Weekly Movie Review: Unfriended - Dark Web (2018)

Ok. This time I actually watched the sequel. I have to say I enjoyed it better than the first one. Premise was cool; idea of the dark web/members applied to a real life scenario was well executed. No over-gore, hardly any actually, but still managed to be quasi-creepy and suspenseful. Not the greatest horror movie in the world but definitely not a bad one.

5.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: Knock Knock (2015)

Solid movie. Felt like a riff on home invasion horror, but also brought a new element to it: female attacker(s) and a male victim. Suspenseful, intriguing, and Keanu is just, well, so Keanu. Plays up a pedophilic/cheating angle, heavily, and yet somehow makes you sympathize more with a victim in Keanu than his aggressors. Nice commentary by Eli Roth as an example from the other side of statutory rape. And bigger commentary (last few lines of the movie) on how, societally, this has become more problematic and more of an issue, fueled more so by social media. Not highly recommended from a pure horror standpoint, but recommended enough from a cinema standpoint.

6.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: The Nun (2018)

Nun = none = the amount of times I felt scared during this movie. Holy shit. That was miserable. I had such high hopes for this movie after the Insidious and Conjuring movies, but man, what a letdown. Even the jump scares weren’t scary. The only thing redeeming about this was the setting and aesthetics; it’s shot beautifully, but even Christ can’t save this movie. Wan, I’m disappointed you allowed this to happen.

2/10

Weekly Movie Review: Unfriended (2014)

While it was a clever take on the killer picking off white, California, high school kids, it ultimately came down to a lack of execution (typical for horror movies these days). The movie did a good job at building suspense, keeping my attention, and making me want all the characters to die, but the death scenes were mostly lazy and majority of the scares were jump scares. The whole movie taking place from a laptop-Skype session was creative and well-executed, but overall was trite and overdone.

4.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: Sharknado (2013)

They’ve made 6 of these apparently. and the 82% on rotten tomatoes was intriguing; everyone saying “it’s so bad it’s good.” But it was just bad. I get that maybe it was supposed to be awful, like Troll 2 or The Room, but at least those were funny. This was just abysmal, in every way. It was sunny for majority of the film where a hurricane is supposed to be taking place. The fuck? And nothing redeeming about it except for the credits signifying the end of 90 minutes I just wasted. Please. Never watch this movie.

0.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: Unsane (2018)

More of a thriller than horror, but still worthy of a watch-through. You can’t always count on Soderbergh to put together an awesome cast but this one was damn near flawless. Protagonist was a marvel of paranoia and fear, antagonist was creepy and deranged, supporting cast was killer. And the fact that the entire film was shot on an iPhone is just bananas; gives the movie a weird, vintage feel, but Soderbergh still manages to keep it fresh with creative use of camera angles and film-style - instances such as talking directly to the camera. As I said before, not really a horror flick - the idea of the film is scarier than the execution of the film - but still thrilling enough to give it a shot.

6.5/10

Shouldering Heaven

And I was sad

and all the sadder guests at the garden wedding

were dancing

in their question-marked clothing

minds once sewn

with threads now unraveling

down to the roots

of dead trees.

Where are we that we are not home?

Where is home now that the world has turned black?

And you and all

and the gothic melancholy unconscious:

dancing dreams

across the closed eyes of danceless dreamers

a singular mind amidst

the lot of them all, all

down between the cracks and grooves

of dead streets.

Where are we that we are where?

When did nowhere scream “now here” out of the cold walls?

A moth

a melon

a veil

a villain

Set Timbre

Sadness setting

Cut to sadness begetting nightfall

and onward to sadness begot:

only befitting; the space between stars is obvious, but the spaces between spaces is how you continue to guide yourself home every night

to another night tucked but not stuck, and free to follow the fancies before you

before, you would just reach out and touch them, or whisper a slight, makeshift grin towards the upward-western sky

that always saw you. 

Now you dream askew - better than dreaming skewed, where the slanted world slips on its own icy surfaces; 

the surfaces where they’ll find you now awake, or find you non-waking in the colors rupturing their turbulence. 

The autumn respite:

a gray and grieving skyline

clutching to summer.

Weekly Movie Review: Hereditary (2018)

Zero: the amount of jump scares in this movie. Old school horror in in a new school setting. Shot beautifully - lighting and cinematography were flawless. Such disturbing imagery throughout without over-gorifying. Unexpected turns and lack of predictability were super refreshing. Would’ve liked a slightly better plot execution, buildup, and a tad more backstory, but otherwise, this highly anticipated movie did not disappoint me; finally something good to come out of the horror genre. 

8.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: Friend Request (2017)

Some of the death scenes were cool, the storyline was intriguing enough, but the acting was subpar and there was way too much over reliance on the jump scare.

3.5/10

Weekly Movie Review: Marrowbone (2017)

Great plot, well-acted, cast beautifully, intriguing storyline, gorgeous setting, decent twist, but lacked genuine scares. There were maybe 2 or 3 quasi-scary moments in the film, but ultimately fell short in the horror department.

6/10

Fictitious Capital

Driving across roads:

what are we; meandering

on this rock, alone.

Paper rain skips from paper clouds

in paper skies, but the paper flowers

never wilt and always smell like paper.

Sinking into our own private deaths

on Berber carpet - you’re sleeping in

a parking lot that’s still asleep.

Turning back time

after time has passed is a crumbling oak

tree across the street.

Crescent-moon soliloquy:

the book on the nightstand;

the stare from the stairs.

Seven yellows, six greens;

the rest is whatever will come

of your midnights

and no one will ever know who you are
when the sky ruptures.

Godric’s Hollow II

She’s unbound - stone deadbolts collapse in the monster’s nectary thunderstorm. In the monster’s nectary thundersnow there’s a wraith writhing beneath thirty motley crosses.

Beneath thirty motley crosses you and I have traveled ends and beginnings with wasted and neglected middles.

With wasted and neglected middles, thunderstorms of thundersnow envelop writhing wraiths and stone deadbolts shatter underfoot.

Recount: Sunday

The coldest room in the house

was on fire –

hollowed out of itself.

You were still sitting;

sitting still like a glacier

melting into me.

Trying to turn the fan

towards the smoke

and harrowing midnight.

The coldest room in the house

was a fire –

hallowed be thy flame.

I made no sounds of sleep

nor watched the fire crawl

across the ceiling, darkly.

The coldest room in the house

was afire –

unhallowed serpentflame specter.

We don’t know where we’ve been –

The knives: all alive:

you’re only just

awake.