Rare to see a horror movie these days that is this genuinely scary and it is successful at being scary because it is very focused, relentless in piling on one nailbiting scene and shock scare after another, and takes place at one location (The set is perfect) - A police station the night before it closes for good. A rookie officer (Juliana Harkavy) has been assigned to play watchman by herself but little does she know the station is haunted by the ghosts of a Charles Manson like cult leader and a couple of his followers who committed suicide while in custody one year earlier. All the scares here are legitimate and might be something as simple as a chair that moves by itself or a hideously mutilated ghost-corpse. The end is a bit of a mind screw and I dug it. Anthony DiBlasi, the director, previously made the films DREAD and CASSADAGA but this is much much better. Maybe the best horror movie I've seen this year.
COOTIES
Horror comedies are difficult to pull off as they often seem like an uneasy mix of two things that don't go well together but this film does a good job I think because it is primarily a comedy. One can ignore the gruesome violence and bloody gore because of the large number of jokes, hilarious dialogue, and the characters in particular the angry right wing Christian teacher, the ridiculously perverse and socially awkward science teacher, and the anal retentive fake cool vice principal. There's even couple Lord of the Rings jokes (Elijah Wood is the main star). Not a masterpiece of the genre, just good gory fun.
HELLIONS
Crappy film in love with its bargain basement psychedelic visuals and containing a muddled pro life message. Had no idea what the plot was about and by the end I didn't care. The first twenty minutes made me think it was going to be yet another variation on THE STRANGERS and it would have been better off for everyone if it had gone in that direction.
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