Tag Archives: Haunted

Ghost Ship: Does This Supernatural Chiller Sink or Swim?

Posted on by
2
Advertisements

Somewhere between New Line Cinemas and Blumhouse Productions, Dark Castle Entertainment shone briefly as the king of horror. Named after horror master William Castle, the studio was created with the purpose of remaking his classic movies. Within just a few years, Dark Castle produced remakes of 13 Ghosts, The House on Haunted Hill, and House of Wax. Upon its release in 2002, Ghost Ship marked a departure for the studio. In spite of its similarity to the 1980 film, Death Ship, Ghost Ship was in fact an original story. Original or remake, critics hated Ghost Ship. But 90’s and 2000’s horror fans have a soft spot for this ocean chiller. So does Ghost Ship deserve a critical re-appraisal? Or is it just a bad movie?

Synopsis

In 1962, tragedy leaves luxury ocean liner, the SS Antonia Graza, lost at sea. Forty years later, the crew of salvage tugboat, the Arctic Warrior, discover the same ship drifting in the Bering Sea. However, fortune quickly gives way to horror when the salvage crew discovers that something still haunts the ocean liner’s halls.

Ghost Ship Boasts An Impressive Opening Set-Piece

Very few horror movies can claim to have an opening as impressive as Ghost Ship. First, director Steve Beck adopts old-fashioned aesthetics for his opening credits. They fit the time period in which the movie’s opening is set. Furthermore, Beck’s stylistic choice promises audiences some fun, cartoonish horror. Not all horror needs to be ‘elevated’. There’s nothing wrong with ‘popcorn’ horror movies. And for about five minutes, Beck delivers on that promise.

…not much could sap the fun of watching arms on an upper torso reaching to grasp their severed lower torso.

Without a doubt, the opening ball scene is Grand Guignol horror at its best. From the setup to the delivery, Ghost Ship executes a truly gruesome death set-piece. Even though you know what’s just happened, it takes a second or two to process. The sight of bodies slowly splitting in two with viscera spilling onto the floor is the stuff of horror fans’ dreams. To some extent, the CGI effects date the movie, but early 2000’s horror was rife with it. Truthfully, not much could sap the fun of watching arms on an upper torso reaching to grasp their severed lower torso. To date, Ghost Ship’s opening stands as one of the best in the genre. Sadly, it’s all downhill from that point onward.

Ghost Ship Struggles To Get Out Of Port

Sadly, Ghost Ship sinks faster than the Titanic after its glorious opening. Nothing that follows this scene comes close to capturing this irreverent fun. In fact, Ghost Ship is dreadfully dull for the rest of its runtime. Unimaginative. Derivative. Lazy. These are just a few of the adjectives that Ghost Ship brings to mind. You’ll find more scares in an episode of Breaker High. Though Beck has an eye for horror visuals, he struggles to stage atmosphere or suspense. Apart from the movie’s lack of suspense, clunky flashbacks and lazy expository dialogue cling to Ghost Ship like barnacles.

Dark Castle Entertainment Wastes A Good Cast

After that opening scene, Ghost Ship will struggle to maintain your attention. Arguably, you’ll be left picking out the familiar faces from the cast that went on to better things (or not). First, the screenplay saddles former ER star Julianna Margulies with the task floating this sinking ship. If this movie was meant to kickstart a movie career for her, it failed miserably. Mark Hanlon and John Pogue’s screenplay gives the always dependable Gabriel Byrne little to do. Today, Isaiah Washington is a Grey’s Anatomy trivia question. At least a young Karl Urban had Star Trek and Judge Dredd on the horizon.

Ghost Ship A Dull Trip For Horror Fans

Like the studio that produced it, Ghost Ship’s brilliance flickers very briefly. Contrary to collective nostalgia, any good will generated by its opening scene evaporates quickly. Outside of its first 10 minutes, Ghost Ship is dull and absent of any scares or tension. Sadly, there’s no critical re-appraisal in for this Dark Castle original release. This is just a water-logged movie.

FINAL VERDICT: JUST BAD

Doom Room: ‘Doomed’ By Familiarity

Posted on by
Reply
Advertisements

Among a small handful of new indie horror hitting streaming platforms this week, Doom Room arguably boasts the most intriguing premise. Writer and director Jon Keeyes sets his provocative thriller in what’s largely a single room. Doom Room also stars fan favourite ‘Scream Queen’ Debbie Rochon. Alternately titled Nightmare Box, it looks like this is a movie that sat on the shelf for a while. Should Doom Room have been left on the shelf? Or is it a hidden gem for horror connoisseurs?

Synopsis

A woman wakes up trapped in a dimly lit room. She has no memory of how she arrived or even her own name. Her only way out – a heavy steel door – is locked from the other side. But ‘Jane Doe’ soon discovers she’s not alone. Ghostly entities – some friendly, others not – come and go from the room. Some are there to help her, others to torment. Do they hold answers to Jane Doe’s identity and how she became trapped?

Doom Room Visually Impressive, But Not Memorable

In spite of its single setting, director Jon Keeyes crafts a visually engaging indie horror film. Early in the movie, a character remarks that they’re ‘in Hell.’ From lighting to its neon red tints, Keeyes does his best to make this indie horror an embodiment of a living ‘purgatory’, and he’s largely successful.’ Nothing in the movie looks cheap or low-budget. Additionally, there’s a dream-like quality to several scenes that falls just short of some of more memorable surrealist horror.


The movie looks good, but not much is likely to resonate after the credits roll.

Unfortunately, this is where Doom Room runs into problems. It’s visually interesting, but comparisons to surrealist horror movies, like Mandy, are inevitable. In this regard, Doom Room falls well short of what other similar movies have achieved. Keeyes doesn’t fully embrace the same dreamy aesthetics that defined Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy. The movie looks good, but not much is likely to resonate after the credits roll. Imagery that is intended to shock and provoke also lacks the effect Keeyes intended. HBO or Showtime television shows likely have more edgy fetish imagery than what you’ll find in Doom Room.

A Mystery That Tips Its Hand Too Soon

For 15 minutes or so, Doom Room achieves a good balance between some unsettling imagery and mystery. Audiences will be quickly swept into ‘Jane Doe’s’ predicament and, like the character, will be trying to piece together her identity. Even as some of the movie’s mystery tips its hand, one has to be impressed with writers Keeyes and Carl Kirshner’s interest in making something more than a ‘Torture Porn 2.0′ redux. Doom Room is nothing if not ambitious.


What’s left is a long, talky stretch in the movie’s middle that badly drags. Doom Room grinds to a halt with a lot of expository dialogue and lack of momentum and scares.

Nevertheless, astute horror fans will piece together the movie’s mystery pretty fast. What’s left is a long, talky stretch in the movie’s middle that badly drags. Doom Room grinds to a halt with a lot of expository dialogue and lack of momentum and scares. As you start to piece together the movie’s mystery, Doom Room again draws unfavourable comparisons to much better movies, including the recent Aussie thriller, Hounds of Love. Sadly, the climax is almost perfunctory in just how anti-climatic it turns out.

Middle-of-the-Road Performances Fail to Elevate Movie Above Its Limited Setting

None of the performances in Doom Room are bad. Nicholas Ball, credited as ‘Man’, probably delivers the movie’s best performance. Genre favourite Debbie Rochon, who turns up as a tormenting spirit, is fine but not nearly as fun in the role as you’d hope. The problem that emerges for Doom Room is that none of the performances are compelling. With its limited single setting, this is a movie that needed someone that could really suck audiences in. Instead what the movie has are performances that are merely passable.

Doom Room Has Little to Recommend

Neither terrible nor particularly good, Doom Room has little to recommend horror audiences. If you’re already visited your local cineplex to see Escape Room, it joins The 6th Friend, which was also released this week, as a passable indie horror. But it feels like we’re still in a holding patter in early 2019, waiting for that first truly great horror movie.

THE PROFESSOR’S FINAL GRADE: C

Haunted on Netflix: A Rock In Your Trick-Or-Treat Bag

Posted on by
1
Advertisements

Netflix boasts quite a selection of documentaries. Foodies have Chef’s Table and Ugly Delicious, both of which make cooking more fascinating than you could imagine. For the budding criminologists, there’s the addictive How to Make a Murderer. This past week, Netflix gifted horror fans with the horror docu-series, Haunted. But don’t get excited. As it turns out, Haunted is the equivalent of getting rocks in your trick-or-treat bag.

Haunted Buries Its Own Concept With A Lame Format

My name is Haiden. I know I have a demon attached to me” (Episode 6)

Maybe you were expecting a panel of paranormal experts dissecting supernatural tales. Well, you can forget it. Instead, Haunted mixes ‘dramatic re-enactments’ with ‘actors’ and the actual ‘haunted’ telling their story while surrounded by family and friends. The conceit of the format is that these are real people telling their stories to loved ones. It’s painfully awkward and stupid. While this “real” person (not an actor) tearfully recounts their experiences, you’re bludgeoned with reaction shots from family and friends. Facial expressions range from confused to constipated.

They even include a title card assuring us that ‘The following is a true story’. Sure.

There are no attempts to dig into these stories. Oh, Haunted tries to convince you it’s all real. They even include a title card assuring us that ‘The following is a true story.’ Sure. If the docu-series wanted authenticity, it could have made some effort to present research or other testimonials. Maybe the odd site visit. I would have even settled for some EMF meters or night-vision cameras. I truly don’t understand the point of having family and friends staring dumbfounded while listening to these stories.

Only Six Episodes, But It’s Six Episodes Too Many

Netflix original series are often criticized for packing in too many episodes. In contrast, Haunted seems thankfully restrained with only six episodes. Each episode is also only 20 to 30 minutes in length. Yet somehow it still feels like too much. Nowhere in the approximate two to two and a half hours of this contrived mess is there an original idea.

Episode titles include ‘The Slaughterhouse’, ‘Alien Infection’, and ‘Children of the Well.’ One episode even follows a young woman who keeps a stolen headstone from an ex-boyfriend. And don’t worry, one of the episodes makes reference to an ‘old Indian burial ground’. With so many fascinating urban legends to explore, it’s disappointing that Haunted chooses to mine old horror tropes.

Cheap, Recycled Horror Imagery Abounds

Younger Netflix viewers may enjoy some of the re-enactments. Older horror fans are more likely to yawn than cringe. It’s almost as though the series creator binged hours of horror films while scribbling drawings and notes on a napkin. There’s a lot of cheap looking imagery that’s reminiscent of better horror films and shows. Most of the re-enactments are frenetically edited with blaring generic horror music. You can forget subtly. Haunted feels like an anvil being dropped on your head. Episode 3, The Slaughterhouse, gets bonus points for its nonsensically hyper footage.

Haunted Reveals the Horrors of the Cash-In

Haunted may be awful, but Netflix knows what it’s doing. They dropped this series close to Halloween. Just to be safe, they tucked it right in between The Haunting of Hill House and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Apparently, some viewers are just realizing that the stories in Haunted may not be real. No kidding. The scariest thing Haunted accomplished – it made me miss Zac Bagans. And now there’s a second season. Damn you, Netflix.

THE PROFESSOR’S FINAL GRADE: F

Class is in Session: The School Promises Haunting Atmosphere

Posted on by
Reply
Advertisements

From Wolf Creek to The Bababdook, Australia has delivered some great horror imports over the years. Just last year, the gritty Hounds of Love and the supernatural-themed Boys in The Trees garnered some critical praise for ‘Down Under’ filmmakers. Later this month, Cinema Management Group (CMG) will be distributing the creepy looking Aussie horror offering, The School.

Who’s Making It and When It is Coming Out?

Award-winning short film director Storm Ashwood will be making his feature-length directorial debut with The School. The film was made through Australian studio, Bronte Pictures, with worldwide distribution rights acquired by Cinema Management Group (CMG). Ashwood did some work behind the scenes on another fantastic Australian supernatural thriller, Boys in the Trees. At present, the release date for The School is set for July 27, but it’s not clear whether this will include a limited theatrical run or just select VOD services.

What Is it About?

Dr. Amy Wintercraig is successful surgeon whose son nearly drowned to death. Since the accident, he has remained hospitalized in a coma with little chance for recovery. Amy, who obsessively clings to the belief that her son will wake up, inexplicably falls into her own coma. She wakes up in an abandoned school where she is confronted by supernatural forces that haunt her with the memories of children she has treated in the past. Believing her son may be lost in the same dark world, Amy must confront the horrors of ‘The School’ to save him.

Who’s In It?

Given that it’s a small, independent Australian horror film, none of the cast will be recognizable to most North American audiences. Megan Drury is playing Dr. Amy Wintercraig, while Nicholas Hope, who appeared briefly in one of the live-action Scooby-Doo films, plays Amy’s disapproving supervisor, Dr. Wang.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The School isn’t ‘who’s in it’, but where it was filmed. Much of The School was shot in a real abandoned hospital, the Gladesville Mental Asylum. The facility was opened in the early 1800’s and, like much of mental health treatment in that era, Gladesville harshly warehoused its patients. Over a thousand unmarked graves of patients are reportedly on the filming location, adding a bit of haunting legitimacy to the project.

What Does the Promotional Material Tell Us?

https://youtu.be/ADP2PxRq9M8

Much of what you’ll gather from both trailers is largely a sense of the atmosphere and visual style of The School. The second trailer fleshes out the film’s official synopsis a little more, but wisely keeps most story elements shrouded in mystery. What stands out most is the visual style, which looks to have some elements of Silent Hill, Guillermo del Toro, and Turkish horror import Baskin. There are some admittedly very cool shots and visuals in the two trailers. If the trailer isn’t giving us the best parts, The School promises to offer some distinct creature effects and genuine atmospheric horror. The premise alone looks to offer horror fans a story that doesn’t feel familiar or tired.