The Haunting in Connecticut: The Ghosts in Poltergeist Were Way Better At Stacking Chairs.

After watching this movie I have come to the conclusion that ghost story type horror films are probably my favorite. Of course nothing can compare to the ultimate in ghost haunting fun that is Poltergeist but I still for some reason get a kick out of things that are supernatural.

The Campbells have recently moved to a house in Connecticut so that they can be closer to the hospital where their son, Matt, gets his treatments for cancer. Matt also looks like Robert Pattinson except that he has cancer instead of being a vampire. Soon they realize they may not be alone and finding out that their house was once a mortuary doesn't really help things. It is soon uncovered that some very very dark things happened in that house and the spirits there are pretty pissed.

So what I found to be genuinely creepy but not scary just creepy, was all the mortuary stuff. I'm sorry but after finding out that your bedroom was where they prepped bodies for burial why would you stay there at all? Especially once you found out that the mortician did a little more than normal prepping....? All plot-holes aside, the discovery of what actually went on in the house was pretty creepy. The carving of the symbols into the dead bodies, finding out most of the coffins were filled with sandbags, cutting off dead people's eyelids..and storing them in a little box. It was all very nicely creepy.

The scares however left little to be desired. Sure it's always creepy to see a figure suddenly appear in a mirror and then disappear or to see a bunch of chairs stacked horribly on their own- but those things have also been done before. The scares were also always accompanied by my least favorite form of scare tactic, a scary jolt of music. The only time I really jumped was when Virginia Madsen was in her room and then turned on the light and a scary burned face ghost was in her face- but that was a pretty cheap scare.

I had a lot of problems with certain areas as well. The drunk Dad scene was awful and really unnecessary. There was also way way too much Jesus and God shit going on. And the end was really confusing. I mean what was really going on there anyways? Although I did really like the axing of the walls and all the dead bodies spilling out- very nice touch.

But other than that I really had a hard time liking this film. I guess I'm just the ultimate Poltergeist fan but I can't help but be truthful. Poltergeist was a much more believable movie because the "ghosts" weren't in your face all the time. Their presence was very subtle and that made Carol Anne's taking all the more scary.

The story was interesting but I didn't feel like they took it as far as they could. The whole explanation of what the mortician guy was up to was a little heavy on the research. That girl had to have had all the time in the world to find out all that information from so long ago. Old maps? Yeah right. Although there wasn't a crazy twist ending like that Matt hallucinated everything in his head or something completely lame so that was good. But also once again the true story thing is a total sham. It was just a family who said they had a ghost and moved out....2 years later. Most people think they were just a bunch of whack jobs. So whomp whomp on that one.

All in all I would say skip this one. It'd probably be fun at a sleepover if I was 14 years old but now it's all just smoke and mirrors to me. Better luck next time Edward Cullen with cancer.

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The Burning: For Some Reason I Imagined Much Worse Things Happening When Garden Shears Are Involved.

I hadn't ever heard of this movie until I did a poll on Twitter about your favorite horror movie villain and a few people responded with "Cropsy". Who was this Cropsy fellow and what the hell is The Burning all about? A little researched came up with a film often linked to and regarded as a rip off of Friday the 13th. As it turns out The Burning was written before Friday the 13th came out and it's premises focuses on one of the most told campfire stories in camp history.

Now I don't know what it is with summer camps, and maybe it's just my exposure to horror films taking place at them- but I've never found them a real fun place to be for the summer. Kids are always getting into perverted shenanigans and then dying for it so why would anyone want to go to one? Yeah exactly. Also the shower situation in this movie really really bugged the hell out of me. It was a box in the middle of the camp. A tall camper could easily walk by and peer into every shower. I just didn't buy it. But moving on from the shower problem, The Burning is about a janitor who was horribly burned after a camp prank went horribly wrong. This is Cropsy. Now some odd years later Cropsy has returned ready to reap vengeance on the kids responsible.

Let's talk about this "prank" for a second. Firstly where did they get a skull with worms and bugs crawling out of it? Secondly what kind of prank is that. Thirdly why does Cropsy push it onto his bed in his moment of terror? The whole thing just really bugged me. Personally the Zeke the Plumber story from Salute Your Shorts is much more believable but whatever.

So Cropsy's mad alright and he gets a pair of garden shears and starts going to work. The gore and killings in this movie were very realistic and weren't afraid to show things. Like the garden shears actually cutting into the skin. Then again no one got their penis cut off which I think is a waste of a good garden shear but oh well. The color of the blood was very nice although it sometimes just looked like dyed water- like when it was splashed onto the mirror in the beginning. But other than that the blood flow did have a strangely nice artistic flow to it- which is something that I can always appreciate.

The movie is OK. But I found it was too slow most of the time and Cropsy was a barely there killer. I think the real villain here is the garden shears. Cropsy doesn't speak and then again neither does Jason or Michael Meyers but the difference is that those characters ARE characters. Cropsy is uninteresting and barely even scary. Showing his horribly burned face throughout probably could have been beneficial to his cause but I really felt no fear or remorse at all. He gets released from the Hospital, has a nice little goodbye with the doctor and nurses and then immediately finds a hooker and kills her? It just didn't make sense.

Another problem is that there was only one kid responsible for Cropsy's burning who was still at the camp and was now a counselor. And to top that off the counselor in question only gets a nip to the head? Why not brutally kill him the most if he is your original purpose of doing this Cropsy? Egads.

Overall not one of my highly recommended movies. And although I don't really like Friday the 13th, it's way better than The Burning. Although- The Burning had a better story line and opportunity to make it better than Friday. Maybe a penis getting cut off could have done the trick? Just a thought, just a thought.

Here is the raft massacre.

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I Spit on Your Grave/Day of the Woman: Damn Those Backwoods People and Their Lack of Manners.

I Spit On Your Grave is a revenge film at it's finest and also a powerful take on feminism. While many people find it hard to look past the brutality of the rape scenes- they are failing to realize the overall outcome of the film. So what if Roger Ebert called it the "worst film ever made", he also gave two thumbs up to Speed 2: Cruise Control. Clearly the man is not to be trusted.

Jennifer is a writer working on her first novel in her rented summer home in some woodsy area. She meets a few nice townsfolk who seem pretty normal and really not all that backwoods-like. They aren't even close to those in Deliverance which is probably what makes the rape scenes so unbelievably gruesome. Anyways- Jennifer settles into her summer home and one day while sunning in a canoe, two of the boys round her up with a motor boat and pull her canoe to the far off side of the lake. Here she is pulled from her boat and stripped and beaten then raped by the lead guy. After this she runs away- only to be met again by all the men who once again rape her. After getting away a 2nd time she tries to call for help once she reaches her home but is interrupted by-you guessed the men once more. Oooh and raped. Again.

After barely escaping with her life, Jennifer rebounds faster than any rape victim in the history of rape victims, and plots her revenge.

As I said before, what makes the rape scenes truly unsettling is that all the men appear to be quite normal. They aren't toothless hicks who force grown men to oink like a pig before sticking it in their butt. They just truly believe that what they are doing is 100% A-OK. Even their conversation the night before while fishing never really spells out that they are going to rape someone.
What is even more unsettling is the fact that they let her go 3 times. After the first rape I kind of thought, "that's it?" But then bam rape number two, and bam bam rape number three. And also the actress who plays Jennifer is extremely extremely convincing. You could truly feel her anguish and her screams almost ripped through your body.

Now the revenge sequences I thought were pretty damn good. Although I kind of questioned her decision to kill Matthew, but I suppose in the end it had to be done. He still did it and even though he was egged on, he did jump in on the fun a bit suddenly...so yeah I don't trust him.

The best revenge and probably the best scene of the movie is the bathtub scene. The red of the blood mixed with all those bubbles is pretty impressive and almost gives Argento's blood a run for his money- but not really because that would just be preposterous. Then the way Jennifer calmly locks the door and settles down in the chair to enjoy some nice classical music, with the guy screaming in the background...I just really thought that was well done.

My only real complaint about the film was how quickly she bounced back. And how she just took a bath afterwards and laid down in her bed. There is no way she could have known she was suppose to have been killed and that those men wouldn't be back. It doesn't entirely make sense that she wouldn't jump in her car right away and go to the cops immediately. The scenes after that- her taking a stroll in the meadow, and her continuing to write her novel are kind of like....ummmmm hello? You got raped? A lot. But I suppose it's speaking to her strong character as a woman and her abitlity to move on with her life and not let what happened to her destroy her as a person and all that. It still makes me raise a "I don't think this makes any sense" eyebrow.

The great thing about this movie is that you are always always on Jennifer's side. Even when you see that the gas station guy has kids and a wife you never for once feel sorry for him. You might feel a little sorry for Matthew- but when Jennifer has had her last word you truly feel empowered as well. The revenge sequences weren't some cheap way to get people to watch a horror movie and go wild over violence and blood. They were necessary to the film and it's overall impact is a strong one. Jennifer comes away from the movie as someone who has literally whacked her rapists in the balls. Yes, she uses her sexuality to appeal to the men in the end but that is what they deserve- because nothing is worse than getting a boner and then having it cut off. Or so I'm told.

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