Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (2009)

Tonight my wife and I have started our horror movie marathon.

We decided that after our nightly walks, we would sit down and get in the mood for Halloween by watching a horror genre movie each night. I also decided that I would do a review to go with the films we watch and so this review blog was born.

Now without any further ado, for our inaugural review tonight's movie is the Butterfly Effect 3, which was chosen by my lovely wife.

Sam (Chris Carmack) has an awesome ability that he utilities to aide law enforcement catch murderers.

Upon being visited by someone from his past, Sam is made aware that the accused killer of his former girlfriend  may actually be innocent and decides to jump back to the scene of the crime which may have cause more problems than he could have ever imagined.

I honestly had no interest in watching this movie until the intro scene played out. The mother getting viciously murdered in front of her own son was a bit of a shocker right off the hop but it caught my interest for the remainder of the film.

The dialogue was a little lame at times but I was still able to keep entertained due to how they progressed the story line.

All in all, this movie had pretty good entertainment value and kept me interested up until the end when a terrible plot twist happens. But you can see that for yourself!

It was entertaining enough to keep me interested most of the way through but I do not think I could watch it again without being bored out of my skull so I give this movie a 5 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, You can also reach us at horrorshootreviews@gmail.com or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot !

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Contracted (2013)

Written and directed by Eric England, Contracted is the story of a young woman named Samantha,  who is drugged and raped at house party that is being thrown by her friend.

After the wild night, she starts to piece together what had happened to her and ends up believing that her rapist, a man named B.J., has given her an STD. But what she has received from him may be far worse than anything she could have ever imagined.

Written and directed by Eric England. Starring Najarra Townsend, Caroline Williams and Joshua Petrino.

One of the best surprises I have yet to find in the horror genre on Netflix. I do not know who is rating these films, but they need to learn a thing or two about a good horror movie.

Everything about this movie was on key right from the start. It had me guessing as to what could have been happening to her right till the reveal in the last scene.

The scare factor was not there but the cringe factor definitely was which  completed the whole horror experience for this movie and I would absolutely watch it again in a heartbeat.

The acting was top notch, as was the dialogue and the camera work. It was very beautifully shot.
I have nothing but great things to say about this one, considering I was expecting a 1 star movie and got a surprise 4 to 5 star which I could not be happier about.

With all my praising being said and done, I will have to give Contracted a 9 out of 10 and a definite suggestion for anyone to watch this if they get a chance to.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment, email (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

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You're Next (2011)

I have been waiting a while to do this one, but here it finally is and it's thanks to my friend Matt for making the request.

You're next is simply about a family who have gathered for their parents 35th wedding anniversary. But to their misfortune, they are targeted by a group of bandits who start killing off each family member one by one.

Directed by Adam Wingard, written by Simon Barrett, starring Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, A.J. Bowen and Joe Swanberg.

Now, I am not going to give any more detail about this movie as I do not wish to ruin any part of this film for anybody. Instead I will give you a list of why you should watch this movie for yourselves.

Right from the start you get all you need to create a perfect slasher film, just like they used to make back in the 80's. The music on queue, the "no cell reception" aspect was done in the most intelligent way possible, with full explanation to boot.

Add in your necessary soft core nudity, simple reason why the killings are taking place, some pretty good acting, a whole hell of a lot of well done gore filled scenes and you have yourself an excellent homage to the 80's that's sure to please any fan of old school slasher flicks.

Predictability was the only problem I had with this film, but it gave it the full slasher movie effect and I can respect that.

Now with all that being said I have to easily give this beauty a 9 out of 10. If you think that it's higher than it should be, that just means you aren't a real slasher fan!

Thanks for reading and I would once again like to thank Matt G. for the excellent request. Feel free to comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

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Exorcismus (2010)

Exorcismus follows two stories. One of which is about a teenage girl named Emma who starts going through a series of odd events, most of which she can not remember having happened to her.

She believes it has something to do with her recent use of illicit drugs, but soon finds out she is dealing with a much stronger force.

The second story is about Emma's uncle, a priest who has been excommunicated from the church following an unfortunate event in which a young girl had died while an exorcism was being perfomed on her.

Directed by Manuel Carballo, written by David Munos and starring Tommy Bastow, Stephen Billington, Doug Bradley and Sophie Vavasseur.

The begining of this movie really sucked me in and got me wanting more right from the get go. A lot of the scenes that they show you from the start are bits and pieces of how the story has unfolded, so as the film progresses you start putting different scenes together to come up with new conclusions as to what started Emma's whole situation.

The procedure for the exorcism was done in a neat manner where they did different sessions and when Emma was back to "normal" after completion her sessions, she would be at the dinner table eating. This helped them avoid going the "feeding tube" route.

This I really liked because it also allowed Emma to leave her home and progress the story line in other aspects.

Most of the story was fun to follow and watch till you arrive to the end of the film. The last 15 minutes in particular you notice the quality of the story drop dramatically as well as the quality of the effects used. The idea behind the ending was good, it just did not play out as well as they thought it would.

For the most part the film was good with the exception of the aformentioned ending, I will admit however that it was not a finish that I was at all expecting to see, nor did I think I would ever see in a film of this nature.

I believe this film is deserving of a 5 out of 10 due to how it played out but again, and I can not stress this enough, the ending should have been restructured and due to that, it's giving it an obviously lower rating.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

Have a great day!

Suspiria (1977)

Suspiria is the story of an American dancer who takes an available spot in a world renowned German dance school in order to improve her abilities.

But the dance academy seems to only be a front for something much worse and much more evil.

Directed by Dario Argento, co-written by Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi, Starring Flavio Bucci, Stephania Casini and Jessica Harper as Suzi Bannion.

I bought this movie in 2003 when I was working in the electronics department at the local Zeller's store. I found it among several other classic horror movie titles in a boxing day bargain bin.

Because I worked there, I had first dibs on any of the goods that our bargain bins had to offer and sure enough, I stocked up on everything that was deemed scary.

Now, this is where my dilemma came into play. I was unable to ever get into this film. No matter how many times I have tried to do it, I could only get about half way into it and without a second thought, I would turn it off.

Because of this, I decided to go to the internet and explain my thoughts on a forum and got blasted by about 50 different people when I said it was one of the most boring movies in the genre that I have seen thus far.

I then packed it up and never spoke of that day again. Until now.

People have been referencing this movie a lot lately for whatever random reasons, so I decided that my being 10 years older  I would give it another shot and see if my opinion has changed at all.

Especially after watching the entire film this time around.

Unfortunately, the same issues that I had suffered from in the past, seem to be the same problems I am currently having with watching this movie. A good portion of the scenes are played out for an unnecessarily long period of time which seems to makes this painfully long for me.

Any time a scene starts up that could lead to a cool kill or gore filled event, we are graced with a lot of bright light and colors which just threw me right out of the movie. It reminds me of some sort of weird art picture that you would find at any specialized film festival.

I understand this thing has a cult following but I can't suggest this film as something good to watch. I don't care who hates me for it and that's cause it's my opinion and nobody else's.

It's a really odd movie all around and not anything I will ever be watching again, so I believe a 1.5 out of 10 will suffice from me. The death scenes were pretty neat but dragged out way too long, which ruined any of their effects on me.

Other than that I seriously could not get into it no matter how hard I tried and will honestly have to say, I am disappointed that so many people tried to bash me over 10 years ago about this thing when I was right about it this entire time.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

Have a great day!

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

During the Vietnam war, a group of American soldiers go through an attack suffering massive casualties, one soldier in particular, Jacob, gets wounded by an enemy soldier's bayonet and suddenly awakens in the middle of a subway train cart.

As his story unfolds, flashbacks of his time at war continue to haunt him. Every time he awakens from one of these flashbacks, things seem to get stranger and stranger in everyday life.

Directed by Adrian Lyne, written by Bruce Joel Rubin  and starring Matt Craven, Dannny Aiello, Elizabeth Pena and Tim Robbins as Jacob.

If there is one thing I can say about this movie, it would have to be "mind f##k"!

I had already been made aware of the situation in which the lead character is in prior to seeing this film, so I figured I could easily understand the craziness that would ensue throughout the movie,

Boy, was I ever wrong!

Jacob keeps jumping through different types of lives. One in which he is divorced and the other where he is still married to his wife, with his family fully intact.

It was hard to determine which was reality and which was a dream or that he was simply crazy and both lives were just figments of his imagination.

A lot of references to heaven and hell were used throughout the movie, like the title for example, characters named after people from the bible and several sightings of demons by Jacob and his platoon members.

This was hard movie to follow but it all came together for me during the very last scene. It was able to answer all of my questions with very little having to be said or done on screen to get the point across of what I had just witnessed throughout the movie.

Although it was interesting and came together well by the end, I believe people with short attention spans and those who do not pick up on details very easily may not enjoy this as much as I have.

If you do not have the time to commit to this movie for the whole 2 hours you may find yourself easily lost. But it is well worth the time and I could easily watch it over again and pick out many more things I may have missed out on the first time viewing it.

I give Jacob's Ladder a 9 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment, email (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

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Saw V (2008)

Hoffman is now the new "Jigsaw" and as so has trapped the only other living officer who was involved in the case.  Unfortunately for him, the officer finds a way to survive the Jigsaw trap and is saved in time. He may be the only person who can stop Hoffman in his tracks, Meanwhile, in between it all, a new game has already begun. And this time, they are playing with a different set of rules.

Directed by David Hackl, produced by Gregg Hoffman, Mark Burg and Oren Koules. Written by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan. Starring Betsy Russell, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor and Tobin Bell as John Kramer.

This one struck a bit of a nerve with me as the game that was set in motion, did not have anything to do with the actual story line, It seemed to basically be used so they could promote it as a Saw film but used it as filler to advance the continuing story between Hoffman and Strahm.

On that note, I did still enjoy the game and how it was played out differently this time around, I just feel like they had two different movies mashed up into one.

There were a lot of flashbacks of the first film with added scenes to show the audience how far back Hoffman has been involved in the game with John Kramer, which helped build up his back story and give the viewer a few more things to ponder upon.
 
Had they found a way to properly tie in both ongoing stories together other than the obvious "Jigsaw games" idea, I would have liked it much better. Otherwise, as two separate entities, they were both highly enjoyable and deserve a 6.5 out of 10.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

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Saw II (2005)

But how could they possibly attempt to follow up something like Saw and have it been at least half as good as it's predecessor was? Well that question was answered very quickly and efficiently once I stepped into that movie theater.

Detective Matthews is hot on Jigsaw's trail and just about to put a stop to his plans. Jigsaw on the other hand, is always three steps ahead of authorities and has already kidnapped the detective's son, placing him into his newest game.

In order to get his son back safely, the detective must give Jigsaw his time and patients.

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, written by Darren Lynn Bousman and Leigh Whannell. Starring Erik Knudsen, Donnie Wahlberg, Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell as John Kramer.

Once I heard about the possibility of a sequel being made, I jumped for joy, but how could they possibly attempt to follow up a genius film like Saw and have it be, at the minimum, half as good as it's predecessor was?

Well the moment I stepped into that theater, my question was answered and pure gold was laid out in front of me.

I went in there assuming that I would be getting a low grade flick. And what I got was another amazing film that kept you guessing all the way though till the end.

A lot of the moments were incredibly cringe worthy, especially the "pit" scene which had everybody in the theater gasping once it started playing out.

Thanks to my expectations being so low going into this one originally, it made me fall in love with this movie that much easier than I would have normally. But after watching it for my review, my love for it has stayed the same as did my rating of 8 out of 10.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

Have a great day!