Horror Done Well (and badly) - July Miniview Roundup

August 3, 2021 Stoski Mosti

Watch yourself, there are movies about! Don’t worry though, Stoski and his Movie Ratings Guide is here to show you the way. In this month’s list we have a few spookies, a turn-your-brain-off action flick, and your standard Netflix interlinked trilogy - but don’t be fooled. It’s a live one! The horror movies are also actually scary. Well, mostly. You’ll see. Plenty to get stuck into! Let’s dive in!

The Conjuring: Devil Made me Do it (2021)

These movies are both all the same and completely pointless: A demon is haunting a person/place/thing, and the Expert Demon Wranglers are called in to catch it. Except that this particular demon is too powerful for even them to handle alone. The experts, with the help of the supporting characters, pull out all the stops to defeat the demon, but not before shouting lots of religious chants and other such things to literally no effect. Sometimes the movie ends with something to tell the audience that the devil isn’t dead but instead just sleeping. Perfect setup for the next one. They’re mostly the same, but if you like it, then that’s a good thing. The sinking of the Titanic was a godsend for the lobsters in the kitchen. It’s a matter of perspective.

There is an interesting question brought up in all of these movies: Why is anything related to God so useless in them? Prayers? Chants? The Cross? These things are used multiple times, and every time, for nothing. Demon is going nuts and padre over here is doing a rather loud prayer. The result? Demon guy continues doing whatever the hell he wants. No effect what so ever. The only religious-themed item I recall working as intended (re: having any effect at all) in these movies is holy water, and that’s in a hallucination, which hardly counts. Is this a subtle commentary on the ineffectual nature of God and the power of evil in our modern world? I knew I shouldn’t have taken that film studies class!

Also there’s an opportunity, about three quarters in, to make a joke about a haunted waterbed filled with piss that possesses you and makes you add your own piss to the waterbed. Got me a few good chuckles.

2.5/5

The Empty Man (2020)

An amazing, suspenseful, and genuinely creepy story staring four hikers in a beautiful but dangerous mountain setting in the eastern Himalayas. One of the party, Paul, falls down a hole into what looks to be a long-abandoned cave. Greg, along with his cohorts, quickly stage a rescue mission. With Paul rescued, they must seek shelter in a not-so-nearby abandoned cabin until the coming storm passes.

From here, The Empty Man shows us what horror truly is: It isn’t zombies, jumpscares, or evil monsters; it’s a sense of terror and dread that comes from circumstances in which the charters find themselves, with which the audience sympathizes, and therefore into which insert their own selves in place of the characters. What results is an experience of both fear and excitement. You aren’t scared because the movie is about ghouls or ghosts, you’re scared because you’re invested in a confusing, unfavorable, unknown situation in an inherently creepy setting. You care about the characters and are generally afraid of what might happen next. Quite rare for a horror movie to achieve such a feat.

4.5/5

At least, that’s what I’d be saying if the movie stopped at the end of the opening 20-30 minute prologue. After this, the movie straddles the line between ‘passable’ and ‘mind numbing’. The Empty Man exhibits the same problem that plagued 1995’s 077 flop GoldenEye: Too much runtime, and not enough movie. The result is a somewhat interesting (if cliche) story that’s simply stretched too thin, padded with boring conversations or otherwise overlong scenes, or scenes that go nowhere. The bridge scene, the lower levels of the Pontifex building, so many scenes could have been shortened to great effect, both shortening the runtime and helping the movie convey it’s message overall.

Again, just like Goldeneye, a sharp re-edit of this movie might reveal an average (at best) movie, but as it stands, it does nothing to respect your time. That isn’t to say that long movies aren’t worth watching, but that if a movie is almost 3 hours long, it should probably use that time wisely. Which this film does not.

It’s not all bad news. The effects and transitions are done really well, which you’ll see if you brave the entire thing from start to finish. Not that it’s wroth it just to see these transitions. If you really must experience this movie, I recommend watching the prologue at the beginning, and then watching a summary on YouTube, which I’ll embed below this review. I saw the movie and then the summary a few weeks later, and the summary makes me feel like I saw the movie all over again. I highly recommend the summary over watching this entire movie. You might be thinking that watching the whole movie beforehand makes it easier to understand the summary, but it does not. Every important plot point is there. The summary makes the film play more like a weak thriller than a horror, but it was never scary in the first place, so that’s neither here nor there.

This isn’t a note about the quality of the movie, but we learn that the main character sleeps facing the door, which is a little spooky in itself, but that door is also open all night! Looking out at his empty, spooky hallway! I feel no sympathy for this man. He was clearly asking for a haunting.

Final verdict: Terribly boring movie some good scenes and a great prologue (first 20-30 minutes). Watch the prologue, then the summary below.

1.5/5

Grave Encounters (2011)

Finally, a ‘found footage’ movie with more than jumpscares as it’s main attraction. There are a few other good found footage films, but there’s a reason this format drew criticism. Grave encounters, on the other hand, actually does it right. Like the first section of The Empty Man, Grave encounters does it well. We get a few instances of “spooky” happenings that make it seem like this will be run-of-the-mill jumpscare schlock, but at what seems like a bit before the halfway mark, we get to see what this movie is really about. I believe that these movies are best experienced with fresh eyes, untainted by reviews or spoilers. This isn’t much of a review, but I wanted to bring this fantastic movie to your attention.

Just know this: It’s well worth your 90 minutes.