Some Stuff I Watched - April Movie Roundup

Imma jump right in, as usual.

The Scooby gang is back, ya'll.

The Pyramid. Let’s call this like it is: a low-rent version of As Above, So Below (which, to be perfectly honest, I feel was a very low-rent horror movie to begin with). Yet another in the slew of found footage movies I constantly swear I won’t watch, and then unfailingly do. They’re just so ubiquitous at this point; if I feel like watching a new horror, which I usually do, it’s like a 90% chance that it will happen to be found footage. Anyway (no escape there, no resolution). I think I actually liked this better than AASB, which isn’t saying much… but if pressed, I’d say I liked it much better than AASB. I’ll take cannibal cats over confronting super lame personal fears, at any rate.

That is Becky from Friday Night Lights, a.k.a. Masuka's daughter.

Exists. Again, a found footage movie that stands out mostly because it was better than another found footage movie I hated (in this case, Willow Creek). This wasn’t a great movie, but it was entertaining, which I’ll totally take at this point. It didn’t bother much with character development or backstory, which absolutely worked in its favor. You know how 75% of found footage horror movies have at least half an hour of unbelievably boring shit that’s supposed to “flesh out” the characters, but never does? Yeah, this movie skipped all that and went straight for the Sasquatch, which I appreciated. There was plenty of action, much of it in broad daylight (very little of the “night vision” crap that’s used to hide so many flaws). What’s more, the Sasquatch actually looked pretty cool. I don’t think we even see the monster in Willow Creek, and good lord, that Bigfoot-esque creature in Happy Camp?! Don’t even get me started. So yeah, this one was decent.

This really is just The Haunted Mask 3. That kid's not even scared, man.

Clown. This was inspired by a cool little short film, and they should’ve just left well enough alone. In keeping with that, there’s my entire review. Okay, wait, I can’t help it: this reminded me of the Goosebumps episode “The Haunted Mask.” Like, a lot. So.

This screen cap is way too cool for this movie.

V/H/S Viral. Nope, nope, nope. I know some people liked the second one better than the first (not me, for the record), but did anyone like this one better than… anything? I can’t imagine. It was so slapdash and so… blatantly not scary. It actually reminded me of some kind of crappy comedy sketch show. This franchise is officially over.

But this screen cap is perfect.

Late Phases. I liked this one. An aging man is sent to live in a retirement community by his wealthy son, despite the fact that there have been several gruesome animal attacks (on the elderly residents!) lately. Great son, right? So grizzled old war veteran Ambrose decides to get to the bottom of it. It’s a bit slow in places, but I’m a sucker for older main characters (so much of horror is young, nubile, and little else), and I think this take on the werewolf story is both fresh and poignant.

And this screen cap is the most perfect.

Found. This created a bit of a divide in my household: I think this movie has something special, even if I can’t put my finger on it or even begin to defend it. My husband absolutely, 100% disagrees with me. It’s true – the acting is largely atrocious and distracting, and the story is haphazard and lazily explained. But… still. I thought the main young boy (Gavin Brown) was perfection, and the film just had a dreamy way of shooting things that took me back to my own childhood. Though mine was, luckily, far less grisly, it made me remember that sense of sinister, unknown things always being there in the shadows and on the periphery. I loved that. Aside from that, I’ll concede that it’s not good. But still. It has that little something.

...And yes, I have seen It Follows. I want to write a post about it, but I'm just not there yet. There's so much I feel like I have to mull over; I'd love to even see it a second time to truly work through my feelings about it. But a post about it is coming, I swear.