Review: Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996)

Well, you get Naomi Watts this time in one of her very early roles. Does that help? Not really. She plays an assistant to a local doctor. A job she gets when coming home to visit her ill mother. They show how all these regular children get sick at the same time (fevers for everybody!). After which, they become the titular corn kids (could you imagine that awful title? please don't but how about the prequel Corn Babies... I know, I know, cinematic gold... trust me). This entry feels quite slow and boring. They must have taken the budget down to zero. You get absolutely no corn monster. People give number three a lot of crap but man that movie goes bugnuts monster massacre in the last 30 min and it is awesome. I had no idea how spoiled I was until I watched this. Number two is definitely the best sequel so far with three being super close due to the finale alone but I'm afraid it's all downhill from here (maybe five is better? hope so... I'm a sucker I know). This film feels like an unnecessary tedious origin story. Almost like a prequel to the original even though it isn't. I guess it's attempting to inject more drama and suspense but I don't think any of it works. A low-grade sequel like this should at least be fun and good grief, I want my corn monster! Sorry, "he who walks behind the rows." One of the dang kids is supposed to be "he who walks behind the rows" here... ugh. You don't even get the bowling ball rolling underneath the ground. Zip. Zilch. The doctor does get cut in half... alright. Apparently, the doctor's office is haunted by the evil corn kids because they randomly kill Naomi's friend there too. But this movie is seriously lacking in every department. Did the people making this watch the other films? The audience is light years ahead from the very beginning, which is a horrible idea. It makes your film immediately boring like it opens with the mom's dream or future prediction of some evil kids coming. Whatever. We already know that's going to happen. Quit wasting our time. Ah who am I kidding? Clearly I have some time to waste if I'm watching this :) Did I just type a smiley emoji? Did I just type "emoji?" Oh please God, kill me. Kill me now. What have I done? What demons hath the internet spawned.

Review: Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Correction: they definitely show the corn monster in number three. Excuse me "he who walks behind the rows." Corn monster doesn't sound nearly as cool. This film is sadly weaker than part two. The opening makes you wonder if your brain gave up and forgot the second one because there's no continuity. All of a sudden you get two new kids in a cornfield with a drunken abusive father... ok. I had to double check and make sure both Joshua and Eli are new characters. Yep, they are. This sequel is very so-so until about the last ten or twenty minutes. Then it just goes nuts. You get an ugly huge latex beast that resembles the mutated dog in The Thing if it had been accidentally crushed by the prop guy. I love it, and the body count goes through the roof. All of a sudden, you get corn tentacles flying between a girl's legs (WTF), tentacles using sickles to hack people up, a guy getting hung to death by a tentacle (it's a sight to see), etc. Talk about a frenzy of blood and death. More than makes up for what came before, and it's funny too because you think the movie is over when all this insanity explodes onscreen. Genius ending but you know they're going to completely ignore the last teaser of the corn going worldwide. I'm quite certain the next one isn't set overseas. By the way, I have to mention the absolutely brutal demise we get for Malcom. Why does this poor guy have to be so eviscerated? I mean damn. He was a good sympathetic character and they make his death so gruesome like they just had to top Predator with the ultimate nasty spinal fatality. Geez. Couldn't Eli go out that way? That kid got annoying fast and I thought the demonic brat in two was tiresome. At least, they showed Micah getting possessed like he had a little extra dimension to him but this kid is too young and baby faced to be in charge. And what was with his outlandish fireball power? Eh whatever it's always going to be hard to pull off an evil kid. Done right like The Exorcist and it's unnerving (Dick Smith's phenomenal makeup went a long way though) but if it's done wrong, laugh-out-loud cheesy.

Review: Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

I love how the *second* film in the series already has the word "final" in its title. Talk about calling the game early. I can't explain it but I have a strange fascination with these bad Children of the Corn sequels. Mostly, I think I'm a sucker for the monster hiding in the corn at the end that they pretty much never show. "He who walks behind the rows." Sounds cool, and they do The Thing trick where you have something moving under the ground (I wonder if they also pulled a bowling ball beneath the surface). I would argue there actually are some good things in this movie. You get some nice gory deaths like the glasses guy bleeding out of every orifice on his face during the church sermon. Ned Romero who plays Frank Redbear, the Native American professor, is a fantastic actor, and despite the unnecessary cliche coda with him (good intent but a little hokey), he pretty much steals the show. I love the clever bit of dialogue where he says the earth isn't in balance then the reporter asks him if that's what happened in Gatlin. Heck no, those kids went psycho and murdered their parents! Not an exact quote but it's a hilarious little moment. The young girl in it is pretty and they give her a silly showering-under-a-waterfall scene so you can get the obligatory swimsuit shots (hey gotta keep that male audience interested). The acting really isn't that bad although the evil leader of the kids could be better at times but what do you expect? I do actually like the dad and son characters. Even the lady in charge of their bed and breakfast is charming. Hard to believe a simple short story from Stephen King would go on to spawn so many sequels but I guess it's not that surprising in Hollywood. This is probably the best of the sequels but I just bought the 6-film collection so I can dig through all the rest to make sure (I'm a glutton for punishment). I've seen some of them before but they all kinda blend together (and the result ain't pretty). For some odd reason, I thought Redbear was in the first film too but I was wrong. Shows you what I know.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Here is a fun exploitation flick overflowing with style and energy. The girls all have a ton of screen presence, and the story makes you anxious what will happen next because you know things could go off the rails at any moment. Supposedly made for a budget of only $45,000, I would argue every penny is up on the screen. The music is catchy too, setting an irresistible tone. Of course, they're not taking themselves seriously with this so neither should we. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I've seen quite a few movies lately but none had this much spirit. I wish we'd get more movies like this nowadays. All our micro-budget indies seem to be way too dour. I'm sure there must be some lighter ones but doesn't seem like we get fun exploitation like this anymore. Deathgasm was pretty awesome although more horror than this but both have tons of charm.

The Cube sequels are pretty good.

I wasn't expecting a whole lot. I loved the first film but didn't get around to Hypercube or Cube Zero until recently. I had heard the sequel didn't have traps but it seemed to me like it did. They were just done differently with these expanding killer prisms and this other lawnmower cube blade thingy but I still felt it had plenty of tension while being quite creative. Cube is a masterpiece you won't top, but as far as sequels go, they did a good job. This robot eye makeup on a higher up in the third film bugged me a bit since it doesn't look very convincing but all the stories are unique and interesting with good twists by the end. Heck, I actually wish they made more since this concept seems like it could keep going with pretty reliable results. Getting more of a peak behind the curtain in the third one was fascinating. You really do wonder about the people in charge making these cubes, and Cube Zero seems to set the whole series in a dystopian future. Of course, I'd rather have original films than tons of sequels, but if they're going to pump them out anyway (and you know they will), this is one horror franchise I thought actually had legs whereas some seem stretched far behind their limits (back 2 tha hood? holy cow, they've made 7 freakin Leprechaun movies now! geez). Did I mention I have a strange obsession with Children of the Corn sequels? No idea why. Yeah, I'm weird. The end boss, the monster in the corn, "he who walks behind the rows," some crap like that, always seemed cool to me. Alright, I'm incriminating myself at an alarming rate. Twilight sucks! There we go. We all on the same page now? Don't look over here. Nobody is behind the curtain.

Surprisingly, I love Alien: Covenant.

I was very mixed on Prometheus. The guy who maps the ship gets lost in it? The supposedly super smart scientists decide to throw caution to the wind and remove their helmets? Gee, why don't I pet the Alien cobra? He is her father... uhm so? This isn't Empire Strikes Back. In fact, I didn't even want to see Covenant. I figured I'd never see another good Alien movie again. Well, I'm happy to admit I was wrong, but I have to say I'm shocked at all the negativity surrounding this film. Whether I wanted to or not, I read everything people said about it beforehand and yet despite all that, I still liked it. A lot. To me, it's a billion times better than Prometheus, which again is not a high compliment since I hated the stupid characters in that one (and why didn't they leave in the deleted scene of the engineer speaking at the end?) but damn Ridley Scott got me. I did end up liking the characters in this, Fassbender was phenomenal, and the script made sense. Someone said there was a 5-minute flute scene, and like any rational person, I thought, "Damn, that sounds bad." Yet said scene has two Fassbenders in it, doesn't feel long at all, and is actually quite interesting since there's more going on than just learning the flute.

Gonna have to wade into spoiler territory here so stop reading now if you haven't seen it, but I don't understand why some are complaining Ridley screwed up the mythology with this one. Uhm, he did that already with Prometheus by saying the Space Jockey was just a stupid suit. The engineers still created the black goo. David simply refines it. Why is that bad? Sure, the gestation period is very short but David has been tinkering with his specimen a ton and I don't think we can assume the eggs in the first Alien film's Derelict Ship came from this same strain. Plus, from a practical point of view, no one these days would put up with Alien's deliberate, labored pace and AvP already jacked up the gestation time. Anyway, I love David playing creator, his great interactions with Walter, and I ended up liking Daniels and Tennessee a lot too. The Neomorph was fantastic. Same with the classic Xenomorph. I guess they painted over the practical FX with CGI, which I hate, but it looked quite good. I don't know why they needed to have practical built then in the first place unless they wanted to help the CG artists by having a real model to build off but I hope they warned the poor practical FX guys they were going to do that. Regardless, I loved it. Sometimes, the characters might make questionable decisions but they're not supposed to be super scientists in this one and they all seem realistic given how the android is meant to be their protector, they're in high stress situations, etc. People seem to be nitpicking the hell out of it and making little things seem all encompassing when they're not. At all. My dad called it, "Boring." What the heck. I was never bored in the slightest. At the beginning, I was still skeptical (listen for the music though... seems quite a few missed that) but it won me over big time. My buddy and I are both huge Aliens fans and we loved it. Now I hope Scott gets to finish this series of films but the poor box office worries me.

Review: Assassination Classroom: Graduation (2016)

I had no clue about this movie. I just happened to select it on a flight since I noticed other passengers watching it and got curious. In doing a few seconds of research, I can see it's based on an anime and apparently this is already the second live-action film. Regardless of all that and my complete ignorance, I enjoyed this film a lot. Japan has gotten a lot better at CGI and the FX in this production are extremely well done. For example, I tried to watch the live-action Death Note they made a while back, but wow, it was bad. The CGI was awful, and when one of your lead characters depends on that, it can easily sink the whole thing. But if you saw the live-action Parasyte movies, the live-action Attack on Titan, or the new Shin Godzilla, you can see they're getting a lot better (ok, Shin Godzilla isn't the best example since some of the early CGI in it is quite bad but the later stuff is better). I'm not a big fan of giving plot summaries but Assassination Classroom: Graduation deals with a bunch of misfit students training to be assassins who need to graduate by killing their instructor, a strange yellow creature made in a lab who was once human. It's kinda nuts but it's a lot of fun and very original with some surprising emotion. Now the poster to the side here makes me want to gouge my eyes out but don't judge it based on that. If you want to see something different that's totally outside your wheelhouse, here you go. Just ignore the hideously lame poster.

Review: Shin Godzilla / Godzilla Resurgence (2016)

I just got to see this in Singapore (luckily, English is one of the four official languages here so it had English subtitles), and I was blown away. No spoilers, but I think Godzilla fans will be pleased. I certainly was, and then some. There is rather crude CGI at the beginning when you first see Godzilla's tail and his initial appearance leaves a lot to be desired (neat ideas but bad CGI). Filmmakers should really know by now that if you can't do very good CGI, at least don't show it up close. Keep it at a distance and it'll look a lot better (plus, you could maintain more mystery of what it really looks like). The FX improve drastically as the film progresses though, and you get some really awe-inspiring shots of the King of Monsters particularly when he is wreaking havoc on Tokyo at night while glowing red from his radiation scars.

This Godzilla film doesn't shy away from human casualties like its recent American counterpart. In Gareth Edwards's movie, Godzilla crushes tons of buildings especially in the climatic fight with the MUTOs and you know some people were still inside them but you never see any of that. At the end of the American film, Godzilla strolls back out to sea, but if you think about it, he has to be stomping on some poor bastards on his way out. Shin Godzilla isn't quite as hardcore as the 1954 original when a doctor waves a Geiger counter over a group of children and shakes his head in a haunting display of brutal reality, but it's close. Real close, and I love how Shin Godzilla doesn't gloss over the radiation danger either. Being anywhere near Godzilla would most likely be lethal unless you had a serious radiation suit on (people near him actually wear them in this film and keep them on).

You might have heard Shin Godzilla is basically a metaphor for the recent Fukushima disaster and specifically how poorly handled it was by the authorities. Well, that is abundantly clear in the movie so no spoilers there. Some may knock the dialogue scenes, but they're done very realistically the way you could imagine the government responding to such a crisis, and there is plenty of camera movement with unique angles to keep it speeding along.

What surprised me is how mature this movie is. That probably sounds odd given this is a Godzilla movie and few except the original could warrant such a statement but they really illustrate the complex relationship between the US and Japanese governments. Sure, the Japanese actress playing the US negotiator is a bit tiring at times given how she was supposed to have been born in America to a Japanese grandmother who saw the nuclear bombs we dropped firsthand but the pretty young actress struggles a lot with her English (and her American swagger). It's obvious she isn't a native speaker despite that being what the story calls for although finding a native speaker of both Japanese and English must be difficult (not to mention, she has to be a good actress and the right age as well). No movie is perfect (a reviewer admits this? impossible I know).

Shin Godzilla almost seems like it was made by people outside Japan. Again, maybe a strange sentiment to some but this film isn't afraid to lambaste its own government. Heck, it even criticizes how Japanese interactions are too rigid and formal with hierarchy being too controlling. Characters get pissed because of all the bureaucratic nonsense and how nothing gets done until it's too late. A key plot point is bringing together a group of Japanese who aren't afraid to speak up and challenge authority so they can actually get shit done. The lead guy blatantly tells them to ignore rank and hierarchy. It's refreshing, and the US is criticized too, but you also have agents of the US like the Japanese American girl doing good behind the scenes as well so it's not some silly one-dimensional portrait of our governments. I never expected depth like that in a Godzilla film, and there are times when you think they're just knocking the US, but then they turn it around or show a counterpoint.

You get to see quite a bit of Japanese culture too. Sure, it's all probably extremely obvious to anyone who knows anything about Japan but still it's neat to see those interesting, self-reflective touches in a Godzilla film, and they're not all rosy either. You see how they will work themselves to death (not literally in the movie but in real life, they have a word for death by overworking), fall asleep in their office chairs, bow to authority even if it's clueless and incompetent, etc.

Alright, stop babbling and tell me if it has some good Godzilla action. Yes, absolutely. I won't get specific but Godzilla's atomic breath is fuckin amazing. It makes Legendary's attempt seem quaint and cute in comparison. I should stop giving the American movie such a hard time. I liked it ok (Bryan Cranston should've been in the damn movie more) and it was a colossal improvement over the dreadful, cinematic pain formerly known as Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla abomination. Let's never speak of that travesty again but pretty much anything would look good next to that. Shin Godzilla is far superior in my mind, and it dares to try new things while honoring what came before (like all the best classic Godzilla music in the end credits, which made me so glad to stay to the end, and some in the film too of course).

I just love how dark Shin Godzilla is. They do have a bad misstep with a rock song weirdly inserted at one point but for all its faults (and again, every film has them), this movie delivers. They got so much more right than the few things they missed. The look of the new Godzilla is badass. He's a true monster, but more than that, this is a serious Godzilla film with real weight and consequences. Someone put some real thought behind it, and I'm not that surprised considering how awesome Evangelion is. Hideaki Anno, you rule. I have no clue how they're going to follow this one up. Will there be a direct sequel or semi-reboot? Either way, I'm in. Let's see whether the US or Japanese sequel is better. Dang, we are spoiled now.

Review: Crawl or Die (2014)

When I heard about this indie, I had no idea how they were going to stretch the tunnel scene from Aliens into a feature-length film without it getting repetitive and boring, but damn, they did a fantastic job. There is a lot of incredible tension throughout, using simple but perfectly effective sound design to keep you on edge. You get different types of tunnels with some being dirt instead of metal then they keep getting smaller and smaller so the claustrophobic feeling is undeniably palpable. I have no claustrophobia at all, but you can't help it watching this and imagining yourself in that situation. What they went through to make this especially the lead actress when she is breathing in that dirt is fuckin horrible. They really suffered for their art, but I think it pays off.

My only complaint is I wish they didn't show the creature's head so much because it resembles Giger's famous Alien except it looks fatter and not as textured or if they could've changed the design of its head to be drastically different, I think they could've sidestepped negative comparisons. The monster looks pretty amazing otherwise like that first tail shot. That was executed brilliantly. You get a part later on where these long spider-like tentacles or thin legs come out of the tunnel, and that looks awesome, showing enough to get your imagination going but not showing too much to spoil it. It's a fine line, and I guess people complained about wanting to see the monster in full, but sometimes, that just isn't a good idea if you don't have enough resources to pull it off convincingly.

I listened to a podcast with the director and he talked about an earlier cut where he didn't show the monster at all. They just had sounds, but I think the issue with doing that on a micro-budget indie is people assume (unfortunately) that you lacked the ability to do it, not that you artistically chose to never show it. Plus, I think you can show a little, and that can go a long, long way. For example, instead of just having a shot of a dark forest where there is supposed to be something out there and using sounds to get that idea across, I think it's much more effective to have a shadow move. You don't need to show what it is but have stillness and then have it move. I like the idea of just sounds especially being reminiscent of earlier horror films like Robert Wise's The Haunting, but people make incorrect assumptions and are extremely critical of no-budget horror. Audiences are more demanding now too. I also liken it to reading a book where you get a small vague description of a monster such as "an obese mishmash of teeth and claws swaying in the shadows with its tentacles stretched out like an enormous spider web," which is plenty to conjure up a gruesome picture in your mind without overdoing it. If that book had absolutely no description of what the monster looked like, would it be nearly as effective?

Anyway, I really recommend you check out this movie if you like indie horror. Tank is a cool character, and they made a very tense little film. I love the scene where she falls asleep, and it's slowly sneaking up on her. The cinematography and music are perfect as well. You can buy a signed copy of the film at crawlordietrilogy.com. So do it and support these talented filmmakers.

Frankenstein's Army has some amazing FX but too much shaky cam and weak characters.

After the incredible trailers for Worst Case Scenario, I couldn't wait to see this, and as far as the practical FX monsters go, the film doesn't disappoint, but unfortunately, they decided to use a found-footage-style, first-person perspective. That wouldn't have been bad if they avoided a ton of shaky cam. Sadly, they did not, and particularly at the beginning, it gets old fast. It also takes 20 minutes to get to the first real creature, which would've been fine if they developed the characters beforehand and made you care about them, but they don't. You just get cliched outlines: asshole, old guy in charge, the good guy, the newbie, etc.

I love this guy, but I don't even remember him in the movie. I'm sure he shows up somewhere, but he doesn't really do anything.

Another great design that is largely wasted. I know you can't do something with every creature, but he should've killed someone.

I would still recommend it for the awesome monsters, but I wish it didn't have so much damn shaky cam. I really hate that. A couple people have also pointed out that the Russians didn't have film cameras with built-in microphones back then. They probably should've just ditched the whole found-footage thing and shot it like a normal movie with some occasional POV shots. At its best though, the movie feels like a ride through a kickass haunted house with a wicked set of nasty bio-mechanical creations. If only they gave us some real characters to care about or some more time with the mad scientist (he actually isn't in it very much). Regardless, I'm sure I'll watch it again just for the crazy creatures. There's plenty of gore too. I just wish they did more with the story and the characters.

Why is The Crazies remake so awesome?

I didn't expect much from this one. I'm pretty burned out on remakes. They just keep coming and coming like an ever-growing horde of decaying zombies with more and more limbs missing so I was extremely surprised to find The Crazies worth watching. In fact, I loved it. For starters, the pacing is brutal. They don't drag shit out. Forget showing the ordinary world for 30 minutes. They turn that upside down 3 minutes in. Not only that but they establish likable characters, give you an authentic small town feeling, and hint that a lot of bad shit is going to happen. I haven't really liked Timothy Olyphant in the other films I've seen him in (although I don't think that is any fault of his own... an actor can only do so much with poor writing), but here he fits perfectly and his performance is great. Plus, you've got a fantastic supporting cast with Joe Anderson (I don't know him from anything else, but he's outstanding), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill), Danielle Panabaker, Glenn Morshower (24!), etc. Even the guy playing a psycho husband (Brett Rickaby and he actually has a lot of credits) is outstanding. The makeup and FX are phenomenal. Same with the sound design, and you get tension throughout. I like how they flesh out the military a little as well. The movie also has a lot of replay value. I've actually seen it quite a few times, and I still enjoy it.

The only nitpicking you could do (and I guess it's valid for an infection movie) concerns how people get sick, because in one scene, the sheriff clearly gets diseased blood in a wound yet his wife who is a doctor doesn't seem to care, and it apparently has no effect on him (or maybe it does but we don't see it in the film's short time span). But hell, everything else is so good, I don't care. This film doesn't play nice either. It'll kill characters you care about in a heartbeat, and I love the three homicidal hunters. I was kinda shocked the director of this made Sahara. I don't remember anything about that movie except wondering why I wasted my time watching it, but The Crazies is superb. Dark and bloody with characters you root for.

I grew up on The Green Slime.

Well, that and Aliens. And Predator ("I'm heerrrrreee... kill me nooooowwww!") and a ton of Godzilla movies. So yes, I love this movie, and I'm a little sad it has a 4.0 rating on IMDb. I guess a lot of people think it's cheesy and stupid. I suppose the opening song is pretty goofy, but I don't care. I remember seeing this as a kid and having it blow my mind then trying to figure out what the hell it was called as an adult. I rewatched it recently, and I still think it's awesome. Even if it's a little dated (ok, very dated), that is part of its charm. But really this story doesn't waste any time. Within the first few minutes, you find out an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. They quickly put together a team to land on it and plant bombs. By the thirty min mark, they've already blown it up. So what took Armageddon 2 hours and 30 min to do, they've finished in their first act (by the way, Armageddon has a 6.4 rating on IMDb... what's wrong with this picture?).

Then of course, you get the best part: the monsters. And since this was shot at Toei Tokyo Studios with a Japanese director, they have tentacles. Alright, maybe not every Japanese drools over tentacles, but they seriously show up a lot. They even have a special subgenre of porn with them... yeah. I'm not joking, and it's weird. Girls wrapped in tentacles with the slimy things going in certain places... I don't understand the appeal. And it's basically an FX show since you need guys to operate the damn tentacles offscreen. What's worse is when I told my brother, he replied, "You didn't know?" I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, some might complain the monsters are ridiculous rubber pieces of shit. Yes, they could be better, but I love 'em. Sure, they don't compare to Giger's famous xenomorph or Stan Winston's skull-totin' space hunter (in fact, next to them, yeah, they look awful), but this movie was made in 1968, and it's easy to see the great imagination behind them even if they couldn't execute it perfectly. Yep, I'm probably the only person who loves this movie. What can I say? I have a soft spot for monster movies. But come on. This is a million times better than Armageddon.

Does Lovely Molly suck?

A lot of people have been saying this movie is stupid, doesn't explain anything, has a confusing ending, etc. but I have to disagree. They could've easily written in your typical paranormal expert to spell everything out for the audience (like Sinister, Dark Skies, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, etc.), but instead they give you clues so you have to piece things together yourself, and at first, I was a little confused since you really do have to think for a little bit about what they show you versus what Molly thinks is happening. That said, it isn't that hard to figure out once you've seen the whole film, because the big clue is the last shot, and I won't spoil it, but it's awesome.

I'm just surprised so many people say it's not worth watching, didn't have a script, etc. That's ridiculous, because it's extremely well done with great performances, atmospheric cinematography, excellent sound design (I love the creepy feeling they establish right away during the opening credits), etc. I wouldn't say it's perfect since I like the Deputy Sheriff character a lot, but they forget about him after the first act, and I almost feel like the movie would've been better received if they didn't try to make it ambiguous to where you can interpret it in different ways when really it's pretty obvious what's true after you think about that ending (as well as a few other clues). I haven't gone to the website (or seen the extras on the DVD), but there are a ton of little videos on there to explain things too. I don't think watching those is really necessary to appreciate the film. A movie should really stand on its own in my opinion, and some will argue Lovely Molly doesn't, but I think it does (even if the director did intend for people to check out the website and look at the extras). It creeped me out a lot more than any other horror movie I've seen lately, and I would argue it's actually very smart.

Spoiler time. For anyone who has seen it, I've got to talk about the ending. I really thought the ghost of her dad came back to torture her and possess her or that she was just insane until I saw the last shot (and actually the earlier bit where Molly walks out completely nude to a demon in the woods, which really looked pretty frightening). But after seeing her sister stand at the closet and raise her hand in the same exact way that Molly did earlier, I think it's obvious Molly was possessed by a demon using the memory of her father to get to her, and that her sister was next in line at the end. You could say it was all psychological and Molly's sister went through a similar trauma, but come on, the hand motion was weird and exactly the same. Plus, of course, Molly taped horse heads over her father's face in the photo album. Anyway, I think the idea of a demon using something like that to get to a person is very creepy and clever writing on the part of the filmmakers. It shows how the demon could really control Molly and play off her fears and past.

Sinister is perfect until...

(spoilers throughout so don't read any of this if you haven't seen the movie yet)

... the ghost kids start running around in slow motion. That is ridiculous. Actually, the first one is a little shocking, but then they go overboard and show them everywhere with Ethan Hawke searching the hallway. It's beyond stupid. You don't have to explain why there are sounds all over the house. It's scarier when we don't know. It's a shame too, because I love the look of Mr. Boogie (that name sounds so stupid when you type it, but it makes sense in the film since a kid came up with it) and the home movies aka the murder tapes are extremely well done with some great sound design (I love the lawn mower bit). But for me, it all falls apart at the end. The reveal of the kids doing the actual killings is silly. Mr. Boogie is far more frightening than the children. The Exorcist is the only movie that made me afraid of a kid, and Regan didn't look or sound like a child anymore. I hate it when they try to make a little boy or girl scary. It's more phony and absurd than anything. Of course, if it was real life, it'd be completely different, but almost always in a film, it looks dumb like they're trying way too hard. I've read some other reviews where people complain about the setup (author recklessly moves his family into a home where people were murdered in the backyard), but I can buy that if he's really, really desperate. Plus, his wife said he did something similar before. I just hate the ending. I'd still recommend it since a lot of the movie is excellent with some great tension and atmosphere, the performances are good, the cinematography is outstanding, etc. But as soon as they show the ghost kids everywhere, it started to lose me, and then it just got worse and worse from there.