Poltergeist Review / Insidious Chapter 3 Review

We constantly get hit with a slew of subpar ghost movies. I know, I'm a huge sucker for horror movies about ghosts. However in the past few years we've been hit with a pretty impressive group of horror films, the Insidious films included.

Some are kinda weak and boring. They really aren't worth your time unless you're a devout Horror fan.
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Some are still pretty crappy but are still fairly fun anyway. Worth the watch if you just wanna see a few good scares.
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Every blue moon, a choice few that cross that line and become truly amazing and some even deconstruct the genre or dealing with issues so much larger than your average horror film.

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And some that are just good old fashioned Horror goodness. Solid movies with great scares. The sort of films you want to show your friends.

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So where does this summer's horror duo come into play.



Poltergeist is a remake of a classic horror film.

With easily one of the most memorable theme songs of all time. 

The credited director is Tobe Hooper.... buuuuut really it was directed by Steven Spielberg.
So before we go any further we have to go in knowing that this isn't going to be as good as the original.

That said it's above average but more or less forgettable. Don't get me wrong it's worth the watch but if there was no original poltergeist and this film stood on it's own I doubt it would get as much Press as it did.



The movie still gets a lot right. It builds the characters of the family and lets you know them as people and you're honestly concerned about them. Sam Rockwell is clearly giving it his all, bringing so much character to a role that would have never come through with a lessor actor.  I also thought it was interesting that it spent more time developing the character of the little brother as well as the Ghost Expert they call in. I also like that they invented new scares and put them in different places because the movie is smart enough to know that we've mostly likely seen the original.

The downside is it feels like this movie is rushing. Because it follows the beats of the original I kept comparing it to that, and 80's horror movies has such a different pace then modern horror. We like cheap thrills, get us in, make us scream, get us out. The original movie, much like Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Exorcist, or  Halloween, is a slow burn and focuses on ambiance and storytelling. They focus on being more thrilling than scary. This movie feels pretty rushed at points.

They certainly made the clown creepier, I'll give them that

Overall it's a good watch. But trust me you have to view it as a separate film and it's own thing. It has some solid scares, and is a fun horror film. It's absolutely worth a rental.


Now speaking of things that take liberally from the OG Poltergeist.

If we're talking spiritual successor to Poltergeist. I think the original Insidious was probably the best evolution of that story. And while some people hated it, I thought Insidious 2 was a fantastic sequel.

But what about the 3rd film in the franchise.

I'm a huge fan of this mythology, especially its theme music. Seriously it's like a violin is moaning in agony. Try listening to this alone in the Dark.

This movie us fun, but it's unfortunately a shadow of it's previous two films but it's still very creepy. It sets up great ambiance and it's terrifying at points. What I love about these films is that they do so much with so little.

They don't use huge CG effects, or smoke monsters or anything. They just flash an image of a man standing in the corner or the sounds of footsteps when someone thinks their alone. It's incredibly effective what you can do with lighting, shadows, and skulking dark figures.

This story is a prequel involving one of the strongest parts of the series, Elise played by Lin Shaye.

Elise is the spiritual expert. She acts as a guide to the main characters in the first two films. She acts as a sort or ray of sunshine when the family is in a really dark place. You just have to love her character, she's so dedicated and nobel yet so approachable and charismatic.

  At this point in her life she's given up being a medium because it's just getting too dangerous for her. And I'm guessing in an attempt to build on their audience they introduce... cute teenagers!!!

Stephanie Scott plays Quinn, a young girl who tries to make contact with her recently past mother. Though she wanted to reach her mother, something else, something evil responds.

While the movie had some great ambiance and scary moments, it also drags at points as well. It doesn't stand alone as well as the first two did, and it could have used more Lin Shaye!!!


Both Stephanie and her father (Dermot Mulroney) do a great job in the movie but they don't have enough to do.

 Also the new threat isn't quite as well rounded as the other threats from past movies. All three movies prominently feature The Black Bride.

A malevolent spirit they refer to as a parasite.

And then there's the Lipstick Face Demon

Who was the main threat in the first and was hinted at in the other two.
Both of these characters were more interesting and scarier than the new one.

To be honest the creature in this one is pretty terrifying in the beginning of the film, but without giving too much away the ending of the film kinda defuses him as a threat. Personally, as scary as a ghost is, demons are just more threatening to me.

 I think that if they're going to do more films they should consider deepening the mythology. Who says it's just ghosts and demons in the further. What if there are even more insidious things lurking out there.




This film was a step above most horror flicks because of the specific Insidious style, and because I love the series. But outside of that, its not a super memorable ghost story. It's absolutely worth the watch and it's fun, but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessors.

That's it for now!

8 Criminally Under Appreciated Animated Films

Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame

This was Disney's surprisingly dark animated feature that came at the tail end of Disney's Renaissance in the 80's and 90's. You follow the story of Quasimodo, a disfigured young man who was adopted when he was a baby by Frollo, the genocidal archduke of Notre Dame. He does this after having killed Quasimodo's parents for the crime of being Gypsies. Because Quasimodo is disfigured Frollo locks him in the church and convinces him for years that he's too ugly to leave and that he is his only friend, of course he leaves out the fact that he was the one who murdered his real parents.

So Quasimodo obeys and stays in the tower, ringing the bells and talking to his imaginary gargoyle friends.




 That is until one day he musters the courage to sneak out and while many are cruel he is treated kindly by a defiant young Gypsy woman named Esmerelda.

 Frollo finds himself attracted to Esmerelda despite his deep seeded racist feelings toward Gypsies, feeling that God wants him to eliminate them.

Unable to reconcile those feelings he decides he has to have her killed. And Quasimodo is caught between his sadistic adopted father, and Esmerelda, this Gypsy woman he's fallen in love with because she is the only person to have ever shown him any kindness in his life.

Most people had one of two complaints about the film. Half the people said "It's too dark, and depressing, and it scared me." Or they say "It's not dark enough and that it takes out the real gut punches of novel."



Well as far as it being too dark I kinda liked it.

 The kids like myself who had grown up watching Disney, were ready for something a little bit more serious. The fact is while I don't think kids need to be exposed to everything, we can show them a little of the darker side of the world as long as we affirm courage and the importance of doing what's right while in that dark place.

And those values are exactly what the movie reinforces.

 It's a Disney film that talks about racism, prejudice, sexual frustration, hypocrisy in religion, unrequited love, and unlike some Disney films (cough cough Beauty and the Beast) this one sticks to it's guns on it's message about inner beauty and doesn't cop out by all of a sudden making him beautiful at the end.

Now I know, people who read the book are saying that this totally ripped apart what happens in the original story. And I'd say "What else is new?" Disney has a long history of Disneyfying stories. Did you love the Little Mermaid? Did you know that the original story was totally different and Ariel dies at the end?

The fact is all of these Disney movies stake liberties with the stories and that doesn't mean that you can't appreciate both on different levels. I LOVE the original Little Mermaid and Kimba the White Lion. That doesn't take anything away from Disney's take on the Little Mermaid or the Lion King.


The movie had great music and the visuals were amazing.

The Hunchback on Notre Dame faces really dark adult issues and I think it's important as kids get older to get exposed to that. To realize that there are people who claim to represent religion, yet they preach fear and hate.

 That sometimes the hero doesn't get the girl, and that's okay. That if you watch an atrocity and do nothing, then you're part of the problem. That looks really aren't everything and it's what's inside that counts.

Hoodwinked

There was an era in the CG animated film days when anybody with a powerful enough computer could put together a CG film. This led to a slew of crappy animated films being released like every other month.

To be fair they still seem to come out with really crappy CG movies.

Wow is right JonTron. How did Food Fight get made

Based on the trailer, Hoodwinked seemed to be another one of those. It appeared to have mediocre graphics and the jokes only seemed okay. However they did get some pretty big names in the cast. Glen Close, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Warburton, Anthony Anderson and even Xzibit.

It seemed to play with the 'let's do a funny, meta take on old fairytales', much like Shrek. Most people decided to skip it. However those who viewed it were pleasantly surprised at how much fun the movie was.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not as good as the Original Shrek. But it's actually pretty damn funny. It actually built a small cult following, that the producers immediately betrayed by releasing Hoodwinked 2. A movie which everyone agrees was the terrible movie that they suspected the first one would be. This movie is lots of fun and if you want something reminiscent of the Shrek films, but don't want to see the Shrek sequels, I'd say check it out.






The Great Mouse Detective

One of the great forgotten Disney Films of the 80's. After the success of the Rescuers, disney decides to keep up it's theme of making mice into it's heroes. This is actually one of my favorite incarnations of Sherlock Holmes.

Basically you have a mouse who's made his home in the house of the actual Sherlock Holmes. And much like splinter from the Ninja Turtles, the mouse watches the master of the house and learns his ways.

Never would have guessed that rats emulate their owners so much.

The film follows a young girl who witnessed her father, a simple toymaker, being kidnapped by a peg-legged bat. She then makes her way to the home of Basil of Baker street and asks him to help find out who kidnapped her father and why.

This film is basically a classic mystery. Plus you get the fun awkward moments of the detective doing his best to deal with the little girl. Basil is a brilliant detective but he doesn't really know how to work with people(well, other rodents). When he has this little girl basically glued to him he really doesn't know how to handle it.

Also your villain Rattigan is voiced by the one and only Vincent Price.

It's awesome, it's fun, and more than worth your time.










Meet The Robinsons

This Disney gem came and went pretty unceremoniously. It was just the victim of poor advertising. The trailers didn't make the movie look quite as fun as it was. Actually it just seemed like some random craziness. Which isn't always a bad thing, look at The Emperor's New Groove.

But this film didn't look really special. Plus it came out at a time when Pixar was just knocking it out of the Park. The film squeezed out, sandwiched between the huge hits Cars, Ratatouille, and Wall-E. I didn't see this one till it was out of DVD and man was I glad I did. Much like hoodwinked this one was a lot more fun than I thought.

"All it takes is some imagination and a little science and we can make the world a better place!"

Basically you have a Lewis a child genius who lives at an orphanage. Even at his young age he's a scientific genius but he can't seem to get himself adopted because his experiments are kinda dangerous. He bumps into and befriends another boy from the future who claims to be on a secret mission. Lewis travels with him to the future and meets the boy's family who happen to be the most insane, eccentric, oddball, and at the end of the day loving family he's ever met.

Where the film works is in it's heart. It's a truly sweet story and it really makes you feel good when you watch it.

The film is inspiring and it challenges young people to value progress and scientific thought. It also encourages people to learn from their mistakes instead of beating themselves up for them. But really it's a story about loving your family no matter what. It says that it's okay to be weird and do what you love even if people don't seem to understand.  It's just got a really beautiful story and message and it's a great film for any family.

This one comes highly recommended!

The Princess and the Frog

Sadly the last Animated Film from Disney Features is largely forgotten. Which is a shame because it was a really good movie. Disney and most animation studios have decided to fire all of their artists and focus solely on doing CG animation. Which is a real shame because while films like Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon have proved that Computer Graphics can be breathtaking, there is a level of beauty that I believe can only be reached with traditional animation.

Which is sad because there is so much more character in something drawn by hand.

 After decades disney finally decided to do a princess movie with an African American lead and it was beautifully done.

There is so much that went right with this movie. They take the tale of the Princess and the Frog and put a huge twist on it. The story is set in New Orleans and it's drawn with vidid colors.

The music is fantastic. They used the Jazz as the inspiration and the even threw and gospel sounding song in there.

 The voice acting was perfect. Keith David voiced what I think is maybe the coolest and most interesting Disney Villain in years.

The best part of this movie is how it all ends. Princess Tiana is, next to Mulan, possibly the greatest female role model of all the disney princesses. I think that Disney has learned that we live in a society where people will always do a feminist critic of the message of any princess movie.

And let's be honest about some of the messages previous princess movies have taught us.

Beauty and The Beast:1/2 Stocholm Syndrome 1/2 I don't care if he's a jerk, I can change him!

Cinderella: It's okay to be a pushover and there's no need to stand up for yourself ever. Some guy will come and save you because he's in love with your feet.

The Little Mermaid: Sure, there's nothing wrong with a 16 year old running away with some dude that she barely knows. Even if her dad hates him.

Snow White: Don't worry about protecting yourself when, much like Blanche, you can rely on the kindness of strangers. Whether it's a hunter who won't kill you, or a bunch of old dudes who'll give you free room and board, or a prince that will make out with you while you're in a coma, there will always be some man who takes pity on you and will save you.

And the men weren't much better.

*I should note that I'm really just having a bit of fun at these classic's expense. In all honesty I really love all these films but it's surprising if we look at what messages they send to kids. 



What's so different about  Princess Tiana is that she doesn't get saved by a prince, she actually saves the prince in more ways than one. I don't want to spoil everything but he doesn't save her financially or make her life easy. She does it all on her own.

So if the film is so good, why didn't this movie do as well as Tangled, which came out the same year pretty much at the same time.

Princess and the Frog Grossed 267 Million while Tanged brought in a whopping 591.8 Million. That's over double.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved Tangled. But having the benefit of hindsight and watching them back to back.. Princess and the Frog was the better film. It had a more progressive message, it had wonderful songs and animation. Tangled was loads of fun and hilarious. I mean how can you not love a sword fighting horse. But looking at them critically, Princess and the Frog was a better film.

So what happened?

My guess is that kids these days don't really appreciate traditional animation. For the most part it's all that they've seen and they don't know how to take it. Traditional animation looks old to them and most kids decided that they can catch the flat non 3D movie at home while they go to the theater to see Tangled.

The death of Disney's hand drawn animation studio was truly a loss to the world. Just imagine if they kept doing their CG animated films but continued to tell classic fairy tales with beautiful traditional animation.

Well at least we can still get out traditionally animated films from overseas.

Bolt

People love dogs

 People love Disney

Ahhh the nostalgia feels

Everything points to this being a hit! But I think that Disney underestimated how much that little Pixar logo means to people. This cute little story about a dog and his girl made the mistake as coming out in the middle of a number of instant classics;  Wall-E, UP and Ponyo.



The movie follows a little dog who is the star of a super hero show where he saves his owner from danger.

However the dog being .... a dog, doesn't realize that it's just a show and he thinks he's actually saving her from danger. So when she leaves and appears to be in danger, Bolt rushes to her rescue getting himself lost out in the real world where such a tiny dog is likely to get hurt.

The movie may not be groundbreaking but it's cute as all hell.

It's funny and charming and if you're an animal lover it's a lot of fun. It's a sweet little story about a dog going on an adventure where he meets interesting animals, such as Rhino the hamster.

If you haven't seen it and you're a dog lover, I'd really advise that you check it out if you haven't seen it already.




Watership Down

I have mixed feelings about putting this one on the list because it did huge business in Britain. However it never really was as big over here in the States. It's listed as one of best animated films of all time. But when I mention it to people they don't seem to know what I'm talking about. This was definetly a film for the older kids. I'd never show this to someone younger than maybe 9 or so.

If you're around my age, you may have remembered as a kid in the very early 90's a movie playing on TV that showed a pretty graphic depiction of rabbits being slaughtered by ... well the real life things that kill rabbits.

That's Watership down. The movie is about a warren of rabbits who are just trying to find a new home to survive. And this movie does NOT pull any punches. As it turns out it's pretty dangerous to be a rabbit. Everything wants to kill you.

In the story, the rabbits have a God and it starts out telling the story of that God.

 And how he kept reproducing not heeding the warnings of the sun God.

So all the other creatures begin killing and eating all the rabbits in a terrifying sequence.

But having Mercy on the rabbits he gives them long ears to hear, and quick feet for running and digging.

 The sun God tells him runner, jumper, digger, to be quick, and be clever because the world is your enemy. That the world will try to catch you and when they do they'll kill you. But first, they have to catch you. that's why he  has to be more clever than they are.

While you may be thinking, "I can't show this to my kids, it will traumatize them!" Look I get it. I certainly wouldn't show this to really young kids either. I'd say the kids should be at least 9 or 10 before they watch the movie. But I mentioned before that kids shouldn't be coddled and eventually have to be shown the world. This is a great introduction to that. The stakes are high, these rabbits face real mortal danger. But by being cunning and fast and smart they survive. I saw this at a young age and I was mesmerized by it. It was shocking to see blood and violence in the movie but I still found it beautiful and saw how great a story it was.

The same team who made this, also did a movie called Plague Dogs. A film that I think is tied with Grave of the Fireflies for saddest movie ever.

Also it has such a touching and beautiful ending, that can bring a tear to the eyes of most adults.

 It's just an amazing movie and everyone should see it. Recently Criterion Collection released a blu-ray. It's a beautiful edition of the film and a great buy.

Iron Giant

This brilliant masterpiece is slowly getting some of the respect it deserves. Critics raved about it, but most people didn't come out to the theaters to see it. The Iron Giant is a tragic story that is infinitely re-watchable, is full of heart, and is still so much fun.

The film is about a giant robot from space that lands on the planet but through an accident looses it's memory. Not knowing who it is or where it came from the giant just kinda wanders. It's discovered by Hogarth Huges, a boy who's clearly got no friends and keeps trying to bring strange animals home as pets much to the despair of his single mother.

The two become fast friends, but when the cold war era government comes to investigate, it becomes clear they're going to be less accepting of the creature.

The film explores themes such as paranoia, what it means to be a true hero, the nature of death and having respect for life, and war.

While the film is really funny at points there is always this looming sense that things are going to go south very soon.

Much like Princess and the Frog, most kids thought the movie looked old. They didn't know how to take the old school animation. But the beauty was that was the style they were going for. They wanted it to look reminiscent of the old Walt Disney or Ralph Bakshi, style of animation.

Unfortunately this meant that the film was overshadowed by the much brighter and more colorful Tarzan and Toy Story 2.

The Iron Giant was directed by Brad Bird. The same guy who brought us the Incredibles, and Mission Impossible 4 (the best one in the series). The story is great, you honestly love the characters and don't want  anything bad to happen to them. When it's funny it's hilarious, when it's sad it's tearjerking. It does everything a summer movie should. If you haven't seen any of the movies on this list and you see only one, I'd advise you pick this one up.

For the moment... I think I need to go find some tissue. (sniff) (sniff)