Annabelle (2014) - Read my review here!

Long time, no see! If you're interested in horror movies, or are planning to see Annabelle, then you should read my article first.

http://moviefinatic.com/articles/movie-review-annabelle-2014

El Orfanato "The Orphanage" (2007) - ★★★★

Director: J.A. Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sanchez (screenplay)
Stars: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep

I rented The Orphanage, expecting to be scared out of my wits. I did not expect it to be one of the most touching horror films I've ever seen. It holds a very dear place in my heart now, for it is one of only two horror films that has ever made me shed a tear (the other being Hideo Nakata's stunning Japanese horror, Dark Water) (2002). It's the kind of movie that spends most of its time creating such a stunning, perfect atmosphere. With this atmosphere, there is no need for cheap scares and thrills. The suspense was constant for me. While The Orphanage was suspenseful, it made me scream out loud only once (and trust me, I scream many times during most horror films). So it isn't all that horrifying, but the story, the acting, the music, the cinematography... every other aspect in this film truly captivated me. I really enjoyed The Orphanage. It's one of the best "horror" films I've seen in many years.

Wolf Creek 2 (2014) - ★★★½ The Comeback Review!

Director: Greg McLean
Writer: Greg McLean
Stars: John Jarratt, Ryan Corr, Shannon Ashlyn, Philippe Klaus

Wow. Wow. Wow. When I sum up my experience of watching Wolf Creek 2, all I can say is that it is one darn entertaining, suspenseful piece of cinema! This is the kind of film that will put you through a roller-coaster of emotions. It aims to horrify the audience, and keep them in a constant state of suspense. While I wasn't horrified in the least, there were moments that had me at the edge of my seat in anticipation of what would happen next! Not to mention, the humour and hilarious stereotyping that is the serial killer, Mick Taylor, made me laugh more than it should have! He said some truly hilarious things, and his over-the-top accent and Australian slang just made the funniness of it all increase by ten-fold. So one second I would be biting my nails in suspense, and the next I would be laughing out loud in the cinema! I really liked Wolf Creek 2. It's far from horrifying, but so worth watching!

Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968) - ★★★★

Director: Jack Hill
Writer: Jack Hill
Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner, Sid Haig

Spider Baby is without a doubt, the best 'bad' movie I've ever seen. My family and I were in stitches, laughing at the madness that unfurled in this movie. The story is savagely hilarious, the dialogue is damned funny, the performances hit all the right notes, and most importantly, the events that take place are wickedly entertaining. From seeing a group of mentally challenged cannibals all locked up in a basement, to watching Carol Ohmart running around a field in nothing but her lingerie, Spider Baby truly does have it all. It's a cheaply produced, badly acted piece of cinema... but it's the funniest, most entertaining bad film you'll probably ever see. Ed Wood eat your heart out, this is bad cinema done right!

Dark Water 'Honogurai mizu no soko kara' (2002) - ★★★★★

Director: Hideo Nakata
Writers: Ken'Ichi Suzuki, Yoshihiro Nakamura
Stars: Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi, Asami Mizukawa

I found Dark Water to be one of the most tragic, beautiful, most well-made horror films I've ever seen. Sure, it has some horrifying moments and brilliant suspense building techniques. What makes it stick in my mind, and makes me so damn emotional, is the story... the answer to the mystery of the film... the resolution to end the haunting. It contains two of the greatest performances I've ever seen in a horror film by Hitomi Kuroki and the young Rio Kanno. They felt like real people, which made the story feel real, which made me connect to them as human beings. Don't get me wrong, this film is damn scary. It takes a while to build up to the climax, but the climax is so damn exceptional that I can forgive the pace. I adore horror films that journey further than their genre, and add an extra layer of depth in the story. That ending for me... the whole story... was beautiful.

High Tension (2003) - ★★★½

Director: Alexandre Aja
Writer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Stars: Cecile De France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun

High Tension is a really good horror/thriller, sharing traits with classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Its strength lies with the searing performances and brilliant suspense building techniques, but its weakness is that it's too over the top. At times it goes so overboard that I felt some scenes should belong in a spoof of a horror movie, rather than an actual horror movie. It was the masterful ending that pushed the film into the depths of my memory, making it unforgettable. While I didn't love the film, I loved many things about it. It certainly shocked and surprised me.

Evil Dead (2013) - ★★★½

Director: Fede Alvarez
Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues (Screenplay), Sam Raimi (Original Screenplay)
Stars: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Evil Dead is the scariest movie I've seen all year (and yes, I've seen The Conjuring). It had me in a constant state of fear for the last 45 minutes, and few films have ever done that to me. It's your average Cabin in the Woods plot/story, done more gruesomely and effectively than ever before. The demonic possessions were almost as scary as that of The Exorcist (1973), and the acting was pretty good for the most part. There's no way I could form an emotional attachment to a movie such as this. All I know is that I never want to see it again... partly because it scares the crap out of me, and partly because it will never be as exciting as the first time I saw it. I don't know about you, but my faith in the horror genre has officially been restored in 2013!

The Conjuring (2013) - ★★★★

Director: James Wan
Writers: Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes
Stars: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell, Hayley McFarland, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy, Joseph Bishara

The Conjuring is the scariest exorcism movie since The Exorcist (1973). I couldn't control my screams, gasps, and the occasional "Oh my God!" I found the performances to be fantastic, and I really liked the character development. Everything was surprisingly believable, which is what made it so scary! The camera-work and music is pretty out there, it reminds me of the classic horrors from the 70s and 80s. The cheesy stuff in-between the scares is what really lets this movie down, yet it didn't bother me much at all. There's something really nostalgic, yet masterful about The Conjuring. Anyone who loves horror will love this movie.

At the start of the film, a bunch of drunk teenagers sat near my friends and I. They were loud, rude, rambunctious as usual, so someone asked them politely "Would you please be quiet?" They didn't stop, so a woman from the other side of the theatre said, "Are you going to talk through the whole movie?" The kids still wouldn't be quiet. Then this huge woman stood up and shouted "WILL YOU SHUT UP... FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" The cinema went deathly silent, then roared with laughter. Suffice to say that no one interrupted the movie after that. Thank goodness for people like that woman! :)

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - ★

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Paul W.s. Anderson
Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Bingbing Li, Oded Fehr, Johann Urb

Wow. Resident Evil: Retribution is easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first 15 minutes alone is just gun-violence and a re-cap of the previous movies. Then we finally get to the story (if you can call it a story), and it's the most repetitive, mind-numbing experience imaginable. It's not scary, it's nothing new, the special effects are awful, the acting is atrocious, the product-placement is despicable... but everyone involved in the film knew this. In fact, everybody knows this. Paul W.S. Anderson seems to take pride in making these incoherent pieces of garbage, and his fans just lap it up. For anyone who enjoys good movies, I think you already know that this one stinks to high heaven.

Pet Sematary (1989) - ★½

Director: Mary Lambert
Writers: Stephen King (Novel and Screenplay)
Stars: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Brad Greenquist, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl

I'm at a loss for words to describe how bad this movie is. The acting is so bad that I was either gritting my teeth or laughing my ass off the whole way through. It isn't the least bit scary, with minimal suspense and thrill. The special effects are atrocious at times, but what can you expect from a B-grade horror movie from the 80s? The story is actually pretty awesome, it's just executed terribly in every possible way. For me, the one redeeming factor is that Fred Gwynne (AKA, Herman Munster) is in this movie! Pet Sematary is a classic, but it's actually a terrible film.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - ★½

Director: Drew Goddard
Writers: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard
Stars: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kanz, Jesse Williams, Bradley Whitford, Richard Jenkins

I absolutely hated this movie for the most part. For the first three quarters, it grained on me and gave me a headache. As a horror movie, it fails miserably at scaring the audience. As a comedy, it just fails at being funny enough to maintain interest. In terms of originality, most of it are hand-me-down stories from previous horror movies... that is until the end. The last quarter of the film was pretty cool, which brought entertainment and a little bit of originality. Overall, practically everything about this movie was awful. Unless you like mindless films where drab characters get killed off one by one,  I'd give this one a miss.

The Cell (2000) - ★★½

Director: Tarsem Singh
Writers: Mark Protosevich
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Dylan Baker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

What do you get when you cross Alice in Wonderland with Silence of the Lambs? You get The Cell. It's a bad movie... but slightly better than most modern horror flicks. You can put that down to it having better special effects, amazing costume design, stunning cinematography, and an interesting story. However, it lacked in terms of acting, character development, and perfecting the story. It had a hell of a lot of potential! Like I said, it was very interesting. Oh, did I mention that this is one of the weirdest freaking movies I've ever seen! It's the kind of thing that would disturb the masses, but it didn't disturb me as much as I thought it would. In that sense, it was also a let-down.

Alien³ (1992) - ★★½

Director: David Fincher
Writers: Vincent Ward (Story), David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson (Screenplay)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Paul McGann, Pete Postlethwaite, Lance Henrikson

In my opinion, Alien³ is the most unnecessary sequel ever made. However, it wasn't a terrible movie. What I hate about it is that it pretty much ruins the ending of Aliens (1986). With this new installment, it turns out that everything that happened in its prequel was pointless and futile. It was super depressing to see, which is why I'd prefer to act as if this movie never existed.

Bride of Chucky (1998) - ★½

Director: Ronny Yu
Writer: Don Mancini
Stars: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Katherine Heigl, Nick Stabile, Gordon Michael Woolvett, John Ritter

I don't mind horror movies that transition to comedies, at least that's what I think director Ronny Yu has tried to do with the Childsplay franchise. Bride of Chucky just isn't very funny or scary. It tried to be a modern Bride of Frankenstein and it could have worked well. I'm guessing they had a small budget, because they certainly didn't cast the film very well. The one redeemable quality of the movie was Jennifer Tilly. She was pretty funny and I loved her voice.

The Happening (2008) - ★

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley

Wow. This movie is bad. It's really, really, really bad. Every actor deserves a Razzie for Worst Performance. M. Night Shyamalan deserves the Razzie for Worst Screenplay and Picture. This is one of the worst movies ever made. Even though I laughed at this movie, it wasn't 'so bad it's good.' It's just terrible.

House at the End of the Street (2012) – ★½

Director: Mark Tonderai
Writers: David Loucka (screenplay), Jonathan Mostow (story)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Elisabeth Shue, Gil Bellows

Watching House at the End of the Street is about as satisfying as eating a dry chicken sandwich. It has the ingredients for a good film, but leaves you bitterly disappointed. It’s a little bit like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho,’ but with a far less interesting story. I enjoyed the slow pace of the film at first, but about 40 minutes in, it became unbearable. This is advertised as a ‘horror’ film, but it is NOT horrifying. It’s thrilling, and somewhat engaging, but in the end it just isn’t scary.