Friday, March 8, 2013

#HOLDYOURBREATH

Genre: Horror/Supernatural

Average Netflix Rating: 2.5 Stars

Hold Your Breath or its official name - #Holdyourbreath is the newest in a line of horror movies about a murderous spirit bouncing from body to body. Sometimes the results are great (FALLEN) sometimes they aren't (MY SOUL TO TAKE) Unfortunately for me, this falls into the bad category. The really really bad category. 

After a serial killer is given the electric chair - his enraged spirit is trapped in limbo, just waiting for the chance to take over the body of a living person... luckily a group of high school friends are just about to start a camping weekend right by said graveyard! Lucky for everyone in the car, one of the travelers knows how to avoid being possessed by an evil spirit. Whenever you drive past a cemetery, all you need to do is hold your breath or the spirit can take over your body. As the group gets closer and closer to the cemetery the girl begs and pleads her friends to please #holdyourbreath... obviously for fairly stupid reasons someone in the car does not successfully hold their breath for the required amount of time and therefore becomes possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. After a random adventure in a mental institution the group continues to the camp site and the rest of the film is just the group being split up for stupid reasons and being killed off one by on as the spirit passes from person to person. Until a laughable final "battle" between good and evil that still doesn't resolve the main plot... you need to wait an additional 5 mins for the "surprise twist ending" 

Everything about this movie is bad... There is nothing good to say about this movie except it looks like your standard horror movie - not the cheap direct to video crap that it is. The biggest mistake the movie makes is it makes it 100% clear where and within whom the spirit is possessing. There is no mystery as to who will be next to be killed, when you know who is possessed and the group begins to pair off, you know who is going to get whacked next... While it would not fix the many problems of the movie, it would at least be slightly more suspenseful if you had no idea who the killer was and which pair was doomed.  

Let me say it again... everything about this movie is just bad, the acting was bad, the story was bad, the effects were bad, the plot was bad - and most of all tons of things just don't make sense...Why do you have to hold your breath when you drive past a cemetery BUT if you are just walking by the cemetery you are ok? Do they explain it in the movie? No - but they do acknowledge it Thank you screen writer for acknowledging the giant hole in your story but that does not solve your problem.

The movie is littered with silly stories and plot points that are meaningless. After a near car accident (horror cliche) a couple decides to go off to have sex (horror cliche) The rest of the group goes off to follow them, leaving 1 person behind (horror cliche) The group stumbles upon an abandoned hospital (horror cliche) and the group seperates to explore (horror cliche) But the worst off all - there is no reason for this! The ghost isnt in the hospital, theres no files or photos to stumble across... it is just an excuse to add 20 mins to the movies run time... 

Lastly - whats with the hashtag? It has nothing to do with the plot or the movie, were the film makers really that delusional that they thought they were going to take over the twitterverse with this movie? 

Avoid a all costs...

Rating:  1/5

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Smiley (2012)

Genre: Horror/Slasher

Average Netflix Rating: 2.9

Smiley is one of those movies that I have been waiting and waiting for. When it was screened in 2010 it achieved a lot of buzz around the horror community but no one gave very many details of what Smiley was all about. Smiley was pushed away onto some dusty shelf and left there until 2012 when the studio was doing a little spring cleaning and decided to just give the film a quick and limited theatrically release - and now 6 months later, the films is finally widely released for home viewing... so after all that, is it worth watching? Yes and no... but first a quick synopsis...

Mentally unstable Ashley finally moves away from home and is excited to be starting a new life away from her family tragedy. Nerdy Ashley answers an add for a roommate and is moving into hip and edgy Proxy's home right on campus and the unlikely pair instantly hit it off.   Proxy introduces sheltered Ashley to drugs, drinking, and the world of anonymous online posting chatting, and partying - yes partying. No real names at these parties just online handles and instead of beer pong and flip cup everyones on computers or watching projected images on the walls. While Ashley is getting used to this new world, she learns about the urban legend of Smiley - when you are video chatting with someone, if you type "I did it for the lulz..." 3 times Smiley will appear behind the person and kill them...Ashley's already unstable minds begin to crack as she see's more and more proof that Smiley is real and is now after her...

"I did it for the lulz..." Did I lose you yet?

I will admit that I was having a hard time getting on bored with a horror movie that wants me to be be afraid of the line "I did it for the lulz..." BUT I actually found myself enjoying this movie quite a bit. This movie NAILS the jump scare - some people hate the cliche jump scare and think of it as a lazy copout but I think its actually very difficult to pull off a good jump scare as most horror fans can see them coming a mile away, but Smiley got me more then once... Bravo Smiley, Bravo... Other then then that - don't look for a lot of terror or gore here. Its your standard slasher flick with a techno twist. The plot of the movie is nothing that you haven't seen before - its a mix of a bunch of movies that you have already seen and its not even remotely original in anyway, shape or form - but it knows it and it embraces it. I look at it as a love letter to the techno/horror movies of the past. Most of the actors do an ok job with the script they were given --- 2 of the actors stick out in my mind as scene stealingly terrible but on the flip side I really think we are going to see more of the girl who played Proxy. The movie kept me (kinda) guessing until the end as to what was going on and while the end wasn't the end that I wanted - it has set the tone for what could be an even better sequel. 

Rating -  4/5