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Saturday is Horror Day #37 – False Positive, See No Evil (2006)

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Reviewer: Julie Lynn Hayes

 False Positive

Lucy (Ilana Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux) have been trying for about two years to get pregnant, with no luck. Adrian manages to land them an appointment with Dr. John Hindle (Pierce Brosnan), a highly noted fertility specialist who was Adrian’s teacher in med school. He assures them they are in good hands and he will do everything he can to assure them a baby through IVF. Before long, Lucy is pregnant – with triplets!  Two boys and a girl.

 

Dr. Hindle suggests that three babies will be too much, considering Lucy’s previous history, so suggests he perform a selective reduction and suggests keeping the twin boys, who share a placenta. Lucy is appalled, already having named her unborn daughter Wendy, after the girl in Peter Pan. She wrestled with her conscience and finally agrees to the reduction, but they have to save Wendy, which the doctor agrees to.

 

Lucy’s career seems to be taking off, for which she is ecstatic, although Adrian encourages her to be a stay-at-home mom. But she begins to feel off, not herself. The other expectant mothers in her group attribute this to mommy brain, but Lucy doesn’t think so. Plus she finds Dr. Hindle’s nurse, Dawn (Gretchen Mol), more than a little creepy, and definitely a fervent admirer of the doctor and his work.

Lucy sees an advertisement for a mid-wife named Grace Singleton (Zainab Jah) and despite knowing 

Adrian wouldn’t approve goes to see her. She is comforted by the woman’s manner, and decides to go with her instead of Dr. Hindle. As predicted, Adrian is angry but Lucy’s mind is made up. However, when the time comes, things don’t go as planned, and Lucy has to be rushed to the hospital, where a huge surprise awaits her.

I noticed this Hulu exclusive movie and decided to give it a try, primarily because I just love Pierce Brosnan. There is a lot going on here, more than just the pregnancy. The film seems to tackle broader issues, such as male dominance, the role of women, and more. It has definite Rosemary’s Baby vibes. I have to confess I figured out the twist but not the ending. It was a sufficiently creepy film that could have been a little better. Gretchen Mol was creepy in the way she played the nurse, and Pierce was very creepy as well. It was worth watching. I’ll give it 3.5 Stars.

See No Evil (2006)

A routine call goes horribly wrong for two police officers when they are attacked by a psychopath with an axe while attempting to rescue a young woman whose eyes have been cut out. The rookie ends up dead while the other officer is maimed, but only after shooting the killer in the head. Four years later, he’s working at the Detention Center for troubled youth. A group of them have been offered a chance to shave a month off their sentences. All they have to do is a little community service.

The teens end up at the Blackwell Hotel, which has definitely seen better days. But the owner intends to renovate it as housing for the homeless. Kids being kids, they intend to party as much as possible. After all, not obeying the rules is what got them there in the first place. And they didn’t exactly volunteer for this duty, they were impressed into it. The hotel is in terrible shape, and bugs and rats are not uncommon.

 

Unfortunately for them, the psychopath is hiding in this hotel, and he sees them as fresh meat, and he is more than happy to kill and kill again. With no way to contact the outside world, can the teens survive long enough to tell about it?

I have to say that this film is long on blood and short on most everything else, including actual plot or 

character development. Granted, that’s not necessarily a requirement in a horror film, but it helps. I would call this movie an example of horror porn. It moves from one bloody scene to another for the sake of blood and death.

Which is all well and good, if that’s what  you’re looking for. But I had other issues with the movie. Such as these so-called teens looked older than that. What, couldn’t they find actual teen actors?  Also, I can’t believe they could just arbitrarily assign these delinquents to that kind of duty without at least notifying their parents, if not getting written permission.

As I said, the hotel is in deplorable state. Three days of work from these kids is not going to put a dent in what needs to be done. Not to mention, none of them seem to have any experience with this sort of things. Furthermore, I would think before the hotel is ready to be cleaned, they would need to send in an exterminator to help with that pest problem, ie rats and bugs.

Finally, none of the teens seem horribly disturbed by this place, or the thought of sleeping there for three days (I don’t think any of them brought a change of clothes or anything). Someone should be at least a little freaked out here. And one couple chooses to have sex in a maid’s room. God knows how long since those sheets – or anything else in this hotel – have been cleaned. The very thought is disgusting. 

We get some glimpses into the motivation of the killer, Kane,and his overly religious fanatic of a mother who made his life as a boy a living hell. His actual reason comes to light at the end of the film.

The acting is tolerable, nothing to write home about. Most of the horror is of the gory variety, and it’s of the kind that thinks it’s better to be watching it than living it. There is a sequel, which I’ll review once I get it from the library. In the meantime, I’ll give this one 3 Stars

Saturday is Horror Day #36 – Waxwork II: Lost in Time, See No Evil: The Moors Murders, Jeepers Creepers 2

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Reviewer: Julie Lynn Hayes

 Waxwork II: Lost in Time

Mark (Zach Galligan) and Sarah (Monika Schnarre) have just escaped from the flaming ruins of the Waxwork. They’re tired and they just want to go home. Their job is done… or so they think. Little do they suspect that a disembodied hand has survived the inferno and has followed Sarah home! The hand attacks her stepfather. Sarah tries to save him, but her efforts are in vain. Unfortunately, that’s a hard scenario to explain to the police, and Sarah is accused of her stepfather’s murder!

 

Mark is determined to save her, but they need proof. The question is how to get it? They go to Sir Wilfred’s house and find a video message he left for Mark in the event of his demise, with a cryptic explanation of how to go back in time. But the two figure it out and off they go!

 

The second Waxwork film is even campier than the first one as the two would-be lovers seek the evidence they need to clear Sarah of murder (whatever that might be, to prove that disembodied hands do exist and can kill people). Played for even more laughs than the first one, this film is also gorier, so watch out for that spraying blood and flying body parts. At the same time, don’t look for any kind of logic here either.

Doesn’t this remind you of a scene from Die Hard, where one of the bad guys is about to take down Bruce Willis, John McClaine? Not surprising, as this is Alexander Godunov, who also played in Die Hard. And that will give you some indication of what the film makers were going for as they fly through various points in time and pay homage to a number of different stories, some of which I may even have missed.  (One reviewer referenced Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, which I remembered from the first film, not the second). 

We see Baron von Frankenstein and his monster, and also the ship and crew from the movie Alien. There are references to Poe, including the Raven, as well as Dawn of the Dead. One black-and-white sequence has a very funny Bruce Campbell. I believe he’s meant to be related to Mark, but if so, no one mentions it. There is a montage of quick visits that include Jack the Ripper and Godzilla, and a lengthier story that takes place in the time of King Arthur (although they never use his and his knights remind me of the Knights Templar, with their Maltese crosses. John Ireland plays the king, and Michael Des Barres his right-hand man, George. Alexander Godunov is Scarabis, the would-be usurper of the throne. Look for a small cameo appearance by Drew Barrymore in the Nosferatu sequence.

While the film was funny,  sometimes it’s just a bit unbelievable. I mean, Sarah is being tried for murder, and they’re not holding her in the jail? When does that happen? I find it hard to believe either one of them could make her bail, assuming they even set bail for such a heinous crime. The story is inconsistent and weak, and most of the time we forget why they are really traveling in time and just going with the traveling thing.  The ending is rather unbelievable too, and the film is, much like the first one, too long. Better writing would have benefited this immensely. I don’t think there is room for a third. I’ll give this one 3 Stars.

See No Evil: The Moors Murders

In 1965 England, children disappeared without explanation, alarming the community. Maureen and Dave Smith (Joanne Froggattand Matthew McNulty) are a young married couple with a baby of their own. They’re distraught when the child unexpectedly dies. Maureen is close to her older sister Myra (Maxine Peake), although she is wary of Myra’s boyfriend Ian Brady (Sean Harris). Even so, she encourages her husband to get close to Brady, at Myra’s request.

The two couples takes trips out to the moors together, where Brady shows Dave how to fire a gun. They talk about robbing a bank, as the Smiths are low on funds and about to get evicted. Myra comes to get Dave one night and takes him back to their house where he witnesses Brady kill a man. Dave is horrified and tells his wife. Together they approach the police, who pick up Brady and Myra, who lie and say that Dave helped Brady kill the man.

 

Dave tells the police that Brady boasted of having killed someone before. and he shows them photos taken on the moor. The police begin to look at Brady and Hindley as suspects but they have no evidence of the missing children. Life is getting harder for the Smiths, who are looked up as suspects despite the fact that they came to the police of their own volition.  If only they could find the spot where the photos were taken, then maybe they’ll be able to find the childrens’ graves and make a case against the pair.

 

This is the true story of the Moors Murders, a case I read about many years ago. The series is very well done, and very well acted. Most of it is from the POV of Maureen and Dave Smith, and doesn’t glorify the killers in any way. It’s very informative and interesting besides being good drama. I give this series 4.5 Stars.

Jeepers Creepers 2

The Creeper lies dormant for 23 years and then he returns for 23 days in order to feed. Twenty-three years have passed since the last time, and now it’s day 22…

Billy Taggart is helping out on the family farm, putting up scarecrows, when he notices that one is acting rather strangely. Too late, he realizes this is no real scarecrow. Despite his screams for help, his father Jack Sr (Ray Wise) and older brother Jack Jr (Luke Edwards) are helpless to do other than watch as he is flown away by a large creature.

On Day 23, a busload of high school students is returning from a victorious tournament. Suddenly the bus lurches to a halt. The bus driver, Betty (Diane Delano) discovers a strange looking implement has shredded the tire, something very odd and disturbing, as it contains what appears to be a human tooth.

 

It’s getting dark, but no one can get cell reception. So the coach goes out to light some flares and put 

them on the road so they can be seen. But he suddenly disappears. Another adult goes to finish the job, but this time they see what flies out of the sky and grabs him, to their horror!

One by one the adults are picked off, leaving just the frightened teens. But rather than behaving like a team, they fight amongst themselves, which doesn’t help the situation. When they finally manage to make contact with someone, he tries to pinpoint their location, but they only vaguely know where they are. They believe that help is now on the way, but they have only managed to contact Jack Taggart Sr, who is determined to kill the creature who killed his son.

 

I liked this sequel to the original Jeepers Creepers. It has a solid premise and decent acting. Not surprising that it has good production values, it’s a Coppola production. It was certainly creepy, and the division among the team players was realistic, although it never came out and said racism, but it was pretty evident what the problem was, at least for one student.

The part about the student who had some kind of telepathic abilities, though, was a bit much, and really just served as exposition to explain to the kids what they were dealing with. Seemed kind of hokey to me. Still, all in all, it was a decent horror film, and worth watching. I’ll give it 4 Stars.