Ed's Review Dot Com

Universal Pictures, Hasbro, Media Rights Capital,

Ana Coto, Bianca A. Santos, Vivis Colombetti, Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff

A young girl dies after recording herself playing with a Ouija board she found in her parents attic. A group of her close friends led by Laine Morris (Olivia Cooke) and her sister Sarah (Ana Coto) decide they have not had a chance to say goodbye to her, and given the responsibility of watching over and taking care of their empty home by the parents of the dead girl who are going on an extended trip, they decided it’s a good idea to try to use the board to contact their friend. Naturally though, the spirit they pull through from the board is not a benevolent spirit and comes along with a great deal of danger to the friends as playing with these things rarely pays off.

This is a pretty decent little horror films like many others in the past. The critics were harsh on this one, and people stayed away from the theater in droves. But now that it’s out on DVD it’s probably well worth another look. As you know, I’m a sucker for horror films and have always been. I saw the previews for this one and was anxious to see it, but decided to wait for the DVD. Well, I was impressed. People hated this because it’s a formula horror flick. Demons from the supernatural coming across to terrorize the folks in the human world. But there is a lot to like about this movie. First and foremost is Olivia Cooke. I watch her on “Bates Motel” which is now in it’s third year I believe. But I’m starting to see her in a number of films lately and she is awesome. She’s a Brit with an astounding American accent that she can turn on in a second. I don’t know how they do that, but I’m impressed. But her acting skills are really great and she brings the fragile and vulnerable girl in a very horrible place to life in a way that’s very believable. She reminds me a lot of Emma Watson in a way and she is good in this film. The sets and locations are very dark and evil looking. I think choosing to set the seances in this spooky old house where the girl died is much better than having it in some suburban apartment kitchen. The script is not groundbreaking, and the story is predictable, but it has plenty of scary moments, lots of suspense and supernatural stuff, and is a pleasure to see it well crafted. Let’s face it, there isn’t than many new things to scare us, so we have to be satisfied with getting scared by some of the old bad guys. It’s like trying to write new songs. Many times they sound like something we’ve heard before. I enjoyed it, and I think you will too. Definite DVD.

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Automatik Entertainment, Low Spark Films,

Laurence Fishburne, Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Sarah Clarke, Lin Shaye, Robert Longstreet

Nic (Brenton Thwaites) and two friends are off on a field trip, but being a bit nerdy, they had noticed a signal coming out of the desert in Nevada. Since it’s not far out of the way, they decide to go find out where it’s coming from. Suddenly everything goes dark, and when Nic wakes up they are in a mysterious facility with no idea where they are, or what’s happening to them. Someone is controlling them, but they have no idea what’s going on in this science-fiction thriller.

This is a very unusual film. It really starts out like a horror film, but there’s way more to the story than you know. Things keep changing and we find out there’s a lot more to the story than we first suspected. Then the ending twists everything on it’s side once again. It’s a rather a cerebral film, and as a result, it’s not to everyone’s taste. It’s slow, especially at first, but there’s a lot of things that happen here, and if you’re one of those people who like to figure out the mystery you’ll probably enjoy this movie. I didn’t expect a lot from this movie, but I did find it quite interesting. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story and am glad I watched it. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise. If you’re a sci-fi fan, this is a really different one.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Exclusive Media Group, Hammer Film Productions, Traveling Picture Show Company (TPSC),

Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Erin Richards, Olivia Cooke, Rory Fleck-Byrne

A professor, Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris) puts together a team of college students to do some experiments on a very troubled young girl, Jane (Olivia Cooke). Professor Coupland rejects any ideas of paranormal and believes that it’s just manifestation of negative energy that can be extracted and captured. Jane soon brings out Evey, the evil spirit which does harm to Jane and to the other students who have her locked up in a remote house for their experiments as the ratchet the pressure up step by step with their tests. Soon everything is out of control.

This new horror film bears the headlines, “Based on true events”. Uh, no. Technically it’s based on an idea from the 70’s in Canada where a team tried to figure out if you could create a ghost in your mind, something like that. It bears no similarity at all to this movie. This is really far fetched. It is a really scary film, but the scary stuff is much more bangs and screams at unexpected times, and is sort of a Halloween horror maze type of film. There isn’t really much going on here. Reality is pretty thin, and they really rely on the excellent speaker systems in today’s theater to scare you, although someone sitting behind you with a metal pan and a spoon could whack it from time to time and scare you about the same amount.

There seems to be a market for horror films right now. There haven’t been a lot lately. But I have a feeling this one won’t do much box office wise. It just doesn’t have enough going for it to make it at today’s box office prices. When we saw this, we chose the bargain matinee price and picked a 5PM showing. We were alone in the theater (on opening day) for quite a while when two or three groups of very young teens (probably 12 or 13 for the most part) and sat scattered around the theater. They kicked seats, talked out loud, laughed and giggled, and enjoyed playing like kids in a playground and paid very little attention to anything. I guess that goes to show how little was going on here. Another complaint….a student was recruited to be the “cameraman” and document everything that happens. That gives them the license to use the handheld camera to run down the hall making everyone sick once again. I’ve already complained about “found footage” movies before. Fortunately most of the film is really filmed, and the camera work was pretty well done throughout. The main problem with this movie is that it just doesn’t build much in the way of suspense, and it relies on cheap startle type scares to keep you on the edge of the seat. I would say this is okay when it eventually hits the video market, but I don’t recommend this one, especially in the theater. It’s just not that good.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog