Spooky season is here and I am not the type of girl that is in love with all things fall. I don’t like pumpkin spice, I’m not the biggest fan of Halloween, and I especially hate scary movies. Yet, for some reason, I am getting exceptionally excited to spook out this year!
Although it seems as if I choose the wrong year to want to participate in spooky season, there are still ways to get my adrenaline pumping without scary mazes or haunted hayrides. So, for this haunted Halloween, I have decided to watch 4 different scary movies to jumpstart my festivities. If you know me personally, you know that my brain and I can not handle being spooked. It is not fun for me, but here I am reviewing 4 horror movies pretending to be okay.
I will be rating the movies – ‘Don’t Breathe’, ‘Before I Wake’, ‘As Above, So Below’, and ‘Us’ – based on the first impression I get from the trailers and then my final thoughts after watching the movie. *SPOILERS AHEAD*
1. ‘Don’t Breathe’ by Fede Alvarez
Trailer: Clay freaking Jensen, that’s the tweet. On a serious note, I think this will really have my anxiety up high along with a few jump scares, I’m going to say that some of the jump scares will be predictable. When it was first coming out and I saw the trailer, the movie didn’t look good and I’m going to stand by that.
Final Thoughts: At first it was a slow start, like every other scary movie but it wasn’t as slow as I thought it would be. The writers established that the main character, Rocky played by Jane Levy, wanted to leave town too bad so that’s how you know things are going to go very wrong. Also, it seemed like they wanted to develop a love story or a love triangle between Rocky, Alex played by Dylan Minnette (also known as Clay Jensen from 13 Reasons), and Money who was played by Daniel Zovatto and I was not here for it. You want us to follow the plotline and a romance story? No thank you. When the trio was sneaking into the blind man’s house, I thought they were going to hurt his dog and I was automatically about to give this movie a bad rating because I love animals and I don’t stand for animal brutality. When they got into the house, they were making me so mad because they were being loud like it wasn’t late at night. Like the guys is blind, not deaf, he can still hear everything that’s going on. They say that if you lose one sense, the other’s heighten. Also, this guy is a war vet! Why would you think he’ll be an easy target even if he is blind?! The one thing that really got me was the freaking plot twist towards the end when the blind man had trapped Alex, which had me shook. I think that was the only part that made me uneasy, other than that I didn’t really have any jumpscares because they revealed them in the trailer or was anxious about seeing anything. I would say it was more of a thriller than horror and that was a little disappointing. But the blind man’s acting, played by Stephen Lang, was spectacular and I thoroughly enjoyed the cinematography that we got.
2. ‘Before I Wake’ by Mike Flanagan
Trailer: I’m definitely getting jumpscare vibes. I don’t know how well this movie is going to go because I have two younger siblings that I live with and my sister is very sinister at times so this might have me scared for my life a little afterward. This kid is from the movie ‘Room’ and anything he’s in is a statement.
Final Thoughts: Right off the bat the child actor who plays Cody, Jacob Tremblay, makes me uneasy. He also starred in the movie ‘Room’ and I believe that he is a little too good at his job and it’s a little disturbing for how young he was when he was starring in these movies. I don’t think Jessie, played by Kate Bosworth, was ready to adopt a child, especially a little boy around the same age as her dead son. I didn’t like the fact that she used Cody to see her son resulting in losing her husband Mark, played by Thomas Jane, which I was very upset about because he was my favorite character. I kind of predicted the end of the movie though so that made me happy. I predicted that the canker man was his mom, because why else would he say he’ll always be with him and hurt everyone else besides him? It would only make sense. But it was actually him taking the form of the last way he saw his mother which was sad. I said to teach the kid how to lucid dream so he could control the canker man a little more. There were a lot of plot holes and questions left unanswered. Why was Tate mean to Cody? We got no backstory as to how Cody got these powers and a lot of other things. Someone needs to contact Netflix to fix this storyline. Once again, had no jumpscares because it was revealed in the trailer and the only thing that disturbed me was the fact that the kid was drinking grape soda and liked pineapple pizza.
3. As Above, So Below by John Erick Dowdle
Trailer: I do believe there will be jump scares but there is definitely a supernatural touch to this that will probably lessen what I expect. This is supposed to be the scariest one out of the four, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Final Thoughts: This movie was terrible. Simple and straight to the point. This movie was not scary whatsoever, and if that is coming from me there’s a problem. This needs to be taking out of the horror category. I felt like I was watching a real-life Harry Potter movie without Hogwarts and the spells, and I am very well versed in things Harry Potter. The whole movie was about this archaeologist looking for Nicholas Flamel’s Philosopher’s stone which was little the first book in the Harry Potter series. The scenes that were designed to scare you were edited with black flashes which ruined the spooky aspect of it. It took to long to even make it to a jumpscare scene and was very disappointing once again. It was another movie that was way more thriller than horror and revealed the spooky parts in the trailer. It was a decent movie to watch (the Harry Potter connection helped) but not something you want to watch if you want a scare or a horror movie. I also really enjoyed the cinematography for this movie.
4. Us by Jordon Peele
Trailer: I truly believe that this movie is going to prevent me from getting any sleep tonight. This one is for the culture. I don’t do well with anything that involves masks, they petrify me, so let’s see how I react to them. My girl Lupita is about to kill it.
Final Thoughts: This movie messed with my head. The end was written so well and they did not hint at anything from it to end this way so I really liked that. It had me questioning everything that I supported throughout the movie and it was hurting my brain. I do believe watching it twice would help me understand it better but my one prediction from watching the trailer happened. I did have trouble sleeping after watching this movie but not as much as I had thought. Most of the movie Lupita was giving me Viola Davis vibes which I absolutely loved. The pace of the movie was a little fast for me, but I think it flowed pretty well. Gabe, played by Winston Duke, was probably my favorite thing from the whole movie and was definitely giving culture throughout everything. I loved that the kids took initiative instead of just running and hiding. I’m very surprised little Jason, played by Evan Alex, didn’t annoy me because he seemed like the type of kid who just doesn’t listen but I was very proud of him and what he did. Their daughter Zora, played by Shahadi Wright Joseph, was another favorite character but she does not have a getaway driver mentality, and that kind of made me mad. There were a few questions that weren’t answered like what did Red whisper to Addy, who were both played by Lupita Nyong’o, or how did Jason know something was wrong with his mother at the end. The acting was great.
Sadly, ‘Us’ was the only movie that really lived up to my expectations. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t pick great horror movies or if it was because I was reviewing them too critically but either way, I will not be doing this again. My nerves can’t handle the anticipation of waiting to find out if a movie is really scary or not. Watching these four movies, I forced myself to not have a shield to really watch every scene of each movie. I also think the problem was the soundtrack to the movies. The other three movies didn’t have an appealing soundtrack the way ‘Us’ did. The track music that is laid underneath scenes is very important because hearing things help to get your heart racing.
After this, I personally think I should be a movie critic. But definitely not for horror.