Category: 2010’s

Directed by Samuel Bayer [Other horror films: N/A]

Unlike some out there, I don’t hate this remake. I don’t think it’s a good movie, but I don’t hate it. What I feel is far more akin to disappointment, because while this rendition of A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t good, I will say that it really had potential.

To fully delve into this, I need to get into some spoilers. That’s something I try to avoid, because I like my reviews to be approachable even if the reader hasn’t seen the movie, but in this case, I have got to talk in detail about portions of this film, and so there will be spoilers in this review, starting with this next paragraph.

This film deals with teenagers who discover they have repressed memories about a preschool and a man named Freddy. Their parents refuse to tell them about it – when pressed, Nancy’s mother tells her that the kids said Freddy had abused them, and Freddy left town. During a dream sequence of Quentin’s, we see instead that the parents find Freddy on the outskirts of town, and angry that he may have abused their children, they burn his hiding place to the ground with him in it.

After Quentin sees this, it leads to what I find the most promising part of the film, in which Quentin and Nancy confront Quentin’s father about Freddy’s death. Nancy and Quentin wisely say that they were five at the time, and could have said anything – that there was no evidence Freddy was guilty, as the “secret cave” the kids mentioned was never even located, and that Freddy is seeking revenge on the kids who falsely accused him, which hurts all the more because Freddy loved the kids while he was a handyman at the preschool.

And you know what? If the film had continued to go this route, that would have been fantastic. Throughout the whole Freddy Kruger mythos, I don’t believe we’ve seen an innocent Freddy, and in this remake, they could have indeed made Freddy an innocent man who was killed due to false accusations of child abuse. The repressed memories of Quentin, Nancy, and company could have been Nancy, at five years old, deciding to play a joke and get her friends to accuse Freddy of things he didn’t do, and the finale could be her confronting her guilt, and an emotional scene of her apologizing to the innocent Freddy of her complicity in the events.

As you can probably tell, what with my hypotheticals, that didn’t happen. Upon exploring the old preschool, Nancy and Quentin come upon the aforementioned “secret cave,” and find photographic evidence that, indeed, Freddy Kruger was guilty. And everything that follows is just generic Nightmare on Elm Street stuff that you could get with a more classic feeling from almost any other film in the original series.

I think they blew a large opportunity to change the whole idea of Freddy, but instead of taking that leap, which might have been controversial, but would have been ballsy, they just keep with the “Oh, he’s just naturally evil, brahs,” stuff. I think this was a mistake, and instead of being an interesting movie, the finale of this remake is just generic and of about zero interest. Oh, and to make things better, they throw in a final scene that’s fucking awful. Even the ending of the original movie is better, and it’s not even close.

Perhaps it’s just me, but this pisses me off, because I really thought this film could have been something different. When I first saw this, I was really engaged in the story – was Freddy actually innocent? I thought it could have been so cool if they flipped the script. But they didn’t. And what was an okay movie (not great, but okay) just fell apart completely in the last twenty minutes, and I found it quite insulting, and again, a lost opportunity.

Rooney Mara (The Social Network) did pretty decent as Nancy, and Kyle Gallner (The Haunting in Connecticut) was good in the stoner-esque role. I thought the two worked well together as they were trying to figure out what their memories meant. Neither of the other teens, be it Katie Cassidy (Black Christmas, Wolves at the Door, and When a Stranger Calls) or Thomas Dekker, did much for me. Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption and Pet Sematary II) was nice to see, but aside from one strong scene, he didn’t really add much.

When it comes to Freddy Kruger, I don’t think Jackie Earle Haley did terribly. I mean, let’s be honest – anyone who wasn’t Robert Englund would have a very difficult time getting praise. I don’t personally care for Freddy’s look here, but I also understand it’s more realistic as far as burn victims go, so that’s fine. More troublesome for me, though, is Freddy’s voice, which just grates. I could do without the one-liners (“I haven’t even cut you yet”), but what really takes me away is the voice. Honestly, maybe it would have been cooler if he didn’t talk, and was just a threatening figure slowly leading these kids to realize what a mistake they made in accusing him of a false crime.

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. I forget the movie wasn’t trying to be different, and so I momentarily forgot how cliché it was. My apologies.

The CGI was hideous most of the time. It’s funny that the scene in which Freddy is pushing himself out of the wall above the bed is done so much better in 1984, as well as the Tina-equivalent death scene. I did like the pool scene – when Quentin comes up from the pool and sees the flashback of Freddy’s origin take place – but otherwise, there’s nothing here that’s all that unique.

More than anything, I believe with all my heart that A Nightmare on Elm Street could have been a worthwhile remake if they had just changed the story up a little, and instead of making a generic horror movie, had gone with a more emotionally poignant ending about facing the consequences of your mistakes (the mistake being falsely accusing Kruger). Instead, you get a subpar movie that has it’s moments, and it has it’s potential, but is largely a waste of time.

5.5/10

Directed by Brandon Tobatto [Other horror films: Hacked Up for Barbecue (2009), Loons (2016), Cottontail (2017), Sugarplum (2017), Madhouse (2020)]

For a lower budget film, Loon is okay. It’s not great, and it’s possible calling it good is a stretch, but there’s a somewhat interesting story here, and though I don’t think I’d go back to it, I can appreciate what they were going for.

Truth be told, I expected most of the film to deal with the group of friends going to explore an old carnival attraction – something like a lower budget version of Haunt. You can soon see that’s not where the film’s going, as it switches gears to focus on a police detective (Ryan Gray) and his attempts to go after the killer stalking the woods around the carnival attraction, which is at least different.

Obviously, being a film of this budget, some of the acting is not great. I do think that Tara Moates and Trevor Moates worked as siblings, and given the last names, it’s quite possible that’s the case. During the opening flashback, Kerissa Porter and Randy Porter were good also, and I thought it was sort of a shame that opening scene was all they got. Otherwise, no one really did that well – Ryan Gray had some okay moments, as did both Anne Tuck and John Nieman, but everything else was just ehh.

What’s more was some of the dialogue felt iffy, and the delivery especially stood out as lower quality. I don’t think that really hurt the movie as a whole – God knows I’ve seen worse in other films – but it was noticeable at times.

Also noticeable was the fact that, save for a kill toward the end of the film, there weren’t many kills here worth seeing. The killer primarily used a bat to beat people to death, which is good and all, but after a while, I can’t say it’s not a little repetitive.

Even so, from my understanding, the budget of Loon was around $100, and I know that they probably got more out of the money than I could have. I don’t think the movie’s good, but I do think they did well with what they had, and though there were aspects of the story I wasn’t a fan of (I would have liked it if Tara Moates and Trevor Moates had a bit more to do in the second half of the movie), it’s not a terrible film if you know what you’re going into.

5.5/10

Directed by John Oak Dalton [Other horror films: The Girl in the Crawlspace (2018)]

It’s always been my opinion, as a horror fan, that scarecrows have been an underutilized antagonist, a complaint of mine since I find scarecrows damn cool. I mean, look at them – straw, sickles, pitchforks, hats – what’s not to love? Scarecrow County doesn’t really do much for me in that department, but for a taste of local flavor, it was an okay experience.

Though I was born in Arizona, I’ve spent most of my life in Indiana. It’s a folksy place – aside from Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, it’s mostly quite rural (and even the busier cities, such as Muncie, still feel rural), farmland runs supreme, and despite Indiana Beach’s promise, I’m not entirely sure there’s much more than corn here.

One thing that’s definitely not here is any type of movie industry. I have no idea what the Indiana Film Commission is doing, but those must be some cozy jobs, because there really hasn’t been a whole lot of movie-making out here, which is a shame, because some locations (such as Brown County, to anyone in southern Indiana) would make for amazing movie locations, especially for horror.

I’m not a proud Hoosier by any means, but I am happy when I see Indiana come up in some form in media, because despite being the 17th-most populous state, I get the sense a lot of people just forget we exist. Only a handful of horror films are solely filmed here (most well-known might be Found from 2012), and many of the others are lesser-known films (Daylight from 2013, Shadow People from 2008, Beware of the Klowns from 2015, Phantom of the Woods from 2013, The Stray from 2016, Backwoods from 1987, and Terror Squad, also from 1987), and the only one I’ve seen so far has been Backwoods.

Scarecrow County was filmed partially in Ohio, but most of the locations are within Indiana (specifically, Parker City, Mooreland, Yorktown, and Farmland), and so getting a taste of a more homebred movie was nice. In fact, the director, John Oak Dalton, went to Ball State University, which is the same college I attended.

All of this is exactly why I made sure this is a movie I took the time to watch, and related, none of this background goes that far to make the movie any better. The production quality of Scarecrow County actually surprised me, as it seemed pretty damn decent (I immediately was reminded of Truth or Double Dare (TODD), only this film had more soul), and while I can’t say I really enjoyed the film, I was impressed by plenty of aspects.

Taking place in a small town (and given the main character works at the Parker City library, I’d wager the film takes place in Parker City), there’s a strong sense of the small-town oppression that isn’t uncommon in the midwest. I live in a moderate-sized city, almost 10,000 people. Parker City (which is actually a town, but that’s a distinction I don’t want to get into – look at Fishers), though, has a population of around 1,300. Even the village I lived in while a child in New York (Penn Yan) had five times that number.

Much of the film revolves around the good old days – back when the high school basketball team were the biggest thing, and those kids, now older but still friendly with each other, are getting killed off by a scarecrow after an old journal written by a gay kid they knew back in high school is uncovered. It’s a decent story of a mysterious past event and how the ramifications stretch to the present-day, something like Cherry Falls, only on a lower budget.

The film has a bit of a psychological twist to it, which does give the film a unique feeling at times, but it also renders the finale a bit weak, I felt. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the revelations during the finale, but I just sort of wish they did a bit better job of expanding on some of the events of the movie.

Chelsi Kern made for a pretty good lead, and playing her father, Tom Cherry did a nice, authentic job. I didn’t entirely get Rachael Redolfi’s character (she spent most of her time locked in her house and drawing some public domain comic strip character named Fantomah and imagining that Fantomah is talking to her), but I guess Redolfi did well enough. John Bradley Hambrick’s character was someone I was expecting a little more from, but Jeff Rapkin had that big fish in a small pond attitude down well, and I enjoyed it.

As many may know, there’s not a plethora of great scarecrow horror films out there. For every decent one, such as Scarecrows, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, and Husk, you have films like Scarecrow (2002), Scarecrow Slayer (2003), Scarecrow Gone Wild (2004), Dark Harvest (2004), Skarecrow (2004), Return of the Scarecrow (2017), Rise of the Scarecrows (2009), Bride of Scarecrow (2018), Curse of the Scarecrow (2018), Scarecrow’s Revenge (2019), and American Scarecrow (2020). That’s a lot of scarecrow films, and so few have even close to a 5/10 on IMDb.

Scarecrow County isn’t a great scarecrow horror film – I do like the scarecrow design, and who can’t love that pitchfork? But it’s more focused on some psychological aspects, and all the kills are off-screen. There are some creepy scenes here and there, but it’s not as rewarding as one might hope.

Honestly, I do wish I liked this movie more. It’s an ambitious movie, what with the various plot points and deeper subjects hit on, and I think it’s well-made for what it is. I just didn’t personally jibe that much with the story. Not by any means a bad film, for an okay slice of newer horror, this may be worth checking out.

5.5/10

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin [Other horror films: Devil’s Due (2014), Southbound (2015, segments ‘The Way In’ & ‘The Way Out’), Ready or Not (2019), Scream (2022), Scream VI (2023)], David Bruckner [Other horror films: The Signal (2007), Southbound (2015, segment ‘The Accident’), The Ritual (2017), The Night House (2020), Hellraiser (2022)], Tyler Gillett [Other horror films: Devil’s Due (2014), Southbound (2015, segments ‘The Way In’ & ‘The Way Out’), Ready or Not (2019), Scream (2022), Scream VI (2023)], Justin Martinez [Other horror films: Southbound (2015, segments ‘The Way In’ & ‘The Way Out’)], Glenn McQuaid [Other horror films: I Sell the Dead (2008), Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear (2014)], Joe Swanberg [Other horror films: Silver Bullets (2011)], Chad Villella [Other horror films: Southbound (2015, segments ‘The Way In’ & ‘The Way Out’)], Ti West [Other horror films: The Roost (2005), Trigger Man (2007), The House of the Devil (2009), Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever (2009), The Innkeepers (2011), The ABCs of Death (2012, segment ‘M is for Miscarriage’), The Sacrament (2013), X (2022), Pearl (2022)] & Adam Wingard [Other horror films: Home Sick (2007), Pop Skull (2007), A Horrible Way to Die (2010), You’re Next (2011), The ABCs of Death (2012, segment ‘Q Is for Quack’), V/H/S/2 (2013, segment ‘Phase I Clinical Trials’), Blair Witch (2016)]

I have to admit that, after seeing this one twice, I struggle incredibly hard to see the appeal. It’s not as though the base idea isn’t worth attempting, but the final product here comes across to me as a total mess.

Obviously, the biggest problem here is that almost none of the stories are good. Even the framing sequence is flimsy (and the low-budget British anthology Screamtime did a similar set-up better), and of the five segments (“Amateur Night”, “Second Honeymoon”, “Tuesday the 17th”, “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”, and “10/31/98”), only two are passable, and that’s being damn generous.

The only thing “Amateur Night” had going for it were occasionally decent special effects, and they faltered horribly come the ending (those wings, tho). “Tuesday the 17th” struck me as a total waste, if I’m being honest. “Second Honeymoon” tried, what with the plot twist, but as the plot twist had little in the way of set-up, I’d say that it failed horribly. “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” had the most potential out of all of these, but I found the ending laughably atrocious.

“10/31/98” was decent. I think what really pulled that one miles above the others here were the special effects. I didn’t love the story, but once the guys got to the house, we did see some creepy things (hands coming out of the walls, random birds flying by, that random type of stuff), and I appreciated the vibe. I do think the ending (which is also the final scene of the movie, because the framing story doesn’t frame around the final segment, because of course it doesn’t) was lackluster, but by this point, I’m just happy that the movie has finally ended.

And that’s another thing that needs to be mentioned. Not only are most of the stories severely lacking in enjoyable content, the movie is almost two hours. Most of that just had to be wasted time, as if you edit just the interesting things out of each respective story, there’s no way you get more than 15 minutes of content, and again, that’s being quite generous.

One last thing before hitting on one of the few positives of the film – there are almost no likable characters in this whole film. The framing story just gives us guys who routinely sexually assault women and laughs it off as a joke, which isn’t too different from the guys we got in “Amateur Night.” The characters in “Tuesday the 17th” were more generic-slasher types, and were at least bearable, but aside from a single character, there’s no one in V/H/S who is even worth rooting for.

That person is Emily (played by Helen Rogers), from “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger.” Rogers does a great job with her character, and gives us someone quite sympathetic, and her emotional performance near the end of the segment was great. Really, she’s the only performance in this film that even came close to standing out, so definitely I give kudos to her.

Otherwise, this movie is just awful. For the life of me, I cannot see why there seems to be a decently-sized contingent of people who enjoy this one. On the one hand, I am glad that there exists people who get more out of this movie than I ever have (as I have seen this twice now, and I wasn’t impressed either time), but on the other, I just don’t get it. I don’t see what’s impressive here, and when I wasn’t bored, I just felt that, save for some occasionally-good special effects, the story was uninspired.

V/H/S may just be one of those movies that wasn’t meant for me. I didn’t enjoy seeing it again, and I think it’s safe to say that there’s not many circumstances that exist that’d cause me to watch this again in the future.

3.5/10

Directed by Todd Nunes [Other horror films: Scary Larry (2014)]

I have to say that I found this Christmas-themed slasher disappointing, but I also have to admit that I’m not surprised, given the generally lukewarm reception I’ve heard from this one.

And it’s a shame, too, because I suspect that, more than most people, I was looking forward to this one. Why? Because back in 2011, the director of this film, Todd Nunes, directed a 13-minute short titled Here Comes Santa. This is a short which I reviewed on my now-defunct Beyond the Darkened Door, a horror blog I was trying to run for a short and inconsistent time in my college days.

To keep things short, I found Here Comes Santa a pretty well-made short. I gave it a glowing review, and definitely saw potential should the director attempt a full-length version of the story.

But to all hope comes death, as the poets say, and the final product here just felt more hollow than anything. Which isn’t to say that the movie doesn’t have strong points, but really, aside from gore, what does All Through the House really have going for it?

I will say that I like the base idea of the film – three young women terrorized by a killer wearing Santa garb while helping to decorate a large house – but the story beyond this, what with the mystery of the focal character’s mother and another character’s missing daughter just sort of fell off the rails.

Again, I have to mention the failed potential here, because while neither of these mysteries were up there with those seen in classic giallos, it still brought a little additional element to the movie, but come the finale, the answers we get aren’t really that satisfying to me.

For what it’s worth, I thought most of the marginally more important performances were decent. It’s not likely that many would be blown away by Ashley Mary Nunes, Melynda Kiring, Jason Ray Schumacher, or Natalie Montera, but they all do fine enough with what little character they get to play around with.

That’s part of the problem, really. Most of these characters just seem shallow, and I don’t think we even get to know the main character of Rachel (Nunes) all that well. More than anything, this movie feels like an excuse to show off decent gore effects, which, while certainly appreciated, isn’t enough to keep interest in a story going. Had the mystery here been handled a bit differently, then maybe we’re talking another story, but with what we got, it just didn’t do it.

There’s also something that should be said about the editing. I don’t think I’m the guy to say it, because I’m not a film-maker, and I have literally no idea what goes into production and post-production of films, and thus lack the vocabulary to explain my problem, but the editing here just felt off at times. I sensed it from the very beginning, and though I can’t put a finger on why things felt off, I know that, to me, they did.

Overall, you have some impressive gory scenes here, but once you get past that, I don’t think there’s a lot holding this one up, and as far as Christmas-themed horror films go, I think that All Through the House will end up in the forgotten category more so than anything else. Definitely not a great experience, and a film I found rather below average.

5/10