Elevated Horror, The Orphanage (2007)

June 28, 2019

My coworker friend, Carrie with a K, casually showed me today over lunch the below trailer for The Orphanage (2007) and I was immediately pulled in, I mean, before the trailer was over I was like, Yes, yes, I’m watching this movie tonight, yes! And so I did.

Granted, I knew of this Guillermo del Toro movie, I knew it was a Spanish production, I knew it was about kid ghosts at an orphanage, but that was pretty much it (had not watched the trailer prior to today). And yet, all that basic info was not enough for me to wanting to watch the movie as, in my mind, it seemed I had seen one too many orphan-related movies already so this one felt unnecessary... blasphemy! Sometimes my own ignorance amuses me more than anything #noshame.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Okay, so let’s slow down for a sec. Alright. The movie focuses mainly on the beautiful mother-son relationship between Laura and Simon, as well as on how Laura and her husband Carlos face the emptiness of their lives once Simon goes missing. The ghosts and the house are secondary in my opinion.

It is important to mention that little Simon was adopted and sick (HIV) and both of those two things were kept secret from him by his parents, but revealed to him by his ghost friends. That is right, little Simon was able to see dead people because—as medium Aurora cleverly put it—he was close to death. By the way, medium Aurora did a thing (how to you call it when you go into a trance and talk to the dead? Yeah, that…) at the parents’ house after little Simon had been missing for nine months. Aurora revealed a ton of disturbing information that sounded true to Laura because Laura used to live there as a kid; back in the day that house was an orphanage, but now it was Laura’s house as she bought it and was planning to re-open it as an orphanage for kids with disabilities.

So, okay, now that medium Aurora had sort of confirmed what little Simon had once said to Laura (imaginary friends) plus the things Laura knew she had seen (kid with hood), she was convinced there were ghosts in the house and that she was going to ‘play their games’ in order to find her missing son. Oh yeah, the imaginary friends from Simon were her own real friends from when she was a kid orphan herself. That’s right, the kids died (poisoning) after Laura got adopted, so their souls stayed trapped in the house.

I will not ruin the ending for you as I believe you deserve to see it on your own if you have not done so yet. The movie demands to be watched from beginning to end with the outmost attention to detail; the sounds, the visuals, the characters, the dialogue, the tense moments, the scary moments, the tender moments, they all work together to bring you an elevated horror experience.

In this new horror era where profitable movies are produced left and right, where squalid sequels and prequels are put in theaters every few months, where horror stories threaten to look down on true horror fans, it is our responsibility to speak up when something with value and weight comes our way. So listen up horror family, this is me telling you to save your dollars, skip the Annabelle’s and the Chucky’s of the world and watch online The Orphanage (2007) as soon as possible and let quality horror enrich your life.

Because we are worth it,

-Marath

THIS FRESH BLOOD: The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

June 24, 2019

When it comes to iconic and shocking movie posters from the 80’s, this one in particular had a special place in my heart since I came across it at the local movie rental shop when I was a kid and, back then, I remember thinking of it as truly scary so I sort of made sure to stay away from it as humanly possible. Until now.

But why until now, you ask? Because my scared little kid brain did not make an effort to remember the name of the movie so, decades later, when my love for Horror grew from mere hobby to unabashed passion as a dvd collector, my adult brain could not bring to memory the movie title because I never learned it, I just remembered the movie poster. So please try to imagine my excitement when two days ago I was browsing the Horror section at Amoeba Hollywood and this came across my path:

Ahh! It turned out The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) was the mysterious title of that one horror movie whose poster scared [and scarred] my little kid brain. Okay, honest opinion after having watched the film? I thought it would be better. Yes, it was obviously a great Wes Craven movie as per usual, but it was not scary to me (yes, this is my adult brain talking now).

The movie tells the story of an anthropologist, Dennis Alan, who gets hired by a pharmaceutical company to go to Haiti and search for an alleged black magic drug that supposedly brought people back from the dead and turned them into zombies. The basic storyline sounded good, particularly because it was made known to us that it was about a real—and fairly newly discovered—neurotoxin called Tetrodotoxin.

So why, my dear horror friend, why did a terrifying and dire scenario where a zombie-turning neurotoxin, one that I knew was an actual neurotoxin in real life, one that was used as a weapon against people, did not scare me? Was it Craven’s fault due to unsuccessful movie making, or was it mine due to my cynical and narrow-minded point of view? Actually, no, there is no need for anyone to answer that… anyhow, SNAKE!

Between us girls, my imagination and I are great companions. I can spend hours daydreaming and creating stories in my head. I can come up with characters and situations and details and make things grandiose because why not. I love that about me. But do you know what I don’t love about my imagination? That it sometimes can let me down when I come face to face with the reality of things, like with this movie poster for example:

Yes, the above iconic movie poster made an impact on my kid brain, but now, as an adult, when I finally watched the movie it turned out the whole thing was just meh as it lacked the truly terrifying aspect of seeing someone getting buried alive and struggling to escape while still underground. Dennis just got out of the coffin kind of quickly and anticlimactically. I wanted for him to take time and bathe in the bleakness of not being able to move or shout for help. I wanted to see fear and agony. I wanted to see fingernails bleeding and coming off from scratching away like a maniac. I wanted to hear visceral screams and choking sounds. I wanted to see real human terror. I WANTED TO BE SHOCKED! Alas, I did not get any of that. (I was happy at least with the fact that I came full circle & now I am able to say that I watched the one scary-looking movie from my childhood, so… Moral of the story? Don’t judge a movie by its cover art. The End.)

In Love and Fear,

—Marath

Dead Snow Kills Me LOL

May 26, 2019

When you think about funny foreign movies, Nazi zombies causing ruckus in the snowy mountains of Norway should not be what immediately comes into your mind, but—surprise!—that is what happens to me thanks to Dead Snow (2009). The movie is a funny horror story about a group of friends who gets terrorized by greedy Nazi zombies, all while trying to have an honest-to-God good time over a secluded cabin. (Those cabins in the middle of nowhere, man, I mean, every single time!)

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Here are the reasons why Dead Snow has me HaHa-ing and LOL-ing like nobody’s business:

~Erlend and his many Hollywood references as well as each time he speaks in English

~Erlend and Chris’s love scene at the outhouse and when Chris ‘falls’ into the latrine

~When Erlend gets killed, but only because of that head-splits-and-brain-drops moment

~Every time Martin—a Med student—shows how much of a frighten hot mess he is at the sight of blood

~When Martin and Roy are left behind at the cabin to wait for Sara and Vegard and this happens:

~The awkward way the Nazi zombies run across the snow, I mean, yes, they look menacing and scary, but mainly awkward

~When Liv is getting gutted by two zombies and she somehow grabs a grenade from one of their belts and the other zombie sees it and kind of gives an Oh-oh look

~When Martin—a now miraculously changed brave man—gets bitten and decides to low-key amputate his own arm and, ahem, something else? Here, take a look:

~When Roy gets gutted by a tree branch… but it is only funny because that is how the creepy visitor predicted he was going to die after Roy was a total jerk to him

~When Martin, against all odds, is the sole survivor and makes it safely to the car and finds the hidden gold coin from Hanna and, oh no, suddenly the main badass treasure-hungry Nazi zombie gets outside his window and a very clear, loud, and satisfying “FUCK” is said by the very proper Martin

The End,

—Marath