The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

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.

What is Horror?

5/26/2017

There are many different genres of horror, but people often wonder how does one define horror? Honestly it can be anything from a fear of spiders to body mutilation. Horror has such a wide scope that there is no one definition of it, like there is no one definition of Romance (there are varying categories) or Mystery (again, varying categories). Genres in horror vary so far and wide that even main categories have several sub-categories. I'd like to talk about a few different categories that interest me.

Apocalyptic horror - this is basically what I write. I write in a sub-genre of apocalyptic horror, the zombie apocalypse. There is also nuclear apocalypse, virus apocalypse, apocalypse brought on by war, animal apocalypse (there's a great book titled MORT by Robert Repino about a cat run apocalypse, it does have some hard to read scenes, but it is so good). Zombie horror in itself varies. There is horror from the zombie point of view (the Monster Island series and my series both have zombies as main characters), zombie horror that is dark comedy (WARM BODIES), and zombie horror that is very close to the movie NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. When people ask what I write, I often say zombie novels, because that is a simple answer, but in reality I write apocalyptic horror with a strong zombie story. My novels aren't about the zombies, they are about the way we segregate those who are different. Honestly, if an apocalyptic novel is well written, it usually isn't about the apocalypse, but the way humans react to the apocalypse. Do they tear each other down? Kill because they can? Rape because they can? Build societies they believe to be prefect utopias? Nothing is ever as they seem really.

Ghost Horror - this isn't always your typical haunted house book, although those are ghost horror. This genre can range from a haunted house to Simon R. Greens "Ghost Hunter" Series, even Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS can be considered ghost horror. There are some issues with ghost horror these days as ghost (much like vampires and werewolves) are being used in other genres as romantic devices, which I don't necessarily approve of, but I still read the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. I try to keep up with pop culture and new trends so that I know what is out there and where horror is going. Ghost horror can be anything from a haunted house to a woman who works in a boys home, but who is really dead herself. It can be written from a scared woman's point of view, or it can be written from the ghosts point of view. It can be all about finding the murderer, or it can be about making sure the people left behind after your death stay alive and find happiness. Why are so many attracted to ghost horror? Because no one is sure what, or if, the afterlife may be like.

Extreme horror - this is a horror that involves a lot of gore, language, violence, and often revenge. This horror is found in movies like SAW and several books by Ray Garton and Edward Lee. Extreme horror is not for everyone as it often is very graphic and can be disturbing. For example, in THE CELLAR by Ray Garton he graphically writes about the rape of a child, and again this is not for everyone, in fact there may be a small underground love of these books as some readers do this behind closed doors and often do not share that they read this type of horror. I have read several of Edward Lee's novels and while I love his "Infernal Angel" series his novel FLESH GOTHIC was a little much for me as it involved lots of sex, body mutilation, and debauchery. This horror is for those who like the adrenaline rush of finding out if the girl who was raped and left for dead gets her revenge, in the most violent way possible.

These are a few of the genres that I wanted to explain a little bit about. Often zombie novels are compared to extreme horror because they involve body horror (decomposing bodies described in graphic detail as they wander across the earth). Zombie novels can be extreme horror, and they can be body horror, just because a book fits in once genre or sub-genre of horror doesn't mean that it won't also fit in another. Genres are fluid and they are ever evolving. What is a straight-forward genre today, might actually be a a sub-genre of something else in the future.

Movie Review - INSIDIOUS 3

2/18/2017

The INSIDIOUS series has been pretty good. I enjoyed the first movie immensely, and the second was well done although with the twist known it wasn't as scary as the first, however, the third movie seemed to stray far from the premise and fear the first movie created.

Insidious 3 is said to be a prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family. It reveals how gifted psychic Elise Rainier reluctantly agrees to use her ability to contact the dead in order to help a teenage girl who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity. However, it didn't present itself as a sequel, it didn't seem to set up much for the other two movies, maybe the fact that she was shown a picture of a young boy who may have been the father in INSIDIOUS 1 and 2.

The movie doesn't offer much in the way of plot, starting as a young girl, Quinn Brenner, searches out psychic, Elise Rainier, to answer some questions about her deceased mother. It is somewhat obvious what happens after she does this.

The one huge problem I had with this movie is that the bad guy, the guy with a breathing problem (as he is called in the movie), is never developed. The audience does not know who he is, why he is in the same apartment building as Quinn, how he got to be the monster he was, and how he talked (or forced) others to do what he wanted them to do (which caused their suffering). Being an underdeveloped character made him not as frightening as he could have been, as the audience does not really know what his motivation is for wanting Quinn, or for harming others. The statement that some spirits were just filled with darkness and wanted others to be in the darkness with them just did not sit well, nor did it explain how or why he chose Quinn.

The other huge problem I had with this movie was the father, Sean Brenner, played by Dermot Mulroney. First he seems to easily fall into believing what his daughter is saying, which seems unrealistic. Then second his character was incredibly dull. Now I have seen Mulroney play good and bad characters, and I don't know if it was the writing that turned him into a dull two sided character, or if it was his acting in this one, but it was not very interesting. I found his character to be dull and flat. I would have liked a little more backstory for the family, so I could have been close to them, or at least cared a little about what happened. I mean there was a little brother who seemed to be gone for most of the movie and I wondered what he could have been doing while his sister was being tortured and his father was preoccupied with her injuries and issues.

So, this was not the best of the INSIDIOUS series. I know they are planning on doing an INSIDIOUS 4, and I hope they take it back to the horror and the suspense of the first two movies, That was what made them interesting, this one just makes them regular old ghost/possession stories.