The Cabin In The Woods

I'm reviewing The Cabin In The Woods on suggestion by my friend Ronald (I'm sure you're reading this). This is going to be rather brief, but the movie is an alright one. It did poorly in theaters, which is why it made such a quick appearance onto Netflix, notorious for live streaming recent films only when they do poorly. The movie is a comedy - horror, which kind of spoils the whole horror aspect at least for me. Not to say I don't normally laugh at horror movies, but when they try to actually be funny, the jokes are usually dry and tend to pull focus away from being scared and more towards being amused, which is a high task given that different people have different taste in jokes. I personally found the jokes rather corny, and the less suspenseful scenes were a bit stupid, but the movie was definitely laughable. 

To explain, the movie follows the cliche college teens going to a cabin all alone in the woods, but an organization has the entire area under protection and is setting them up for some sort of ritual. Each character was picked for their qualities, and when they find the creepy basement, they unknowingly choose the item of their demise. The book of a deceased family is found, so zombies are brought into play. Lots of fighting and drama ensue, flipping back to these men tucked away in a control room laughing and placing bets on who will die when. The characters get picked off until two remain, and the two stumble upon the facility calling the shots. They release the variety of creatures used in these rituals and they tear apart the organization, finally getting to the center where a pit with some unknown demon is located. The world crumbles as the movie ends, the ritual incomplete by the survival of the last two characters.

Rather strange, right? The movie was horror, looking back on it, but they did try to be funny for short periods which just ruined my opinion on it. The movie's worth a watch, but it isn't quite as scary as I would've liked. 

The Evil Dead

I haven't really been keeping up on my horror movies, so I'm going to talk about one I saw a month or two ago instead. My avid horror fans should recognize the name of the post, The Evil Dead has been a horror classic since the 80's when the series first started. Essentially, the movie is based around the typical abandoned cabin in the woods containing a demonic looking tome of essentially black magic, and a dimwitted skeptic who unintentionally brings a demon back into the world. Pretty epic, honestly.

Lacking the information on the original, I'm more so talking about the remake/reboot of it that released in 2013. (Although the original is on Netflix for those who want to watch it, I myself plan on getting to it at some point in time.) The movie covers most of the stereotypical neo-horror categories; extensive gore and foul language, which is a result of the desensitized audience that they now have to appeal to, an audience that I, sadly, fall under as well. It is still a wonderful movie, with a deeper metaphor to it once you have finished.

To divulge more, I suppose another plot summary is in order. Again, for reader's who hate spoilers, turn away now to avoid a rather disappointing read.

Now then, the movie introduces a group of college kids who have returned to their cabin in the woods, one of which is trying to get over a severe heroin addiction. Before the kids arrive, a flashback to an exorcism of sorts is shown, giving us more insight as to the horrors that these characters will face. As I said in the beginning, the kids stumble upon the ritual cellar, finding a foreboding book with a flesh-like cover, wrapped in barbed wire. The skeptic of the group decides to read it despite the ominous cover and uncomfortable gift wrap, also ignoring the plethora of notes inside the book suggesting not to read it and to refrain from uttering the words aloud. After noticing a missing page, the naive character traces the letters that had left impressions from the missing page, uttering the latin that essentially causes the downfall of them all. The drug addict begins to detox, becoming irritable and unpleasant before storming away, getting attacked by supernatural bramble, and stumbling back to the house. The movie continues with the characters fighting each other off, slowly killing their friends as the possession piggybacks from one to the next. The drug addict eventually gets knocked out, and the other character performs the various rituals necessary to free her. As he unearths her and the mood begins to lighten, things get worse again, and the demon from the text kills the man who saved her. Blood rains down, there's a chase scene, and the movie ends with the druggies triumph over these supernatural forces. Woah.

My friend told me after the movie that the entire thing was actually supposed to be a metaphor to her getting over her drug addiction. Things don't start getting bad until she begins to detox. She has to conquer her "inner demons" in order to survive. At one point, she loses her arm, but it is, interestingly enough, the one she shoots up in earlier in the movie. Ultimately, his comment seemed extremely valid and made me appreciate the movie that much more. I'd suggest that you watch this film.

Session 9

Being the most recent film I've seen, I'd like to talk about Session 9, a psycho-horror/thriller my creative writing teacher suggested I watch. I'd like to warn readers beforehand that my posts may contain spoilers, so for those of you who intend on watching the movie, I'd suggest you stop reading here.

For those who are still reading, let me just say Session 9 is a great movie. The setting is an abandoned asylum riddled with asbestos in Danvers, MA. The setting alone is enough to have my hooked, this was apparently filmed on site, which caught my interest since Danvers is pretty close to Boston. I'm not one to really enjoy psycho films, since I like the villains or monsters to be larger than life, horror movies generally stray from plenty elements of normal life so the villains, in my opinion, should also be more monster-like to match this lack of reality. However, this film did rather well with the theme. Throughout the movie, the main character, Gordon, is losing his mind. The crew he works with to clean the hospital all slowly catch on to this and begin getting irritable as they continue their work. One worker suddenly goes missing, and another is blamed since he had problems with the missing person. Tensions continue to rise as the week goes on, and another worker begins to listen to tapes of the previous patients sessions, discovering the case of a schizophrenic girl whose alternate personality murdered her brother and parents, keeping all of the information from her. While this is going on, the other workers find their friend who had been missing, and they begin frantically searching for him. The group separates, the power goes out, and the eponymous last tape, labeled Session 9, is played. The ultimate suspense befalls the movie as the characters are now picked off one by one by a mysterious assailant, and then the movie comes to a close as Gordon finds all the bodies, which he realizes were victims of him, or rather an alternate personality he and the previous patient of Session 9 had, Simon. Pretty intense stuff.

That was more of a summary, but I mostly mentioned parts I liked about the movie. They constantly threw curve balls of suspense and disappearances that had you blaming Gordon, then another worker, and so on. I even suspected supernatural forces (which were kind of the case). Overall, the movie kept me on my toes, and there were tons of plot exposition and suspenseful turnarounds that kept the story enthralling for me. I enjoyed all the tapes, schizophrenia is always a good plot device for the villains in these kinds of films, and my favorite psycho horrors usually involve schizophrenia (like Identity). The tapes made it so much cooler, and the twist ending is probably my favorite part, it's always better when the movies don't end happily or just don't seem to end. This movies great, and if you still want to watch it, I'd definitely suggest it.

Welcome To The Horror

Hello all, my name is James Fontaine. Welcome to "Not For The Faint Of Heart", a blog dedicated to horror movies and my opinions/ reviews on them. My apologies in advance, the titles and such for these posts are all over the top, but I feel like it's appropriate considering horror films aren't about anything pleasant and happy. Plus I'm the one naming them, so deal with it.

                   Anyhow, I'd like to illuminate a bit about myself. To begin, I love horror movies. They are one of maybe three things I feel passionate about. I love sweets, and I'm a rather outgoing person. I can't wait to begin talking about all the movies I've seen or will see, so I hope you all will enjoy this as much as I will.