Famous author Jacob Kelly(Mathison) and his wife Allison(Wersching) are a married couple who desperately want a child. Allison can't have a child after having ovarian cancer so they are thinking of getting a surrogate to help them. Jacob works at a college and there is a young woman there called Kate(Scott) who has a huge crush on him and has fantasies about him. He is totally oblivious to her. When she happens to overhear that he and his wife are looking for a surrogate and have found someone who is suitable, she finds the woman and kills her.She doesn't realise that the woman has a boyfriend who wants to find out what happened to his girlfriend.
Kate wants to be the surrogate for the Kellys and that way she can weasel her way into their lives. She has her eye on Jacob and she pretends to them that she just wants to help them be happy. They are delighted that she is going to help them and the process starts. When Kate gets pregnant, they are ecstatic. Kate and Allison become good friends. But Kate takes a photo of Jacob's credit card details and she orders roses and lingerie from him to her. She also gets his password for his work email and sends romantic emails from Jacob to her. She makes herself out to be innocent of any wrongdoing. Everything seems to be going well when Kate shows up at the Kelly's house and pretends to be upset. She knows that Jacob is alone and that Allison is on the way home. She suddenly begins to get upset and act as if Jacob has done something to her as Allison arrives back.
Allison asks him what is going on and he doesn't know. She talks to Kate who is happy to tell her and show her the emails and the presents that he sent her. She thinks that he has been trying to come on to Kate and, as he had cheated before, she thinks that he wanted to have an affair. This causes a rift between the couple. Kate is confronted by the boyfriend of the woman that she killed. He is going to call the cops but she stabs him and kills him. She ruins Jacob's life which really makes me wonder how she expects him to fall in love with her. He is fired from his job after Kate says that he hit her. Allison wants a divorce. He is at his wits end when he goes to visit Kate to confront her. Allison follows him and overhears that Kate is in love with him and obsessed with him. She realises that Kate has framed her husband. She confronts Kate but Kate tells them that she will kill the baby if they call the police.
The movie takes a ridiculous turn when Allison and Jacob come up with a plan. Jacob tells Kate that he will move in with her as Allison has left him. She tells him that they can go to a mansion that she has in the middle on nowhere and she takes his phone. She has a shrine to him in the house and she tells him that he can write his new novel and she will proof read it for him. He passes notes to his wife through a wall and we find out that Allison has taken a house beside them and it is all a plan to get the baby. Kate finds out and she chains Jacob up even though she has gone into labour!!Figure that one out!!!!The movie ends with Kate trying to run away just after she has the baby. The Kellys call the Sheriff and take the baby and Kate is taken into custody. This movie was a bit silly but entertaining all the same. It is a TV movie so you can't expect too much but it kept me watching and it wasn't too bad. The hilarious ending where a woman in labour manages to shackle a big guy to a post while getting a rifle and shooting at the wife is priceless! I will give it a 4/10.
Bates Motel is a 1987 horror/thriller directed by Richard Rothstein and starring Bud Cort and Lori Petty.It was intended to be a pilot for a Psycho themed TV show, but it was never picked up.
The movie begins with Norman Bates being taken away to an institution. There is a young boy there who has some problems and the doctor thinks that Norman might be able to connect with him. The young boy is called Alex(Cort) and he and Norman hit it off and become best friends. Norman dies and Alex is very sad about it as Norman was his best pal. He makes a moving speech at his funeral. His doctor thinks that he can be released from the institution. Alex is reluctant as he doesn't fit in there anymore. Alex is surprised when Norman leaves his motel to him. He decides that he will go and make the motel into a success again as a tribute to Norman. He goes to Fairville to find the motel. He meets a guy called Henry(Moses Gunn) who used to work at the Bates Motel. He drives Alex there. The motel is in ruins. He looks around. The place is spooky.
Alex decides to apply for a loan to redo the place. He meets with Tom Fuller(Gregg Henry) at the back and talks to him about it. Tom tells him that the land he has is worth a lot of money and he thinks that Alex should sell it. Alex tells him that he wants to reopen Bates Motel and Tom thinks that he is crazy to do it, but they work out something. Alex goes back to the motel and runs into a woman called Willy(Petty) who was been living in the place for three months. She doesn't want to leave it. She tells him that she will stay on at the motel to help him out. Alex wants to do it on his own. Alex gets an architect and they discuss the plans for the motel. The architect wants to modernise the place, but Alex is happy enough with it as it is. Willy turns up and helps Alex to get things done. Alex talks to Henry and offers him a job as the foreman at the motel.
Bad things happen on the job and they uncover a body at the motel. It is Mrs Bates. Alex sees someone in black at the funeral of Mrs Bates. No one else has seen her. Willy wants to be a chef in the new cafe at the motel. She falls out with Alex and leaves the motel again. Alex meets Tom who tells him that weird things happened at the motel. The workers find another body and they think that it is Norman's father, Jake who disappeared years ago. Alex sees the neon sign come on at the motel by itself and he sees a figure in black at the window. He runs up to the house but there is nobody there. He sees a dead body and thinks that he is crazy. Willy shows up and he tells her what happened. Willy thinks that someone might be trying to scare him away from the motel. He calls the cops but they find nothing suspicious. Willy decides to stay and the motel gets done.
Finally,everything is ready. Alex is nervous about opening night as he has to pay the bank by the next day. They get one customer and things start looking up. Cars full of kids show up and the place is buzzing. One of the guests is called Barbara Peters(Kerrie Keane) and she is going to kill herself in one of the rooms. She is depressed as she is no longer as young as she was and she feels old. She is just about to do it when she is stopped by a young girl Sally(Khrystyne Haje) who talks her into dressing up and going to a party. She meets a young man called Tony(Jason Bateman) and they have a connection immediately. They dance and he goes back to her room. She tells him that he is too young for her. She goes back to her room and she is visited by Sally once more. She discovers that Sally and her friends are all ghosts who killed themselves when they were alive. Barbara is horrified but it makes her see sense.
Alex sees the figure in the window and he runs into the house to see who it is. The figure comes down the stairs with a knife telling him to get out. Henry tackles the ghost and they discover that it is Tom who was trying to scare Alex out of the place so he would sell it to developers. Willy is dressed as Mrs Bates and she scared a confession out of Tom which she tapes. They blackmail him into coming to a more reasonable settlement with Alex about the motel. Sally leaves the motel the next day and she is very happy and full of life again. The movie ends with Alex saying goodbye. It was meant to be the start of a TV series so that makes sense. I enjoyed this movie even if it was a bit simple plot wise. I think that it would have made a good TV show and I would have watched it. Some of the acting is a little ropey in parts, but all in all, this is an enjoyable TV movie. I will give it a 5/10.
This film is based on a case from the 1970's in Britain where a young girl claimed that there was a poltergeist in her house and strange things happened in the house in Enfield, London. Many people had investigated- some were sceptical and some believed her. The movie begins with Ed Warren(Wilson) and his wife Lorraine(Farmiga) investigating the Amityville haunting. Lorraine sees a demonic nun and has an awful vision of Ed being impaled on something sharp. It upsets her. Cut to 1977 and a young girl called Janet (Madison Wolfe) is having strange dreams and she is sleepwalking. She thinks that there is someone talking to her. Her mother Peggy(O' Connor) sees it too and the family begin to get scared that there is something in the house with them. The media gets involved and things get worse until the Warrens are brought in to help.
Lorraine feels reluctant to help as she is worried about her vision and she sees the creepy nun again and she says her name which she writes into her bible without realising it. They go to London to visit the family. They discover that the entity in the house is an old man called Bill Wilkins and he wants them out of his house. He speaks through Janet. The Warrens investigate and try to talk to Bill. He wants them out of the house. Ed tries to reason with him. They see Janet being possessed and believe that she is being haunted but there is doubt when they see a video of Janet deliberately setting something up to make it look as if the entity did it. They decide to leave.
They realise after they have left that Bill was being used by the demonic nun. They return to the house and face up to the demon. Lorraine gets stuck with it and she remembers the name that she had written in her bible. She calls it by its name and sends it back to Hell. She also saves Ed from being impaled on a tree trunk so her vision doesn't come true. The movie ends with an epilogue telling us that Peggy lived in the house until her death and she died in the same chair that Bill died in years ago. The Warrens leave and take a memento with them to add to their collection. They dance to Elvis and all is well.
This movie was good. It was creepy in parts. That nun was pretty creepy and I liked the story, even if I didn't believe that it really happened. It is well made and I enjoyed it all the way through. I think that there will be a sequel so I am looking forward to that. Watch this if you enjoyed Insidious or the first Conjuring movie. I will give it an 8/10.
The movie is set in New England in the 1600's and deals with a Puritan family led by William(Ineson) who gets his family banished from a plantation where they were living for some reason. The family have to go and live out in the wilderness near a creepy wood. The mother, Katherine(Dickie) gives birth to another child. She already has two daughters and two sons. The baby is called Samuel. Their daughter is Thomasin(Taylor-Joy) and they have twins called Mercy and Jonas. Their other son is called Caleb. One day, Thomas is taking care of Samuel when he disappears. In reality, he has been taken by a witch who lives in the woods who kills him and uses his blood for herself.
The family are devastated by the loss of the child. William takes Caleb hunting in the woods and they have a strange chat about Samuel etc. Back at the farm, the twins are pretending that they can talk to their black goat who is called Black Phillip. Thomasin gets fed up with it and she tells the twins that she is a witch, They believe her. Katherine begins to blame her for the disappearance of Samuel. The next day, Caleb is going hunting alone when Thomasin insists on going with him into the woods. They get into trouble when their dog chases a hare and disappears into the woods. Caleb follows, leaving Thomasin alone. She gets thrown from her horse and knocked out. Caleb finds his dog dead. He finds a shack in the woods and a young woman comes out and brings him inside. It is the witch in disguise.Thomasin manages to find her way out and runs into her dad.
Caleb returns naked and in a bad way. He is very ill and Katherine blames Thomasin. He dies after saying a prayer and the twins tell her that Thomasin is a witch and that is why these things are happening. The parents don't know what to think and when Thomasin tells her parents that the twins have been talking to the goat i.e the Devil, William locks them all in a shed. That night, the witch visits and drinks the blood of the animals. Katherine sees her dead children and goes a bit mad. William goes down the next day to the shed and finds the animals dead, the twins gone and Thomasin with blood on her.
William gets gored by Black Phillip and dies. Katherine sees this and blames Thomasin and tries to kill her. Thomasin kills her in self defence. She goes to see Black Phillip and asks him to talk to her which he does. He is the Devil and he offers her whatever she wants if she puts her name in his book. She does so and then she goes out to the woods and finds a witches coven and joins in willingly. The film ends with her being lifted in the air and becoming a witch. This film was entertaining. It was creepy in parts. Some parts were a little slow, but on the whole, it was good. I liked the sense of dread that runs through this and even though the ending was a bit off, this is worth a watch if you enjoy a solid horror movie. I will give it a 7/10.
Dan Gallagher(Douglas) is an attorney in New York and he is married to Beth(Archer) and has a daughter, Ellen. He meets a woman called Alex(Close) who is an editor. They chat and get on well. There is chemistry there immediately. When Beth is out of town for the weekend with Ellen, he and Alex have a steamy one night encounter. Dan thinks that that is the end of it, but Alex doesn't feel the same way. She calls him, wanting him to come over to her place. When he does, he tries to tell her that he doesn't want to get into anything serious with her. She slashes her wrists and he has to stay and help her. After this, he thinks that that will be the end of it, but she turns up at his office and wants to meet up again. He turns her down. She keeps calling him and trying to get his attention by telling him that she is pregnant which she is not.
He is moving away with his family and he thinks that this will end his contact with her, but he is wrong. She turns up at the house that he is selling and meets his wife. When Dan discovers this,he goes to see Alex and threatens her. She fights back and he is worried that she is crazy. The family move away and Dan hopes that he is safe from Alex, but he is wrong.She starts to turn nasty and does evil things to him including boiling his daughters rabbit. Dan tries to get help from the cops, but there is not much he can do. Dan tells his wife about what happened and she is very upset. She throws him out. He tells Alex what he has done. Alex takes Ellen from school and has a afternoon out with her. She is nice to her and when Beth finds out she is horrified and drives around to find her daughter and gets into a car accident which lands her in the hospital.
Alex returns Ellen and the family reunite. Dan goes to see Alex and almost kills her for what she did but stops himself. He tries to get the cops to arrest her. She is at the house with Beth and she tries to kill her. Dan hears his wife screaming and he runs in to stop Alex. He drowns her in the bath. Of course, she comes back for one more scare and Beth shoots her dead. The police arrive and they tell them what happened. The movie ends with the family together, moving on.
This is a very good thriller, one of my favourites. I think that the cast is great and it is interesting to see the woman as the baddie who will not take no for an answer. The story is very good and it is well worth a watch if you have not seen it. I will give it an 8/10.
Three professional people share a flat in Edinburgh. They are Alex(McGregor), David(Eccleston) and Juliet(Fox). They need another person to help pay the rent so they rent to a weird guy called Hugo(Keith Allen). He locks himself into his room and when they eventually open his door, they find him dead with a suitcase full of money. They have a dilemma on their hands. They decide not to call the cops and David cuts up his body and buries him in a grave in the woods. Juliet disposes of the pieces in the hospital incinerator and everything looks rosy for a while. Until some bad guys come looking for the money.
They break into the flat below them looking for the cash and Hugo and they are nasty. The three flatmates are very scared. This brings the cops calling and they talk to them about Hugo. They deny that he was there but the police are suspicious. Juliet and Alex spend some of the money but David is becoming odder by the moment. He takes the rest of the money and puts it into the attic and he stays up there with it and drills holes in the ceiling and watches the other two. This puts huge pressure on their relationship.
Eventually, the baddies realise that Hugo was living in the apartment with the trio and they come back. They attack Juliet and Alex and they find out where the money is. They get a surprise when David comes down from the attic and kills them with a hammer. He takes the bodies out to the woods and buries them. Alex and Juliet are worried that he is losing his mind and he thinks that they are plotting behind his back. The cops find the bodies and the noose tightens around the trio. In the end, everyone turns on each other and David ends up being killed by Juliet when he stabs Alex. Juliet leaves Alex to take the blame for everything. She thinks that she has the money in her bag as she heads to the airport but Alex has it under the floorboards. She leaves anyway and Alex is left in the flat to deal with the cops.
This was a very interesting thriller with a young Ewan McGregor and a good cast overall. It is darkly comical in parts but there is a serious side to it too. All in all, this is an entertaining movie with good performances from the leads. I will give this a 7/10.
The movie begins in London. There is a killer on the loose who is strangling women with a tie. The killer is a guy called Bob Rusk(Foster) and he seems a happy go lucky guy on the outside but inside, he is a twisted killer who hates women. His friend is called Richard Blaney(Finch)who does not know anything about his pals tendencies.Rusk goes in to see Blaney's ex-wife who happens to run a dating agency where he was a client before he got banned for being heavy handed with his dates.He tries it on with her and when she rejects him, he kills her by strangling her with a tie. Blaney is under suspicion as there was no love lost between them and he was seen coming out of her office. Rusk also murders Blaney's girlfriend and this makes Blaney look even more guilty.
Rusk tries to make Blaney look like the killer and the cops arrest him. The detective who is investigating the case, Inspector Oxford(McCowen) is not so sure that Blaney is the real killer. He doesn't have any evidence on Rusk yet. Blaney breaks out of jail and goes to Rusk's place as he realises that he set him up. Oxford knows that Blaney will go there, so he follows him. Blaney finds a dead body at Rusk's place and the cop sees it too. They hear Rusk coming so they hide and he is caught red handed with a trunk, getting ready to dispose of his latest victim. This ends the film.
This is a good thriller with an entertaining plot. Foster is good as the nonchalant killer who is happy to frame his good friend. It is one of Hitchcock's last films, but I would recommend it as there are some genuinely creepy scenes. Good cast and good story. I will give this a 7/10.
Weaver plays a woman called Dr. Helen Hudson who is an expert on serial killers. She has been giving a lecture to some criminal psychology students when she is attacked by a psycho called Daryll Lee Cullum(Harry Connick Jr.). He catches her in the bathroom and she thinks that she will die. She survives but she becomes an agoraphobic and will never leave her apartment. She has everything that she needs there. She is helped by a pal, Andy(John Rothman) and she spends her life on computers instead of meeting people. When murders begin to happen in San Francisco where she lives, the cops want her help. Inspector Monahan(Hunter) and her partner, Goetz(Mulroney) come to her as she is an expert on murderers.
Helen does not want to get sucked in by murders again. She doesn't want to help the cops, but she eventually agrees. She realises that the killings are copycat murders of famous serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Hillside Stranglers and Son of Sam. The killer is trying to emulate these monsters. The killer also wants Helen and he begins to stalk her through her computer. She is scared that the cops cannot protect her from him. The cops get in contact with Cullum to get his help on the case. Goetz gets killed in the line of duty and Monahan has to work with Helen to get the guy.
They figure out that he is a guy called Peter Foley(William MacNamara) and they try and get him but he is very clever. He captures Helen and brings her back to the bathroom where she was attacked by Cullum. He tries to commit the crime exactly as Cullum did, but this time he will finish her off. Monahan turns up but he shoots her. Helen messes up his scenario and he goes mad. He wants her to pose exactly the way she should and this enables her to escape him. He chases her to the roof and there is a showdown with Helen, Monahan and Peter and Monahan shoots him dead. The movie ends with Cullum writing a letter to a fellow killer telling him how to kill Helen and we realise that he was in cahoots with Foley all along.
This is a very good thriller. I liked the cast and the story line. I have read many books on serial killers so this was interesting to me. I thought that Connick Jr was very different as Cullum and he was creepy which is hard to imagine if you know his other movies and his musical career. A solid thriller which I would highly recommend. I will give this an 9/10.
The movie begins with a man who is being chased by men in a car. He is attacked by them but manages to escape and ends up in the hospital. He tells everyone that 'they are going to kill us all'. He has a Halloween mask with him from the Silver Shamrock company. That night, he is mysteriously killed by a guy who then goes outside and sets himself on fire.The dead man's daughter, Ellie(Stacey Nelkin) goes to see the body and identify him. She meets Dr.Daniel Challis(Atkins) and they talk about her dad. She can't understand why someone would want to kill him. They decide to investigate and they go to the Silver Shamrock company for answers.
The company is in the town of Santa Mira, California. It is an eerie town which owes its lifeblood to Conal Cochran(O'Herlihy) who owns Silver Shamrock. They decide to stay at a local motel and there are other guests there and they all have business at the factory too. There is a curfew imposed at night. Daniel sneaks out and meets a local who warns him about Cochran. Afterwards, he is caught by Cochran and killed. One of the motel guests gets zapped by a Halloween mask from Silver Shamrock. She is taken away by Cochran and some of his employees. He later tells Daniel that the guest was fine and has gone home. Daniel and Ellie go on a guided tour of the Silver Shamrock company. They think that something weird is going on and they try and call the cops but cannot get through. Ellie goes missing and Daniel tries to find her.
He goes back to the factory and gets caught by Cochran. He sees robots there. He finds out that Cochran has a rock from Stonehenge and it is very powerful.Cochran's plan is to have all of the kids wearing his masks on Halloween and then they will all die. He thinks that this will bring about an age of witchcraft or something like that. When the kids watch his commercial on TV, it will activate a chip in the masks and this will release insects etc which will kill the kids. Daniel tries to escape with Ellie. They manage to destroy the factory and Cochran along with it and his robots. Ellie turns out to be a robot and he has to kill her. He gets to a phone and tries to call the TV stations to stop them from broadcasting the advert but he doesn't make it in time.
This was an interesting movie. There is nothing about Michael Myers in it, so it is unusual for this to be part of the Halloween franchise. It could have been a stand alone movie. The plot was interesting but I did think that the reveal at the end was a bit far fetched, but anyway, I enjoyed it all the same.Dan O' Herlihy was entertaining as the strange Cochran. I will give it a 6/10.
Steven Price(Rush) owns amusement parks and he has a dark humour. He is married to Evelyn(Janssen) who hates his guts. She wants to have a party for her birthday and she gives Steven her guest list. He decides to invite other people and he is having it at a haunted house which was once an asylum. The asylum had a very dark history with rumours of a Doctor Vannacutt, played by Jeffrey Coombs, performing awful experiments on the patients. The patients got their revenge and killed all of the staff and set the place on fire. The cruel doctor had booby trapped the place so that it shut down, trapping himself and the patients inside and doomed them to a horrible death. Price's guest list is somehow deleted by some unseen force and other people are invited instead.
When the people arrive, Price and Evelyn don't know who they are. They tell them that they were invited. Price offers each of them a million dollars if they stay the night in the haunted house. Price has some help from an employee of his. The employee is helping him to scare the guests. They all get locked into the house and they cannot leave. Price is surprised by this and he asks his pal why he did it. His man tells him that he didn't. Price wonders who it was who sealed the house. The guests are Sara Wolfe(Larter), Eddie(Taye Diggs), Melissa(Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), Dr Donald Blackburn(Gallagher) and the owner of the house Pritchett(Chris Kattan). Pritchett thinks that the house is haunted and he thinks that something bad is going to happen.
Of course with this movie, you can write the plot really. Things happen, people die. There are real ghosts there. Vannacutt turns up. Evelyn and Donald are lovers and conspire to kill Price but it backfires. It is also revealed that ghosts specifically invited the guests who are descendants of staff members from the asylum. They wanted to finish the job. The evil swallows Evelyn and it comes after the others. Sara, Eddie and Price are the only ones left. They try and escape the house. Price sacrifices himself so that they can get out and they do. They wonder how they will get down from the roof and they spot the million dollar cheques waiting for them. There is a post credits scene where Evelyn and Price are being tortured by the patients in the asylum as ghosts for eternity .
This film wasn't really great. I liked the original with Vincent Price, but this left me bored by the first hour. I didn't really like the movie at all. As a remake, it sucked. I just thought that it was not very good. It had plenty of gore, but not much substance. It gets a 3/10.
I am an avid TV watcher and obviously I don't just watch horror all of the time. At the moment, we are spoiled for choice with great TV shows. Some TV shows are as good as movies in the production and the special effects. Let me just go through my favourites at the moment.
My first one will be The Walking Dead, of course. I have followed this from the first episode way back in 2010 and it has been consistently good. I liked it from the beginning. I think that some of the characters have been so so over the years, but I like most of the core group. Rick has turned from a total wuss into a leader who is bad ass now. I enjoyed all of the storyline with The Governor and now I am looking forward to the struggle that the group will have with Negan. This is my favourite show at the moment. Next is Penny Dreadful which is a great show with a very talented cast. Eva Green, Josh Hartnett and Timothy Dalton star in this Gothic TV show which hosts a load of literary characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dr Jekyll. I love the strangeness and the creepiness of this show and there are some genuinely scary moments. It is well made and it has some great story lines. If you enjoy Gothic horror, then you will love this!
The Blacklist is next on my list. This action show is great with so much happening in every episode. James Spader in the star of the show really and without him, I think that this would not work. He is great as Raymond Reddington, a criminal who is helping out the FBI for his own reasons. He is suave and cool and he seems to know the right people all of the time. He is working with Elizabeth Keen and her team at the FBI and he seems to have a reason for wanting to work with her. There is something in his past that links her with him and we haven't found that out yet. This show is very good and Spader excels as Reddington. The revival of The X Files was great fun. I watched the original series when it was out and this was a real treat for me. I loved the old gang getting back together and the stories were great. I hope that we might see more of this series as I realised how much I used to enjoy it.
Sleepy Hollow is another TV show that I enjoy. It is a modern take on the classic novel. I like the story lines in this series and Ichabod Crane played by Tom Mison is a good character. The female lead I am not so mad about. She is irritating I think but the show is not bad. It has a horror theme which I like. I will give a mention to Game of Thrones which I do follow from time to time. I am not a huge fan of this series. It started well and then I just lost interest in it. I also liked American Horror Story but the last season was so so and with Lady Gaga in it, I just didn't think that it was on the same level as the other seasons. On a better note, I am really looking forward to the Twin Peaks revival. That will be the highlight of 2017. Most of the TV shows that I like to watch are old. I prefer classic TV to most of today's shows. I think that there are some really terrible TV shows out there but these are my favourites anyway!
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