The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Book Review - The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

1/15/2021

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James revolves around two young women, Vivian, and her niece, Carly.

Vivian was on her way to New York, but stops in Fell, NY. She really has no plan, but she has to get away from her mother, so she heads to New York with aspirations of being an actress, even though she isn't even sure that is what she wants to do. While on this break from her family, she stops at a place called the Sun Down Motel, where she stays a few nights until the owner offers her a job as the night manager. Strange things go on at the motel, and Viv starts to seek out the truth.

Carly heads to Fell after her mother's death from cancer, and decides she must do research on what happened to her Aunt Viv twenty-five years earlier. She leaves school and goes to Fell to find out why no one knows where her Aunt is, and what happened on the night she disappeared. Carly sees a help wanted sign in the window of the Sun Down Motel and decided it is fate, so she takes the job her Aunt one had in hopes of getting closer to her, and closer to finding out what happened to her Aunt.

This book started of very well. The characters were interesting and the plot was intriguing. Of the two main characters, Viv was much more interesting than Carly, and more developed. Viv was also a funner character to read. Carly was a little to self-absorbed and she didn't seem very bright at times. The other characters weren't very interesting. Heather seemed a stereotype of what someone with mental illness would be like in a place like Fell. Nick was a boring man, and it was obvious what was going to happen with him a the end of the story. The rest of the characters ran into each other, although I would have liked more from the little boy and Betty.

I like a good ghost story, and I could have used more from the ghost perspective. I thought the ending was way too predictable, and I really wanted a twist to it. There was no surprises at the end, which disappointed me. The book could have been a lot better if the last few chapters had been rewritten so the story did not end the way it actually did. That being said, I liked this book. If I kept books just based on their covers I would keep this book for forever as the cover is wonderful. However, I like to share books that I like, so I will be sending this one along to a friend.

Movie Review - OUT OF THE DARK (2014)

3/5/2019

Out of the Dark stars Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, and Stephen Rea as American's who live and work in Columbia. Julia Stiles is the daughter, Sarah, of Stephen Rea, Jordan, and she has moved with her family to Columbia to take over part of her father's paper mill. They live in a fancy house with a nanny, who takes care of their young daughter, Hannah. Once their daughter disappears they realize that things are not what they seem, and their house is haunted by the past, as houses often are. Jordan has kept a dark secret from not only his daughter and her husband, Paul, but also the town surrounding the mill.

The only reason I watched this movie was because I had some time to kill while I worked on grading papers. I often have movies or music or something on in the background so that I am not sitting in silence, which annoys me. I should have chosen to sit in silence rather than watch this movie. It wasn't that it was a bad movie, but it wasn't developed and it didn't make sense why the daughter, Hannah, was the one being tortured by the ghosts when it was her grandfather, Jordan, who knew why the house was haunted.

I often don't like movies for one of two issues, one is the acting, and the other is often the plot or story, or lack thereof. The acting in this was just so-so. I thought Julia Stiles was wasted, in fact most of the characters were wasted in this movie. Stephen Rea plays another man looking for answers who is willing to sacrifice himself if he needs to, just like in the movie Fear.com. Julia shows a variety of emotions, but we don't know why she has decided to uproot her family from London to live in Columbia and work at the mill. We get almost no information about Scott Speedman's character, Paul, except that he is an illustrator for children's books. This is basically all of the information we are given about the characters. The problem with this is that I am given no reason to care about the characters, and at an hour and a half there should be a reason to care about the characters.

The plot of the story revolves around the deaths of a few children twenty years earlier, and a ritual holiday that is put on for them. The children disappeared after or just before their deaths, and no one knows where the bodies are. This movie tries to build up suspense, but the scenes are often so dark that it is hard to even tell what is going on. When the climax happens it is almost impossible to tell what is really going on because the scenes shift too rapidly between Paul, Sarah, and Hannah, and everything is dark. I don't know if it is really ghosts haunting the couple or if it is real people who are running around terrorizing the family.

The ending is predictable, which is not good for a horror film, and doesn't make it any more interesting. We never really find out why Hannah was the one who was focused on. I can't recommend this movie, This seems like one of those movies that the actors do just so they can make some money. It is too bad that this wasn't better than it was because often movies set in a foreign land can use the backdrop of that place to build fear. There are often local legends or legends that can be built upon to strike fear into the souls of audiences.

So, maybe skip this one and watch a movie like Zombie Strippers or the weirdly popular ZomBeavers.

Movie Review - OUIJA SUMMONING

11/19/2018

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.

Movie Review - RINGS (2017)

11/7/2018

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.

Television Series Review - THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

10/28/2018

The Haunting of Hill House is a short novel written by Shirley Jackson, who also wrote on of my favorite short stories, The Lottery. There have been a few movies based on this novel, one of the more well known is the 1963 movie, the lesser known version is the 1999 version (which was terribly miscast). This review is for the Netflix series, which was recently released.

If you haven't read the book, you should read it. It isn't very long, and is a quick read. It has none of the characters of the television series, however both movies do try to remain true to the book. The story revolves around Eleonore and her experiences in the house. She is there as part of an experiment to discover if or what might be going on in the house. The study is done by a cocky man, Dr. Montague, who is a supernatural investigator. In the end, the house may be haunted and it takes it's toll on the psyche of Eleonore.

Some of the names of the characters are the same, there is an Eleonore (sometimes called Nell), and there is a Theodora, and a Luke, but none of them are related. The story of Hugh Crane is a lot darker, in one version he was keeping his family in the house, as prisoners, in the 1999 movie the children he killed and entrapped in the house were calling Nell home to protect and save them. In the Netflix series Hugh Crane is a man who loves his wife and his five children. He doesn't know that the house has ghosts and it is built much like the Hotel in AHS: Hotel. Once you die in the house, you become part of the house.

The children, Steve, Nell, Luke, Susie, and Theodora, are all experiencing nightmares brought on by the psychosis of one of them. And after one of the siblings dies, the rest are called back to the house, to either save each other and find out what happened that night they were forced from the house by their father, or they are there to die and become part of the house themselves. None of them have talked about what they have seen, and none of them want to believe that what they saw when they were there, for one summer, in that house, but now, along with their father, they need to figure out what the truth is, and what is just a facade built by the house itself.

I know that several people out there found this frightening or scary, but for me this was, overall, sad. It isn't about an evil house, but more about mental illness and the destruction of a cohesive family. Some of those who have died in the house are only there because they had an untreated mental illness, and the house took advantage of that. There were scenes that were suspenseful, but the show was not scary. It had spooky moments, but mostly, it was sad to see how broken a family was because they didn't talk about one night that forced them to leave the house, and become a broken family. They children are kept in a single home, but not with either of their parents. The audience isn't really told why the father never took the children back in, although the audience does learn why the mother doesn't, and maybe this has some reason as to why the father didn't go back for them. What this did was led to the children staying quiet, broken, and finding different ways to cope with losing their parents. They each have a problem, and each has something they don't want to face.

I did enjoy this, but wonder where it will go for season 2. This may be titled the same as the Shirley Jackson novel, but it really didn't have anything to do with the book, besides some of the characters having the same names as the characters in the books, and the caretakers of the property being the same. Of course, one thing every single version has, which did make me laugh and almost choke on a cookie, was the the words, "In the dark, in the night." This is said by one or more characters, and when I saw it in the 1999 movie, I couldn't help but laugh, and when it was in this version I, like stated earlier, almost choked on a cookie.

I do hope it finds a way to relate more to the book. I enjoyed the book, and I thought, even though neither movie was fantastic, they at least both related to the book as well. For me, this version only made me appreciate my siblings more, and made me think about how much life we take for granted, even when we don't realize we are taking it for granted. Each day is a gift. Each day, we can make a change, and look at what things really mean or what they really are.

So, if you have the time, check out The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and you decide if it is scary or not.

Book Review- SCARY MARY by S.A. Hunter

10/7/2018

Scary Mary by S.A. Hunter is a pretty good novel. Mary is a young woman stuck as an outcast in high school. She is called a freak by almost everyone, until she meets Cy, a new kid who doesn't seem to care what anyone has to say about her. Mary's best friend, Rachel, is away on vacation when Mary is invited to Cy's house. Mary isn't sure what to do, as Rachel has been her only friend for several years. Once at Cy's house things don't go as planned, and Mary finds herself once again the outcast. See, Mary can't see them, but she hears ghosts, and there is a nasty one in Cy's house.

This was a fun, fast book to read. The book is only 14 chapters, although I felt it could have been a little more to it. We don't get a lot of backstory on Mary, or Rachel, so I didn't really care about the characters as deeply as I could have. Another character who could have used more development was Mary's grandmother, or Gran. Gran is a fortune teller and the reader doesn't quite have a clear picture of what she looks like, or even how the house they live in is set up.

I would have liked a little more descriptions of several things, since after reading it (and I only finished about 3 hours ago) I can't remember what any of the characters look like. None of them really stuck with me, and I would have liked a little more from the teens who were terrible to Mary. There were more than a few, but the only name I remember is Vicki, and again, I can't quite picture what she looked like.

Now, just because I didn't care for the lack of description, and character development, does not mean that I didn't like this book. I thought the idea behind it was interesting, and found it delightful that Mary had a characteristic that I hadn't seen in a lot of other books, being able to hear but not see the dead. In the end, I thought the most delightful character was Chowder, a ghost dog who comes and goes into Mary's life. And to be honest I can remember more about him than any of the other characters (seriously, what color hair did Rachel have? I want to say red... Maybe).

I may or may not read the next book in this series. I have to think about it, and maybe get through a few more novels on my TBR shelf before buying anything new.

Book Review - Whispers by Lynn Yvonne Moon

10/6/2018

Whispers by Lynne Yvonne Moon was an okay book. It is about a young girl, Musetta, who has been repeatedly raped by her father. Once her father dies she thinks she is safe, but instead she finds that he continues to taunt and rape her.

Musetta is a twelve year old girl who struggles with a secret. The book begins at her fathers funeral, where she acts out and shows how much she hated him for what he as done. As life moves forward and she continues to be tormented by what she thinks is her father's ghost, life becomes more difficult. Finding that her life has been covered by dark secrets and that no one really knows the truth about what is and isn't real, Musetta relies of her group of friends to help her uncover the truth and stop the attacks on her body.

I thought this book started off well, but after a time I found it unbelievable, and even with the understanding that it was written for middle grade children, I felt that even for them it would be unbelievable and at times annoying. Musetta, after people learn of the abuse, doesn't seem to get the help from any of the adults in her life that she should. And the fact that no one seems to believe her is a serious issue. I also found it annoying that these four kids kept doing dangerous things an no one seemed to notice or care. Now, I get that kids get away with a lot, and that is life, but this seemed to take things a little too far.

After a time, I also felt that the book dragged on as the same things kept happening over and over, and maybe this didn't need to be 208 pages. The ending disappointed me a little as Musetta found out everything after a near death experience, instead of through all of the things she had been doing or researching, which to me is just like finding everything out in a dream or flashback. Also, the fact that no one knew anything at the end was a little off putting as well, as she had been going through all of this stuff and no adult seemed to really care.

I didn't hate this book and it was a fast read for me, and it did tackle a serious issue, but to be honest, even that seemed out of place as the rape was never explained except as a "control issue" which is not always why people rape, and it could have had a deeper purpose in this book. It could have been given the attention deserved.

Movie Review - NIGHTWORLD

8/13/2018

A movie about the gates to the afterlife? Yes, please.

Nightworld is a 2017 movie about a man, who after losing his wife to suicide, needs a place to go to get away from the nightmares he is having of her and her death. His friend, Alex, sets him up with a job working security for an interesting building.

Brett, the main character, is a former LAPD officer who needs to get away from the house he shares with his wife. He is sent by his friend, Alex, to interview for a security job. As a former police officer he is seen as someone who has the potential for the job. Brett isn’t a character that one might be fond of. While his employers are interesting and very secretive, he is constantly asking questions. After eighteenth question, even I think his inquisitive nature is a little annoying and want him to shut up. After he is there for a while, he finds that not only has he lost time, but he has found a new woman to set himself up with, and he has learned a few things about the building, like the fact that it is empty, instead of full of tenants, which is what he was told. At the end of the movie he has to work to save anyone, and in the end he loses himself.

I did indeed think that the main character, Brett, was a little annoying, I also thought it served his logical personality. As a former police officer he did have to think in the realm of what is real and what is not. The things that he starts seeing in this one room he is never supposed to enter, don’t make sense to him, and he has to push beyond what he believes is reality to what is actuality. And he has to push his own limits of belief fast, within an hour.

The suspense in this movie, trying to figure out what was going on and what was happening or being hidden in the forbidden room was interesting, and I found myself actually wanting to see what was in the room. I didn’t get an otherworldly feel until almost the end of the movie, as for a few moments I thought it was going to be about aliens (it was not). The main female character, Zara, didn’t seem to add anything to the story, but she did have a humanizing effect on Brett. In the end, however, she was a waste of a good character.

Robert Englund was also a character in this movie, Jacob. I feel like he did a great job with his character, but I also feel he was wasted and not as developed as he could have been in this role. I love Englund, especially since my foray into horror and his role in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. I would have liked to see him in a little bit of a stronger position in the role, not a major character who remains static throughout.

This is not a bad movie, good to watch while you are doing other things and need something on in the background. I watched it while grading papers, and I didn’t miss much at all.

Movie Review - GHOST HOUSE

8/6/2018

Ghost House is about a young couple who go on a vacation to Thailand and find themselves haunted by a malevolent spirit after bothering a “Ghost House.” It starts out with your basic white people (why didn’t anyone have a Pumpkin Spice Latte) doing what they always seem to do in foreign countries in horror movies, meeting up with strangers, trusting those strangers, and ending up living in hell for a while until they can find a way out.

In this movie the strangers are two British men, who meet Americans, Jim and Julie, and decide they are going to take them out to show them a good time. Since they are British apparently they can be trusted. This is obviously not true as they end up fighting, well at least Julie, for their live and their sanity.

The idea behind the movie is a good one, as who has ever heard of a ghost house, to keep the spirits at bay? It traps souls that need to be trapped, but if you remove something from the ghost house you are letting the evil soul into your life.

Now, Julie is tricked into this, and if she hadn’t been as mad at her fiancé as she was then maybe life would have moved on and everything would have been fantastic. However, then there would be no movie. Julie is slowly driven mad but the ghost of a Japanese woman who was killed in a fire she set, a fire she set to kill her husband and his mistress. She was the only one who died, which causes her to be a vengeful spirit, with zero care in the world.

As Jim tried to find a way to help or save Julie and every step he takes seems to make things worse for her. The ending of the movie is somewhat predictable, as it really only go in one of two ways, but as things move along the audience sees that it really can only go one way.

This wasn’t an awful movie, but it wasn’t great either. Some of the characters were well written, including the crazy, old, white hippie who is there for the crazy “hey let’s go see a witch doctor” moments. Why is it always the old hippies who know all the secret weird witch doctors?

Not this was better than a few movies I have watched in the past, most notably the movie Pandemic, which was just terrible. This movie did have elements of horror and suspense, but it does make me wonder why white people go all over the world desecrating things that they know will come back to haunt them, possess them, or kill them.

So is this a great movie, no, but is it watchable, yeah. It does have some interesting elements, and if you are a white person, traveling to a different country, please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t touch anything that looks like it shouldn’t be touched!

Movie Review - HEREDITARY

7/9/2018

Hereditary is a movie about a family in the grip of grief. After Annie, the matriarch of the family, loses her mother things begin to become disturbing as one thing after another passes and things become more tragic.

In the beginning I have to say the acting by Toni Collette as a grieving daughter was very well done. If you have a dysfunctional or complicated relationship with one or more of your parents, you will absolutely feel for her character, Annie, as she speaks at her mother’s funeral. After the funeral her family returns to whatever they had been before she had come to their house. No one is as sad, or at least not very sad, but part of that may be because the grandmother had been ill for a while.

After the son, Peter, goes to a party with his sister, Charlie, more tragedy interrupts the family, and the fractures really start to appear. Annie, who has a history in her family of mental illness, starts to show a disruption in her regular actions. She stops working on the miniatures for her upcoming art show, and she starts to obsess over her son and what has transpired between them in their lives.

The father, Steve, played by Gabriel Byrne, isn’t quite an absentee father, but he doesn’t seem to be fully aware, nor does he seem to want to care for his son, or maybe he doesn’t know how.

There are moments in this movie that are very creepy, and they are small moments. For example, one moment when Peter is just waking from a sleep, he hears a noise and thinks he sees someone in the corner, but it isn’t who he thinks. The setup to this scene was fabulous, and while it wasn’t frightening, it was creepy enough to garner attention, and to create suspense for the audience. The acting of Toni Collette was fabulous. There is one scene in particular, at a dinner the family tries to enjoy, where she lets everything loose, and the scene leads one to wonder at the title of the movie. Later there is another at the end, that not only seems impossible, but it is a good use of what horror is.

While this was well acted by Toni Collette, Byrne and the children seemed a little lax, although there are scenes when one hopes that Peter does get a break, in the end we get to see why everything happens the way it does.

This leads to comments about the ending of the movie, which is something that many seem to have an opinion about or argument for. I, after giving it a moment’s thought, found it horrifying and interesting. It brought the entire movie together, and it really relayed the title of the movie. Not only does Hereditary make one think of things that we inherit in our genes, but what we receive after someone dies, or what might possess us while we are alive. It’s a weird movie, and some might think it was written by someone far into an acid trip, but I thought it said a lot about itself, and people in general. And it made me wonder what, if anything, is in the world we can’t see, the world just behind the screen of out periphery vision.

So see it, don’t see it, but if you do, think about it for a moment before finalizing your thoughts about if it is or isn’t a good movie. You might surprise yourself if you give it a little bit of thought. Plus, I'd like to know what others think of it.