams and gets stuck in every scene, causing people to die.
 
The ending of the movie was obviously made to lead to a sequel, and reminded me of the ending of the original Friday the 13th. It could have been a little more original, and the deaths could have been better lit so the audience gets to see the broken, torn-up bodies of the victims.
 
Overall, this was just another horror movie in a long list of horror movies. I don’t think it was great, but it wasn’t terrible either. I would have like the ending to be a little more original, and I would have liked to see a little more lead up in suspense to the final moments.

Today is Veteran's Day. I only want to write here to say thank you to all of the Vets who have no one to post for them.

I have several Veterans in my family, and I know several veterans. This isn't just a day for Americans here, it is also a day for all who have served. All who have been to war. All who have been broken by combat. All those who may be lost and think they have been forgotten. You have not been forgotten. You have not been lost. I see you. I see all of you. I thank ALL of you.

So, thank you to all of the Veterans out there. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you to the families.

2017’s movie Rings was an unnecessary addition to the story of little Samara. It is obviously about the story of a group of people who view a tape and then get a phone call telling them “seven days.” Of course they know by now that to live they must show the tape to other people. If they show the tape to other people then they are passing on the curse and saving themselves.
 
This movie tried to delve deeper into the story of Samara, pointing out how she came to be and what happened to her, but it seems to forget all of the things that happened in the previous like what happened to her body and who was the person who cared for her. It seems to want to change the story to make her video viral, trying to create a modern horror story.
 
I don’t think this was a needed movie in the series, and it detracted from the things that happened before in the series. I would have liked to see more development into how the video got out there in the first place, or how it became cursed, or anything, a prequel wouldn’t be a bad idea.
 
If they went back to the very beginning, saw Samara in the asylum, maybe in her house before the asylum, maybe how she was treated as an infant. I find it unfortunate that they keep building on what has already been said, and honestly Rings adds nothing to the story.
 
I like Vincent D’Onofrio as an actor. I find him great in almost everything he does, although lately I’ve seen him more in the role of a villain that a good guy. I feel almost as if he is being type cast as a man who is more bad than good. From his role in Full Metal Jacket (a private who is pushed too far) to Rings he gets more rugged and rough with each role. The only role where he wasn’t the villain was during his time on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but he wasn’t a happy man.
 
The main character in this film, Julia, was annoying and she didn’t do much for this film. The attempted frights were the same as they were in the previous movies. Lots of images from the cursed film and more well shots as well as bugs and hair being pulled from the mouth of people, gag inducing moments that have been done several times before.
 
I can’t say I cared for this movie, and I lost interest halfway through, probably sooner than halfway through. I would have liked more to the story, and I would have like if it hadn’t deviated from the original story to make Samara seem more piteous.
 
I don’t recommend this movie, not only was it bad but it also didn’t add anything to the series. I think if they want to make another movie for this series they should start in the beginning, at the birth and childhood of Samara.