The blog of author Stacy Kingsley - Stacy Kingsley

Movie Review - Creep 2

12/17/2018

Of course, this review will have spoilers because this is the second in a series. I can’t really talk too much about the movie without mentioning what happened in the previous movie.

The movie, Creep 2, was released in 2017, and I am not sure if people watched it as much as they should have. The plot definition from IMDb is: A video artist looking for work drives to a remote house in the forest to meet a man claiming to be a serial killer. But after agreeing to spend the day with him, she soon realizes that she made a deadly mistake.

Everyone who has seen the first movie knows that Aaron, played by Mark Duplass, is a serial killer. He killed his videographer from the first movie at the end of the movie. In this movie, he starts with a murder, but has hired a videographer, Sara, to document his death. As the film continues on he talks about how he has lost his mojo, and how killing has become boring. With Sara he finds new life and finds that he still has an urge for something. Sara, for her part, shows that he doesn’t scare her, even though he actually does. Then again Sara doesn’t believe Aaron is a serial killer.

I thought this movie was fun, and I have to say I also enjoyed the first movie, Creep. I think part of this was due to Mark Duplass. I have to admit I really enjoy his acting style, as he is often weird characters, but also subtle and engaging. In this movie he takes his serial killer to a new level, and he makes the audience believe what he says. His serial killer was also written well and it was such an honest portrayal, I could honestly say that he made me think about what an actual serial killer might think. He did, in fact, make me think of the real serial killer, Edmund Kemper.

Edmund Kemper is honest about what he has done and why. He is intelligent, and Aaron is also intelligent, which made him seem realistic and wonderful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and if you haven’t seen it you should absolutely watch it. First, watch the first movie. After you watch both of these you should watch anything else you can with Mark as an actor.

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.

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.

Book Review - A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS by Paul Tremblay

10/3/2018

I just finished A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, so I decided to review it, since I had a moment.

The book follows the Barrett family as they struggle to find out what is wrong with their fourteen year old daughter, Marjorie. At first they take her to a psychologist to get her help, thinking her issues might be mental health related, and then, due to the father, they pull in a priest. The father doesn't seem to have much pull with the family until one night in particular, and in the end they decide that Marjorie must be possessed and needs an exorcism.

For me there were moments in the book that really bothered me. The blog written throughout by Karen Brissette seemed very unnecessary. It was in each part telling the author why the television show based on the Barrett's life was unrealistic and fake. The reader doesn't need this information, as they should be able to read the book and decide for themselves if the possession of Marjorie was in fact a thing that happened, or something that a struggling family made up to make money. The blog didn't add to the story, and it was distracting.

The novel began with a strong look at the characters, and in the house where things had happened, but it didn't explore this setting as much as it should have. Merry, Marjorie's little sister, is the one who is really telling the story, and if she is back in the setting where everything happened, I would have liked to see more of the house and Merry's reactions. This was especially true as I looked back at the beginning after finishing the book. I wanted there to be more, and I wanted there to be something to bring this book in a circle, but it is abstract and there are things that don't seem to connect.

There are also characters that seem important, but in the end the fade into the book and don't have any presence when they should. The ending was a little bit of a surprise, something I wasn't expecting, but it is the only part of the book that stood out to me. The ending stood out because it made me question what was going on in the house, was Marjorie possessed, mentally ill, or an average teenage girl? Was there something wrong with her father that caused him to need the church and believe that nothing but the church could save his daughter? Was the mother absent in their lives because she didn't want to be married, or did she not see what was going with her family? Was Merry the antagonist of the story?

Most of the time the characters fell flat, and having an eight year old Merry be narrator, to me, made her an unreliable narrator, especially since the reader has no idea what she actually saw, or what she really knew or remembered.

The last thing I'd like to say is that this book did not scare me. I don't know what most people who were scared found frightening in this book, because honestly this seemed like an amalgamation of a bunch of other stories and novels. It is almost as if Tremblay did decide to read all of the books and watch all of the movies mentioned in the book and take pieces of each one to put in this novel. I wanted to be scared, but what was I supposed to be afraid of? An abusive family? A family in chaos? A little girl who ends up doing something terrible and never getting caught? So much is left unsaid, and nothing is really developed.

The only thing that did stay with me was the ending, like I mention earlier, because it wasn't quite what I expected. I expected Marjorie to die a horrible death during the entirety of a book, and I expected something bad to happen to the family, but I did not expect what actually happened.

I am happy I read this, but it wasn't as great as I had been led to believe, and I'm not sure I will read any more of Tremblay's books, only because his writing style didn't quite work with me.

Movie Review - THE AXE MURDERS OF VILLISCA

8/27/2018

Where do I start with The Axe Murders of Villisca? I think I will start with the most interesting tidbit about the movie, there really were axe murders in a house, and they happened on July of 1912. Another little bit of interesting information is that the murderer was never found. This movie is supposed to take place in the house of the murders, and it revolves around three misfits who all have something dark in their past.

The main character somehow was never convicted of being complicit in the robbery his father took him along to commit, even after both his father and the clerk were killed. Apparently his best friend took the fall for him, but it still doesn’t make sense. His best friend is a young gay man who lost his entire family in a car accident. And the day they decide to go visit the house for their small time, and small town, show about the paranormal, they meet a young female peer who has made friends with the wrong men.

This movie is honestly just a huge mess. It doesn’t delve deep enough into the reason behind the horrors that happened at the house, where apparently eight people died. This in itself makes things hard, because if I have no idea what causes the evil to happen, then I am not going to care much about why it happens. It might involve something about regret, guilt, and possession, but it isn’t really given much credence or thought.

There were no really scary moments, and for a movie about ghosts or possession I would have liked something to be frightening or suspenseful, but there was neither. In the end I don’t have much to say about this movie except, don’t waste your time. It isn’t even a movie that you’d watch simply because it is on streaming. No matter how you watch it, it will feel like a waste of time. So, if you heed my review, and listen to what I am actually writing here, then you will skip this movie and find something else to watch. There are several movies on this blog that I have reviewed better than this movie.

Movie Review - THE QUIET PLACE

8/20/2018

The Quiet Place, unlike many horror movies people have recommended to me in the past, was really quite good. Several people recommended It Follows to me because it was a slow burn, but I really did not enjoy most of it.

The Quiet Place is a quiet movie about an apocalypse of origins unknown. What the audience does see is a quick moving monster that kills quickly and for what seems like no reason. The movie begins with a a family on a quiet shopping spree, and while on their way home tragedy ensues. One of the three children, daughter Regan, is deaf, and possibly has been since birth. The parents are seen as a loving couple who try to find romance when they can, but what can you do when you live in a world without sound.

As life continues, and the family learns to live with the silence, and in silence, a relationship is ruptured due to the previous tragedy. Things escalate as it is revealed the mother is pregnant with a child and about to give birth. When that moment comes, everything that can go wrong, does. The alien monsters are blind and work through echo location, searching for their prey through even the slight sounds they make. They run towards the home the family has made, ready to eliminate them all. One by one the family has to fight for survival, and one by one they either live or die.

The ending of this movie was for a moment surprising, as a character is killed who I did not expect to be killed. There is a lot of anxiety in this movie that creates intense feelings of apprehension. One is walking carefully through this movie with the characters wondering who will live and who will die, or if the entire family will be executed.

I did enjoy this movie quite a bit. I would have liked a little more backstory into the alien monsters and how they came to be, but there were hints, although not enough for me to feel satisfied. This movie also reminded me of the movie Mars Attacks a little due to the way the aliens were killed in both movies.

I recommend a viewing of this. And although I am not reviewing it, I highly recommend BlacKkKlansman.

Book Review - THE KILL JAR by J. Reuben Appelman

8/14/2018

I won The Kill Jar by J. Reuben Appelman on goodreads, and I really, really wanted to like this book, but I just could not. The topic was interesting, but I am not sure if, besides police corruption, it gave any new information about the case at hand. I looked up the case on google as I read, and the information in the book about the case was all the same information I could find on google. The hard part of this book was that the chapters didn't transition well. One chapter could be about the case and the next about a pedophile ring that may have had something about the case then the next would be about the authors relationship with his father and then there was a lot about girlfriends, his family, and self-harm. This book was very disjointed, although I understand how the families of the victims might have found some relief in this book as someone was once again talking about their deceased loved ones.

I didn't think the author wrote as well as he could have either. From one chapter to another there were so many open ended ideas and questions, and in the end nothing was resolved. For example, the author met up with an old girlfriend, Ellie, and at the end of the book, in his last meeting with her he sees that she looks tired and different, but he doesn't question her about her appearance, so why did he bring it up? He talks a lot about his infidelities and self harm, but it all seems to be about him, not the story he is telling about the victims of the killer. He leads the reader into a circular thought pattern, and nothing is resolved, or changed by his telling of this story.

I wish this had been more cohesive, and contained more information about the victims, as it seemed to focus on the pedophilia of the suspects and others who might have been involved in the coverup of the pedophile ring.

This was not a great, or even a good book, it was too hard to read and left the author with nothing to look into or wonder about as it is a case which will most likely never be solved. So what was the purpose of writing this book?

Movie Review - THE LOFT

7/23/2018

The Loft is a 2014 movie that I had wanted to see in the theater. The movie revolves around five married men who join together to secretly share a loft. This loft provides a place of their own where they can take their extramarital affairs if they so choose. One day the unthinkable happens, and they find a body in their loft. They must decide what to do, and which of them might be the murderer.

This movie, when I first saw the trailer, looked like it might be an interesting horror film. It is actually more of a suspense movie, with a little extra infidelity in it. None of the men are really good guys as they all either want to or do cheat on their wives. The movie does however start with a shock as we open on a car being struck by something heavy, which one can only presume to be a body due to the tone of the movie. This beginning also sets up the overall dark tone of the film itself.

Of the five men the leader, or the one who provides the loft, is Vincent. Vincent is a man who doesn’t seem to care for anyone, his wife, his friends, or the women he sleeps with. Marty is a drunk who tends to do whatever he wants, and say whatever he wants, when he is drinking. Chris tries to believe he is a good guy, but he is like every other guy, although his wife doesn’t make things any easier as she doesn’t seem to like him, or any of his friends. Phil is a man who plays until the day he marries, and he really does play until the DAY he is married. Lastly, there is Luke, a man who seems to have his life together but who also seems to have a secret, which everyone thinks is his attraction to other men.

Throughout most of this movie it goes round and round, showing all of the bad deeds done by the men. Each one of them confesses to a problem they have had, and each one shows how little they care for others. This movie didn’t have many likeable people in it. The only one any of the audience could feel in the least bit sorry for is the character of Sara. But, to talk about her too much is to give away a lot of the story.

There was suspense, as we could wonder throughout who the killer was, and who the victim was. Also the depth into which the men go to live their lives as degenerates, it makes none of them likeable characters. In the end we do want to know what is going on, but it is almost a little anti-climactic. The story behind it was a little tedious, and finding out that some of the men get what they deserve while some of the others don’t was a little frustrating.

This was not a movie with a happy ending, and when it did end I felt bad for Luke. If you do end up watching it then you’ll understand why. His character was very sad, and he even though in the end he was not a great guy, just like his buddies, he did leave us with something to feel.

Movie Review - HAPPY DEATH DAY

2/19/2018

I wish I had seen this movie in the theater because it was that much fun. This movie stars Jessica Rothe as Tree Gelbham, a young woman who wakes up on the same day over and over. Each day she wakes up after she has been murdered, and she struggles to figure out what is happening to her, and why. She eventually realizes that she must figure out who the killer is before her nine lives runs out and she is murdered for good.

This movie, as a dark comedy, was fun. Was it a horror movie, possibly only because it did involve the brutal murder, day after day, of the main character. Otherwise this movie was more of a comedy, and of course drew heavy comparisons to the Bill Murray film GROUNDHOGS DAY. In GROUNDHOGS DAY, Murray continued to relive the day over and over, eventually (an no I am not giving anything away by saying this) finding interesting ways to kill himself to try ending the cycle, and because it can become quite tedious to relive the same day again and again.

Tree's day starts when she wakes up in a young man, Carter's, dorm room, not remembering what happened the night before. She runs out and the day goes like it normally would, until she is murdered and wakes up again in Carter's dorm room. This continues day after day until she wakes up, only to end up in the hospital due to things beyond her understanding. Tree believes she figures out who has been killing her, but ends up knowing, when she is killed yet again, that she was wrong.

The cast of characters reminded me of any other sorority group of ladies. There was the head sister, who was a total bitch and made comments about who people were dating and what people ate. There was a nerdy sister, who was Tree's roommate, who you either feel annoyed or sorry for. There were the sisters who told were foils of Tree and were obviously better people. Of course, the movie follows Tree as she goes through each day and becomes a better person, or learns things that she tries to change.

The murder scenes were great, each one was fun although not all of them were clever. I enjoyed watching the inventive ways in which Tree died, even if it was just having her throat slit, and part of this was because of the way the character woke up the next morning.

Now, as a horror movie, HAPPY DEATH DAY didn't cut it. Honestly, just because a movie is about a homicidal maniac doesn't mean it is a horror movie. Since that was the only "horror" element I felt this would fit more strongly in the suspense genre, as it came across as a suspense while I sat here thinking I knew who the killer was and wondering if I was correct. There were things in the movie that were nods to other films like SIXTEEN CANDLES and of course, GROUNDHOGS DAY. So while there wasn't much 1980's nostalgia represented in the music, there was in other elements of the film like nods to the previously mentioned movies and at least one movie poster from the time (THEY LIVE and I want it).

Do I recommend this movie? Absolutely. Why? Because it is a lot of fun and it doesn't end quite as expected. I enjoyed it.