Day 348: Scanners

Scanners

Too spicy?

I don't really believe in telekinesis or telepathic abilities. I'm sure some people use their brains more than others (The North vs The South for example), but I don't think someone can burst into flames via thought power. And would it really be fun to hear people's thoughts? I can barely tolerate what they actually say. While in real life these abilities may not be all they're cracked up to be, in horror they serve as a good plot point. It can create interesting and terrifying stories or just create some fun action sequences. And if David Cronenberg at the helm, you know you're in for a wild ride.

Scanners is a 1981 science fiction horror movie written and directed by David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Brood). The movie stars Stephen Lack (Dead Ringers, Head On) as Cameron Vale and Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Starship Troopers) as Darryl Revok. Over 200 people in the world are known to be Scanners, humans with the ability to read (scan) minds through telepathy and cause physical harm through telekinesis. ConSec, a corporation that specializes in weapons and security systems, searchers out these scanners in hopes of protecting them. Scanners tend to not understand their abilities and are usually committed to mental hospitals because they “hear voices”. Cameron Vale is a powerful vagrant Scanner who is brought in to ConSec and trained by Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan, Braveheart, Escape From Alcatraz). During a conference, ConSec has one of their own Scanners scan a volunteer from the audience. The volunteer is actually Darryl Revok, an incredibly powerful Scanner, who uses his powerful to make the other Scanner's head literally explode. He escapes capture, killing several ConSec security agents in the process. Following the incident, Bradeon Keller (Lawrence Dane, Bride Of Chucky, Side Effects) is brought in as the new head of security. He and Ruth decide to have Cameron infiltrate the Scanner community and route out Revock before he can do any more damage. Ruth tells Cameron that there is a drug called ephemerol that can suppress a Scanner's abilities long enough to be captured. Cameron eventually finds a telepathic named Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill, Rio Lobo, A Force Of One) who has brought together a group of Scanners. They are attacked by Revok's assassins and have to go on the run. They learn that a large shipment of ephemerol is being delivered to Revok. What does Revok have planned with the ephemerol and how will Cameron stop the most powerful Scanner on Earth?

Feelin' hot, hot, hot!

“Ever see that scene in Scanners when that dude's head blew up?” That line is from Wayne's World when Garth is stuck doing the show by himself. As a little kid, I didn't fully understand the joke, but I found it funny anyway. Now, after finally seeing Scanners, that line is even funnier. The scene is quite surprising (despite being one of the most widely used .GIFs on the internet). We're not quite sure what is about to happen and it's sheer brutal violence and gore is almost unparallelled. David Cronenberg is known for his graphic special effects and “body horror”, but Scanners is relatively tame compared to some of his other work like The Brood and The Fly. Most of the body horror doesn't come until the final showdown between Cameron and Revok. It's quite an impressive scene, full of suspense, action, insane violence, and great prosthetic work. The science fiction aspect of Scanners is fairly engaging, even for people that don't consider themselves to be fans of the genre.

While the opening twenty minutes and the final ten and full of excitement and bizarre horror, the movie does get slow in the middle. Rather than focusing on horror or even science fiction, the movie becomes more of a mystery as Cameron tries to find out what is going on. It's somewhat interesting, but compared to the opening, it's downright mundane. If Cronenberg had focused just on the horror, Scanners would have been utterly terrifying. I mean, there are a select number of people so powerful that they can physically throw people across a room just by using their mind. Why bother with a mediocre mystery that doesn't get solved until the final scenes? Michael Ironside is a great villain as always and I would have liked for him to have more screen time. Stephen Lack is decent as the main hero, though there was something about him that I just didn't care for. Maybe it was because he went from being a derelict to a fully-skilled Scanner in the span of about fifteen minutes. Or maybe he just has a really punchable face.

R.I.P. Mr. Watermelonhead

Scanners is a decent science fiction horror movie with a few really great scenes. While there isn't as much body horror as one would expect from a Cronenberg film, we still get some disturbing images and incredible violence. The film had a hectic schedule and Cronenberg said that it was a nightmare to make. The beginning and ending are highly entertaining, but the movie becomes too much of a mystery while pushing horror to the side. The movie had a lot of potential, but it just didn't reach the level of greatness that it could have. Regardless, it's still a fun watch if for nothing more than heads exploding and veins leaking.

7.5/10

Day 264: The Resurrected

The Resurrected

Is this a horror movie or an antacid advertisement?

H.P. Lovecraft is one of my favorite writers. His ability to craft creative horror and science fiction that is still scary almost 100 years later is second to none. For whatever reason, almost every adaptation of his work on the big screen is terrible. Some movies draw strongly from the source material and some use the basic premise, but the end result is usually the same: horrendous movies. It's also not uncommon for a movie to use Lovecraft's name and his titles only to trick people into watching their celluloid bowel movement. The Tomb is a perfect example of this act. I'll never understand why it's so difficult to make a good movie based on H.P. Lovecraft's work. Maybe it's because I have such high expectations and I'm setting myself up for disappointment. What better way to explore this theory than by watching a movie I didn't initially know was a Lovecraft adaptation?

The Resurrected is a 1992 direct-to-video horror movie adapted from the H.P. Lovecraft short story “The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward”. Directed by Dan O'Bannon (Alien, The Return Of The Living Dead), the movie stars John Terry (Full Metal Jacket, 24) as private investigator John Marsh. The movie is told mostly in flashback from Marsh's recollection. John is hired by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett, Friends, The Second Arrival) to look into the increasingly strange behavior of her husband, Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon, Dog Day Afternoon, Child's Play). Charles has moved from his spacious house in Providence, Rhode Island to a small bungalow in the rural Pawtuxet Valley region. He receives deliveries of long, wooden crates at all hours of the night and is very secretive of it's contents. The deliveries are followed by the overpowering stench of rotting meat or animal carcasses. Charles also begins to surround himself with undesirables, including the mysterious Dr. Ashe. Claire tells John that Charles had recently inherited the belongings of a long-dead relative named Joseph Curwen. Curwen was a shipping magnate and alchemist in the 1700's, eventually earning the reputation as a grave robber. Through his research, Curwen was able to unlock the secrets of immortality with the usage of “essential saltes” and fresh corpses. Charles' personality has changed so much that he now speaks in an antiquated style and is eventually committed to an insane asylum. John, along with Claire and his partner Lonnie, break into the bungalow and discover and underground laboratory which is filled with the ashes of other known occultists and alchemists. It is revealed that Curwen has in fact come back to life as Dr. Ashe and intends to bring back others. Along with the lab, there are a series of tunnels and the group encounter hideous half-human monsters and abominations, including one that kills Lonnie. How will John be able to stop the resurrected Curwen and is it too late to save the true Charles Dexter Ward?

Today's weather: Partly cloudy with a chance of grease

Initially, I didn't know The Resurrected was going to be an H.P. Lovecraft story. It became pretty obvious once the story took place in Rhode Island (a Lovecraft staple) and the name “Charles Ward” was mentioned. Of course, this raises the question, “Why did they not just named the movie 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'?” I, along with other Lovecraft fans, would have discovered this movie much sooner if the connection was more obvious. The title “The Resurrected” is fine, but it's so generic that it could be about anything. I mean, “The Resurrected” is probably the name of a local metal band. Or hardcore band. Or punk band. See what I mean? As far as Lovecraft adaptations go, this movie actually fairs better than most other attempts. It's updated to the early 90's (which is apparent in the furniture, clothes, and greasy “professional” mullets) with some extra characters and situations added, but it's essentially the same story. Lovecraft himself didn't like the story and it was published posthumously, but I enjoy it immensely. The original story has a good mixture of mystery and suspense with a healthy dose of old-fashioned horror. The film version fairs well-enough in trying to incorporate all of these elements into a cohesive film. One funny thing I noticed in the movie is when John tells someone that he drove two hours to get from Providence to Pawtuxet Valley. In reality, it's about a 15 minute drive and the area is neither rustic nor remote. When Lovecraft wrote the story, that might have been more true, but today it's a silly mistake. It was also disappointing to see that the movie was actually filmed in British Columbia and not actually in Rhode Island.

Despite having an obviously low budget, The Resurrected manages to use some pretty good special effects and makeup. I was actually surprised at how good some of the monsters looked in the movie as the prosthetics look quite scary. There is also a good amount of blood and gore which was completely unexpected. Despite writing scary stories, Lovecraft's work was never particularly gruesome or graphic. The problem is that these scenes are too few and far between. The movie is about 20 minutes too long and tends to drag in the beginning. For this type of story, a fast, steady pace would have been better than the slow drips we got. The acting is decent, but some of the dialogue is too cheesy for me to handle. Chris Sarandon puts on the best performance in The Resurrected, but not until about halfway through when his personality changes. It's a whole lot of scenery chewing, but in a fun way, and fits in well with the new character. I do question why they set the movie in modern times when they competently show flashbacks to pre-Revolutionary times. I think the movie would have had a more authentic horror feel if it had taken place in the early 1900's instead of the 1990s.

"Does my throat look red? It feels sore."

The Resurrected is a decent adaptation from a lesser-known H.P. Lovecraft story. While it may not be the first Lovecraft movie that deserves a shot at the big screen, it is a fun and exciting story, that in the right hands, could have been great. The movie has some good moments, mostly from gory violence and good prosthetic work. The pacing is a little slow and the movie runs about 20 minutes too long. Chris Sarandon is great with the rest of the cast pulling up the rear. If you're a Lovecraft fan, you'll enjoy the references and effort, but may be disappointed in the end product. Still, The Resurrected isn't a bad watch and some may enjoy it as a starting point to get into Lovecraft's work.

6/10

Day 262: Mirrors

Mirrors

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the Kieferiest of them all?

Using a mirror in a horror movie is one of the oldest tricks in the book. They're always good for a quick scare and fun special effect. Some say that mirrors are a window into the soul. Personally, I think they're just a shiny surface that occasionally get covered in toothpaste when you don't close your mouth during brushing. Either way, the mirror is a useful horror tool, whether it was in Prince Of Darkness or A Nightmare On Elm Street or Stir of Echoes or The Ring. One can even say that the use of mirrors in horror is a cliché. Would an entire horror movie based on mirrors fit or break the mold?

Mirrors is a 2008 horror movie, based off ideas from the South Korean movie Into The Mirror, starring Kiefer Sutherland (24, Phone Booth) as former NYPD Detective Ben Carson. After an accidental shooting, Ben was suspended from the police force and fell into a downward spiral of alcohol and depression. His wife Amy (Paula Patton, Precious, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) left him and tries to limit his visits with their children Daisy and Michael. Ben is reduced to living in an apartment with his sister, Angela (Amy Smart, Road Trip, Crank) and has to take a job as a night security guard. His post is at Mayflower, a luxury department store that was gutted by a fire which killed many people. Unknown to Ben, the previous guard, Gary Lewis, was killed by supernatural means after his own reflection cut his throat. On his first night of guard duty, Ben sees all the mirrors in the building covered with hand prints, but the prints are on the reflected side of the glass facing out. Over time, he begins to see and feel visions of people on fire and begging for help. Ben actually receives a package sent from Gary, the now dead guard, with newspaper clippings about the fire and how a previous guard murdered his family, blaming their deaths on something in mirrors. As Ben begins to research the incident, Angela is viciously killed when her reflection rips pulls her jaw apart. In a fit of rage, Ben tries to break the mirrors in Mayflower, but they cannot be damaged. He asks the mirror what is wants and the name “Esseker” appears on the mirror's surface. By using his detective skills, Ben discovers that the department store was built on top of St. Matthews Hospital which housed a room full over mirrors used to treat mental patients. The name Esseker belonged to a young schizophrenic patient named Anna Esseker who had escaped a mass suicide at the hospital before it closed. Ben is able to find Anna who has since become a nun. She explains that she was not schizophrenic, but had some sort of demon inside her that escaped into the mirrors. With his family in terrible danger, with Ben and Anna be able to stop the mirrors in time?

And you think you had a bad day

I don't know if I've ever seen another movie that started out so strong and ended with such a thud. The first twenty-five or so minutes of Mirrors is a great mixture of suspense, mystery, and horror. The story is set up properly, giving us a bit of action in the very beginning and then filling in all the details of Ben's personal life. His story plays out like the typical “fired cop” character, complete with alcohol problem and shattered family life. It's so clichéd that I half-expected him to report to an irate chief and work with a partner that's “too old for this shit”. The beginning of the movie has a great horror atmosphere with the burned-out department store as the perfect setting. Everything is broken and burnt except for the immaculate mirrors. The special effects used to show the spirits in the department store look very good and Amy Smart's death scene is incredibly violent and disturbing. The inclusion of the evil being able to reach his loved ones was quite smart as it forced Ben to solve the problem. Many horror movies are lazy and keep characters in a haunted spot with no good reason not to leave. It's when the movie is taken out of the department store that things begin to fall apart.

The movie focuses too much on uncovering the mystery and gets far too complicated for it's own good. The addition of the hospital, a demon and Anna Esseker takes the story into a strange and unnecessary direction. One would think that the spirits (or demon, whatever it is) inside the mirrors were trapped souls looking for some measure of peace or something along those lines. It's far easier and entertaining to just have Ben looking for the real culprit of the fire than sending him on a wild goose chase. The department store was such a good setting that taking him out of it takes away from the horror of the movie. It doesn't help that the movie spends a good 20 minutes focused on Amy trying to save her kids while Ben tries to convince Anna to help him. These scenes just drag on for way too long and force the movie into a run-time of 111 minutes. That's unnecessary and it brings down the entire movie. Kiefer Sutherland is good, channeling a healthy dose of his Jack Bauer character from 24. Paula Patton does well enough, but like a lot of horror movies, the children are just too annoying for me to handle. Director Alexandre Aja (Piranha, The Hills Have Eyes) has some good moments, but doesn't get the most out of what should have been easy scares.

"I'm sorry, I got lost in my handsomness for a second."

Mirrors is a convoluted story that fizzled far quicker than it should have. What started out as a promising and fun horror movie became a complicated and boring supernatural mystery that was neither exciting nor thrilling. There are a few good scenes of violence and gore, but not enough to sustain the extra long run-time. It makes you wonder, if they're capable of showing extreme violence, why only settle for one or two scenes? The acting is decent and certainly helps make the movie more tolerable than if it were done by less-skilled actors. It's a shame that the movie turned out the way it did, because it really had a lot of potential, but potential can only take you so far.

4.5/10

Day 256: The Brood

The Brood

Hands up, baby, hands up!

I've reviewed a few David Cronenberg movies before and the major constant in each movie is physical transformation. We've seen it in The Fly and Videodrome with scary results. Cronenberg's mental and psychological transformations are matched to the physical thanks to fantastically graphic special effects. His capability to combine the gruesome special effects and tense atmosphere make for fun and scary horror movies. Can the same be said for a movie by Cronenberg that I had never really heard of?

The Brood is a 1979 horror movie starring Art Hindle (Paradise Falls, Dallas) as Frank Carveth. Frank's estranged wife Nola (Samantha Eggar, Hercules, Metalocalypse) has been receiving treatment from psychotherapist Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed, Gladiator, Tommy). Raglan runs the Somafree Institute where he performs an experimental form of therapy called “psychoplasmics”. Frank allows his five-year old daughter Candice to visit her mother at the institute and is shocked to find her covered in bruises. Frank informs Raglan of her injuries and tells him that he will no longer bring Candice to see her mother. Wanting to protect Nola and her progress, Raglan intensifies her sessions hoping to quickly solve her issues. He learns that Nola was abused by her mother and neglected by her father, leading to her current fragile mental state. Frank considers legal action against Raglan and seeks out a former patient of the doctor who claims the treatment gave him cancer. While meeting with the former patient, Candice stays with Nola's mother, Juliana. A crashing noise is heard in the kitchen and when Juliana goes to check, she is viciously attacked and murdered by what appears to be a dwarf or child. The police inform Frank of the murder and explain that Candice has been traumatized by the incident. Nola's father Barton returns to attend Juliana's funeral and tries to visit Nola. Raglan turns him away and Barton plans to take revenge on Raglan. While Frank goes to check on Barton, Candice's teacher Ruth Mayer stays at home to watch her. She answers the phone, which has Nola on the other line. Believing that Ruth is Frank's new love interest, Nola becomes enraged. Frank finds Barton murdered by the same small child from before. He confronts the child who dies during the altercation. An autopsy reveals the child has strange deformities such as being asexual, color blind, toothless, and without a navel, suggesting it was burn unnaturally. Raglan quickly closes Somafree, discharging all of the patients in order to focus only on Nola. When Candice returns to school, two dwarf-children kill Ruth and kidnap Candice, bringing her to Somafree. Frank learns from a discharged patient that Nola was Raglan's “queen bee” and the children live in a shed on the Somafree compound. When he arrives, Haglan explains to Frank that the dwarf children come from Nola, an accident byproduct of her psychplasmic sessions. She is telepathically linked to them as her rage causes them to kill. Will Frank be able to save his daughter and stop Nola before it's too late?

"But I don't wanna go to bed!"

The Brood is probably one of Cronenberg's more straight-forward films, but that doesn't mean it's your average horror movie. The movie is laid-out with a good mystery, giving the audience slow drips of information. While the slow reveal makes for a good mystery, it does feel a little too slow at times. Things don't really pick up until the first murder which does take a little while to get to. Any good mystery forces the audience to question just exactly what is happening on who is to blame and The Brood accomplishes this very well. The misdirection with Dr. Raglan is a good plot twist as for most of the movie, I suspected he was the villain. The slow build also creates a sense of horror and dread as the dwarf killers are slowly revealed. They make unnatural sounds and grunts which make the scenes more frantic and terrifying. We don't see them right away and their unnatural natural makes everything quite strange. The movie has a great, creepy atmosphere thanks in part to the usage of string musical flourishes. It's not quite the music from “Psycho”, but it's very close.

Most of the movie is all a build to the big reveal at the end and it is quite a reveal. As I mentioned before, most of Cronenberg's work involves physical transformation horror. Only until the very end did we see this signature plot device involving Nola and it's very disturbing. Without giving too much away, the scene is both gruesome and graphic, which forced the film to be censored in certain places. It earned the film a spot on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The movie has some very good, if a bit graphic, scenes of violence with a large amount of blood. Most of the special effects and makeup are used on the dwaves and on Nola at the end. Both look very good as both are natural-looking, but distorted just enough to make the audience uncomfortable. The acting is good and believable and Cronenberg is able to create characters the audience cares about. Samantha Eggar is particularly good at portraying Nola's frantic insanity. The movie doesn't quite reach the exploitation genre, but it skirts the area with the scenes of what appear to be children murdering adults. 

That smile could light up a room

The Brood is well-made, but there's just something about it that doesn't create that spark of greatness found in other Cronenberg movies. Maybe it's the straight-forward nature or the disconnected big reveal at the end that just didn't set my world on fire. The action and violence is good and the mystery is quite entertaining. There are some scary scenes, but I never felt overwhelmed with fear or suspense. The movie does contain the usual Cronenberg physical transformations, but they don't come until the end which was disappointing. The movie has it's good moments and is by no means bad, it just doesn't really reach the level of his future movies. It's a good introductory movie to David Cronenberg's work and worth a watch if you're new to him.

7/10

Day 202: The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

Get that orphanage some color, fast!

Orphanages don't really exist anymore at least not in the traditional sense. When we hear orphanage, we think of a Dickensian-era building, filled with dirty children just hoping to be adopted by a wealthy family. Nowadays, there are group homes, foster parents, and other ways of adopting children. Movies and television, though, still like to portray orphanages in the a more traditional way. This works in favor of horror movies because it has been ingrained in our minds that orphanages are scary places. It's also a good excuse to have scary children.

The Orphanage (also known as El Orfanato) is a Spanish horror movie starring Belen Rueda as Laura. Produced by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth), the movie was written by Sergio G. Sanchez and directed by J.A. Bayona. Laura moves into the orphanage she grew up in along with her husband Carlos and adopted son Simon in hopes of helping out special needs children. While walking along the beach with his mother, Simon runs off into a cave and is seen speaking to someone who isn't there. He claims he is speaking to a boy named Tomas, but his mother dismisses this as just an imaginary friend. A social worker named Beninga Escobeda (Montserrat Carulla) arrives at the orphanage along with Simon's adoption file which says that Simon is HIV-positive. Angered at her intrusion, Laura kicks her out of the house. That night, Laura hears a sound outside, and finds Beninga in her shed, carrying a shovel. She escapes before Laura can stop her. The next day, Simon takes his mother on a scavenger hunt, supposedly done by his invisible friends. At the end of the game, he finds his adoption file and reveals to Laura that he knows he is adopted and and is going to die. During a children's party at the orphanage, Laura and Simon argue, causing Simon to hide. While searching for him, Laura is trapped in the bathroom by a boy in a mask with “Tomas” written on his clothes. She is freed by Carlos, but they are unable to find Simon. Six months go by with no clues as to Simon's whereabouts. Laura suddenly sees Beninga crossing the street. As she gets out to confront her, Beninga is hit and killed by a truck. It is revealed that Beninga used to work at the orphanage and has a deformed son named Tomas that she kept hidden beneath a sack mask. He was accidentally killed by the children when they stole his mask. Laura hears strange banging sounds in the house and other strange occurrences and contacts a medium to have a séance. The medium sees sick children in the house, but does not see Simon. Laura begins searching the orphanage, finding clues, leading to her shed where she discovers the bodies of the children who used to live at the orphanage. Laura recreates the original orphanage and hopes to contact the ghosts of the children so they can help her find Simon. Will it work or has Laura gone insane?

Gah! Kill it with fire!

The Orphanage was definitely not the movie I thought I was going to watch. I expected a movie somewhere along the lines of The Others or A Haunting In Connecticut. I thought this was going to be a scary ghost story where the orphanage was haunted by the souls of tortured children looking for revenge. That's not how the movie played out, but it was for the best. More emphasis is put on storytelling, character development, and solid acting than your typical ghost movie and it's hard to complain about something like that. The movie forgoes the usual scares and tricks which make it a better movie, but does make it less of a horror movie. There are scenes of general eeriness and the movie does leave the audience feeling uneasy, but it's due more towards the content of the story than any special effect or sound swell. This uneasiness reaches it's zenith with the movies incredibly depressing, but sort of happy ending. I liked it, but it was quite a bummer. There are plans to adapt this movie for an American audience and I don't expect that version to contain the same ending.

The movie is strong thanks to the great acting. Belen Rueda brings genuine emotion to her role as Laura causing the audience the share sympathy with her. The supporting cast compliments her well, but she is the true star. J.A. Bayona does a fine job directing with some good shots and an overall horror-style atmosphere that lead to some tense moments. The movie relies more on old-school atmospheric scares, which is a nice change of pace, but there should have been more. The story is good, but it had a few plot points that kind of bothered me. Unfortunately, I can't go into them or else I'd ruin the movie, but there were a few basic things that, in real life, would probably end the mystery a lot faster. Despite being a foreign movie, I never felt lost in any cultural differences, but did not feel catered to as an American viewer. That's far better than a foreign movie trying to be an American horror movie.

Knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's door

The Orphanage is a good movie built around a good cast and film making. The story is decent, but did have a few flaws that stuck with me after the credits rolled. The movie lacked scares making it feel less like a traditional horror movie, but the focus is always more on the story than terrifying the audience. The sets look great and the scenery fits in well with the overall feel of the movie. You won't be terrified by The Orphanage, but you will be entertained.

7/10

Day 71: Tales From The Crypt: Ritual

Tales From The Crypt: Ritual

Dreaming in red

I was absolutely terrified of Tales From The Crypt when I was younger. Not because of the stories, but because of the Crypt Keeper. That puppet was really scary with his corpsey look and high-pitched squeals of delight. Now that I'm older, I can appreciate the sick humor of the Crypt Keeper, much in the same way that I can now laugh at Freddy Krueger. While it made it's name with the comic book and television show, TFTC also made 3 full-length movies. Time to dive into one I've never even heard of, Ritual.

Ritual follows Dr. Alice Dodgson (Jennifer Grey, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Dirty Dancing). Her medical license has been revoked after the accidental death of a young patient. Alice is haunted by her death and travels to Jamaica to be a personal physician for a very wealthy patient, Wesley Claybourne (Daniel Lapaine). Wesley's brother, Paul, informs Alice that Wesley believes he is a zombie, under the control of an Obeah (Jamaican version of Voodoo) curse. Alice soon realizes that Obeah is very real and begins to suffer from horrific hallucinations. She is aided in her research by Dr. Hope (Tim Curry, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue) and Caro (Kristen Wilson, Dr. Doolittle, Bulletproof). Under Alice's care, Wesley begins to show improvement. Caro also suffers from hallucinations and Dr. Hope is mysteriously murdered. Not is all as it seems and it's up to Alice to help Wesley. Who can she trust and how can she find a cure?

You got a little something...ehh, never mind

The movie says Tales From The Crypt, but there is absolutely no reference to the show or comic book. How can you have a TFTC movie and not have the Crypt Keeper? According to some research, because the previous movie, Bordello of Blood, did poorly at the box office, they removed references to TFTC. I was expecting something fun in the demented sense. I guess my version didn't include any of the references. Instead I got a boring voodoo-flavored movie that is more mystery than horror. The only horror that exists come in people's dreams and hallucinations. You figure out pretty quickly that that is the case, taking away any fear or excitement because you know it's not real. While there are some differences, the movie strongly reminds me of The Serpent and the Rainbow; White doctor goes to an island, thinks voodoo is fake, learns voodoo is very real, the police is corrupt, save the day.

Jennifer Grey does a decent job in her role, but unfortunately the movie is so low-budget, they couldn't give her a bra for multiple scenes. Kristen Wilson is quite good as the native Caro. Tim Curry is his usual eccentric self, but has a pretty minor role. Daniel Lapaine comes off as a bit doofy and it makes it hard for the audience to cheer for him. Ritual is one of those movies where you ask yourself, “Why don't the just move away?” The Serpent and the Rainbow answered that question when the main character made it back to the US, but was still attacked. I don't think that's the case in this movie, mostly because that would involve a creative, well-written story. Most of the movie is fairly boring with a few flourishes of psychological fear. That's certainly not enough to keep you entertained for a movie that is almost an hour and forty-five minutes long.

Hi! I'm in a better version you didn't watch! EEEEHEHEHEHE!

Ritual is a disappointment on multiple levels. There is no Crypt Keeper or any real reference to Tales From The Crypt. The story, supposedly based on I Walked With A Zombie, is boring and uninspired. The is little horror involved and the horror that does exist quickly becomes predictable. The acting is decent and the direction is fine, but it can't overcome a boring story. Save yourself the trouble and avoid Ritual.

3/10