Wes Craven presents They, a herald of the onslaught of shitty early 2000’s PG-13 movies with CGI monsters and a played out story arc. They sucks and the actual “They,” Them, fuck Them; They are lame.
There’s this girl named Julia who gets night terrors. Really, it’s not night terrors; it’s just the “They” fucking with her. Isn’t that exciting?!
They are little CGI gremlin things that hide in her closet like the Boogie Man and they come out at night and try to, I don’t know, eat her or maul her or take her to the other closet world or something. Anyone else who has ever almost died huffing glue will know what I’m talking about. It’s like that, am I right?
I know I’m right…
Anyway, They drive her crazier and crazier as the movie progresses. Her friend looks like the guy who loves torturing Theon in Game of Thrones. Even his wily ass doesn’t believe her when she tries explaining Them.
She winds up going to the nut house because They made her so hyphy, she hurt some folks. I’ll admit, I kept watching until the end to see how it all wraps up. You know how at the end of most Freddy movies, the kids figure out what is going on and there’s a climactic confrontation and exciting explosions and awesome cackling and frightening animatronic monsters and acts of heroism and raw carnage and violence? Wasn’t that mind-blowingly badass? Well, there’s nothing like that at the end of They. The ending is just a big busy unscary cluster-fuck of CGI Them.
Oh, I am tormented by the wraiths of despair who pierce and rend the flesh most harshly as my curse compels me to watch American Psycho 2, Dear Reader! Even the star of this wretched spectacle, Mila Kunis, with the faint flicker of dignity, has openly stated her disdain for this abominable filth! It is enough to drive a man to drink Irish whiskey in most troubling quantities!
The feeble tether between this cinematic abomination, rightfully destined for the dark recesses of straight-to-DVD confinement, and the seminal masterpiece that is the first and only American Psycho, is but a wispy specter. It appears as though a sophomoric scrawling of a banal thriller was repurposed with a mere sprinkle of references to Patrick Bateman, so that filmmakers could emblazon “AMERICAN PSYCHO” upon the cover, perched above the visage of the bewitching Kunis, her countenance devoid of emotion, and adjacent to a grotesquely photoshopped meat hook. Ah, the horror aficionado knows this ploy all too well: the sacrilege committed against beloved films through the proliferation of cheap sequels and soulless reboots!
‘Tis enough, Dear Reader, to drive your humble Keeper to the enslaving elixir of Irish whiskey, which I confess I have consumed in great quantities prior to penning this vicious screed!
The studio, oh so cunning, hoped for one of these thoughts to echo through your mind as you stumbled upon this accursed creation:
“Oh joyous day! American Psycho 2! The first one captivated my very soul! I must delve into this offering!”
“Oh blessed be! Radiant Kunis as a serial killer! She is a vision! I must partake in this spectacle!”
“Oh woe is me! Shatner graces the screen? Such is the lament of my existence. I must subject myself to this curious torture!”
Alas, I am sorry to confess another sin in addition to my excessive consumption of corrosive Irish whiskey: I succumbed to the studio’s malevolent machinations, primarily due to the morbid allure of the third enticement. And now, my life teeters all the more precipitously on the cusp of madness.
The tale unfolds with Ms. Kunis embarking on a rather dull spree of slaying her classmates, all in a desperate bid to secure the coveted role of Mr. Shatner’s teaching assistant. Or at least, that is the impression that seeped into my consciousness as I greedily inhaled draughts of intoxicating Irish nectar!
This abomination of a film was birthed in a mere twenty days, and oh, the evidence is palpable. This film possesses none of the wit, the visceral splendor, the profound meaning, nor the sheer malevolence that permeated American Psycho. It appears as though Shatner and Kunis engage in a perverse contest to determine who can render their lines with the greatest strain. Gratuitous voice-overs torture the viewer and drive him to consume Irish venom. The soundtrack, oh how it plucks at the strings of absurdity, with whimsical melodies that one might expect to accompany a children’s film.
Kunis, for the majority of her screen time, is reduced to vacant stares, lost in a void while her wretched voice-overs echo. Her demeanor is akin to a lifeless automaton. Occasionally, she contemplates the nature of her murderous soul, yet it feels contrived to the point of inducing retching, which I am doing now most violently.
This is one of the best horror films ever made. It’s psychologically creepy as fuck and the writing/acting/direction are fantastic. Structurally, each scene is like a scene from a play with a beginning, middle, and end that all contribute to the overall plot. There is no wasted screen time or pretentious/frivolous scenes thrown in for the hell of it.
Rosemary and her struggling actor husband Guy move into a New York apartment building and befriend local weirdos Roman and Minnie Castevet. The four of them drink fancy cocktails, and swap stories by the fire with Guy and Roman having plenty of private after-dinner chats while Minnie distracts Rose in another room. I wonder what they’re talking about in there…
The film starts by getting you hooked on Rosemary. She is so sweet and charming it’ll make your face hurt! Guy, on the other hand, has all the charm of a pedophiliac car salesman, which is probably why Rosemary begins to suspect him of selling their first born to the Castevets in exchange for material wealth and success. After a few weeks of Guy and Roman’s private time, good news! Rosemary is pregnant! She is a little distressed when she wakes up with scratches all over her body and what feels like a roofie-hangover, with no memories of sex with Guy, only remembering how the night before, Guy was fucking FORCING HER to eat this creepy ice cream sundae that tasted like chemicals. But, regardless, she knows right off the bat that she is with child and this makes her super-stoked.
This paranoia she has about Guy, by the way, is so entertaining to watch because the events that inspire it increase in intensity exponentially, starting with really subtle pangs of doubt to full-blown suspicions of murder and occult rituals, making for great pacing for a psychological thriller. While at first, she is only weary of what appear to be coincidences, she starts to freak the fuck out because she thinks she’s uncovering a global Satanic conspiracy that centers on her baby!
Guy’s career mysteriously takes off and his rival in the biz contracts a terminal illness. The neighbors all take a special interest in Rosemary’s pregnancy, feeding her funky herbs and monitoring her every move. The Castevets act even weirder and become obsessed with her baby and it seems like everyone is in cahoots, ganging up on Rosemary. People die and stuff.
This is a movie like no other and you owe it to yourself to see it.
Thanks for this, John Carpenter. This movie has the same plot as Identity staring John Cusack. Your movie made me think about John Cusack. How do you like that?
Here’s ANOTHER movie about a mental institution with dark secrets and ghosts. ANOTHER movie about multiple personalities offered up as one of many cop-out “twists.” ANOTHER movie where the “crazy” protagonist has to do detective work to figure out what a fucking ghost is trying to say to her.
Kristen is in a mental institution because she burned down a barn and can’t remember doing it. The only other patients in there with her are other good looking girls in their 20’s. They all become buddies and they dance around and stuff.
A ghost that looks like a female zombie keeps teleporting around everywhere and killing the patients one-by-one. Kristen tries to warn the staff but why should they believe her? Her amnesia that she had one time in her entire life rules her out as a reliable source of information regarding what clearly look like murders, right? “There’s no killer, Kristen is crazy,” says the British guy from Mad Men who orders her shock therapy.
The murder/warning/disbelief cycle happens over and over and over and over. After the kills, the ghost leaves behind some clues about who she is/was. Kristen has to put the pieces together JUST LIKE CUSACK IN MOTHERFUCKING IDENTITY. When the reveal happens, I dare you to give a shit.
There are some good jump-scares. Maybe a couple of scenes of suspense but they are short lived and overshadowed by a shameless carnival of cliches and your own inner monologue asking how any of this shit is going down the way it is.
This is a cookie-cutter PG-13 thriller that spends more time emphasizing how cool Jennifer Lawrence’s character is than actually doing anything thrilling. It is like a commercial for Jennifer Lawrence and it is not scary.
Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) is so deep and interesting. There she is, sitting on the hood of a truck wearing a flannel as she strums an acoustic guitar. And hey, there she is playing with keyboards and drum machines and singing enigmatic songs about love. Her mom say that Elissa always “finds the most damaged person around and makes it her mission to fix them”. So she is interesting AND sensitive AND empathetic. The movie reminds you of this with several long scenes that are not suspenseful or plot-driving or any of the ingredients needed for a thriller.
Deep/beautiful/interesting/artistic Elissa and her mom move into a House Not at the End of the Street. Some melancholy eighteen year-old guy lives in the House at the End of the Street. His parents were mysteriously murdered there and he inherited the House at the End of the Street. The movie knows it has to have a back-story. There it is.
The guy has been a kooky, brooding introvert ever since his parents were killed so Elissa latches onto him and makes him one of her “missions” and tries to “fix” him. He is really resistant to the “fixing,” so much of the movie is about this hot, artistic, blond eighteen year-old girl trying to crowbar herself into the life of a scrawny, creepy, unpopular loner. Just like real life, am I right?
It’s characters like these that really make it seem like the film was written by teenagers with ADD who have watched too much Disney Channel.
If you thought maybe that the guy who lives in the House at the End of the Street turning out to be a bit of a homicidal lunatic would be a little predictable, and maybe his kooky brooding is just misdirection written into the film, I have some bad news for you. He is a homicidal lunatic. There is also painfully predictable PG-13 violence and a real lack of scares/gore.
You also have to forgive a lot in this movie. Like people forgetting cell phones exist, cops with dead batteries in their flashlights not calling for back-up, people tied to chairs with tattered strips of t-shirt, and rolls of flaming toilet paper breaking through double-pane glass.
They try to do multiple “twists” at the end but there are so many crammed into a short amount of time that it is laughable and you’ll feel sorry for everyone involved in this waste of time.
Edward Furlong (you know, Jon Connor) plays Michael, the ultimate 1990’s teenage loner. He lives in this awesome 90’s loft where he plays video games, wears flannels, and admires the purloined street signs that decorate his room. Even though it’s 1994, his computer is some really advanced Jarvis-type setup that talks to him and recognizes his voice commands for stuff like light switches and phone calls. But he rarely turns the light on or calls anyone because he is such a melancholy 90’s grunge gamer.
His new video game, Brainscan, does some pretty evil shit: As soon as Michael pops the game in, it summons a new playmate, this guy who calls himself “Trickster.” He has this kind of Drop Dead Fred / Beetlejuice / British Invasion thing going on. He looks like a zombie troll doll who plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. He teleports around and acts like Ace Ventura while he goads Michael into playing Brainscan and progressing through the levels. He says many horrible puns/jokes.
The game itself consists of a combination of hypnosis and virtual reality and the only objective of each level is to commit a murder and not get caught. Michael slips into a trance and experiences extremely realistic 1st person POV game play where he stalks/stabs people. When he wakes up, he’s all sweaty and scared, like how he’ll be when he finally kisses a girl.
Then he finds clues (like body parts in the fridge and Detective Frank Langella snooping) that reveal that the murders are all real and the game is turning him into a serial killer. “Oh, man! What have I done?!” exclaims Michael to fucking no one except his computer butler. Trickster just ROFLs at Michael and convinces him to play more levels, which he does for some reason. His Brainscan kills start adding up. He even murders his only friend and gets pretty close to killing the babe who lives next door.
The plot gets real sloppy. Trickster says he actually is Michael but he has also been possessing Michael and making him murder. Possessing… yourself? What the fuck? There’s a lot of reality “layers” too, which to me, is always the cheapest cop out in a horror movie. Is it all a dream? Or is it all a dream but really just a game? But does that make it real if the game is real? A dream within a dream within a game that is real? But it’s not real, is it?
It’s all a game. It’s all a dream. Whatever. The kills are cool. The 90’s mania is hilarious. The primitive graphics are entertaining. They don’t rely on CGI. There is gore. There is only one good jump-scare in the movie. I promise you’ll know what I mean.
This is an anthology movie that has three separate tales about insanity presented to us by Malcolm McDowell who plays the “cryptkeeper” character and the head doctor of a sanitarium. In between each tale, he gives us a cryptic monologue about insanity. Who is he to talk? Have you seen the movies he’s been in lately?
Case 1 is about a crazy artist who likes to talk to his dolls. Sometimes the dolls tell him to murder, so he murders. The guy looks like Sideshow Bob and he gets REALLY intense while bickering with his dolls. This was the worst tale in the anthology. Most of the time he is having REALLY intricate arguments with the dolls and the audience can’t even hear the fucking dolls. He pushes Freddy Kruger off of a building and he lynches some woman whose boobs are exposed within the first 15 minutes of the film.
Case 2 is a lot more fun. It’s about this nerdy kid named Steven. His teacher at his Catholic school is the brunette Mean Girl and his dad is an alcoholic who likes to beat/molest him. If that wasn’t bad enough, he’s also being stalked by a giant homeless looking dude who wears a hood because his face looks like 1990’s Venom from the Spiderman comics. I won’t tell you what happens but it does involve Steven stuck in a burlap sack and does NOT involve his dad having a change of heart regarding rape/beating.
Case 3 is about Lou Diamond FUCKING Phillips! Through a series of flashbacks we see he was a professor / doomsday prepper who believed in the 2012 apocalypse nonsense. He lost his job because all of his lectures devolved to his crazy rambling/prophesying and he lost his family because he started ignoring them and building an underground bunker. Flash forward and we see him chilling in his bunker listening to opera music, talking into a tape recorder, doing push-ups, and other stuff a psycho would do in a bunker. He thinks he has to hide down there because up top, everyone is dead and there are aliens. Maybe he really is hiding from aliens. Or maybe he killed his family and he’s hiding from the truth. DUN DUN DUUUUN! His acting is actually really good and the guy looks great at 51.
Overall nothing special but the movie keeps you interested. No explicit carnage or really any on-screen graphic violence. The soundtrack is LOUD AS FUCK. I kept waiting for McDowell to ask some cliche rhetorical questions about society; “aren’t we all trapped in our own cell?” kind of thing. Never happened. So I guess the movie was surprising and unpredictable too.
BLOODCRYPT 