What I'm Watching: The Houses October Built

Oh geeze, I haven't done a Trisklet in over a month.  I am a bad webmonkey.  I'll try and be better in the new year.  Even though I've got a bunch of leftovers from 2014 to get through, I thought I'd kick off 2015 with the most recent movie I've watched.

Bonus because it's also fresh in my brain place.

That movie would be the found footage flick, The Houses October Built.  We follow a group of five friends who decide to go on an exploration of haunted houses (Or haunts) across the southern US, in the week leading up to Halloween.

That's actually super refreshing, and actually a GOOD and sensible use of found footage.  "Hey, let's go on a road trip, and film it!" and then shit happens?  Yeah, that's the second perfect setup for a found footage film.  For the other great example of a perfect setup, there's Grave Encounters.

So, the actual plot of the movie is actually really slow, if you sit back and look at it.  Nothing really major happens until the second half, and that's being generous.  A more accurate point would probably be the last 20 to 30 minutes.

But oh, those haunted houses.  That gives them perfect moments to keep things going, and just as the character stuff in the RV needs a break, the group hits one up and there's some good adventures in there.

Now, you know they're just haunted houses, and there's no REAL scares, but if you're along with the characters' journey, you end up enjoying the frenetic exploration of the locations.  Mixed in with those trips, they nudge the plot along as some of the characters are kinda jerky to the people working the haunts, make fun of them, and hunt around for the mythical extreme haunt, the Blue Skeleton.

While they search, they also run afoul of a few of the workers, which eventually comes around to bite them in the ass, as these familiar, and terrifying, faces keep popping up no matter where they go.  There's equal harassment being done by both parties, so while the main group does start to come dangerously close to making the viewers not like them, they never QUITE cross that line.  For the most part, you don't want these people to die.

One of the best parts, making this movie stand out from the rest of the found footage pile, is that they outright state that some of the scenes were filmed by the workers at the haunts, such as when they break into the RV to mess with the group, and once the kidnapping starts.  It breaks up the action, and allows for moments where our protagonists actually put down the damned cameras, the biggest problem of the subgenre.

I really enjoyed this flick, and that first half can even just be taken as just a genuine exploration of the budding haunted house industry that explodes every Halloween.  The fictionalised horror make things all the more fun, and if anything, would make going to a haunted house THAT much more terrifying.  I'm sure things like this DON'T happen, but sharks also aren't a bit problem, but we all know what Jaws did for those animals.

The ending has been a sticking point for a lot of people, as they usually are with found footage horror flicks.  I've complained about them plenty.  Just...how do you end these things?  But I didn't mind the ending here.  It's...definitively open ended.

So many FF horrors end with vague, VAGUE endings, where the filming just STOPS because the Monster of the Week has appeared and killed the people holding the cameras, and what do you do then?  Fortunately, the killers in this case have cameras of their own, and are as obsessed as anyone else over filming everything, so we get to go a little further.

The movie still ends pretty vaguely, but way more clearly than normally.  There is enough room for an interpretation I *really* like, and y'all should back out right the heck now, because here come the spoilers.

We close with the group being buried alive in coffins and screaming for their lives, after being tormented and chased around a run down home, and transported on a bus, and being generally terrified.

But...these people were looking for the most extreme haunt.  They found it.  So...what if instead of dying in those coffins, they were let out, and the haunters all had a good laugh at how pants-wettingly terrified the five friends were?  We never ACTUALLY see anyone die.

It would be perfectly in line with what they were looking for, and I would've liked to see them end up that way.  A great kind of "be careful what you wish for" tale.  Which the movie still *is*.  The best argument for not having that ending is because it would've been anticlimactic to bury everyone, then let them go and smile and say "Just kidding!" and credits roll.

But because the movie is left open ended, but dark, you can absolutely go that route with an interpretation of what happens next.

All in all, Houses may have taken a while to get to the real horror, but it kept things interesting enough with good characters, a sense of humour, and a unique story that really made *sense* to tell as found footage, and used the trappings of that to good effect.

This is definitely a recommendation.  And y'all know I don't recommend found footage flicks lightly, since they can be so problematic with their storytelling.

What I'm Watching: Mischief Night (2014)

Jumping from Memorial Day to almost-Halloween, I thought I'd give my thoughts on the freshly released Mischief Night!

Now, when trying to find information on this movie, I discovered there's like...a dozen of them with the same title.  And nearly FOUR of them in the last year.  So if you want to find stuff out about it beyond my words, Here is the IMDB page, and Here is the trailer.

Mischief Night is, as most of us surely know, the night before Halloween, which has taken over a lot of the pranking on that night.  Some other movies...er, cultures call it Devil's Night, but it's all the same thing.

Here, we have a young girl, Kaylie, who is babysitting for a family to help out a friend, and has to deal with the usual batch of naughty teens.  And then Malcolm McDowell arrives at her front door to warn her to be careful and not open the door for any strangers.

She promptly ignores that advice and ends up being the victim of a masked home invader, and ends up getting chased, attacked, and tied up.

Now.  I know what you're thinking.

Jason! you say.  Jason, we've seen this movie a hundred times before!

And you are correct.  But here's the thing.  All that?  All the usual stuff?  Takes place in the first act.  The first 30 minutes get through everything you expect from that plot.

And then things get interesting.

The second act was just...  It was SUCH a delightful surprise, because I was realising, as Kaylie was being tied up in the chair, just how little movie there had been, and this was usually the point where the movie was wrapping up.  I was wondering where the movie would go from here, and it did NOT disappoint.

See, Kaylie is a little disturbed, and she starts to freak out her captor.  This whole thing didn't go as planned, and he's got a headache from a few dozen vases getting smashed in his mask.  So he decides to screw this and go home.  He frees Kaylie and is about to leave when the pranksters return, stopping his escape short.

He watches as Kaylie shows her own mischievous side as she gets her revenge on the pranksters.  He gets this GREAT look of "Dude, this chick is more screwed up than me, and I'm wearing a cheap Michael Meyers knock off mask!" on his face for a good solid five minutes as he watches his former captive go about her fun.

It was at this point, as the pair start to actually bond, that I got a huge grin on my face, asking out loud, "Are...are they actually flirting?!"  The movie swerves wildly in the second act and actually becomes the single most bizarre and most awesome horror love story I have ever seen.

And it was a joy to behold.  The chemistry was decent, the mischief they made was fun, and it was just such a surprise that I was totally along for the ride because this was a truly unique experience.

I was legit nervous that the third act wasn't going to live up to the promises of the second act, and the movie would fizzle, but oh no!  I should have had no fear!  The movie continues to surprise in the final 30 minutes continues to deliver on surprises as things get back on the horror track and get weird and a little disturbing.

Those final surprises may not have been the most surprising turns of events, but they still kept things lively and flowed out of previous events perfectly.  That's part of WHY they weren't surprises, but they were executed well.  Pun most definitely intended.

And no.  I will not spoil those final twists.  I have already spoiled too much of this movie, but I had to give the readers something to explain my feelings for this movie.

I absolutely adored Mischief Night.  It was the single most enjoyable experience of a little indie movie I have had in a VERY long time.  Any horror fan has got to see this movie for a unique story that just has not been told, and is told fairly well.

You get the usual pitfalls of a lower budget flick like this.  The acting isn't great at times (But I have zero problems with it) and McDowell was ultimately wasted in a bit part that he was still great fun to watch, though.

I cannot reccommend this movie enough.  It started off okay, and then just kept surprising and pleasing me, leaving me with the biggest grin on my face for having given this a chance.

So here's to Mischief Night, my new favourite holiday movie.

What I'm Watching: Hallow's Eve

And now it's time to wish all the ghouls and goblins a happy Halloween!

So of course, I have this little treat for you, and what more appropriate movie to take a quick look at than the aptly titled, Hallow's Eve?

This is one of this month's independent movies I've never heard of that I got drawn in by an intriguing trailer, and once again, the presence of Danielle Harris.

Oh, the movies I will sit through for her...but I digress.

Hallow's Eve follows the story of a young girl who gets seriously injured on her farm as a kid, when a bunch of kids tease her and chase her into the path of an oncoming tractor.  She survives, but is horribly scarred by the event, both physically and mentally.

Several years later, the kids are once again coming to the farm, to partake in the yearly Halloween haunted farm event the family throws.  It's not long before bodies start dropping, and you start wondering just what is going on.

Straight up, the best thing about this movie is Harris.  She puts in one HELL of a performance as the girl's mother, and brings much needed emotion and character to the film.  Everyone else never quite clicks for me, and that just makes Danielle's performance stand out all the more.

The haunted house like setting on a farm is also a highlight, as it gives lots of creepy places to kill people off, and it strikes me that there haven't been more Halloween themed movies set in places like this.  You would think a dark farm, with corn fields, and creepy decorations, and eerie characters would be a huge trope, but no.  The fact that the setting is most refreshing is another good reason to watch this movie.

This all leads to a pretty hefty body count, with some really good effects and deaths, so there's that at least.

But it all leads up to an ending that is...at the same time, somehow completely obvious, mind boggling, and satisfying all at the same time?

It manages to give a little bit of a twist of presenting two killers, which I always like.  It allows you to throw suspicion off everyone and keep people guessing, and that actually works really well.  One of the killers is exactly who you think it is, and the other is...somehow logical, but never quite set up well to my satisfaction.

Still, there's enough here to like, and even the parts that are wince worthy are mostly in good fun, and given with a wink and a nod to the audience.  This movie knew it was campy, and it hit the mark pretty well.  I may have thrown my hands in the air in the last few minutes, but the movie wasn't ruined by the ending, so that's always a plus.

Hallow's Eve is a fun little bit of campy Halloween fun, and if you get the chance, I actually reccomend giving it a chance for your late night Halloween watching.