Horror Movie Talk

Synopsis In South Korea there are 7 super-haunted locations, and Gonjiam the abandoned asylum is one of them. This movie follows a team of ghost hunting live streamers as they attempt the biggest stream of their lives. Picking up 3 female volunteers and one bro volunteer, the Horror Time crew breaks into the haunted asylum and begin streaming it to the world. But things do not go as planned for the jaded paranormal investigators, and they are quickly in over their heads as real occurrences present themselves. You could even say they are experiencing some sort of incident in a ghostland. Review of Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum This is my second viewing of Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. I first heard of this movie from our facebook group a while back and checked it out with zero expectations and was pleasantly surprised. For a movie I had never heard of before, it was actually pretty fun to watch. Coming back to the film about a year later I am able to see some of the flaws a little clearer. Mikayla mentioned that found footage is hard for her because the camera motion makes her feel nauseous. Well that really becomes a problem for this movie as there are like 20 moving cameras switching back and forth. Each character is equipped with a go pro looking directly at their face, a pov cam, and some of the crew even have handheld cameras just to bump that multicam number up. One of the dudes has a wide fisheye camera that is so confusing to look at that you literally can’t even tell what’s going on when they cut to it. It also takes about half the movie’s runtime for anything scary to really happen. With those negatives out of the way, I think this movie provides some seriously scary scenes, creepy atmosphere, and visuals that will stick with me for a long time. I still like this movie, it just isn’t quite as good as I remember it being. If you like found footage style horror and foreign films it’s worth a watch in my opinion. Score 6/10

Synopsis Peter Dinklage plays Winston, a janitor working for a super polluter company called Body Talk Healthstyle, who struggles to support his stepson Wade after his mother dies of cancer. When he is diagnosed with cancer of his own, he appeals to his boss for an insurance policy that will cover his medical expenses. Like all good bosses, he denies this, so Wade attempts to steal the money only to be caught by henchmen and thrown in toxic waste. But to everyone’s surprise, the sludge only makes Winston more badass. Under the new name of the Toxic Avenger, Winston fights crime and kicks ass. Review of The Toxic Avenger (2023) I will admit that I may have originally misjudged The Toxic Avenger. Our Facebook group has mentioned this movie multiple times, and it just never looked very appealing to me. I am personally just not very interested in crass, overly explicit shock gore movies. But to be honest, I found myself laughing a lot more than I expected to. There are some genuinely funny moments in this movie, and the cast is stacked with actors like Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, and, of course, Peter Dinklage, who carry this movie on their backs. It’s still not really my cup of tea, and I actually think the movie got progressively less interesting as it moved through act 3, but it’s still a decent movie that affords some good times. Score 6/10

Synopsis When the young couple, Sage and Diego, walk into their Airbnb or Verbo or whatever, I dont really know, they can’t believe how beautiful it is. For the low, low price of I dont know, a million dollars, they get to stay in this amazing lakefront mansion for the weekend. But trouble is afoot. A second couple, Will and Cin, arrive, claiming they have also booked the property for the weekend. Instead of leaving and demanding a refund from the host as any normal person would, they decided to share the large house for the next few days. But things become more turbulent as Will and Cin show their wild side, and are increasingly inappropriate with Sage and Diego. Your social anxiety might try to tell you that they are just quirky and weird, but there may be more beneath the surface. Review of Bone Lake When Bone Lake came out in theaters, I was excited to watch it, but due to conflicting schedules and its limited release, we were unable to review it at that point. This was disappointing because I had heard it was really scary (mainly from my wife, who saw the trailer and said it creeped her out, which is usually a good sign for me). So when I saw it was streaming on netflix I immediately texted Bryce and told him we were reviewing it this week. Oh, how I wish I could turn back time. This movie is pretty boring and has been done before (and better). The whole time I kept thinking “they already did this with Speak no Evil, a movie which did so well that it was immediately remade with an American cast”. Bone lake does the same thing with a worse script and less tension. Thats not to say anything about Bone Lake is particularly bad. It’s fine. But the main stressor throughout the film is “Will these characters sleep with each other,” and that’s just kind of lame (unless you are super horned up). But even then its kind of a letdown. We’ve all had that one friend who makes the social situation a little more sexual than it needs to be, and while that is uncomfortable, it’s not scary. I’ll give it points for having some sort of funny, dark comedy kills in the beginning. But mostly I was waiting for it to be over. Score 4/10

Synopsis Primate is about a college student named Lucy who comes home to her family house in Hawiia, along with a few of her friends. But this is no ordinary house, for it is home to humans and apes alike. Lucy’s father owns a pet/member of the family named Ben who is a fully grown chimpanzee. Im sure without explaining anymore you can already tell where this is going. When her father leaves for an important book signing, Lucy and her friends are left alone as Ben starts to act weirder and weirder, showing signs of rabies. By the time her father comes home, their fate may already be sealed. Review of Primate The set up for Primate is very basic and has been done time and time again using various animals. If you’ll recall movies like the Shallows, or Crawl, then you know all about Primate. But what separates this movie from the others is the many different ways chimpanzees can kill you. With a shark, you basically got one move. They bite. Chimps on the other hand bite, beat, rip and tear, and you can be sure to see all of that here. And it is every bit as horrifying as you can imagine. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie I was fully bought in, and honestly felt extremely tense throughout the entire film. Chimps are terrifying, but they also fit in this weird slot of uncanny valley where they can also be extremely cute and hilarious. I don’t think seeing a chimpanzee on screen with ever cease to amaze me, and I am totally here for it if they want to make a Primate 2 and 3. This movie had me genuinely scared. That being said, it is also super predictable. Its a paint by numbers movie where the main color is blood red. Which is fun, but not super thought provoking. Score 7/10