My Faith In Insidious Restored. Sort of.

"Where's my damn lightsaber!?"

I remember when "Insidious" was first released in 2010 and all I could hear people talking about (those who had seen it of course) was about how scary it was and that it was such a good movie and blah blah blah. 

So I saw it.

Now, to be fair, my standards may have been set pretty high from all the hype I heard but I was utterly underwhelmed by it. It wasn't a bad movie by any means, but it was not the ground-shaking Holy Grail of horror that I was promised. 

It got a lot of things right. Atmosphere? check (see "What Make Horror Horrifying Part 1" for more on that). Effective soundtrack that isn't completely over used? Check. Keeping the villain hidden until a big reveal? Check. I also particularly liked the concept of it not being the house that's haunted but the kid himself. There was excellent suspense-building camera work and convincing performances but it fell into a couple of overplayed formulas: 

• Slow suspense build up with eerie sounds. Seriously, why do evil things
  
  have to make their presence know by being a fucking nuisance around the house?
• A really slow 20 - 30 minutes where nothing really happens. Like at all. 
• Call in the experts (you can find anything on Craigslist! Shit, already used that one in an earlier post... Whatever.)
• Then the obligatory seance for the finale. There's gotta be either a seance or an exorcism and anytime that happens, it makes me a really sad panda.

I was able to look past all of that. Horror movie cliches aren't an immediate movie-kill for me. The movie looked great and a lot of great tension so I went with it and ignored the cliches.

But it was the goddamn "astral travel" thing that pissed me the fuck off. Not 

"I just had garlic covered onions mothafucka!"

because I think it's hokey or anything like that, shit, I thought I could do it when I was younger. Bought a book about it and everything. It's because it was such a cop out for such an interesting premise. And then when they threw in the whole, "he got it from his dad, look Dad can astral travel too" thing, and that's when I lost my shit with the movie. 

I mean, come the fuck on. 

Seriously? Why? Why couldn't it just have been the spirits and demons attacking the kid when his body and mind were in a weakened state which allowed him to become a conduit for malevolent spirits? That works! And it works without out-of-left-field concepts like astral traveling, or bullshit that he got astral traveling powers from his dad! Dammit! How did they fuck that up? And what's with the Darth Maul demon? Granted, he's the biggest badass villain in Star Wars (including Darth Vader. Yeah, that's right. Darth Maul is fucking awesome even if the rest of the movie sucked) but they couldn't come up with something just a wee bit more original?

So I chalked it up to a decent/OK horror film with some good scares and great atmosphere, but with a horribly flawed plot.

Of course they made a sequel because a made a bazillion dollars and I felt obligated to give it a chance because I could have really liked the first one, and I hoped that they fixed some of the problems from the first one. 

I was wrong. They took the worst part of the first one (astral traveling, got-it-from-dad bullshit) and made it the fucking centerpiece of the movie. Goddammit James Wan... Goddammit. 

So naturally they made another sequel because fuck it, it makes money (don't

He looks familiar...

even get me started on "Paranormal Activity") and not only that, it had to be a fucking prequel, which usually when that happens it means they are literally wringing out the very last cent they can get from the franchise. 

For God-knows-what reason, I saw it anyways and I shockingly walked away pleasantly surprised. Although, to be fair in this case, I think my expectations were much lower than before. However, I found that they fixed a lot of the problems from the first two. The words "astral" and "travel" are never mentioned, not once and neither are genetically transmitted abilities or anything like that. They actually went with my idea for the most part. Girl almost dies, left in a weakened state and becomes a lightning rod for malevolent spirits. Awesome!

The scares were better than the first two combined. One really made me jump because I knew something was coming, but I didn't expect it as soon as it came which I thought was a great choice. Whoever did that, good job. 

But it fell into the fatal flaw with so many other horror films, not just the "Insidious" movies: it had a weak third act. That's the problem with a lot of movies that have a huge build up; by the time the finale happens, the big reveal just isn't that big. Not only that, there were way too many seances and too much Dad saving the day when things got hairy. 

But anyways, they got the core of the movie right and they had some damn-good jump scares. The atmosphere was good, not quite as good as the first one but that's probably because James Wan didn't direct. He is exceptionally talented at that. There was also a nice undercurrent of emotional turmoil and drama that the first two lacked that I found to be a nice touch. 

So anyways, I felt satisfied for the first time after seeing an "Insidious" movie. I have a couple other minor complaints (I swear I'm not a cynical dickhead with everything, but I when it comes to horror movies...) but I won't even mention them because I glossed right over them. I didn't love it, but I at least liked it. 

When the next one comes out, because I'm sure another one will, I just might see it. We'll see. 

What Makes Horror Horrifying? Part 1

I don't wanna say this movie's name...

I see it all the time: "The most terrifying movie you'll see this year."

But very rarely is that ever the case. In fact, usually when a movie has to market itself with a statement like that it pretty much never is the case.

Conventional horror flicks have a formula that is almost never deviated from:

Shocking event in the beginning, character development (a term I use loosely) for the first third of the movie with a couple of cheap jump scares or "look behind the curtain but there's nothing there" moments, followed by the "we've got to get to the bottom of this" for the next third of the movie where the characters usually find some sort of expert on whatever topic the movie is about (you can find anything on Craigslist am I right?), followed by a "climactic" third act where stuff gets broken, people yell and scream and then the evil is banished but not really.

I'd say that roughly 90% of wide-release horror movies follow this formula, another 9% follow most of this formula with some slight deviations and twists, and the last 1% are actually unique stories and genuinely scary movies. But unfortunately, about 75% of the last 1% are seriously under budgeted with limited releases.

Usually to find a good horror story you have to look to film festivals or something like that to find those true gems.

So with all that being said, what makes horror actually horrifying? 

"Mom! I'm hungry!"

You can watch a jumpy movie and it might rattle you for a split second while you're watching, but after you've left the theater or turned off the movie you can go about without giving a second thought to what you just watched.

But what about those movies that stick with you? The ones where after you've watched it, you feel uneasy. You don't leave the theater immediately because you're still in shock at what you just witnessed, or you let the credits roll while you're on your couch, staring at the screen like a drunk monkey pondering the meaning of its life.

I've seen hundreds and hundreds of horror movies but there's very few that I truly love. My most recent favorite is the sleeper hit "It Follows."

Goddamn what a concept! If you're unfamiliar, basically it's about a sexually transmitted curse. Once you've been infected with it, this thing follows you at a walking pace. It can look like someone you love or a complete stranger, whatever helps it get close to you. If it gets you, well it ain't pretty. The only way to get rid of it is to pass it on to someone else by sleeping with someone. But there's a catch, if the thing kills someone you passed it to, it comes back after you and goes down the line through everyone who had it.

This is shockingly accurate.

If that's not terrifying then I'm a fucking unicorn.

It leaves so many questions: What if you get on a boat and stay in the middle of the ocean, what if you're a lesbian—would that count if you're a girl and sleep with a girl or can you only pass it on through "straight" sex? And think about it, if you pass it on, you can never really rest easy. What if the person you pass it to fucks up and gets killed? Then it's back after you!

Seriously, watch it. It has a 90 something percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes which is almost unheard of with horror movies.

Except for genetically modified crazy cow ice cream.

But that's just one example. Take the movie "Isolation" for example. It takes place in New Zealand on a dairy farm with a genetically fucked up cow running around and killing people and it can spread whatever crazy thing it has to other cows. It's a B-Movie, but it's a good B-Movie. It plays itself seriously, not a wink at the audience to give away that it's a B-Movie and if you think about it, there's a shit-load of cows in New Zealand. 

One crazy cow might not be that bad, but thousands of them? Yeah that's bad. 

So horror doesn't have to have an elaborate plot like "Oculus" to be scary, although that was a pretty decent film. It can be as simple as crazy cows to make a good horror film but why are some movies scary and some just goofy? "Black Sheep" (not the Chris Farley one, may he rest in peace) but the one that follows an almost identical plot as "Isolation," except it's sheep instead. I loved it, but it wasn't scary. It was goofy! Goofy gory fun.

The first "Nightmare on Elm Street" was scary but it had some kinda lame effects. Most notably the end when Nancy's mother gets sucked through the window. But it was still scary! Great concept, iconic villain, inventive kills... But that does not a great horror movie make!

Making killing funny since 1984.

I've run through my head a million times, "What is scary?" and I've nailed at least one aspect for sure and that's atmosphere. That's one I know for sure is a key element in horror. Unfortunately, some filmmakers think that atmosphere is a "creepy" soundtrack playing the entire film which I flat-out hate. The original "Alien" has almost no music at all and that is a definite scary movie. Same with "1408;" hardly any music and pretty much no true body count. But those movies have atmosphere up the yazoo with foreboding camera work and strong performances by their respective actors (another key element missing from a lot of horror movies.)

So I'm going to stop here, I can go on for a long time about this which is why I'm splitting this article up into at least two posts... But probably more. I haven't even gotten to books yet. So far we've got atmosphere nailed down as a key element in horror. We'll discuss more later!

So what do you think? Any thoughts on what makes a horror movie truly terrifying? Sound off below in the comments!

My Favorite Book As A Kid

Have you ever had a book that you could read over and over, no matter how many times you read it? You already knew the characters, the plot, the twists and turns and the ending, but you still loved it enough to read it again and again?

That's how it was for me with the book, The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. I fell in love with it at the opening line:

"The great grey beast of February had eaten Harvey Swick alive."

How cool is that? I remember wondering how a month could eat someone, (I took things way literally as a kid) but as I kept reading it, and he described it as this unenjoyable, dismal, grey month that's absolutely no fun, I totally got it. 

I remember those times when I would be stuck inside my house with nothing to do because of the gloom, or because my friends weren't around, and feeling so goddamned bored, which is basically the setup for The Thief of Always. Harvey is bored and miserable and gets this offer to go on a trip with this mysterious man named Rictus, which then puts the whole plot of the book in motion. I won't spoil it if you haven't read it, but the story is completely original with lovable characters and so rich in detail without getting monotonous. 

And the illustrations that were in the book were haunting in the best way. Not too scary since it was a book for young readers, but just dark with enough demented bleakness that fit so well with the book. Thinking back on them now, they actually were kind of scary. 

It was rereleased as a graphic novel which I thought was brilliant. The book had such an awesome setting and great imagery so it was really cool to see an artist's interpretation of the story. I still prefer the original novel though because my imagination cooked up something so much different than what was portrayed in the graphic novel.

I actually appreciate those times when I was bored as a kid; it's how I developed my imagination which I get to put to good use now. I used to get so annoyed that my mom would be watching her TV shows and I couldn't watch my cartoons, but now I'm glad that happened because it's how i got into reading, which then led me to writing. 

It's funny how events that seem so insignificant can end up shaping your life in such a big way. It's my hope that I write novels that connect and resonate with people as much as that book did for me. 

What was your favorite as a kid? 

Check out my debut novel, Depths on Amazon!