The Conjuring 2

As creepy as the first chapter, this conjuring movie takes the Warrens to a haunted house in London… On top of the classic jump scares, the demon pulling the strings is a vicious entity set on widowing Lorraine. If you’re being attentive at the beginning of the movie, you will notice the demon’s name being spelled several times in the Warren’s house, and knowing a demon’s name is holding dominion over it.

The Strangers

The first thing you should do is watch this video (as far as you can), where Liv Tyler gives us a tour of her NYC house. Then, tell me how far you made it without wanting to bash her head with a sledgehammer…

Since we enjoyed The Strangers 2 last week-end, we thought that we would give a try to the first movie from 2008, especially knowing that it features Liv Tyler and that we would probably get to see her being murdered.

Unfortunately, even if the tension is well built, the movie is horribly slow. Liv is as horrible in the movie as she is in real life, all she does is cry and get hysterical.

Creating the right level of tension takes time, but when it’s time to deliver the movie fails. To that regard the sequel was much better, actually it was better at everything.

The Strangers: Prey at Night

I’m genuinely baffled by all the bad reviews I’ve read about this movie. I’m starting to think that the people who wrote these don’t like horror movies. Well, I loved it, it’s one of the best slasher movies I’ve ever seen. Normally I would have watched the original before the sequel, but I just saw this title on Netflix, and thought it looked great.

The movie is atmospheric, tense, and well-paced. If you are a fan of slasher movies, you will certainly enjoy this treat! It has an 80’s throwback theme with a bad-ass soundtrack .

There are a lot of references to other horror classics: the main title music is very similar to John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), the car on fire chasing the girl echoes Christine (1983), the female killers use kitchen knives like Michael Myers in Halloween (1979), and the scene where Kinsey sets the truck on fire and where the Man in the Mask walks out and collapses right in front of her, is inspired by Halloween II (1981). 

Definitely a great Saturday Eve horror movie night candidate. This evening we’ll finally watch the first one. If the original will be as good as its’ sequel, it’s going to be a hit.

In the Shadow of the Moon

A vampire reappears every 9 years to kill people, she also seems able to travel through time.
Of course, nobody believes the cop in charge of the investigation. As a result, he gradually loses his mind trying to figure out the mystery.

Unfortunately, everything is revealed during a never-ending dialogue that put me to sleep. I still don’t know why the time-traveller vampire was killing all these people and I will probably never know because I’ve lost all interest. It wasn’t badly acted though, but that’s about all I can say about the movie.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

When Sabrina receives the same treatment as Archie, occult, witchcraft, teenagers and gloom blend together to offer one of my favourite show of the year.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is the perfect example of why we shouldn’t trust comments on IMDB (or anywhere else). While they (who even are these people?) depict it as a missed opportunity, I see it as a near perfect show. Not only does it check all the boxes of my favourite themes, but the show is also the perfect mix between entertainment and aesthetic.

The second season is as good, if not better than the first. Even if Sabrina remains at the crossroads between the world of the humans and the world of the witches, we’re done with her crisis of conscience and the story moves forward to unveil her dark fate.

By the way, if you have already seen the show Sabrina, The Teenage Witch from 1996, you probably wonder why Salem, her cat, doesn’t speak in the new show… It’s because Kiernan Shipka is so allergic to cats that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa even considered replacing it by a dog. (source: finally something interesting from IMDB)

Halloween 2019

This year for Halloween, I had prepared our traditional pumpkin oven pasta in the morning. We eat this dinner every year on Hallow’s Eve, the celebration wouldn’t be the same without. We had to skip on it last year since there weren’t any good pumpkins to be found due to the lingering drought after the summer heatwave. What blasphemy, but this year my secret recipe was back on the menu.

Around 5 PM, we started watching Halloween 1978, the number one slasher classic of all time. The fact that it’s the best of its kind, and that it takes place on Halloween, makes this movie the perfect choice for a horror night opening.

After that, we watched some episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. One while the pasta was in the oven, and the next while we were eating.

With our bellies full with pumpkin delight, we crashed in the couch to watch Annabelle Comes Home. As I expected, it was great, I’ve always been a fan of the movies inspired by Ed & Lorraine Warrens’ case files. I always wondered while watching The Conjuring, what would happen if some one would break into their room full of cursed and haunted objects. Well, it may not have been a burglary, but I think that I got my question answered.

While babysitting the daughter of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a teenager and her friend unknowingly awaken an evil spirit trapped in a doll – IMDb

Anyway, after the movie, both my husband and I noticed that the lights in our haunted houses display all went out simultaneously. You have to know that they all are on batteries and aren’t linked in any way. I know that there probably is a logical explanation, but it just added to the spooky factor.

We were kind of tired after all that, but couldn’t resist watching the season finale of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. This must be one of my favourite tv-shows ever created. It’s eye-candy, the casting is fantastic (Miranda Otto, Michelle Gomez,…), they don’t hesitate to go dark where it’s supposed to be, and it’s about witches. I love witch themed movies (actually, everything), especially when they’re not afraid to go evil. The only thing that got me a little bit baffled was that weird singing scene at the end, but other than that the show was wicked!

This Halloween was one of the best celebrations we had so far, I absolutely loved it! Somehow I’m sad it’s over, but still 12 days of holidays left for me so, I’m leaving the deco up until then. Halloween isn’t over until I say it’s over, muahahahaha.

Annabelle Comes Home

What makes a celebration better some years than others? I have no idea but yesterday’s Halloween night was a great one.

Inge had spent her morning preparing her infamous Pumpkin Pastas, so we would just have to warm them up later… Not only is it the most Halloweenish meal possible but it is also a real delight!

We started our horror spree by watching Halloween (1978), which remains the best slasher ever made. I just love everything, the setting, the ambiance, the music and the actors. It’s the perfect movie to start a great Halloween night.

We then watched 2 episodes of last season of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I won’t get too much in the details now because that TV Show is so incredibly good that it deserves its own blog post. Let’s just say that I’m becoming a great fan of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

Our main movie for the night was Annabelle Comes Home and I loved it. While being more softcore than the usual Conjuring movies, Annabelle was great and gave us a few welcome jump scares on this scary night. I was happy to see an entire movie about the safe room of the Warrens, even if that room probably deserves more than a single movie. I was also very happy to see the couple Farmiga-Wilson, I kinda grew attached to them.

Something weird happen during the movie though… As we were watching Annabelle, the candle lights reached their ends one after another, which is normal since they had been burning for hours. What was not normal however, is that the lights inside of our electric decorations (see picture) were also all turned off. When we checked, the buttons were still on the “ON” positions. Also, the batteries were new, I had placed them myself. So, or we’ve been visited last night, or those electric decorations have a secret auto-off mode (which is not documented anywhere, I just checked).

Halloween 2019 was a great one and I’m already sad that it is over. We won’t remove the decorations before the end of our holidays (still 11 days, yeah!).

Anyway, when you’re a horror fan, it’s a bit Halloween all year.

Pet Sematary (2019)

Dr. Louis Creed and his wife, Rachel, relocate from Boston to rural Maine with their two young children. The couple soon discover a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near their new home – IMDb

Soforah

This remake of the 1989 classic, wasn’t bad, but not good either. The thing that disappointed me in this movie is that it wasn’t creepy. I kept expecting jump scares, and something more evil to surface throughout the entire movie, but it never came. The idea behind the story was great, but they could have done so much more with it. After all, it’s a Stephen King story, but to be honest, I’ve never even managed to finish reading one of his books, just too boring.

Anyway, it was a fun little thriller, but don’t expect the ultimate horror experience because you’ll be disappointed.

Sardoken

I don’t remember much from the original movie, except that it was average at best. This one is a bit the same… When the movie was over, I thought “ok, not bad”.

With such an idea, it could have been much more intense, but too many scenes ended up being soft, I even wondered if it was purposely done to satisfy a wider public.

The feeling I have with most Stephen King stories is that they are written for the people who want to read something a bit darker than the usual supermarket thriller, but it’s too soft for the real horror public.

Pet Sematary didn’t scare me, it didn’t shock me, but it didn’t bore me either, just like most Stephen King stories.

The Axiom

This picture is a trap. It looks good, but the movie isn’t.

Somewhere buried in this garbage is an original idea. Too bad it didn’t make it to a good movie. The Axiom is bad, so bad it’s annoying.

Unless you enjoy watching characters running around in the woods screaming each other’s names for nearly an entire movie, don’t watch it.

A Quiet Place

In a post-apocalyptic world, a family is forced to live in silence while hiding from monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing – IMDb

Now that I’ve seen both A Quiet Place and The Silence, I see why people say that they are very similar. Even though they are, it didn’t bother me at all, I enjoyed both movies. Where A Quiet Place is more about the survival, The Silence has a better rhythm, and more likeable characters.

Rather than writing about their differences and similarities, here are some facts I’ve read about A Quiet Place:

  • The film’s director and lead actor, John Krasinski, played the monster in a motion capture suit for a few scenes.
  • Actress Millicent Simmonds has been deaf since infancy.
  • The filmmakers purchased twenty tons of corn and hired local farmers to grow it.
  • The entire movie was shot in thirty-six days.
  • The movie only contains about 25 lines of voiced dialogue, although sign language dialogue is used extensively.
  • The first line of voiced dialogue isn’t spoken until about 38 minutes into the film.
  • John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are married both in this film and in real life.
  • In the basement scene towards the end, a few frames of newspaper cuttings are visible. One of these clearly states ‘Multiple Landing Sites’ as a headline, alluding directly to the origin of the monster species being from space.

The silence in the movie created such a tension, it made me wonder how it must be like if this would happen for real. I can’t imagine being so quiet all the time! I’m like an elephant in a china shop, I would be doomed!

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