Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Wes Craven's New Nightmare Movie Review








Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a 1994 horror movie written and directed by Wes Craven. It is the seventh movie in the franchise. It stars Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Wes Craven, John SaxonDavid Newsom and Miko Hughes.


The movie begins with Heather(who plays herself) having nightmares about Freddy Krueger. Her husband, Chase(Newsom) is going away for a few days. She finds her son, Dylan(Hughes) watching a Nightmare on Elm Street and she is not happy. Her friend, Julie comes to look after her son while she is going to have an interview with Robert Englund. She gets a call from New Line Cinema. They want to meet her. They want to bring Freddy back and Wes Craven is going to direct it. She will be the star of the movie. Heather arrives home to find Dylan having a nightmare. She calls Chase and tells him to come home as she is worried about her son. Dylan uses his toy dinosaur as a guard to keep Freddy away from him.


Heather has a nightmare about Chase dying. The cops call to her and tell her her husband has died. She sees his body. There are marks on him as if from claws. At the funeral, she has a vision of Freddy. She discovers that her son knows all about Freddy Krueger. She called Englund to tell her about her son and her visions of Freddy. He is painting pictures of Freddy. It is all getting weird. She finds her son having a fit and brings him to hospital for tests. She visits Wes Craven and he tells her that Freddy is an ancient spirit. He had been held captive in the movies but now he seems to be free after the last movie. He wants to cross over into our world. He tells her that she is the only one who can defeat him. They need to make another movie to get rid of him.


Freddy is coming for her. He is more evil than he was. Dylan hasn't been sleeping and Julie is with him at the hospital. She is trying to stop him from falling asleep because of Freddy. Freddy comes for her and he kills her. Dylan disappears. Heather calls John Saxon for help. She sees her son sleepwalking out of the hospital and Freddy is with him. John turns into his character from the movie.
Heather has to become Nancy once gain to save her son. She finds herself back on Elm Street. She finds sleeping pills and she takes them. She enters Freddy's world. She fights him for her son. She and her son manage to push him into an oven and turn on the heat and destroy him once and for all. Heather discovers a movie script and she takes it with her. They escape. When they get home, she looks at the script and there is a note from Wes Craven saying that Freddy is back where he belongs and saying thanks for playing Nancy. The movie ends with Heather telling her son that the script is a story and reading it to him.


This was a really good addition to the series. I liked it a lot. I thought that it was clever and I liked the story. It was fun to see Freddy back again and the darker Freddy was interesting. He seemed less comical and more frightening which I liked. The cast were great and I enjoyed seeing some of those from the original back for this film. This was a more serious affair and it was better than some of the sequels. I guess Craven wanted to veer away from the former movies which could be a bit silly in parts and make a more serious movie with a demonic Freddy. It worked really well, I think and this was very enjoyable. I will give it a 7/10.



Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Friend Request Movie Review





Friend Request is a 2014 horror movie directed by Simon Verhoeven  and starring Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Mosely, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan and Sean Marquette.

The movie begins in college with a girl called Laura(Debnam-Carey), a college student who uses her Facebook page a lot. Her whole life is on it. An odd girl is watching her. She is in one of her classes.
She gets a friend request from the girl, whose name is Marina Mills(Liesl Ahlers). She is a little reluctant at first, but she accepts it. Unfortunately, Marina keeps sending her messages and she starts stalking her. Laura looks at Marina's page and it has all weird images and strange stuff on it. Marina starts calling her online. On Laura's birthday, Marina wants to spend time with her, but Laura tells her that she is having a quiet dinner with her boyfriend, Tyler(William Moseley). She goes to a surprise party and the pictures are posted online. Guess who sees them? Yes, Marina sees them and she is furious with Laura. She confronts her at college and she makes a scene.  Laura is scared of her and she unfriends her.


Marina tries to make it up to her, but Laura wants nothing to do with her. She finds out later that Marina has killed herself. The police don't know who she is. They think that her name was fake.
Laura gets a message from Marina. She receives a video of Marina killing herself. Someone is posting the video on her page and Marina has been added as her friend again. Laura can't fix it. The police talk to her about it. She tries to delete her profile, but she can't. She asks her friend Kobe(Paolo) to help her as he is good at computers. One of her friends dies when something comes for him. He kills himself by banging his head off the wall. A video of his death shows up on Laura's page. Her friends are disgusted with her. She tries to get it off her page, but she can't.


She gets suspended from college. Kobe looks at Marina's page. He discovers that she was practicing witchcraft. He and Laura break into her room and look around. They find a picture of her from school. Laura goes there and asks about her. Marina was mistreated by the boys there and she had a very hard time. She withdrew and became odd. The other children became afraid of her. It turns out that she has something to do with the death of two boys at the school. Next, Laura's pal Isabelle finds herself friends with Marina on her page. She finds weird things happening to her and she ends up dead. The video shows up on Laura's page and her friends are unfriending her by the dozens. All of her friends try to delete their accounts but can't.


Tyler tries to help his girlfriend by checking Marina's medical records. He finds her mother's address.  Kobe tells Laura that Marina used black mirrors to communicate with spirits. Witches also used them. They realise that Marina's laptop was her black mirror and they need to find it. They find out that Marina's mother was killed in a fire while she was pregnant with Marina but Marina somehow survived. Laura's pal Olivia(Morgan) is the next to die. Kobe and Laura go to an old commune where her mother had lived to find where Marina died. Kobe turns on her and tries to kill her in order to save himself. He thinks that if Laura dies, then Marina will leave him alone. Tyler finds out where Laura has gone and he goes to find her.


Kobe chases Laura. Tyler arrives. Kobe and Tyler look for her. Tyler locates her and she tells him what Kobe did, but Kobe stabs him. He dies. Kobe gets attacked by a swarm of wasps and he dies. Laura wanders around an old factory and she finds the place where Marina died. Marina tells her that she wants to be friends forever. Something comes at Laura. The movie ends with Laura at college. She has turned into the outcast now and she has been possessed by Marina. She is looking for some people to send friend requests to on Facebook, starting the cycle all over again...


This was not as bad as I thought it would be. I actually liked it. I found that it was quite entertaining in parts and it had a few creepy moments. It is not brilliant by any means, but it is certainly worth a look if you want to pass ninety minutes. I will give it a 5/10.

Monday, November 12, 2018

No Man's Land:The Rise of Reeker Movie Review






No Man's Land: The Rise of Reeker is a 2008 horror movie and a sequel to Reeker. It is directed by Dave Payne and stars Michael Muhney, Mircea Monroe and Robert Pine.

The movie begins in the 1970's.  A man sees a guy looking for a lift on the road. The guy turns out to be a weirdo. The man won't let him into his car. He drives into the weirdo with his car. He kills him.
The man is called the valley drifter. He is a salesman. He is talking to someone who isn't there. He cuts off the weirdo's tongue. A cop comes along and finds the blood on the car. He follows the man into a shack where there are all body parts around. The cop can't breathe in there but he gets the guy and handcuffs him. The man gives himself up and says that his work is done. The cops talk to him and he says that he heard a voice telling him that he needs to kill. The man gets executed. The cop becomes Sheriff  and the man comes back as Reeker.



Cut to present day. The same Sheriff, whose name is Sheriff Reed(Pine) is  handing over the reins to his son , Harris(Muhney). There is a new waitress working at the diner in the desert. Her name is Maya(Monroe). She finds blood in the bathroom. She tells her boss, but he says that they find weird stuff all the time. Three guys turn up. They have robbed a casino and they are on the run. One of them is bleeding. They take Maya hostage. One of them turns out to be her ex boyfriend, Alex(Stephen Martines) and the other two are Carlos and Binky(Desmond Askew). They need a car to escape.
The Sheriff sees them and there is a shootout. A woman comes out of the diner and says that she is a doctor and she can see to the wounded man. Maya has dropped the car keys in the drain out of spite. Now she has to find them. Things start to get really weird from here onwards.


A Native American man called Leonard Eaglesmith turns up at the diner and he says that he knows about evil spirits in this place. He gets himself some weapons. Harris goes off to get some help. Binky gets a car and he takes off. He hits an invisible wall and he gets hurt. His head comes apart.
He wanders around. Harris finds the old shack and he looks inside. Reeker is there. Reeker has Leonard and he is killing him. Harris gets back to the diner and tells the others. They wonder what is going on. Reeker starts killing people. The Sheriff sees Reeker. He recognises him as the man from the beginning of the movie. They need a plan. Sheriff Reed goes to the shack and he calls out Reeker. He gets knocked out and wakes up on the table in the shack where he is killed.


Reeker comes for the others. Alex sets a trap for him. They set up a bomb to blow him up. It works and they destroy Reeker. More cops show up and sees their bodies. Maya and Harris are alive. The others aren't. They were in some kind of dream world . Binky shot the Sheriff and the Sheriff fried his gun and hit a propane tank which exploded and killed others. The movie ends with a kid who is hearing voices telling him to do things. He kills his babysitter. This suggests that Reeker is not gone after all... This was an okay sequel to Reeker. It was not as good as the original and the story wasn't great, but it was enjoyable all the same. This won't amaze you or show you anything original but if you liked the first one, then you might enjoy this too! I will give it a 5/10.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Cherry Falls Movie Review






Cherry Falls is a 2000 horror movie directed by Geoffrey Wright and starring Brittany Murphy, Jay Mohr, Michael Biehn and Gabriel Mann.

In the town of Cherry Falls, a couple are making out in a car. Someone comes along and kills them.
Kenny(Mann) and his girlfriend, Jody(Murphy) are in his car. He tries to get her to have sex with him, but she won't. He tells her that they should break up. Cut to Sheriff Marken(Biehn), who also happens to be Jody's dad. He is at the crime scene and he looks at the couple who were murdered.
They were students and he goes to the local high school and asks questions about that night. The killer is after someone else. Another student is murdered. The FBI are brought in. The coroner says that the dead students were all virgins. The Sheriff calls a town meeting for the parents.


Jody is at school while the meeting is taking place. She is talking to her teacher, Mr. Marliston(Mohr). She thinks that she sees someone lurking around. He goes to look, but there is nobody there. The killer is there though. Jody hears the Sheriff talking about the virgin thing. She
 finds her friend dead. The killer comes out and chases her. She fights him. She tells her dad and he looks around but the killer has fled. Jody tells him what the killer looks like and the Sheriff faxes a picture to the FBI. All of the kids start having sex to save themselves. There is a local woman called Lora Lee Sherman and she is a suspect in the killings. Jody asks her mother about Laura. She looks up old newspapers for information. Lora Lee was raped by four men and nobody was charged. She tells her that two of the men still live in the town. One of them is the principal of her school and the other one is her father.


The killer murders the principal and knocks out the Sheriff. It turns out that the killer is Mr. Marliston. He has captured the Sheriff. Jody goes to see him and she finds out what he has done. He grabs her and ties her up. Kenny is looking for her and he sees her bike outside Marliston's house and wonders what is going on. It turns out that Marliston is Lora Lee's son. He is angry because of what the rape did to his mother and in turn him. He says that one of the rapists is his dad. It could even be the Sheriff, who participated in the rape. He wanted to get revenge by making all of the kids lose their virginity. There is a fight between the Sheriff and Marliston when Kenny arrives to save Jody.
Marliston kills the Sheriff. 


There is a mass orgy on at the school and Jody and Kenny go there. Marliston follows and scares everyone when he bursts in, dressed as Lora Lee. He gets killed when the Deputy Sheriff shows up and shoots him after Jody impaled him on railings. Jody and her mother decide not to reveal the real story behind Marliston's killing spree and they are going to leave town. Jody thinks that she sees someone who is dressed like Lora Lee. The movie ends. This was a decent horror movie. I enjoyed it, even though there is not much originality about it and it is more of a teen horror movie than an adult one. I did think that it was entertaining and fun and it had a good cast. If you enjoy slashers, then you will like this one. I recommend it and I will give it a 6/10.