31 Days of Horror: Scream VI (2023; R; 122 mins.)

One of my favorite franchises, Scream always keeps me guessing, “Who is Ghostface?” and “Why is he/her/they killing all these people?” right up until the end. This installment was no different, and even delivered a couple good jump scares as well as solid reminiscing opportunities as it looked back over previous installments in a plot-fun way.

Living now in New York City after having survived Ghostface’s latest Woodsboro killfest, the four survivors (Sam, her sister Tara, Mindy, and Chad) are trying to get on with life, looking out for each other as they do. But it isn’t long before the phone starts ringing with calls from that unique voice, letting them know Ghostface is baaaaack and once again seeking revenge for some unknown transgression. Luckily, others are back too: Gale Weathers as the intrepid journalist and Kirby Reed, now an FBI agent who may or may not be helpful in the long run.

As Ghostface attempts to reach the “Core Four,” others in their lives must die gruesome deaths first (of course), the terror increases, possible suspects and motives as well as new “Franchise Rules” are spelled out, and plenty of opportunities arise for screaming to the screen, “Watch out behind you!” (a new drinking game, perhaps?). In the end, the twists and turns once again surprise, the survivors leave us to wonder how on earth people can survive so much stabbing, and viewers like me are chanting, “Scream VII, Scream VII, Scream VII!”

• Top Scare: Subway
• Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
• Scare Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 16/17 and up due to violence, gore, language

31 Days of Horror: The Woman in Black (PG-13; 2012; 95 min.)

If you’re looking for an eerie movie with a nice slow build and plenty of scares, this period ghost story starring Daniel Radcliffe is definitely worth a look.

Radcliffe broods with the best Londoners as Arthur, a young, distracted solicitor (that’s lawyer for those of us stateside) still grieving his wife’s death in childbirth a few years ago. His boss offers him one last chance to keep his job by sending him to a remote village to examine a recently-deceased client’s documentation left behind in her fog-shrouded mansion. With his young son in the care of a nanny for three days, he travels by train, where he meets Sam, a resident of that village. Turns out Sam and his wife are the only ones who want Arthur around though. That’s because if Arthur sees a ghostly woman dressed in black at the mansion, a child in the village will die. But Arthur must do his job, so he heads to the mansion to sort the paperwork as quickly as possible. There he experiences creepy musical toys, shadowy figures, crazy rocking chairs, and plenty more to set his heart racing. Yet he stays, trying to finish his job and solve the mystery of the woman in black and the dying children of the village, before his son and nanny are due to arrive and his son’s life is also in peril.

Atmospheric, melancholy in parts, and with plenty of scares, The Woman in Black also features a great ending perfect for the storyline and characters. Add this one to your 31 Days of Horror!

• Top Scare: Windows
• Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Scare Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
• Recommended for: 13 and up

31 Days of Horror: Things Heard & Seen (MA; 2021; 121 min.)

Set in 1980 and starring one of my faves, Amanda Seyfried, the spooky premise of this movie snagged my attention and had me hoping for a good old-fashioned haunted-house/possession story similar to Amityville Horror. Did it deliver? Yes and no. While the premise was good and the movie started nicely, midway through it fell down the what-were-they-thinking rabbit hole and spiraled from there into a Dexter-esque ending that had me groaning and shaking my head.

When teacher George Claire relocates his artist wife Catherine and young daughter Franny to the Hudson Valley and into an historic farmhouse “with good bones,” the family members acclimate in different ways. While George is building his ego and stepping out as Professor Claire among the co-eds, Catherine notices aural lights and strong smells and poor Franny has a ghostly visitor and deals with a flashing lighted toy at night. Catherine  begins to explore the house’s history with the help of locals and George’s seance-holding boss, but does so secretly because George is growing more deceitful, controlling, and disturbing by the day. As tensions mount, deaths begin to add up, and ghosts make themselves known, we wait to find out who–or what—will be left standing in the end.

• Top Scare: Spirit-related
• Heartbeats: 1 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 1 out of 5
• Scare Factor: 1 out of 5
• Recommended for: 15 and up

31 Days of Horror: The Invisible Man (R; 2020; 124 min.)

This is one of those movies that some love and some hate. Me, I’m right down the middle. What started as an intriguing horror-movie premise involving two main characters, eventually turned into a weird sci-fi-ish thriller involving way too many, weakening the scares and horror cred.

In The Invisible Man, the always amazing Elisabeth Moss plays Cecilia, an abused woman who escapes Adrian, her young, genius, tech-wizard millionaire husband (a character that is quickly turning into a trope), only to find out he has committed suicide two weeks later. However, she–and only she, of course–thinks he’s really still alive and stalking her using his invisibility invention, trying to exact revenge and frame her for many things, including murder. As she tries to convince those around her she’s not crazy while simultaneously fighting off Adrian, she realizes she must get smarter. Soon, her efforts start to work and entire police forces (okay, hospital cops, but still) are trying to take him down, yet only Cecilia can ultimately make Adrian SEE that he’s messing with the wrong woman.

• Top Scare: In a house
• Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
• Recommended for: 16 and up

31 Days of Horror: Hereditary (R; 2018; 127 min.)

I have seen this movie listed at the top of people’s favorite horror films since its release, and was eagerly anticipating watching it on a rainy, cool October afternoon with the blinds drawn and the door locked. So imagine my surprise and disappointment when my response afterwards was a lukewarm, Meh.

Starring the impeccable Toni Collette as Annie, whose mother has just passed away, Hereditary embraces the supernatural/demonic posession trope, but in an almost laughable way. When Annie’s daughter Charlie, an oddball loner with a special connection to Grandma, has a freak accident, Annie’s mourning grows deeper and weirder. Her son Peter also begins to behave oddly at home and at school. In fact, the only stick in the supernatural mud is hubby/dad Steve, who thinks his entire family is deep-sigh worthy and tries to pretend nothing is amiss. As Annie discovers a way to “reconnect” with Charlie and pulls her family along into her madness, things quickly spiral out of control. This movie starts oh-so-slowly, finally adding a couple of nice creepy scares, but ending with an eyeroll-worthy descent into ridiculousness. If you’re looking for a new horror fave, Hereditary is not it.

• Top Scare: Annie-related
• Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 3 3/4 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 16 and up

31 Days of Horror: The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (R; 2015; 92 min.)

I’m not generally one who likes “pilgrim tales,” but I thought I’d give this one a try after seeing it as #1 on a list of great horror movies on Netflix right now. I’m not sure WHAT exactly I watched, but it probably wouldn’t even crack my top 100 list.

Set in the 1630s in New England, an old world-speaking, uber-devout Christian family has been outcast from their colony, sent to try to survive on their own near a deep wood during a drought. Life is hard for all, but especially so for teenager Thomasin, often left in charge of the younger children. When baby Samuel disappears suddenly from under her nose and the young twins start speaking of witches, the family turns on one another and begins to fall apart in crazy and cruel ways. Add in a very disturbing forest-dweller, echoes of possession, and a truly bizarre ending, and you have a horror movie that’s more of a how-is-this-a-movie movie.

• Top Scare: Involves an animal
• Heartbeats: 1 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/5 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 1 out of 5
• Recommended for: 17 and up

31 Days of Horror: The Ritual (MA; 2017; 94 min.)

Sometimes a movie comes along with all the right ingredients – a group of friends, dark woods, confusion and paranoia, lost and injured hikers, and other bits of scary possibilities – but falls short in its execution. This is one such movie.

Following the death of one of a group of old college buddies, the rest reunite to pay respects to their dead friend during a hike in Sweden that the friend had pushed for. After one hiker is injured, the decision is soon made to take a shortcut through a forest to reach help faster. A cabin in the woods, missing time, strange statues, and other clues are brushed aside in a manly way, and, as often happens in horror movies, each friend offers viewers a stereotypical outlook on the group, what is happening, and life in general. While the setting does add atmosphere and events unfold at a decent pace, the scares are minor and the revelation of the “horror” is a bit ridiculous. If you are looking for a true “don’t go into the woods” terror-filled movie, I suggest one of my all-time favorites: The Blair Witch (see my review here: https://tanyakonerman.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/31-days-of-horror-blair-witch-r-2016-89-min/).

• Top Scare: Cabin scene
• Heartbeats: 2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 3 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 16 and up

 

31 Days of Horror: The Quiet Ones (PG-13; 2014; 98 min)

 

Based oh, so loosely on a real experiment in the early 70s in Canada, this movie moves many, many steps forward to slowly, carefully terrify your pants off. I was quite surprised it has gotten such so-so ratings online, since my heart was pounding throughout much of the movie and I even jumped during several scenes.

In The Quiet Ones, an Oxford university professor and three of his students conduct an unusual and unethical experiment on a young woman named Jane who seems to be possessed by an entity – ghost? demon? spirit? – named Evey. Jane is locked in a room while Cum on Feel the Noize blares day and night (yes, there is a non-Quiet Riot version from 1973). Using various instruments and methods, the team tries to help Jane to telekinetically move Evey from her body into a doll, thus curing her and proving the professor’s theories. But Evey has other ideas about how and where she wants to live.

The Quiet Ones is not a splashy possession story, at least not at first. The two main settings – Oxford and an abandoned country house – are pretty much it. Tension builds slowly in the first half hour, but once it kicks in, it kicks up a notch every few minutes and doesn’t stop until the very end. Expect lots of surprises and even a good supply of scares.

• Top Scare: Too many to pick just one
• Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
• Recommended for: 15 and up (even though it is PG-13), due to scares and some violent scenes

31 Days of Horror: The Intruders (PG-13; 2015; 92 min)

Miranda Cosgrove of Nickelodeon’s iCarly fame is all grown up, but is she ready to take on the lead role of a horror movie? Unfortunately, no.

Cosgrove plays Rose, a college-age girl on a break from school following the death of her mother and a subsequent breakdown. Rose and her father – who remodels houses – have just moved into an old house where a girl had gone missing. As odd happenings begin in the house, we are left to wonder if they are real or if Rose is imagining them, a side effect of a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia or possibly related to her dumping her meds down the toilet.

While there is a good bit of tension in some scenes and some odd characters to throw red herrings around, Cosgrove is just not powerful enough to help us really feel the tension and fear of her situation. Plus, it’s hard to believe she’s not twelve during several scenes – a kiss later in the movie is uncomfortable at best. So while the plot itself has potential, it falls somewhat flat at times and feels more like a movie-of-the-week. Still, for the younger viewers Cosgrove will attract to this genre, it just might be enough to introduce them to some safer scares.

• Top Scare: Basement scene
• Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 1 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 14 and up

31 Days of Horror: Unfriended (R; 2014; 83 min.)

While what’s truly scary is how much time teenagers spend online nowadays (was that a giveaway that I’m a bit “older”?), this scary movie uses the young generation’s uber-connectedness in its favor. Seen entirely from the viewpoint of teenager Laura, while she is chatting, IMing, researching, viewing, and flirting with friends who are each on their own computer one evening, Unfriended lets us join the group chat as they learn each others’ secrets and lies. But they aren’t giving up these scandalous tidbits willingly. They have another “guest” in their chat room who is pulling all the strings and forcing the teens to play a game designed to show how each teen is connected to the recent death of Laura’s friend, Blaire, while exacting revenge as the night unfolds.

Unfriended starts out a bit slow, and you have to be prepared to read A LOT during the movie to keep up (the movie itself is actually a shot of Laura’s computer screen as she pulls up various videos, websites, etc. and clicks away during the chat). Yet it picks up the pace nicely and lets us see only exactly what the teens are seeing, so it feels realistic and we understand the fear the teens are feeling. All in all, a decent movie, though if you are looking for true scares, you won’t find many here.

• Top Scare: At the end
• Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 3 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
• Recommended for: 17 and up due to gore and adult content

31 Days of Horror: Oculus (R; 2013; 104 min)

 

Ever feel like a horror movie has the possibility of being a great scare, yet it falls just short? That’s how I felt about Oculus. Even though it did have some scary-ish moments, and a decent horror movie premise underlying it all, it never managed to pull me out of my living room and into the spirit world like it could have.

Switching back and forth – sometimes quite confusingly (the director’s intention) –  between today and ten years ago, Oculus is the story of two siblings, Tim and Kaylie. Tim has just been released from a mental institute where he was being treated after murdering his parents as a young boy a decade ago. But Kaylie wants to prove via an elaborate set-up of alarms, switches and cameras that the murderer was actually an evil spirit residing in the antique mirror hanging in their father’s office, known as the Lasser Glass, and that the spirit has been murdering its owners for hundreds of years. A la Stephen King’s IT, Kaylie also wants Tim to keep his promise of coming back and helping her to take care of the spirit once and for all. The problem is, Tim doesn’t remember the events quite the same, until he is caught up in Kaylie’s efforts and starts to relive the night in question. But the evil that resides within the mirror has many tricks up its sleeve, all designed to prevent Tim and Kaylie from accomplishing their goal. The question is, who will be victorious?

•  Top Scare: Evil Spirit in office
• Heartbeats: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 3 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 15 and up

 

 

31 Day of Horror: Mama (PG-13; 2013; 100 min)

When two girls, Victoria and Lilly, are found after being left alone in a cabin in the woods for five years, their uncle takes on the challenge of trying to raise them. With the help of a psychiatrist, he and his girlfriend begin to make progress, such as getting them to walk upright and stop eating cherries for every meal (or certain creatures, as eventually becomes the case). But it soon becomes clear that they weren’t alone in that cabin after all – Mama was with them. And Mama does not want to give them up quite so easily.

With an almost unrecognizable Jessica Chastain, and an adorable Megan Charpentier as Victoria, Mama has a solid, believable cast. The majority of the movie is suspenseful, quite scary, and a bit gruesome, thanks to some great special effects. I was disappointed in the surreal-type ending, however, and wish the movie had stuck more closely with its horror theme. All in all, a great scare for your 31 Days of Horror.

• Top Scare: Any with Mama
• Heartbeats: 4 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
• Recommended for: 14 or 15 and up

31 Days of Horror: House at the End of the Street (PG-13; 2012; 101 min)

With Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, and Elisabeth Shue, I was happy to give this movie a try, and I’m glad I did. Though not the scariest of plots, it did have a few good jump-out-of-my-seat moments, some good suspense, and an interesting story. Plus, it had not just one, but two or three twists thrown in, and I’m a sucker for plot twists!

Teenager Elissa (Lawrence) and her wildish mom Sarah (an amazing-looking Shue) have just rented a house in the woods. They got it for a steal since the house next door was the location of a family slaying – a not-quite-all-there girl (Carrie Anne) had murdered her mother and father one night before disappearing into the woods to never be seen again. When they discover the girl’s brother, Ryan, has moved back into the abandoned house after many years staying with an Aunt, Elissa strikes up a friendship with him. As the friendship deepens, Sarah tries to put a stop to it, but Elissa is too clever for that.

Now, Ryan is a quiet, shy type of college kid, fixing up his family home in hopes to sell it one day. But as time goes on, we learn that there’s something very odd going on in Ryan’s house, something that involves Carrie Anne, who may or may not have disappeared for good on that fateful night. And just when you think you’ve figured it out – TWIST – you have to look at things differently. And as soon as you’re comfortable with that -TWIST – you have to figure it all out again. But it doesn’t stop there…you’ll be thinking this movie through right up to the very end!

• Top Scare: In Ryan’s house
• Heartbeats: 3 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 3 1/4 out of 5
• Recommended for: 14 and up

31 Days of Horror: The Cabin in the Woods (R; 2012; 95 min)

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: five college friends head for a remote cabin in the woods. When strange things begin happening, and they are soon dying one by one, they realize they are not alone.

What? Stop? Are you sure?

But if I do, you’ll never discover the mind-bending secrets you can only discover if you watch this unique version of the story. Secrets too big and, um, different, to reveal here! Suffice it to say, you won’t want to miss this cult classic brought to you by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, if only so you know the secret(s) and can yuck it up a bit in the process at not only the storyline, but the acting too. And maybe enjoy a few small scares here and there as well.

• Top Scare: Undead
• Heartbeats: 2 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 4 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 15 and up

31 Days of Horror: The Conjuring (R; 2013; 112 min)

Wow, wow, and wow! I’d heard great things about this movie, so wanted to be sure to include it in my 31 Days of Horror. I’m just glad I didn’t watch it late at night!

The Conjuring is based on real-life husband and wife team, Ed and Lorraine Warren, and their most difficult case as demonologists/paranormal researchers. In 1971 Rhode Island, the Perron family has just moved into an old, creaky-door house they got for a steal (uh, oh…red flag!). Almost immediately, they begin to hear strange sounds (flag), and soon discover the house’s boarded up cellar, stocked full of old furniture, toys, etc. (flag). The youngest of five daughters, April, soon has an invisible playmate (flag). The Mom is noticing strange bruises on her body (flag). And another daughter is seeing people and being tugged at while sleeping (flag).

Now, before you say, “I’ve seen this kind of movie a hundred times,” just wait. Because before you know it, the scares kick up a notch or twelve, with scares aplenty. You’ll be squeezing that pillow pretty tightly in no time flat! Because as soon as the Perrons decide to enlist the Warrens’ help, the spirits and demons living in the house start getting pretty mad about it all, and try to put a stop to their every effort. Adults, children, pets – all in the crosshairs. The question is, will the Perrons and the Warrens all make it through to tell the tale?

With amazing timing, special effects, lighting, and cast, The Conjuring is the perfect combination of “truth and scare,” one you won’t want to miss!

• Top Scare: Very hard to choose, but I’ll go with bedroom scene
• Heartbeats: 4 out of 5
• Gore Factor: 2 1/2 out of 5
• Suspense Factor: 4 1/2 out of 5
• Recommended for: 15 or 16 and up