Horror Movie Round-Up, Q1 2009

Wow, it’s been awhile, yeah?  And it’s not that the horror well has been dry, either, just that I haven’t been writing about them.  So, let’s do a rapid fire thing to get caught up, shall we?

The Unborn: “Nazis always make a movie better,” a friend of mine told me recently.  When she said that, I immediately threw this movie in her face.  A concentration camp ghost story with deep roots in Jewish mythology certainly sounds cool.  It doesn’t hurt that Odette Yustman is absolutely gorgeous, either.  Except that Yustman, while beautiful, is less lifelike on screen than the lowest common denominator of Jessica Biel and Diane Kruger, and David Goyer directing David Goyer’s script has never worked as well as it should have.  Goyer, like George Lucas, works best when there are people around to tell him his ideas are bad.  The Unborn should have been better than it was, but was maddeningly forgettable.

My Bloody Valentine In 3D: YES.  I don’t go in for gimmick movies a lot, and I certainly have remake reservations a lot of the time, but the sheer reveling that this movie does in its gimmicky remakery makes me love it a bit.  It will probably play much differently when I watch it at home without the pickaxe (or naked girls, or shotguns, or human jaws) coming through the screen at me, but this is one of those ‘they got it right’ movies for me in the sense that it’s a great thrill ride with lots of blood.

Friday The 13th: The first 20 minutes of this movie are fucking gold.  Fried gold, in fact, to abuse the Internet vernacular.  And then it stops being good very abruptly.  The latter part of the film has no panache, and malicious redneck fast-running Jason is a bit unforgivable to the purist in me.  Yes, ladies, I know that Jared Padalecki is pretty.  I know, Veronica Mars fans, that Dick Casablancas gets speared through the head. But neither of those things is enough to make the movie click.

The Uninvited: A completely lackluster Korean horror remake.  Don’t bother.

A Haunting In Connecticutt: When was the last time one of these ‘based on a true story’ things was actually good?  Was it the original Amityville?  Probably.