Horror Film Reviews

- Re-Animator (1985)

Plot: Out of all the bottom of the barrel SHIT that Netflix has in it's horror category, believe it or not, I actually found a GREAT horror movie hiding in there. One that instantly made it into my top 10 horror films. Re-Animator is based on a book by HP Lovecraft about a college student named Herbert West who is obsessed with "defeating death" and reanimating dead bodies. He has invented a serum that can bring a corpse back to life, but with one little side effect. Anything it Re-Animates, gets up and goes feral, smashing and disemboweling things. But what happens when he asks a fellow student help him finish his research? And on top of that, a professor wants to steal his discovery and use it for himself.
Verdict: 8.5/10 This film has some GRUESOMELY AWESOME practical effects! Jeffrey Combs gives an AMAZING performance as Herbert West. And there are some awesome kills as well as a bizarre famous scene where a woman is molested by Re-Animated Bodies in what the Director himself called, "Cinema's first visual pun". HIGH recommend. 4/5

-Silence of the Lambs (1991)

    Okay guys, I watch horror movies all the time. And I feel ashamed that I had never seen this one before 2 days ago.
Silence of the Lambs, based on the bestseller novel, is one of the best films out there. It won Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress in 1991 and deserved all of those accolades. The film is about an FBI agent in training named Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who is one of the best in her class (especially in criminal psychology) and is invited to help the FBI interview serial killers in order to understand how they work so they can catch a killer known as Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill kills overweight women, skins a part of their body, and shoves a moth cocoon down their throat before dumping them in a river. They want to learn why he does this, and if it can be used as a clue. Clarice is told to interview the one killer who won't talk, Dr. Hannibal Lecter(Anthony Hopkins). Lecter finds Clarice interesting and agrees to help her, but only when she exchanges personal information with him. He starts giving her hints in the forms of anagrams and she uses these to get closer to catching Buffalo Bill. But matters worsen when Bill kidnaps a Senator's daughter, drawing the entire country's attention to Hannibal who might know more than he's telling. It's up to Clarice to get Lecter talking and find Bill before he kills the Senator's daughter.
This film is so... indescribably good. I can't put it into words. But the true reason to see it is for Anthony Hopkins' performance as Lecter. He is Lightning in a bottle with this role and the scenes with him escaping and him talking with Clarice are the best moments of this film. Jodie Foster is pretty good as Clarice as well, delivering some great monologues as well as having chemistry with Hopkins. If I tried to put this grand film into words, it'd take up more text than DeviantART would allow. So I'll wrap it up with a STRONG recommend and a 5/5

-Hannibal (2001)

    After reviewing Silence of the Lambs last time, I figured I'd review the follow-up film, Hannibal. Having heard that most critics hated it, I was curious as to what had been done wrong. So I sat down to eat it up.
Hannibal picks up 10 years after the events of Silence of the Lambs, with the titular cannibal, Hannibal Lecter, living in Florence, Italy under a different identity and hiding from the FBI. However, he is being sought after by an old meal of his. Mason Verger was a child molester that Dr. Lecter got so high on nitrous oxide that he was able to convince him the cut his face off and feed it to the dogs. Verger survives and has a 3 million dollar bounty for anyone who can give him evidence to the cannibal's location or better yet, bring him Lecter himself. Hannibal is drawn back to America by the headlines about FBI Agent Clarice Starling (now played by Julian Moore) losing her job and being turned on by the press. They establish contact over phone, but Hannibal is captured by Verger and Clarice must rescue him.
Honestly, I don't think this film deserves the hate it gets. Of course it wasn't gonna be as good as Silence of the Lambs. How could it be? That film was the only horror film to win best picture. That alone is a really hard feat!
I admit that it does start off a little slow. But I think all the scenes in Florence are GREAT! I love the villain Mason Verger.
Can you believe that it's Gary Oldman under this make-up as Verger! 
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I can't either!
Jullian Moore took some getting used to. Sadly Jodie Foster didn't return. Apparently her agent told the director that she would do it for 25 million, plus 15% of the gross. And Ridley Scott said, "Tell Miss Jodie Foster to have a good day."
Anthony Hopkins' performance isn't as good as in Silence of the Lambs. But it's still enjoyable. He gives some great lines and the film ends on such a great moment that I could give it a pass just for that.
I give it a 3/5  A weak recommend. But it doesn't suck like they say.

-Fright Night (1985)

    In the 80's, we got some damn good horror films. American Werewolf in London, The Thing, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, ALIENS, The Fly, Lost Boys, Child's Play, Hellraiser, Poltergeist, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Gremlins, Evil Dead, Reanimator... *runs out of breath* You get the idea. The 80's was the hey-day of Horror.
But there was another horror classic of the 80's that gained a massive cult following. And it came out right around the time Reanimator and Day of the Dead came out. Fright Night!
Fright Night, is the prime example of great Vampire films of the 80's. It's right up there with The Lost Boys.
It's about a teenage boy named Charlie. Charlie suspects that his new next door neighbor is a Vampire. He tries to tell the Police and his Mom, but they think it's because he's seen too many horror films. When the Vampire threatens to kill him, Charlie enlists the help of Peter Vincent. An actor who hosts a TV channel that plays horror films each night, starring him as "Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer". Vincent tries to tell him that those were only movies, but Charlie isn't convinced. Together, they plan to storm the Vampire's house and stake him before Dawn. But that may turn out to be difficult as it turns out the Vampire has his gaze set on Charlie's girlfriend Amy as his next victim.
The movie is by the same director from Child's Play and it has an all around awesome feel to it. It reminds you of when you were little and you lived to watch scary movies. And it has a real 80's vibe to it. The make-up effects are great. They even remind me of American Werewolf in London at time. Some of the camera-work has an "Evil Dead" style shaky cam. There are also some cool performances given.
This is one of the must-see 80's horror classics. High recommend. 4/5

-Maniac (2012)

Okay guys, this one's a more recent film that I've watched. It's been of notoriety to me for a while, because it's Elijah Wood playing a killer, and the whole film is told in first person from his point of view. I was dying to see a killer hobbit!
It was on Netflix, so I finally saw it. And... we'll see what I have to say about it now.
The premise is fairly simple.
Elijah Wood plays a killer named Frank Zito, who has taken over his parents' mannequin business after his mother died.
Mentally disturbed, Frank often stalks women at night, killing and scalping them. He then returns home and staples the scalps onto mannequins, in an effort to not feel alone as he imagines the dead women keeping him company and sometimes being cruel to him.
A photographer named Anna discovers his mannequin shop, and thinks the antique, vintage ones he's restored are beautiful. So she offers to feature them in an art gallery. Frank eventually agrees and slowly starts forming a love relationship with Anna.
But as he continues to kill, he soon kills one of Anna's friends, and when he goes to her home to comfort her, she realizes he is the killer and tries to throw him out and call for help. Frank chases her and is run over by a car she drives, but she dies when the car crashes.
Frank scalps Anna and takes her home, putting her scalp on another mannequin in a bridal gown, before dying of his injuries.
    This movie is one of the strangest, most bizarre, and just unsettling films I've ever seen. Does that mean it's bad?
 I don't think so. I feel there is some really creative film-making going on. The whole film is seen through Frank's eyes, which gives the audience a strange, almost seductively immersive feeling. There are also some strange dream sequences that were definitely unsettling.
The film has great practical effects when it uses them. This film has all the horror essentials. Blood, gore, obscenity, nudity, and sex.
But it presents them in a more creepy and sickening way. And Elijah's performance is very creepy. The whole film, I was really hoping that he wouldn't kill Anna. And when he did! I was shocked. The film's ending is not terrible, but it isn't the most satisfying either.
This one's so strange, I think it is worth checking out. At least once. Recommend, and a 4/5