Insidious: Genuinely scary!

Soon after they move into a new house Josh and Renai's son Dalton falls into an unexplainable coma. Not only that but his comatose starts to attract malevolent forces, forcing the family to move into another home in order to escape the torment. But when the malevolent forces follow them to their new house, the family decides that they must fight these evil forces if they want to live a normal life.

It is hard to find horror films nowadays that do not automatically resort to using excessive gore, violence or other exploitative measures to "scare" an audience. And given director James Wan's previous horror outings (Saw and Dead Silence) it is easy to understand why the audience might have expected the same kind of results with his latest effort, Insidious.

Surprisingly enough though, Insidious was able to not only scare the audience without the blood and gore but keep them involved in the story/plot as well. Wan was able to keep the audience on edge by slowly building the tension, giving away just enough story-wise  to make the audience wonder what was keeping Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai's (Rose Byrne) son Dalton in a coma or why he and the family were being plagued by evil spirits while at the same time making them scoot just a little closer to the edge of their seats whenever they thought they saw a shadow or Renai thought she heard a noise. It's those kinds of scares/jumps that are legitimately effective as they are things an audience member could experience and maybe even wonder, "was it just the wind or something else?" There were some scares/jumps that could make even the most harden horror film viewer shiver, including one particular scene which was shown in the trailer for the film but still caused goose pimples to run up and down one's spine. Beyond the things that went bump in the night the cast was successful in drawing the audience in emotionally and making them care about what was happening on screen (another rarity for a horror film).

Insidious was a good old-fashioned horror film that did not require buckets of blood or other nastiness to deliver some genuine scares.

Grade: B-

Paranormal Activity 2: Scary. Yes, it's actually scary.

Dan and Kristi have just welcomed a new baby boy named Hunter into their house. Along with Ali, Dan’s daughter from a previous marriage, and their dog Abby, everything seems wonderful. But when unexplained events start happening in the household, the family must deal with the supernatural forces that are vexing them.

When people hear, “horror film sequel,” they no doubt have visions of Friday the 13th Part 8 or Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, films that have iconic characters as their villains, but lack in storytelling or even continuity story - wise. In fact, horror sequels such as the ones previously mentioned seem to only be concerned with reusing the same plot devices and storylines (sprinkled with excessive gore and nudity of course). That is why Paranormal Activity 2 was something of a surprise for it was a horror film sequel that not only acknowledged the first Paranormal Activity, but surpassed its predecessor in both scares and story. From the start, director Tod Williams was able to keep the audience both on the edge of their seat and squirming with uneasiness while on that edge for he slowly built the tension in the beginning of the film via subtle knocks and bumps that the family laughed away at first. As the film (whose story cleverly tied to the first in an unexpected surprise) unfurled, the thrills and scares intensified, culminating in an ending that was both startling and disturbing. Another welcome change to this sequel was the lack of gore and blood used to evoke the scares. Williams used those creepy sounds and subtle incidents to make the audience’s imagination fill in the horrifying blanks of what was happening to the family.

You want scary, pick up Paranormal Activity 2. But you might want to think twice before watching it alone.

Grade: B

The Haunting in Connecticut: A not so scary trip

For some, there's nothing better than popping in a scary movie on a Friday night and seeing if it's creepy enough to make them check under their bed bfore they turn off the lights. Unfortunately, it is rare to find scary movies like that anymore because most, including The Haunting in Connecticut, have a hard time even keeping an audience entertained.

After her son Matthew is diagnosed with cancer, Sara decides to move him and the rest of her family up to Connecticut so he can be closer to the hospital for treatment. Soon after moving into their new house though strange things start happening, and the family begins to wonder if their new home is haunted.

Having previously read about the true events which inspired this movie, it was rather disappointing to see the "Hollywood spin" which was grafted upon the story of the Campbell family, but even audience members unaware of the real life events are likely to find the film both repetitive and commonplace when viewed against most recently released horror films. It's true that there were some effective jumps and scares scattered throughout but not enough to make one check their closets before saying good night. It seemed as though that instead of drawing upon the true experiences the real life family went through, and showing how those events affected their relationships as well as the paranormal vs. religious questions the incidents raised, screenwriters Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe decided to turn the film into something preposterously mundane that has been done to death in the horror genre. The result was a messy story which tried, and failed, to be effectively scary or even entertaining on a regular basis.

However if you're desperate for a few cheap scares on a dark and stormy Friday night then The Haunting in Connecticut just might be able to help you out.

Grade: D

The Exorcist: Even after twenty years, it's scary.

So why review a well known film that a person could safely assume everyone has seen? Well, the truth of the matter is some people have not seen all the movies that most film nuts would consider classics. I don't know how many times I've ran across someone who looked at me funny when I started discussing how the scenes between Yoda and Luke on Degobah changed my life (some of you are probably giving your computer screen that same look right now). Classic films can still work their magic 20 or so years after their theatrical release, and The Exorcist is certainly one of them.

Based upon the novel of the same name The Exorcist tells the story of how a young girl named Regan, daughter of a famous film actress, comes to be possessed by the devil and the attempts of her mother and two priests to rid her of the possession.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the film was the possession of Regan and the way she behaved after it happened. Aside from being able to spew more curse words than a sailor, she physically assaulted those people, such as her doctors, nurses and her mother, that were trying to help her. She also performed some acts that are too horrifying to discuss in this text. The fact that all of these things were being done, by and to a little girl, made the film all of the more intense. All of the actors gave terrific performances considering the subject and content of the film, especially Linda Blair as Regan. She had the toughest task to go from little girl to possessed hellion but she pulled it off. Director William Friedkin did an excellent job of building the tension and making the audience wonder whether Regan was just physically sick or if something more sinister was taking place. Even though the novel from which the film was made was based upon a real life event, the audience was left to ponder if what the film presented could happen. And that made The Exorcist all the more frightening.

Grade: A