Category Archives: Horror

Movie Review: Obsession

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The problem with horror movies like “Obsession” is that it rides a thin line between horror and disturbing screaming, whining, and insane violence, making this more of a crazy movie about a woman (Nikki) possessed by something called a “one wish willow”, which makes her obsessed with her boyfriend (Bear). For me, this story does not meet the definition of a horror film.

The standout actor in this hard-to-watch two hours is Inde Navarrette, who probably has more time on screen than anyone else, constantly yelling and screaming, in movie history. These are not ordinary screams; these are over-the-top, hard-to-watch, pathetic screams from someone who should be in an institution. Within 30 minutes of this level of insanity, for me, it was time to go home, enough already. The worst scene was when Nikki stood in the living room for an entire day, waiting for Bear to come home from work, all the while urinating on herself and never moving from one spot. This is not a scene of horror; this is a scene of sadness, pathetic, and disgusting.

This movie starts with a relatively normal boyfriend/girlfriend story with Nikki, a very attractive woman, who just wants to be friends with an average-looking, mostly depressed Bear (Michael Johnston). On a trip to a novelty store, Bear buys this “one wish willow” stick, which, when broken in half, grants you any wish. Bear wishes that Nikki would be totally in love with him, never realizing that it would actually work, and work dangerously well.

What follows is not enough of a horror story but much more of a psychological nightmare of two hours, that includes one scene of murder, where a woman has her head rammed against a steering wheel, for yet another one of those overkill death scenes. We get it, she is dead already. Stop the head slamming. This is making me sick.

The strangest thing about this crazy film is that it is the first movie since ET, released in 1982, with the biggest box-office increase matching a rare weekend-to-weekend growth pattern. Even more insane is the mass rush of people who want to sit at the booth in “Little Tony’s Restaurant” in North Hollywood, California, for one of the scenes in this movie (see video below), where Nikki goes on one of her insane rants.

Considering how difficult this film is to sit through, I am very surprised by the very high 95% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating only 25%, with advice to run from this pathetic, sad, depressing, and too often disgusting film.

Movie Review: The Bride!

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The movie “The Bride of Frankenstein” was released in 1935, directed by James Whale, starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein and Elsa Lanchester as the Bride. This new version, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is much different from the original and has way too many “let’s be different, strange, and crazy” dialogue, action, and acting scenes, which is the unfortunate new direction for too many movies released in the last few years.

“The Bride!” stars Jessie Buckley as Ida, who will definitely win the Best Actress Oscar next week for “Hamnet” and is now in great demand due to her great performance. However, in my opinion, this was not a good role for a film scheduled to release right before you win an Oscar. While there are moments that require great acting ability in this film, the story is too insane, weird, disturbing, and in too many areas disgusting, making it surprising that anyone in this well-known cast agreed to act in this movie.

The Bride! also stars Christian Bale as Frank, Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius, with Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard (Maggie Gyllenhaal’s husband) as two police officers who are searching for Frank and Ida during the second half of this movie. Why these well-known actors read the script and agreed to act in this movie is a mystery. This is simply not a good movie.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal plays a 1930’s famous actor/singer, Ronnie Reed, who is a favorite of both Ida and Frank as they attend several movie musicals starring Reed, adding another dimension of weird and strange to this already crazy enough movie.

The low Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie of 60% are both understandable and correct. This was a hard 2-hour film to sit through, and looking at my watch was a big part of this experience. I agree with the mostly bad critical reviews and do not recommend this film. I hope that the weird and different new trend in movies eventually goes away and things get back to normal.

Movie Review: Scream 7

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The Scream movie franchise is now 30 years old, with the release of the original “Scream” in late 1996. All of the movies in this series are about the same, horrific stabbings and death, with the victim often running for their lives until finally caught and stabbed more times than is ever necessary to cause their demise. The plots are often idiotic, with a huge surprise ending, “who is the killer or killers?”, that are always ridiculous and illogical based on the entire plot of the movie.

While the new “Scream 7” movie is better than the last one, it is still very stupid, with some death scenes that will remind some of the “Final Destination” movie franchise, which is famous for its imaginative death special effects. This movie has a few death scenes at the crazy level of a Final Destination, with an overkill ending involving two pistols that has to be seen to be believed. There are once again too many scenes where a character should definately be dead, but either does not die, or comes back from the dead.

For this new edition, Neve Campbell is back as Sydney Evans, after missing Scream 6, because she was insulted by the amount of money they offered her. Considering her ambitious acting career that started with the TV series “Party of Five”, over 30 years ago, she has to be embarrassed to be so well known from a horror movie series this idiotic. However, when it comes to money and the precarious profession of acting in Hollywood, nobody can be blamed for cashing in when a money opportunity comes along.

After being almost killed in the last Scream movie, Courtney Cox is once again playing the reporter Gale Weathers, and is the only cast member to have appeared in all seven Scream movies. Relative newcomer Isabel May plays Tatum Evans, Sydney Evans’ daughter, and is most likely the actor who will take over this series, unless this whole movie franchise mercifully dies after seven stupid films. In the end, if one of these movies makes enough money, they will make another one.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are an accurate and very low 33%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie, even for the most die-hard Scream fans.