And Soon the Darkness is a 1970 British thriller which is directed by Robert Fuest(The Devil's Rain) and starring Pamela Franklin, Michele Dotrice and Sandor Eles.
The story is about two girls, Jane(Franklin) and Cathy(Dotrice) who are on a biking holiday in France.
They are cycling through the French countryside. Jane is the more serious one of the two and she wants to plan their journey out but Cathy is too busy eyeing up some guy that they see at a roadside cafe. They stop for a rest at the side of the road and when Jane wants to go on, Cathy doesn't. She tells her that she is not going. She wants to rest in the sun. They fall out and Jane heads off without her. Cathy is alone and she hears someone. She disappears.
Jane is worried about Cathy as she stops at a cafe for a drink. She asks people if they have seen her friend as Cathy should have caught up with her by now. She goes back to the roadside, but Cathy is not there. They guy Cathy was looking at earlier comes along and sees Jane. His name is Paul(Eles) and he wants to help her. He gives her a lift on his moped and he asks around the local cafes for Cathy. Paul and Jane go back again to the site and Paul tells her that there was a murder before in this area and there are woods behind where they could search for Cathy. He tells her that the victim was a tourist. Jane becomes very uncomfortable about it all. He tells her that he is a detective and that he worked on the murder case. Jane doesn't trust him and she runs away from him.
She meets a policeman(John Nettleton) and she tells him what has happened. He brings her back to his farmhouse. She tells him about Paul. He goes out to look and see if he can locate Cathy, but it is him who is the killer as Jane discovers. She finds Cathy's body and realises that Paul is not the killer after all. The policeman comes back and he attacks Jane. Paul shows up and hits him over the head and saves her. The movie ends with the police coming.
This was very entertaining. It is a well made movie and I enjoyed it. There isn't much gore or blood so if you are looking for that, steer clear of this. This is more of a thriller than a horror so be warned. I liked it and found it good fun for a 70's movie. I recommend it. I will give it a 6/10.
Witchboard 2:The Devil's Doorway is a 1993 horror sequel. Witchboard was a decent horror movie and this is the follow up. It is directed by Kevin S.Tenney who also directed the first one. It stars Ami Dolenz and Timothy Gibbs.
Paige(Dolenz) moves into a new apartment after she falls out with her cop boyfriend, Mitch(Gibbs). She likes to paint and she works also. She finds a Ouija board in her apartment and she thinks that it will be fun to play with it. Uh-oh!! She meets the caretaker, Jonas who is married to the strange Elaine (Laraine Newman). She thinks that she is still living in the 60's. Paige also meets a young guy called Russel(John Gatins) who she likes. When Paige talks to the board, she gets in contact with a woman called Susan who was murdered. Paige is intrigued by this and she sets out to solve the mystery of Susan's death. Susan used to live in the apartment building and she just disappeared one day. Paige tells Russel that she was killed, but he thinks that she just left and moved on.
Paige asks her ex, Mitch to help her to locate an address that the spirit gives her. People start to get hurt and Elaine gets killed by an 'accident' but it is the spirit. The spirit is not good, it is evil and when Paige gets closer to the truth, the spirit kills others. Susan comes back but she goes into Paige's body and tries to take over. Mitch and Russel try and fight her, but it is Mitch who eventually gets Susan to come out of Paige. The movie ends with Paige moving out of the apartment complex. This was an okay movie. I don't think that it is as entertaining as the original Witchboard. I know that it is the same director, but this isn't as good. It's passable for a horror movie, but don't expect too much here.
I'm going to give it a 4/10.
Twisted Nerve is a 1968 thriller directed by Roy Boulting and starring Hayley Mills, Billie Whitelaw, Hywel Bennett and Barry Foster.
Martin Durnley(Bennett) is a twenty-something man living at home with his mother and his step-father. He does what he wants and he doesn't work. He sees a young woman called Susan(Mills) and he likes her. He is caught shoplifting and he and Susan are accused of being in it together, but the truth comes out. Martin has an alter ego called Georgie, a little boy, and he uses Georgie to get sympathy. This is the last straw for his step father who throws him out. Martin adopts his alter ego, Georgie and he turns up at Susan's house, having seen her address earlier. Susan lives with her mother, Joan(Whitelaw) and two tenants who reside in the house also. They are Gerry(Barry Foster) and Shashee Kadir(Salmaan Peer). He has a letter from his 'father' which states that he would be grateful if Georgie could stay with them for a week until he comes back from his holiday in Paris. Martin pretends that is Georgie and they have pity on him and let him stay.
Martin is happy that he has pulled the wool over their eyes. He watches everything that goes on and he keeps an eye on Susan. He likes her a lot. He writes a letter to his mother, telling her that he is in Paris having a good time. He becomes a part of the household and Joan likes him and feels sorry for him. There is something strange about him, though and he makes a move on Susan. She doesn't like it.
One night, he sneaks out and he kills his step father and sneaks back into the house. He thinks that he will get away with it as he is meant to be in Paris. His behaviour changes and when Joan comes onto him, he snaps and kills her too. Susan becomes suspicious of him and she tells Shashee about it. He is studying to be a doctor and we see some lecture on chromosomes and find out that if there is a problem with them, a person can turn out anti-social or psychopathic. Martin's brother is mentally disabled and it is suggested that Martin has a chromosome problem too, making him a psycho.
Anyway, the movie ends as you would expect. Martin's true identity is discovered and Susan sees him for who he really is. She is repulsed and he tries to make her like him, but in the end, he loses the plot just in time for the police to come in and take him away to a mental institution. For a 1960's film, this was good. There isn't much blood at all. It is more a study of Martin and his psychopathic personality. Bennett is very good in the part and the movie is very interesting. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys story more than gore. I will give it a 6/10.
Non-Stop is a 2014 action movie directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and starring Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore.
This movie revolves around a federal air marshal called Bill Marks(Neeson) who has had some personal problems in his life recently. He is on a flight when he meets a woman called Jen(Moore). They chat and everything seems fine until he gets a message on his phone telling him that one person will die every 20 minutes unless $150 million is transferred into a bank account. Bill wonders who it is. He looks around at all the passengers and wonders. There are many suspicious looking people on board and he begins to wonder. Then, he realises that he is being set up by the anonymous person as the bank account number is actually his and it looks as if he is the one who is hijacking the plane and looking for the money. He gets himself into trouble as he tries to find out the truth.
People begin to die and he realises that he has to stop this. The passengers become afraid of him as they think that he is the threat to them. He finds a bomb on board and time is running out. He asks Jen and some of the crew on board to help him to find out who is doing this to him. Eventually he figures it out and the culprit was one of the passengers all along. He has an accomplice too and they try and get away after explaining their reason for doing it. The culprit gives some little speech about 9/11 and then says he wants the bomb to go off and kill him and everyone on board to get his voice heard. The bomb does explode but the plane manages to land and the passengers get off. The baddies die in the blast and Bill is cleared of any wrongdoing.
This film is entertaining. The plot is okay and you get action all the way through. I liked it even though some of the plot was a little ridiculous, but hey, it was good fun to watch and I liked Liam Neeson in it. He is very good as the action star and he really plays it well. He carries the entire movie and makes it very watchable. This was fun and I enjoyed it so if you like movies where you don't have to think too much, then this is for you. I'm giving it a 7/10.
An American Ghost Story is a 2012 horror movie directed by Derek Cole and starring Stephen Twardokus and Liesel Kopp.
Paul(Twardokus) and his girlfriend Stella(Kopp) decide to move into a haunted house because Paul is writing a book about it and he wants to experience some paranormal sightings and some events that he can put into his book. He has heard that that house is haunted and he is determined to stay there no matter what. After a few scares, Stella leaves. Paul is left alone in the house. Things take a strange turn. He sees things that he can't explain and it is great for his book, but bad for Paul.
Sheets start turning into ghosts and there are some weird occurrences in the house. He talks to a former resident of the house and he finds out that the house ruined her life and made her do things she didn't want to do. She lost her family over it as they thought that she had gone insane. Paul wonders what will happen to him. He comes face to face with the ghost under a sheet and it tries to kill him. There is a chase scene, but he survives and leaves the house. He thinks that he is safe in his new place, but when he opens a box, out jumps the ghost in the sheet..
This was a decent effort for such a low budget film. I liked that there were some good scares. I was surprised that it was entertaining. I assumed that it was just another boring ghost in a house movie, but this was good. I would recommend it and I think that it is one of the better low budget horrors.Give it a try. There was a scene which reminded me of Poltergeist and it was probably an homage. I will give it 6/10.
Oculus is a 2013 horror movie directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites.
The movie is about a mirror called the Lasser Glass. This mirror was owned by the Russell family. The father, Alan(Rory Cochrane) and his wife Marie(Katee Sackhoff) buy the mirror and it isn't long before strange things happen in the house. Their children, Tim and Kayleigh notice that the mirror is making their parents act oddly. Alan starts to spend more and more time with the mirror and the kids see a strange woman with him. The mother starts to come unglued too and the father locks her up. He turns nasty and the kids are threatened by him. He tries to kill them, so Tim shoots him in self defence. He ends up being taken away to a psychiatric institution. Kayleigh is put into foster care.
Cut to 11 years later and the adult Tim(Thwaites) is released from the institution. He is determined to get on with his life. His sister Kayleigh(Gillan) is obsessed with the mirror and she gets it on loan from the auction house where she works. She wants to prove that the mirror has ghostly powers and she wants to face it once and for all. She has everything set up and she brings Tim with her to their house where it all happened. She tries to get the mirror to come alive and she has a trap set to smash it if it gets too powerful. Strange things happen to them and the mirror has an evil spirit in it called Marisol. The mirror messes with the two siblings and it has a tragic outcome. The mirror makes Tim kill Kayleigh. He doesn't realise that he has done it until it was too late. It has tricked him and he is taken away by the cops. He insists that he is not guilty of it, but the cops are not convinced. As he is taken away, he sees his family as ghosts in the house. The mirror has them now.
This film was entertaining. It was by no means original, but there were parts of it that I liked. There are some jumpy moments and some decent scares, but I have to say that it was not brilliant. I will give it a 6/10.
