Crimson Peak

broderic on October 31, 2015

The cliche I love when reading a ghost story is how at the start the narrator mentions how at first he didn’t believe in the supernatural. As the ghost story unfolds, it becomes apparent that supernatural things are afoot. So that by the end, the narrator readily believes the unbelievable.

Crimson Peak opens with the heroine of the film saying just that. But it is the end of the ghost story. So Crimson Peak unfolds to tell you about the ghosts. But it ends up, she’s known ghosts all her life.

This film is really predictable. You know where it is going once the characters show up. The brother, the sister. Yes, that will happen. The dead mother. The long lost wives. The many places visited. You know they all feed into the story. The only thing is that love does bloom which is hard to believe.

It’s not a bad movie. It was just marketed wrong. It is as the narrator had said a story with ghosts. It is not a horror flick, but a gothic tale with ghosts in it. Victorian but with ghosts in it. Del Toro should never have shown the creepy crawly ghost and left it all to our imagination.

3 of 5 stars.

“Be careful, Beth, because the stock market can be a cruel mistress.” “Well, so can I, but that’s not how I want to make my money any more.”

broderic on September 13, 2014

Link of the Day [9.13.14]

I saw this thing on the internet that was a preview of a graphic novel about spooky stories. I believe I saw it on AV Club. The thing is I saw that a while ago and lost track of what the graphic novel was about. I’m still sure I saw it at the AV Club, but I can’t find it there.

You see I like spooky stories. I love ghost stories, haunted houses, getting the creeps, and goosebumps springing up on along the arm. If there’s supernatural things about, I’m there. So a graphic novel with scares is right about my alley.

But I didn’t know who wrote it, because I could not remember anything about that AV Club article. Was it even an AV Club article?

Yet, here we are I found it from a link at Slate.com. It’s by an artist, Emily Carroll, and she’s got plenty of ghastly graphic tales on her site. I want to check them out, then get the book.

http://emcarroll.com

The Conjuring

broderic on July 27, 2013

I should be writing this review of The Conjuring in bright daylight, but a rainshower has just rolled through darkening the evening sky. Hopefully, it doesn’t put shadows in places where I dare not look.

The Conjuring was about one of the scariest cases of the paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. They were the investigators responsible for the Amityville case. At the start, they are investigating a haunted doll. That doll is the most frighteningly evil doll you will ever see. I hate dolls.

The Warrens eventually are asked to investigate a haunting at the Perron house built on the plantation of a former Salem farmer. Yeah, it’s not an Indian burial ground, but it is the cause of the evil.

The Conjuring then mixes up several better scary movies. There’s the Poltergeist style investigation when the Warrens set up camp in the house awaiting the paranormal activities to commence. There’s The Exorcist style exorcism to exorcise the evil from the house.
You would think the movie is derivative. It’s not. It mixes these other films in the best way for a different effect.

Supposedly, The Conjuring was rated R because of it being to scary. I wasn’t scared enough, and that is saying something. I squirm when watching scary movies. I did squirm during this one, but later at night I didn’t get scared of the dark. And by the next day, wasn’t scared of anything at all. Does this make it terrible because it failed to make me scared? No. I still loved getting creeped out. I still loved the setting and the pacing. The ghost was okay (The Woman In Black still creeps me out to this day), but overall it did its job.

4 of 5 stars.

Weird

broderic on April 27, 2013

I was over my moms this evening.

“I want to show you something. It’s weird.”

“Weird? How?”

She was leading me to the far side of the the balcony.

“Oh. We can’t see it from here.”

“What? What’s weird.”

When my mom uses the word, weird. It is rather unsettling. It’s not like us younguns who casually toss it off. It’s disturbing.

We head upstairs for a better look.

“What’s weird? What is it?”

She won’t tell me. She wants to show me. We look out the window into the small briar patch between the houses.

“Do you remember the chairs that your Tita Mina brought over? I think that’s one of them there.” [In the woods]

Creepy. Who would’ve done that. How? Why?

“Gabe said that there were homeless living in the Haunted Woods by school.”

I don’t think this put up by a homeless man. There’s kids playing in the backyard. They could’ve set up the chair as part of their ‘fort.’

Still, the chair sits in the vegetation waiting for someone to sit in it.

The Creature

broderic on October 30, 2012

creature-from-the-black-lagoon

Something about this picture that is really sexy and or disturbing. It’s sexy with the actress, Julie Adams, in a classic pinup girl pose. Disturbing because of the very phallic like Creature posed to pounce on her. Lots to think about there. And lots to dissect.

Quote of the Day [10.26.12]

broderic on October 27, 2012

“Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?”

Janine (Annie Potts), “Ghostbusters”

Quote of the Day [10.21.12]

broderic on October 21, 2012

“All ghost stories are ‘true’ stories. We love them, if we love them, from the depth and antiquity of our willingness to believe them.”

Michael Chabon, “The Other James”

Link of the Day [10.21.12]

broderic on October 21, 2012

Let’s go ghost hunting.

What’s that under the bed? Is there a strange shadow by the window? I think the bed shows a clear depression in the shape of a woman. Can it be the White Lady of Ordsall Hall?

It’s all in your imagination. There’s nothing there. Not like there’s anything downstairs at this moment.

What’s that?

I’ll go investigate…

http://services.salford.gov.uk/ghostcam/