Andrea’s Journey aka Amityville: It’s About Time (1992)

January 21, 2019

Original Post Date: 12.22.18

Andrea is a complicated woman experiencing normal human emotions. Andrea hasn’t moved on from a defunct long-term relationship with a widower. She used to live with him and his two kids at his house. Used to. Years later, Andrea still babysits the kids, now teenagers. Andrea needs to move on.

Amityville: It’s About Time (1992) tells the story of a haunted clock taken from the original evil Amityville house, yes, that’s is true, however, this horror tale focuses on the human struggle as told by a female perspective; the possessed clock is just a very important background element.

This was my second time watching this movie. The first time I did I was a kid and let me tell you something, it kind of fucked me up. As an eleven year-old my brain was definitely not ready to take in all the information and imagery presented in the story, because the story was—as I just came to realize—a very adult story.

So Jacob, Andrea’s ex, goes to New York for work and has her look after his family while he is away; when he comes back he brings a souvenir, the clock. Andrea is ready to leave but Jacob convinces her to spend the night and thanks to this conversation she gives us the best line from the movie:

“I hate having regret for breakfast.” – Andrea

So yeah, she spends the night and has great sex with him. Next morning, Andrea has some weird interaction with the kids, Lisa and Rusty, before leaving for her class at grad school. Meanwhile, our guy Jacob decides to go for a run and oh no, he gets viciously attacked by a dog, and guess what, Andrea decides to take care of him while he heals. DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!

This is when it goes downhill for Andrea. Listen honey, as a strong independent woman it makes me so mad to see smart women do dumb shit because of a guy. I’m like, honey no, just wake up and do you, you know what I mean? Anywhohow.

So yes, the clock, don’t forget about the clock. The clock in the house is playing tricks on everyone: Jacob becomes a hot mess of a maniac slob, Lisa becomes an aggressive hot nymphomaniac, and Rusty becomes an adorable confused mess.

HOT MESS:

HOT:

MESS:

At this point Andrea realizes she is over her head, yet does not make the decision to get the hell out of there so she has her boyfriend, Leonard, go visit her at Jacob’s house. The boyfriend is not only an insightful Psychiatrist, but also a very likable and handsome man.

“You have a pyromaniacal Nazi down the hall. You’ve got a toxic lunatic in the master bedroom. The only one around here that seems normal is Lisa and that’s because I’ve not met her yet.” -Leonard

Then, because it was a horror movie, a bunch of messed up things happened and people died, normal gory stuff. [Side note: I must mention that this film was unintentionally funny and made me laugh unironically. It was that organic lighthearted humor from the 90’s that makes you feel nostalgic for the good old days. Anywhohow.]

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

The ending was so good and worth the wait… but I don’t mean the movie was boring or nothing, on the contrary, all the things that happened, all the characters and uncomfortable moments between them, all the unique ways that the clock controlled time (stopping, slowing, fast-forwarding, rewinding) was so entertaining to watch! What I meant by worth the wait was because since the clock restarted time—after exploding—to the beginning of the movie when Andrea was watching the kids, it did so in a way that Andrea was the only one remembering the whole ordeal and honey, she finally said No more and left! Success! Good for her!

“It’s about time, that’s what.” -Andrea

- Marath

The Possession of Hannah Grace (2018): "When You Die, You Die. End of Story.”

January 21, 2019

Original Post Date: 12.01.18

Great quote by Megan Reed from The Possession of Hannah Grace (2018): “When you die, you die. End of story.”

I watched this trailer this morning and made me want to watch the movie asap. (So I did.) An ex-cop down on her luck (tortured souls are my favorite), working graveyard at the morgue? And one of the corpses being possessed by a demon and healing itself when killing people? Yaz! Yaz! Yaz! All that stuff is my shiiiiiiiit!

*** WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD ***

The Possession of Hannah Grace tells the story of ex-cop Megan Reed who is dealing with emotional trauma, addiction, and a relationship breakup, all while starting a new entry level job at the city morgue as a coroner’s assistant… just imagine this poor woman receiving corpses, logging them into the system, taking initial wound pictures and fingerprints, all that sort of thing, and on the graveyard shift all by herself. Poor Megan, poor, poor Megan.

Yes, this movie focuses on Megan but, who the hell is Hannah Grace then? Hannah is the unlucky girl who ends up at Megan’s job, hauled inside a body bag. They said she was found on an alley when someone was trying to slice her up –the perpetrator ran away, they said. Hannah’s body was a total mess, burnt, sliced, contorted, yet beautiful to watch. The corpse’s skin was nice and smooth-looking, it belonged to a young woman.

Hannah was the daughter of Grainger, a guy desperate enough to heal his child that even resorted to have the Church perform an exorcism on her. [Side note: This is where I got confused and maybe need to re-watch the movie when it becomes a streamer but, was this Hannah’s first exorcism? Or the latest one? Was she sick with depression and anxiety as her father confessed to Megan? Or was the dad so ignorant and scared that he tried to “exorcise” her mental illness “demons” via religion? Or was she really possessed by an old-school demon? Confusion.]

On the failed exorcism of Hannah, the evil force inside her killed one priest and only injured another thanks to her dad acting quickly and smothering her before she could continue killing. This happened three months ago. Today, Hannah’s fresh corpse was brought to the morgue. Hannah’s evil force was still inside her and she was still killing people and her dad was still trying to destroy the body by burning her and slicing her up, but the thing was, Hannah’s body healed itself when she killed people. (The more the corpse got hurt, the more she killed.)

Back at the morgue in present day, all the juicy aspects of having a three-month old, fresh-looking, mysterious yet gorgeous possessed corpse shined like nobody’s business. It was fun to watch Hannah’s wounds heal as she killed, and it was entertaining to watch Megan feel like she was going crazy.

The movie ended as it had to. Megan realized she was not seeing things (our broken heroine will be okay), and regained her trust in herself by throwing Hannah into the incinerator (our cool villain sadly dies). When you die, you die.

End of story,

- Marath

P.S. Sexiest poster ever: