The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - IT'S ALIVE (1973)

12/10/2018

SPOILERS included in this review. You have been warned.

I previously watched the remake of It’s Alive, and after watching the 1973 original movie I really don’t think it needed to be remade, because the remake is a million times worse than the original (which wasn’t the best movie itself). The 1973 version of It’s Alive is about a couple who have a monster of a baby. The baby goes on a killing spree to survive and get home to his parents. Frank, the father, feels an incredible desire to destroy the infant, but the mother has other ideas after she returns home and tries to start life back up. Their older son, Charlie, is left in the dark as the parents try to protect him from what happened, but in the end Charlie doesn’t need protection from his baby brother, the rest of the world, they might.

The original version of this movie was very different from the remake. In this version the mother hides the child for a few days in the basement of their house, only wanting to protect him. She doesn’t get to take him home from the hospital because after he slaughters the medical staff he runs in fear, whereas in the remake they take the baby home and find that the only weird things about him are his teeth and his size (he grows incredibly fast). The father in the remake doesn’t seem to take an interest in the movie, and the mother in the remake tries hide her infants murderous deeds by moving and concealing bodies.

One thing I liked about the original is that the father eventually comes around and tried to protect his child, unlike the remake when the mother sets the house on fire, killing herself and her baby. In the original the parents seem to really care for their oldest child, Charlie, while in the remake the kid seems to be left on his own, or he disappears and the audience has no idea what might have happened to him.

Since the original was made in the early 1970’s it is a little bit hokey, but the fun of it is the badly done effects and some of the interesting acting. In fact one of the best lines of the movie came from the lead detective trying to find and destroy the infant. The line was, “Hunting and killing babies doesn’t seem to be my specialty,” and I thought it was the most apropos line in the movie, since how does one justify hunting down and killing an infant, even if it is a homicidal monster?

I actually enjoyed the original version a million times better than the remake, and I thought it not only had a better story, but a better ending. If you haven’t watched it, look for the 1973 version, and skip the 2008 version.

Movie Review - LET'S BE EVIL

12/3/2018

2016’s Let’s Be Evil is a movie that doesn’t quite have a specific plot or outline. What it seems to be about is a young woman named Jenny, who accepts a temporary job at a research facility to help care for her ailing mother. While there she is set to watch the children in the facility as they are trained for unspecific purposes.

Jenny is a young woman who must find a way to care for her ill mother. She ends up getting a temporary job at this research facility. She is never told what she is doing there, nor what the children she is watching are doing there. Each day she is awoken by an alarm and must wear special glasses to view the augmented reality of the facility she is at. In reality she may or may not be in some sort of virtual reality game. Throughout the movie she tries to connect with the children and feels that she does connect with a young girl named Cassandra. In reality it is all a game.

This movie started out very interesting, because as Jenny and her two coworkers do what they are supposed to be doing, they don’t really learn much about what they are doing. Neither does the audience. There are suspicious things that happen throughout the movie, like lights going out, black smoke roaming over a door, and children playing vicious games on Jenny and the other two workers. The audience sits waiting for something, anything, to happen. Then when something does happen, it is both expected and unexpected.

At the end of the movie, I can’t say I was shocked. I found that the entire idea of the movie changed with the end of the movie. I didn’t think the ending was a good one, and it was frustrating to see the movie ending like it did. It was one of those movies, one where you find out at the end that the movie was just a dream. This was just like that, except it wasn’t a dream, but it was close to one of those stupid movies.

Now, I don’t mind a twist at the end of a movie, but I really think directors should try to make things more interesting, and stop with the ambiguous or circular endings of movies. Please, I’m begging all of you directors and producers and writers out there, stop writing the same ending in different cities and realities for all of the movies out there. Try being original! I don’t need another twist to another movie that tells me that none of it really happened at all. I’m so over that!

So, did I like this movie? Yes, until the end. Was it worth a watch? Yes, until the end. Should you watch it, I mean, if you don’t mind something that seems like it will be a good movie that craps out in the end? Yeah, go ahead, it’s not a long movie, and it is free on a few streaming services.

Movie Review - DEVIL'S KNOT

11/26/2018

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.

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 - HATCHET

11/12/2018

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.

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.

Movie Review - ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE

10/25/2018

Amber Heard, plays Mandy Lane in this film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. She is a beautiful girl who all of the boys lust after, and even some of the girls. After she is invited to a high school gathering among a few of her new friends, she goes with the hope that people will be having fun, and no she herself can have fun. In the end, the party goers drop one by one as a mysterious killer takes them out.

This movie, at first, seems like a normal movie about high schoolers who party and end up being killed one by one, and at first there is nothing to suggest that this isn’t what the movie is about. However, at the end of the movie the audience sees more than they thought they would.

Every high school student can appreciate, and well every person in general, the things these students go through, and the insecurities that they all show. All of the boys have a plan to be the one to score with Mandy Lane. The beginning of the movie starts with a student injuring himself after proclaiming his desire for Mandy Lane. So, obviously every male student has some desire for Mandy Lane, and this causes the movie to feel like something bad is going to happen to Mandy Lane.

I can’t say this was a great movie, but I don’t think it was a horrible movie. It didn’t go into very much detail as to what had happened to Mandy’s parents, as she is now living with her Aunt and cousin. There is no exposition and no definitions to Mandy’s life before the movie, so the audience doesn’t get to know much about her, which is annoying. The movie is a little bit of a problem in itself, because it wants the audience to feel bad for and fright for Mandy Lane, but it doesn’t give us much to go on.

The movie is very slow at times, and the ending doesn’t really make sense, although it is the most interesting part of the film. But if a movie is going to involve killing characters, it needs to make the audience care that the characters are being killed, otherwise it is only one more minute in a movie. And if I am going to be honest, I can’t say that any of the homicides were very interesting, so the only thing that could have made the movie interesting was the ending.

Do I recommend watching it? Only on streaming, and only if you have an hour and a half to kill.

Movie Review - DIG TWO GRAVES

10/15/2018

Taken from Rotten Tomatoes, Dig Two Graves centers on Jacqueline, a 14-year-old girl nicknamed "Jake" by her older brother Sean. After Sean mysteriously disappears at a rock quarry, Jake is visited by three Moonshiners who offer to bring her dead brother back to life in exchange for taking another life. As Jake wrestles with this morally uncertain proposition, the dark history of her family is unearthed and the mystery surrounding the Moonshiners is illuminated.

From the little research that I have done, this was a movie that people were split on. Several people liked it, and several people did not like it. I thought it was a little convoluted. There were several story lines, from Jake’s grandfather and Jake.

The things the grandfather did when he was younger were horrifying, and the things he did were often done because he was the deputy of a sheriff who was the one doing even deeper horrible things. The problems with these scenes were that the reasoning behind them were never explained. The sheriff was a really bad guy, but the audience is never told why he was the way he was, or why he had custody of his grandson. So, there wasn’t enough backstory to make the sheriff a relevant being, besides being a rock to be a hard place for others to cross.

Now for the Jake parts of the story, I often don’t understand why movies often seem to make children so stupid. Jake, after her brother’s disappearance, is desperate to get her brother back, so when promises are made for a sacrifice, she tries to follow through. This only causes problems for her family, and the family of a friend who she is trying to protect.

Parts of the story are interesting, but the heart of it is in the character of Willie. He is a young boy who is being bullied by some classmates, and is living with his over-protective grandfather. The audience doesn’t know why he is living with his grandfather, but can only assume that something happened to his parents.

Dig Two Graves wasn’t a bad movie, but the different scenes from different timelines can be confusing because they aren’t quite in chronological order, and they were oddly filmed. The end of the movie was a little surprising, and unexpected, but it fit movie and what things the characters had done. I felt that part of it was fitting, and the revenge subplot was well done.

Movie Review - THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX

10/1/2018

There are a lot of people who didn’t like The Cloverfield Paradox, and I am not one of them.

This movie is an interesting science fiction film, but it was a little all over the place as well. From IMDb the plot summary is: Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.

On its own it isn’t a movie that really fits into the Cloverfield series as it doesn’t really have much to do with Clover until the very end of the movie.

Instead, as a science fiction movie, it isn’t that bad. There are parts that don’t fit. There are scenes from the space station and scenes from earth, and the two don’t go together and they don’t fit as much as they could. The scenes from earth seem to be attempts to keep the movie relevant in the Cloverfield series, but they don’t really work with the rest of the film.

The scenes in the space station are interesting, and the scenes on the space station should be a movie all on their own. There are moments where the acting and the conversations aren’t very believable. For example there is an oriental woman, Tam, and only one other person speaks the same language as her. It seems unrealistic for me to believe that no one can communicate with this one character but one other character. I feel that they should at least have had a better way of understanding each other.

There is one character, Mundy, who was great. He had all of the humorous scenes, and at one point something happens to him and then a moment later something else happens and it all adds up to a fun little moment that I enjoyed.

As a movie that is supposed to be part of a series this was not a good film to follow the last one. The only part of the movie that examines the monster is one scene at the end where the audience is given a glimpse of the monster.

Was this a good movie, not by any means, but it wasn’t awful either. It should have been edited so that there weren’t any scenes on earth, and it shouldn’t have been made as part of the Cloverfield series, because then it would have made more sense and would have been much better.

Movie Review - CABIN FEVER (2016)

9/24/2018

The 2016 remake of the movie Cabin Fever was almost a step-by-step remake of the original movie by Eli Roth. There are some differences between the two, and if you have seen the original you might think that it isn’t worth it to see the remake. I am here to tell you, that while it isn’t the best movie, it was worth the time.

Cabin fever is about a group of five friends who rent a cabin near a small town. They find that the people of and around the town aren’t the most welcoming, and they learn that sometimes, you need to trust your instincts and get out of there.

One by one, after a meeting with an infected camper they are each infected with a flesh eating disease, and from there bad things ensue. Each one of the friends find themselves infected, in almost the same way as they do in the original. There are several small differences in the movie, which were appreciated and humorous, but the biggest differences were in the kid at the front of the store and the deputy that warns and checks on the kids.

The kid in the front of the store still says, “pancakes,” which is still weird. However the kid does not do all of the weird karate kicks and things along those lines. He wasn’t as well acted as the original child was, and there was a little bit of a lackluster performance from him. So while this was a major difference, it wasn’t a good one.

The second major difference was in the character of the deputy, Deputy Winston. The character was a female, and she was fabulous. She was funny, interesting, and willing to party. The acting was well done, and she was just as skeevy as she would have been if she as a man. She was probably the best acted character and I enjoyed her.

The movie ends almost the same as well. The main character tries to kill his crush when she begs for death, but after hitting her once with a shovel he realizes he can’t do it, so instead he sets her on fire, which I think is a horrible way to die. The other girl still gets eaten by a dog, but they try to make it more horrifying as she runs out of the cabin, naked, with blood and open wounds all over her body. Two get shot, one by the townsfolk, and the other by the deputy. And the last still dies off in the woods, all by himself.

This was fun to watch since the original was an interesting and new idea. It was a better remake than the remake of Psycho, so I think if you have a moment and aren’t sure what to watch, watch this, if for nothing else than Deputy Winston. And trust me, there isn't any other reason to watch this because the acting is not on par, or even close, to the original.