Spiderhole (2010)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Daniel Simpson
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability:  Netflix Streaming

It's been a long time since I've watched a horror movie that was so bad that it sucked all of the fun out of watching bad horror movies. So, way to go Spiderhole! You did... something!

Usually when I rate a horror movie 2 stars there's a part of me that still enjoyed watching it. Take Hell Night for example. It wasn't a so bad it's good movie, but it was still fun to make fun of. I gave it two stars because it was a shitty movie, but I still enjoyed watching it. Spiderhole on the other hand, was a truly unsatisfying experience. Instead of cheerily proclaiming the idiocies of the characters, I found myself angry at their ridiculous situation. I couldn't stand to watch them overreact and flutter uselessly about instead of getting their shit together and being proactive. At 81 minutes Spiderhole ran about twenty minutes too long.

So, the movie is about some art students that squat in a gross, creepy mansion for the summer so they don't have to pay rent anywhere, right? And instead of bringing things that they might need when living in a gross, creepy mansion, like a first aid kit and a tool box, maybe a crowbar or a sledgehammer, they bring throw pillows and knick-knacks to make the place homey. And instead of exploring the place to make sure there are no psychos lurking around (oh hello pile of bloody clothes) before bolting themselves into a place that seems to have sheets of metal covering every window and door, they break in, take one look around a few rooms and proclaim "home sweet home".

It really just goes from bad to worse with every scene as this group of sprightly twenty-somethings can't seem to fight back against an old man in scrubs. I would have much rather watched actual spiders coming out of holes in the walls while frantic teens scurried to smash them all like some kind of gross whack-a-mole.

2 out of 5 stars

The Legacy (1978)

Genre:  Supernatural
Director:  Richard Marquand
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability:  DVD

The Legacy is a wonderfully atmospheric 70s' horror flick that, like most horror movies of its time, is more laced with mystery than it is with actual horror. Katharine Ross is fetching as the natural beauty and Sam Elliott balances her smooth elegance with his gruff and rugged handsomeness. The chemistry here is fantastic and the characters are interesting and likable, an important quality for the film since it's these two that we follow through most of the story. The gorgeous scenery is like a third major character, from the Gothic mansion's grand and elaborate rooms to the sprawling England estate's landscaping and rolling hills, it's this eye candy that makes the often erratic plot actually interesting and continuously compelling. It's a bit of a slow go at first, they take their time setting up all the characters and the situation that brings them all together, but once the ball gets rolling it's actually quite fun. The deaths, for the most part, are nothing too spectacular but the end reveal is what makes the whole movie come together. A must for fans of slow 70s' horror like Burnt Offerings, The Changeling or Audrey Rose.

3 out of 5 stars

The Dead (2010)

Genre:  Zombie
Director:  Howard Ford, Jonathan Ford
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability:  Amazon Instant Video

I briefly met George Romero at a NYC comic book convention some years back. He was wearing a t-shirt that read, "fast zombies suck". Someone asked him about it in the Q&A and he said, "Dead things don't move fast." And he's absolutely right (I mean, probably right), but then the question is, how fucking scary are slow moving zombies? In the movies they seem to have that eerie Jason Voorhees ability of always being one step behind you even though you're running your ass off and they're slowly lumbering after you with a broken ankle or a busted knee cap. And then, BAM! when you looked the other way for a moment they're suddenly right beside you sucking your brains out through your ears. But for the most part slow zombies are coming at you for like, ten minutes, and it's totally your own fault if you stand there fiddling with the safety of your gun or trying to tie your shoe lace or something and then Oh Noooos! they're biting your leg in half.

My point is, slow zombies are fucking slow so treating the story like an apocalyptic tale where the greater population is being decimated by them is just a little ridiculous and frustrating. This flaw is The Dead's  greatest one. Aside from that The Dead suffers from being an incredibly slow, rather boring story of a two men trying to locate a boy and find an airplane. On the positive side of things, the movie is well done, the performances are solid, the cinematography is at times downright beautiful and there are some nice gore scenes. If I had known I was in for a zombie-drama I may have adjusted my expectations and enjoyed the movie more instead of spending every 15 minutes sighing loudly and looking at my watch.

3 out of 5 stars

The Woman in Black (2012)

Genre:  Ghosts
Director:  James Watkins
Country:  United Kingdom
Availability: Theaters

I'm a hard sell for ghost story horror movies, they tend to rely too heavily on jumpy scares and bombastic music, seeming to forget that less is more and quiet is creepy. The Woman in Black is no exception. While the atmosphere is dripping, perhaps overly so, with the ghostly and ghastly feel, and while all of the players seem to be so pale and scared they look like ghosts themselves, it doesn't stop this story from being formulaic and a little drab. Having been a huge fan of the book the film would have benefited to stick more closely with the elegance of keeping the story simple. Sometimes when you don't try to impress your audience, you end up knocking their socks off. Unfortunately this movie adaptation of an unforgettably scary book will end up being completely forgettable.

3 out of 5 stars