The Open House (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: After the death of her husband (Aaron Abrams), Naomi (Piercey Dalton) moves herself and her son Logan (Dylan Minnette) into her sister's house until they can get back on their feet. As they encounter the locals, and shuffle around the 'open house' schedule for the house that is currently on the market, Logan starts to notice strange things going on inside the house. It seems that there are some drawbacks to opening up one's home to other people.

Don't Breathe (2016) - Movie Review

Plot twists are one of the darker horses in the cinematic storyteller’s tool box. In the right hands, it can not only create a phenomenal switch-up to the story but also add whole new dimensions to the events within. In the wrong hands, it can come across like someone trying to guess what number they’re thinking of and the answer turns out to be “elephant”; just because we didn’t see it coming doesn’t make it any less stupid. And even then, the danger with some of the more famous plot twists is that they end up becoming the main thing that the film is remembered for, pushing its other noteworthy elements to the side in the minds of most filmgoers.

I bring all this up because this film’s approach to marketing, at least around here, has put very heavy emphasis on the fact that this film has a major plot twist. I don’t know about any of you but I’ve always seen this as a pretty wrong-headed way to get people to see a particular feature. I always thought that twists were most effective when you had no idea that they were going to happen, so imagine how it feels sitting through an entire film knowing that a twist is going to occur. The irksome trailer strikes again, only this time it isn’t just my own paranoia that says it could negatively affect the overall product. So, is it damaged all that much in light of this? This is Don’t Breathe.

Goosebumps (2016) - Movie Review

You want to talk nostalgic children’s horror franchises, you can’t get far without encountering something relating to Goosebumps. The house that R.L. Stine built, this over 20-year-old series was responsible for introducing whole generations of kids to the things that go bump in the night, either through the original novellas or the TV series. Well, not to go all Troy Steele here, and I certainly don’t wish to ape that asshole in any way, but I think the world has superglued its nostalgia goggles to its face when it comes to this series. When news first hit that this film was being made, with these people attached to it, people were already screaming “cop out”, “cash grab” and “BE-TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYAL!”. Yeah, god forbid someone ruin the sanctity of stories where prune cookies turn people into senior citizens or the psychotic mayor of a model town that taunts a captive kid with a phantom baseball game.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these stories for their own reasons and I’ll even admit that both the books and the TV show could get legitimately scary at times like with The Haunted Mask and even My Best Friend Is Invisible; hell, the latter was what first convinced me to start up the now-dead Grey Vault review series because it still creeped me out so much. I just don’t think it should be held as this impenetrable bastion of quality in terms of family-friendly entertainment; this isn’t Avatar: The Last Airbender we’re talking about here. So, with all that in mind, let’s take a look at the film several years in the making. Readers beware, you’re in for a scare.