Spooky October • Posts Tagged ‘horror’

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012)

IT’S NOT OCTOBER YET, but we totally went and saw a scary movie.

A: The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh is a Canadian horror film that recently had a very limited release at Cineplex Yonge and Dundas in Toronto. It’s written and directed by one of the publishers of Rue Morgue. I was pretty excited for this film. Canadian production starring Vanessa Redgrave (mad respect), seemed to be getting really good reviews, creepy story about cults and ghosts - LOVIN’ IT. But ultimately, it winds up being a whole lotta meh with shades of boring.

Leon Leigh (Aaron Poole) goes to his mother’s house after she dies to deal with the estate or something. The house filled with religious relics, medieval art, and busted antiques – creepy. Leon stays the night, half-heartedly going through stuff and slowly getting spooked. He’s either being haunted by his mother, an angel statue, a monster thing, or the angel cult his mother was part of really wants him to be their new member and they are really fucking pushy about it.

It’s an interesting albeit overused concept, but the script has sad and sympathetic undertones that make it more elegant than a general ghost movie. It’s the closest filmic representation of a gothic ghost story that I’ve ever seen. The script is very good. Rodrigo Gudiño is fairly talented and there are decent scares and some really nice framing and shots. The house they found to shoot in is incredible and automatically gives the film its atmosphere.

But the things is, it gets a little annoying to be teased for an hour and a half with jump scares that don’t really amount to anything. That’s a good technique for building suspense, but when used the whole time it makes the film booooooring – show me! Conversely though, there’s too much CGI used for the monster thing; it was better when we didn’t see it. I’m contradictory, I know.

Also, the film is tricky - it doesn’t actually star Vanessa Redgrave, she just provides voiceover work.

Anyway, the film wouldn’t even be that bad and I might have been more inclined to like it if it hadn’t been for the god-awful question and answer session that I experienced after the screening. First of all, the producer seemed to think it was his time to shine and took over, fielding questions and answering almost all of them while trying to make jokes about the production and inserting himself into a lot of it. It was bizarre. Meanwhile, the lead actor was mostly silent and the director didn’t really say anything. And when describing his idea for the film, the director said it was written while he was working on something bigger but Telefilm Canada asked him to.

Ok. But could you at least act like you’re interested? Could you be a little enthusiastic about your work? Could you say something fucking interesting about it instead of just standing around? No? Fair enough. Maybe you’re just not into it. Perhaps you’re shy. And who am I to judge, I haven’t made a film. But I watched this film. And I’m giving it a big ol’ MEH.

—

S: I had never heard of this flick before, but going to limited events makes me feel like a baller, so I was down as soon as I got the invite. Plus, apparently Clive Barker liked it, and I like him, so same same.

The movie itself is just okay. Leon goes home after his mama dies, she was uber religious so her house is creepy (read: fantastic), and then there’s some weird stuff with a wild animal/possibly a cult. He stays longer than I would have, as tends to happen in horror movies. I learned that I am a huge wimp when it comes to statues with human eyes. I almost noped on out of the theatre during a dream sequence. I thought the score was well done, as it kept me tense, and I quite liked the lead, which was surprising as I was sure I wouldn’t.

What stopped this movie from actually being good was the totally not-terrifying CGI creature. As soon as you get up close and personal with this creepy monster, you’re like “Oh, it’s just the Grinch, never mind”. The story was also a little lackluster, just a bunch of elements thrown together that could have been something really interesting, but never fully played out. Prime example - apparently Leon was an antiques collector of sorts? I didn’t catch that at all in the film. I spent 90% of the movie thinking he was a random found items artist, and 10% thinking he was just a crazy hobo. If you’re going to add in some cool, fun fact like that, let’s dwell on it for a bit and maybe talk about why it is even remotely relevant.

What pushed the film in to being totally terrible for me was the awful Q&A session following. I don’t do well with Q&A’s in general, because I hate people and their stupid questions, but I have managed to sit through and be surprised by a few. This was not one of them. It was painful. A already outlined the issues with the panel, but let me add:

Do not ask an actor if they felt as scared acting in the film as you felt watching the film. The answer is going to be NO, because they are an actor and they are acting. And if for some reason the answer is YES, it is still not a good question, because people like me in the audience will hate on you and blog about it.

Should you see this? Meh. Maybe. If you can find it somewhere and you’re bored. Just don’t make it the headliner of your evening.

Black Christmas (1974)

Uh oh, looks like Spooky October missed most of October. Hey, what can we say? We were too ambitious and real life things got in the way. But we’ve got a few more spooky reviews for you to cap this year - here’s one from what was scheduled to be our Psycho Killa week.

A: This is one of the first horror movies I watched at my mother’s suggestion. I was 12 or 13 at the time and I’m actually surprised that she allowed me to watch this movie because of all the filthy things that the caller says to the hot young girls on the phone.

I’ve always liked this movie. It’s subtle, creepy, and an exercise in good horror movie writing. It’s a slow and gradual burn. The sorority girls are celebrating Christmas together before they all go home for the holidays. During the party, they get a fucking weird phone call from a nut who says filthy things before saying that he wants to kill them. They hang up, nervous, but still calm because hey, it’s just some weirdo making an obscene phone call somewhere else. Little do they know that the killer is already in the attic. Ahh! He kills Clare who’s heading home for Christmas the next day without any of her housemates knowing. When her Dad comes and she can’t be found, they start to get worried and go to the police regarding these fucked up phone calls they keep getting. Meanwhile Jess (Olivia Hussey who is beautiful and a great actress and I love her) finds out that her boyfriend knocked her up and she wants to get an abortion. But he’s a little unbalanced and this doesn’t really go over well.

I know it sounds complicated, but trust me it works. The subplots merge seamlessly and lead to the crazy conclusion. It lets the scares build so that the audience can get to know the characters. These girls aren’t faceless bimbos. For example, Margot Kidder plays a drunk bitch and she’s amazing.

I also love how this movie, filmed in 1974, presents abortion as a reasonable and rational decision. Jess says that she has her whole life ahead of her and she doesn’t want a baby right now. When her boyfriend offers to marry her so she can still reach her goals, she declines because she doesn’t want to marry him. You would NEVER see that in a movie today and it helps make Black Christmas more modern and realistic, despite the dated wardrobe and production design.

This is a great film and one that helped establish the slasher movie genre (it came out 4 years before Halloween). It’s awesome to see women in a horror/slasher film as real people instead of sexualized victims. This is definitely one of my favourite horror films and I highly recommend it.

S: I had heard a lot about this movie, so imagine my surprise when it turned out everything everyone had told me was about the remake and didn’t really have anything to do with the original. I liked this movie, it’s got an old school/first time slasher vibe, and it’s SO Toronto. Not the murder stuff, but pretty much everything else - I’m positive I’ve walked by most of the buildings they used numerous times.

Aside from the old time kitsch factor (hullo, giant fur coat, I love you), there’s not much to tell you. It’s a straight up slasher flick with minimum rhyme or reason. The murderer prank calls a sorority house where he says some super filthy stuff (I was actually surprised), and then starts killing off house members. Olivia Hussey, who is fucking gorg, has an inkling it might be her crazy bananas boyfriend/baby daddy Peter. Well, I guess that’s the gist of it. It’s not confusing, it’s just not held together very well aside from “psycho in house”.

That said, it’s fun. It’s about Christmas (not my favourite holiday) and people being Halloween (my favourite holiday) style murdered. There’s a creepy attic, a drunk house mother, an awkward dad, a laughing detective. Oh, and a terrifying eyeball in door crack scene that gave me a bit of pause. But the highlights for me were definitely the dirty, dirty phone calls, Olivia Hussey’s face and Margot Kidder being a drunk bitch.

The Crazies (2010)

Wait, what happened to October? Looks like we fell behind in reviewing - but not for lack of scary festivities. Here’s a review from what would have been our Monsters line up.

A: I love, love, love this movie. It may or may not have something to do with the fact that I have a huge boner for Timothy Olyphant. I’m not biased, I swear!

Anyway, I haven’t seen this movie since it was in theatres, so I talked it up big. But as we were watching, S started pointing out all the plot holes and now I don’t know how to feel anymore. Very confusing.

Basically, everyone in the town starts to get infected with a mysterious virus that makes them kill people - everyone but the sexy sheriff and his wife. So they try and figure out what the fuck is going on and what the government has to do with it while trying to get the fuck outta dodge.

It’s fast paced, and the make-up and gore are great and interesting. The acting is better than most horror movies as well. There’s nothing here that’s revolutionary and it doesn’t make much sense if you sit and think about it for very long, but it’s a lot of fun. And Timothy Olyphant plays a law man. There ain’t nothing wrong here.

S: This is an okay movie. It’s kind of straddling the fence between really good and I-have-too-many-questions. It’s very fast paced, it’s fun in a frightening way because you will definitely jump a few times, and it has a great cast (aka Timothy Olyphant, who cares about the rest).

It’s gorey and graphic but not in a disgusting way - some cringe worthy scenes include when the second fella in town “snaps” and goes after his wife and son (as seen in the trailer) and when the sheriff and their ragtag crew make it back to their farmhouse to be attacked by some angry infected neighbours - oh, and there are many more, trust me.

I guess my confusion stemmed from the fact that it seemed as though literally everyone was infected - and those that weren’t infected didn’t really do much, aside from the sheriff - and the nature of the virus. I get that people went nuts and murdered e’ryone, but some of the victims were very bizarre and zombie-like, while others spoke and hunted together, and others seemed to have some kind of method to their madness. It was a little bit too inconsistent for me to fully comprehend the virus, and how it was spreading and affecting the town.

Also, for anyone who has seen the movie - when the sheriff goes in to the morgue and finds the priest, who is somehow still alive, and is then attacked by the mortician - does he save the priest after the encounter, or just leave the guy there to die since he’s had a rough go any way?

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Ghost Week at Spooky October, so we’re reviewing the third installment of the Paranormal Activity series - AKA the film that made us realize this could have been a part of Witch Week.

A: The third film in the Paranormal Activity series is a prequel to a prequel. I know, right? If you don’t already like the series (I really, really do), the fact that this movie goes back to when the girls were kids seems annoying. But I swear, it actually kind of works. Sort of.

Like I already said, this movie focuses on their girls when they were kids and tries to explain the mythology behind the series (i.e. why the hell they’re haunted by a demon in the first place). It seems like Katie and her mother Julie have the same “type” - Julie’s boyfriend Dennis is a wedding videographer and decides to start filming their lives ever waking minute because weird things start happening when Kristy’s invisible friend Toby comes around.

Same shit, different era - banging noises, sleepwalking, invisible shapes doing creepy things. This movie actually has some of the scariest sequences in the series. One involving something dressed up as a ghost in a sheet sneaking up on a babysitter while her back is turned. The other involves a not-so-innocent game of Bloody Mary in the girls’ bathroom. (Side note: did anyone ever play that game? I was always too much of a chicken shit.)

The only issue I have with this movie is that it makes even less fucking sense than Paranormal Activity 2. Remember the whole backstory of Katie’s house burning down in the first movie? Doesn’t happen. Also Julie and Dennis get murdered at the end and the girls were raised by their grandmother (who never appears in either of the other movies). Those are big fucking points to skip and a little too jarring to add so late in the game. Are we really supposed to believe that neither of the sisters can remember shit this important? Sure, you can argue that they’re under some witch’s spell and don’t remember anything, but that’s a bit of a stretch. I’m willing to accept a demon haunting a family in a horror movie, but once you introduce memory-erasing spells to explain huge errors in continuity, that’s when I call shenanigans.

But whatevs. I’m totally going to see Paranormal Activity 4 when it comes out this weekend. Holla!

S: This was my favourite of the Paranormal Activity series by far. It had a lot of new scare tactics, and I was definitely terrified. I’ve said it before and I will say it again - children make me a bit uncomfortable, so when kids are interacting with unseen forces, I am liable to freak the fuck out. I tried to play it cool, but I was terrified - my favourite scares include when there is a child-sized ghost figure standing behind the babysitter, and then WHOOSH there ain’t no child in that sheet. WHO WAS IT? There’s also a particularly spooky kitchen scene, but the best/worst part was when friend Randy decides to play Bloody Mary in the bathroom with Katie, and they get sufficiently terrified (as did I, Randy. As did I.) After this movie I was kind of like, I get it now. I get the hype.

Here’s what I don’t get. I loved this movie - but as a stand alone feature. As a part of the series it actually left me with more questions about the lives of Katie and Kristi and their non-friendly demon than it helped to answer. What did the grandmother obtain by her participation? What kind of demon was/is it? Was Katie actually possessed as a child? How did either of the kids grow up to be normal people? Where was the burning house part? Is the grandma still alive? When did Toby (the demon) stop being Kristi’s “friend” and start being an enemy? (I know some enmity was shown in this, but it wasn’t enough to convince me) I have a lot more to ask, but there weren’t any answers. It went from a loosely explained haunting experience as expressed in 1 & 2, and this plot failed to tie together anything for me.

ALSO if you read any blurbs about the movie it says that Kristi and Katie befriend the invisible entity, but I think that’s a complete lie. I pretty much thought Katie got the raw end of the deal and had the shit beat outta her the entire movie. Or maybe I am sensitive towards chubby, bossy, older kids because I totally am one. Either way, not nice.

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

Ghost Week at Spooky October! Bring on the sisters.

A: I’ve wanted to watch this movie for a few years now, but there was no way I was going to watch it alone so thank god that I convinced S to watch it with me.

I have to say that Asian ghost films are the scariest of all ghost films. In a lot of American films, the ghosts come out all covered in blood and are disgusting, which is scary for about five seconds until it becomes funny. In A Tale of Two Sisters, the ghosts slink onto the screen. You’re not even sure that something is there, until you see a white hand and then the full ghost appears in front of you. Sometimes there’s a glimpse out of the corner of your eye or it’s there for a second and then it’s gone. So spooky!

I will say though, that the ending is hella confusing. I’m still not 100% sure who’s dead and who’s not and that takes the edge off a bit. It’s hard to be scared when you’re confused. For me anyway.

Still, I slept with the light on the night I watched this because ~~I’m a loser~~ I was still scared.

S: I was terrified to watch this movie before I even knew what it was all about - I knew it involved ghosts and children. NO THANKS. I don’t really like kids on good days, let alone in horror films.

I ended up not being terrified, but I will say I was at least mildly disturbed. It’s definitely twisted, but some of the horror was lost on me because I was confused at times (whatever - it is hard to read subtitles when hiding behind hands in case of a scary ghost). It’s actually not entirely ghost-ly either - there are only a few scenes with incidents, and the rest of the movie is spent building suspense or developing the plot. If you’re looking for something to watch that isn’t just continuous horror in your face, I’d say check this one out - UNLESS you prefer linear movies, in which case, you’re boring.

I will weigh in with this though: I am SO SICK of ghosts that crawl, even if they only do it for a short amount of time. I don’t like it at all.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

It’s Ghost Week at Spooky October, so we took a look at an old school flick about…ghosts.

A: Again, this is another film that I’d never even heard of before it was suggested to us as a good ghost film to review for Spooky October. So glad I watched it because I really love this movie.

Mary gets in a car accident with her friends in the opening scenes of the film and somehow manages to be the only survivor. Soon afterwards, she decides to move to another town to be an organist in a church (random, I know). While there, she starts to see a bunch of creepy ghouls and is drawn to an abandoned carnival. Oh, and she lives in a boarding house with another guy who keeps trying to weasel his way into her room and calls her a prude (basically, she lives with a potential rapist).

We watched the Criterion edition (so fancy) and the picture was sharp and the sound quality was decent. For an old-timey movie, the make-up and special effects hold up fairly well. The ghouls are scary and there a lot of sly moments with The Man (aka the Leader if the Ghouls) showing up in mirrors and windows when you least expect it.

It’s a great, creepy movie that’s highly sophisticated, considering the year it was made. I definitely recommend this film if you’re a fan of David Lynch, Night of the Living Dead, and psychological horror films - Carnival of Souls is the springboard for all of them. It’s the only film by Herk Harvey, which is too bad because this film is such a strong debut and clearly influenced some great/revolutionary directors.

Don’t watch this movie if you’re not a fan of films pre-1980 - this film is old as balls.

S: I don’t have too much to say. It’s obviously an old movie, and the story was a bit predictable. It was a bit hard to relate to the characters because it’s from a different time - I don’t know any organists myself, and the ol’ timey chaps made me a bit uncomfortable at times (was there such a thing as coming on too strong then? Or was she just supposed to be flattered by her weird, alcoholic, peeping tom housemate?). That being said, this is one of the few times that I am not going to give a speech about the movie failing to stand the test of time.

The “ghosts” or “souls” or whatever they are in this movie are just people with shabby makeup, and they do weird things and show up in inconvenient places. So what if it’s old and predictable - it still managed to spook me at least a little bit.

Poltergeist (1982)

Ghost Week at Spooky October, and we had to include this movie. In the clip, a ghost researcher hanging around the haunted house is Poltergeist-ed to the extreme and somewhat inexplicably tears off his face. So. Awesome.

A: I loved this movie when I was a kid. It was also one of the very first horror movies I watched - memories!

The movie isn’t very terrifying because it’s a movie that Spielberg probably directed for kids. It feel like a horror version of E.T. involving ghosts, but there are some definite spooky moments. There’s some shit involving a clown doll and a guy hallucinating ripping his face off.

There’s no real pacing aside from surprise!-we-have-ghosts to the-ghosts-stole-my-daughter in about five minutes. But it’s fun and retro and there are some sly jokes for us grown-up - like the parents smoking pot in their bedroom while their kids shit themselves over a scary thunderstorm. Just watch it for the nostalgia.

PS: Insidious totally ripped this movie off, except it sucked at it.

S: Poltergeist rates super excellent in my book of horror movies because it is, aside from exceedingly 80s, a brilliant example of “Well, that escalated quickly” horror. First the ghostly being(s) arrive via TV, and then they pull a few ol’ pranks in the kitchen which go from pulling out the chairs from the table to, seconds later, stacking them quite intricately. Then, after a day of simply causing items in the kitchen to slide around, the poltergeists abduct the son through his bedroom window via giant tree hands, and the daughter is sucked in to the closet and disappears in to an afterlife type place. Wait what? I thought we were stacking kitchen chairs!

There aren’t any terrifying moments in this flick, partially because the effects don’t carry well over the years, but A and I still managed to jump once or twice, so I will tip my hat to that. Also, I feel as though we have to pay this movie homage because it is one that will never be re-created (IMO) properly - as in, it will lose a lot of what makes it a great movie in the process of becoming updated (ahem, shitty Insidious).

Sinister (2012)

Here’s a New Release review of Sinister for all of you. I got a free pass for the advanced screening, ‘cause I’ve got swag.

A: I fucking hate Ethan Hawke. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s his smug face. Anyway, I didn’t have a ton of interest in seeing this movie because I dislike him so much, but the trailer was decent and I’m not one to turn down a free pass, especially for a horror movie.

The story here is that Ethan Hawke’s character moves his family into the house where another family was murdered. He’s a former best-selling true crime author and needs to write a book about this crime to save his career (and pay his mortgages). On moving day, he finds a box of super 8 film reels in the attic and watches them. Each one displays the horrific murder of a different family, dating all the way back to the 1960s. He decides that the crimes are all linked and goes about trying to expose the killer. Meanwhile, spooky shit starts to happen in the murder house and the crimes may or may not be linked to an ancient demon.

This film was a lot better than I expected. It’s nicely shot, which is kind of a surprise for a newer horror film; they’re so disposable and there doesn’t seem to be much though put behind their technical aspects. In Sinister, almost all the scenes are framed so that you’re looking over the characters’ shoulders. It adds tension as you’re watching film - it forces the audience to check the corners and dark hallways to see if anything is lurking behind them.

Because of all the tension, there were a few parts that made me jump. But the film also doesn’t rely on boo!-aah! jump scares. It’s just legitimately creepy. The pulsing score comprised of remixed film/super 8 sounds, whispers, and screams adds to the spooky factor. Also the fact that you’re watching a bunch of families get murdered.

But the biggest issue with Sinister that hinders the quality of the movie is the characters. They’re so fucking stupid, even for a horror movie. Like, his wife doesn’t even know that they’ve moved into a murder house. She doesn’t find out until their kid paints a picture of a dead girl on the wall. Seriously? And her character literally does nothing in this movie. She doesn’t even have a job. She could be removed from the script and it wouldn’t make a difference. As you may have already noticed, I can’t even remember their names.

Sinister was really close to being great, but it fell short of it because the script is so thin. If the other characters had been fleshed out and had been a little brighter and a little more active, it would have been awesome. But it’s just okay. It’s worth a watch, but don’t expect to be blown away.

Season of the Witch (1971)

It’s Witch Week here at Spooky October, so how could we not review a movie based entirely on witches and witchcraft?

A: I’ve never heard of this movie, but I put it on the list for Spooky October because my boyfriend suggested it for our Week of Witches. Before we watched it, I asked him if he liked it. He said he’d never seen it. So I didn’t know anything about this film going into it because I’m lazy and rely on people to tell me things. I didn’t even know it was a George A. Romero film until the opening credits.

A bored 70s housewife decides to spice up her life by becoming a witch, instead of just having a regular affair like a normal person. No, she decides to become a witch and bang her daughter’s rude boyfriend. GROSS.

You would not believe how long it took S and I to figure the plot out. It’s Romero’s third film, but super low budget and since no one knows about it, they haven’t bothered to update the print or the sound quality for the DVD. It’s like the actors are talking with their hands over the mouths the sound is so muffled.

The idea is interesting, but it’s not scary and the acting is whatever. Romero apparently says he’d like to remake it and I hope he does because it could be really good. And I’m still looking for a film about witches that’s actually scary.

S: What…was this. I don’t know if it’s because it’s an older film, or because it’s so low-budget, or because it’s just a stupid movie, but I was not in to this at all. It took me at least half of the movie to understand what was going on, but even then all I could think was, “Why?”

In a nutshell, a bored housewife hears that her new neighbour is a witch and becomes interested in pursuing witchcraft. She casts a spell of sorts on her daughter’s boyfriend (who looks to be about 50) so that he’ll want to bone her, and then starts having bad dreams about a guy in a really lame mask coming after her. Eventually she kills her husband. “Accidentally”. Because, you know, that makes sense.

There are dream sequences that are nearly impossible to identify as dreams, because there’s no differentiation between them and the “normal” life. Her daughter goes missing or runs away, I’m not sure which, and no one really seems to care. Her husband slaps her for listening to her daughter have sex - not because it was a dirty thing to do, but because he wanted their college-aged daughter to stay a virgin (even comments on it to the daughter).

It’s just…a very “what?” movie. Oh, and not scary.

The Craft (1996)

It’s Witch Week here at Spooky October, and The Craft was an obvious inclusion. In the clip above, the four main teens/witches/older-looking-than-teen mains play around with their powers by successfully pulling off a levitation trick. MAGIC!

A: This movie was a huge hit for me and my friends when I was in grade 5. We would play light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board and assemble our own Ouija boards out of construction paper and sticks of gum at recess or we would re-enact key scenes from the movie. We were obsessed with this witch shit. So while I have high regard for it in relation to my nostalgia, the movie is pretty meh by my actual standards.

Sarah, the new gurrl, moves to a small California town after her mom dies and she tries to kill herself (considered “punk rock” by the screenwriter trying and failing to write believable teenage girl dialogue). Sarah’s first move is to make friends with like, the cutest guy in school (Skeet Skeet Skeet Ulrich - remember when he was a thing?) and a bunch of weirdos who front like they’re witches. The first thing the girls do together is buy a bunch of witch shit and have a homeless guy run down by a car. Good times. Sarah doesn’t heed their warnings and goes out with Ulrich and he spreads nasty rumours about her at school.

It is so on after that. Sarah and the weirdos form a coven and put spells on the people they hate. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, things get out of control, people die, the other girls get like, totally conceited and mean and Sarah owns their asses with her super special magic powers. The end.

It’s not a good movie by any means, but it reminds me of those YA novels I used to read in a weekend when I was a pre-teen. It’s also very 90s and has some sick tunes in the soundtrack. It’s not as good as other 90s classics like Scream and Clueless, but it’s a fun enough ride if you remember it as a kid. If you watch it without a love of the 90s and mediocrity, you’ll probably hate it.

S: The Craft is one of those movies that I’ve seen a ton of times, mostly on TV, and I always remember it as being great - and then I watch it and it’s mediocre.

There’s not much to give away plot wise, because you kind of know shit is going to go down. Basically, anything that has a teenage girl wielding power of any sort is bound to go wrong. I should know, I was one, and I can’t even tell you what would have happened if I had some witchy powers. Any way, within the first 30 minutes, “shy” Robin Tunney (wearing a terrible wig) unabashedly tells her new friends that she slit her wrists, and scary Fairuza Balk makes a public wish for power. From that point on, you’re basically waiting for shit to get crazy.

It’s a good time, it’s just not as enthralling as it was when I was younger. If you want to watch Skeet Skeet Skeet Ulrich in a movie you probably forgot he was in, or be a bit grossed out by a house full of bugs and snakes, then you should probably watch it.