Paranormal Activity 4 (Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, 2012)

How many Paranormal Activity movies are there? I am sure even hardcore fans might be tired of them by now. The only thing I liked is that there are not so many scenes filmed with a shaky camera, as they are recording via their laptops. That’s good. But I didn’t believe the premise at all. Not the ghosts and coven, those are fine; it’s the fact that a family will give shelter to a neighbour’s kid because “he doesn’t have anyone else”. Hello? Social Services? Even if they agree for the kid to stay with someone else, I am sure they wouldn’t let him stay with some random stranger, it doesn’t matter how close they happened to live.

Anyway, once you assume that nonsense, there are a couple of creepy moments that work quite nicely, but in general it feels slow and you don’t really care for any of the characters. So, more of the same, really.

5/10

Hell House (Richard Matheson, 1971)

It took me a while to get hold of a copy, but it was worth the wait. I love all the other Matheson books I’ve read and The Legend of Hell House movie, so I was really looking forward to this.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. It’s not only really exciting, but rather well written and incredibly easy to read. But, most of all, I love the idea, this haunted house to haunt all haunted houses and the millionaire who wants to have definite proof and sends a scientist and mediums so they can conduct appropriate tests.

I didn’t expected to be as… saucy. It has a very heavy sexual element that serves to add creepiness to the story. There is one particular episode, with the scientist and his wife in the steam room, that gave me the creeps, but there is no doubt that everything is there to make you slightly uncomfortable. I also like how the house had been this temple of debauchery, almost reminiscent of Pasolini’s ‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom’.

There are so many ‘false endings’ that you almost feel a bit dizzy, but I enjoyed it a lot, almost as much as the movie adaptation.

“For Christ’s sake, get it hard!”

Rating: 7.5/10

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Christopher B. Landon, 2014)

I was tired of movies filmed with hand-held cameras even before the fad started. However, I admit that in some cases it does work and even adds an extra layer of realism and creepiness. These films, however, are the exception rather than the norm. REC, for example, is awesome, but most of them are really poor.

It’s fine to have hand-held camera scenes if the story demands it, but it’s probably not going to work if you reverse the process. If you really want to make a shaky camera movie and then try to accommodate a random story around it, your film will most likely be mediocre at best.

The main issue I have is related to the Aristotelian concept of verisimilitude. I don’t care if the story is real or not, but everything you tell me in the bubble you’ve created must make sense. I am prepared to believe in ghosts, possessions, summonings and ancient rituals but you cannot go against your own rules. In here, you are showing a world where ghosts and witch rituals exist. I have no problem with those. I have problems with the human who decides to tape everything. Again, it’s fine when they are filming themselves doing jackass stuff, because it makes sense that two idiotic teenagers would do something like that and film it, but when they are having serious, meaningful conversations, I simply can’t believe it. Even if the clownish guy chooses to film it, the other person would probably ask him to put the bloody camera down. Or, did anyone really believe that those two young men who had been previously described as serious ‘gangsters’ would be happy with someone filming them while raiding a house and carrying firearms? Really? Or you are inspecting a cellar, someone comes, you hide but don’t switch the torchlights on your phones off… and they don’t see you? How, exactly?

Rant over. Sorry. I had to take out of my chest.

Having said that, the final 20 minutes or so were proper scary, but you have to endure the first hour, which is utterly dire. The gran and the dog were great, though.

Rating: 5/10

Collected Ghost Stories (M.R. James)

I hang my head in shame to the fact that this had been sitting at the bottom of my to-read pile for years. Yes, years. I had read a couple of the stories before, but had never immersed myself into his work in earnest. I blame the BBC and their impeccable TV adaptations. The lazy side of me thought I already knew the stories. What I a fool I am. Or I was, rather, until last Christmas, when I decided to take the plunge and catch up with good old Montague Rhodes.

The result was as expected: I was completely enthralled by it all. I didn’t read the more than 600 pages in one go, as I wanted to savour every story, but dipped my head into them over the course of three months or so. I think this might be the best approach with such a huge collection of stories as this.

I don’t know where to start, really, as I loved most of them: ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, ‘The Tractate Middoth’, ‘A Warning to the Curious’, ‘Lost Hearts’… you name it! All classics and all excellent. Ghosts, demons, old rituals and a lot of archaeology to keep us all entertained with their thrills.

I really like the fact that he used to read his stories out loud to the students in the Colleges he worked for. What a delightful way to spend an evening!

Rating: 9/10

The Tractate Middoth (Mark Gatiss, 2013)

I had high expectations for this, but wasn’t feeling too concerned about it, because I usually feel safe in Mark Gatiss’s hands.

The film is very faithful to the original text and it fits rather well with the general feeling of the other BBC adaptations of MR James stories.

Given it’s short length, some bits seem rather rushed, like the way the relationships develop, for example. but all in all I really enjoyed it: it’s well acted, it feels compact and sharp and is, most importantly, scary. The main thing for me was getting the ghost right, as its description in the book is blood-curdling. That image of the eye sockets covered with spider webs is really powerful. I felt really happy that they not only kept it but they expanded the theme with various images of arachnids all throughout the film. Extra points for that, too.

Rating: 8/10

The Secret of Crickley Hall (Joe Ahearne, 2012)

I do enjoy a good ghost story. I wasn’t completely convinced after the first episode: I thought it had great potential, but I also thought they could very easily fuck it up and make it all just a big tv  melodrama. I liked seeing Arya from Game of Thrones (go, Arya, go!) and a big chunk of the cast of my beloved The Fades, and I loved the 1940s storyline, too, but I agree with Mr Maslin: the two main actors of the 21st century story made it all look slighly soapy.

The second episode, however, totally blew me away. Really creepy and engaging and everything that a good ghost story is supposed to be. Even some good jumps. Really impressed.

The third episode was again really good, with a fitting finale, I loved how everything tied up together, and how the noughties resolution wasn’t too cheesy.

Oh, and there’s a medium AND an investigator of the supernatural. More TV shows like this, please.

Rating: 8.5/10

Dolly (Susan Hill, 2012)

Dolls and mannequins have a fascinating death-like nature. It’s not strange then that I got overexcited when I heard Susan ‘Woman in Black’ Hill was publishing a ghost story called ‘Dolly’.

The novella, nonetheless, is good but there are no fireworks. Its best asset, I’d say, is leaving questions unanswered. There is a very exciting and creepy scene, when, as adults, they first go back to the house and the cemetery, but the rest is a bit fluffy. I like the eeriness of the childhood days, but the whole thing left me a bit untouched: I wanted a deeper exploration of the ‘evil’ child’s psyche, but maybe I was expecting too much.

But, as I say, a nice eerie story all in all. Pity the boy uses words like ‘quixotic’; that put me off as I found it rather implausible (even though it could be the adult writing and remembering what he felt as a kid, but still…).

Rating: 7/10

the innkeepers (ti west, 2011)

i loved  the general atmosphere and the pace (nothing really happens, it’s more a question of waiting for it to happen). but my favourite bit were the two main characters, especially the geeky guy, with his websites about hauntings.

the climax, however, is ‘just ok’, and i was rather put off by the make up, especially the bride’s. it was just a good hallowe’en costume, i never felt she was a ghost. she was always a woman trying to be scary, more than a scary presence in itself. the older man towards the end was much better.

the story has a medium, though, that’s always good. i think i must have been a medium in a previous life, i’ve always been mesmerised by them. that, and archers. maybe i was medium-archer! how cool is that?

Rating: 6/10

the pact (nicholas mccarthy, 2012)

i quite enjoyed this, to be honest.  sometimes it’s great watching a film with no expectations at all. i only knew it was a ghost story. that’s enough for me.

i don’t mind ghost stories set in modern times, but i much prefer ‘the olden days’ . however, this gripped me from almost the beginning, and, once it got supernaturally charged, it totally won me over: i jumped several times, it was creepy and intense… really good effort!

i loved the medium girl, i really want to hang out with her, she’s amazing. and the brother figure had one of the creepiest ways of moving and portray himself.  he’s so tall and scrawny and slimey: i love how he creeps on the floor like some sort of reptile to get out of his room through that hole. excellent.

but then, they had to ruin it in the final two seconds of the film. why?!

Rating: 8/10

the woman in black (james watkins, 2012)

let’s start by saying that this is nowhere near as good as the book or the play. however, as a film in itself is not that bad. hammer really gets its sets and locations right. the house is amazing, and so is the marshland. i loved that scene when they recover the body. all that mud and how they managed to infuse it with a very classic hammery feeling, a kind of ‘indoorsy outdoors’; i love it. and so many creepy toys and stuffed animals! i certainly want the wee monkey with the maracas.

on top of all that, there are some very spooky moments that actually made jump on my seat (particularly the scene with the crow’s nest at the beginning and the one with the windowpane towards the end).

the acting was ok, but i had issues with daniel radcliffe. he looked too young for my liking; i never believed him as a father (but i admit that might be because i can’t picture him portraying anything other than ‘the-boy-who-lived’).

i kind of liked the change in ending, too (i loved how cynical it is), but i hated the cheesy final scene with all my guts .

all in all, much better than i expected. well worth a watch if you like ghost stories. however, if you are a hardcore susan hill fan, you must watch it with an open mind, i warn you!

Rating: 7/10