Horror Movie Reviews

We Are Still Here

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We Are Still Here (2015) – Horror | Drama

Directed by: Ted Geoghegan

Starring: Barbara Crampton and Andrew Sensenig

How I Watched: Blu-Ray

Best Line: “You’re not leaving here. You stay, you satisfy the darkness.”

A good haunted house movie is defined by the house itself. It has to use the house in a way that it stands as its own character, impacting the story in a way that you, as the viewer, do not want to be in that house. It has become a difficult feat in modern horror cinema, something that was taken to heart back in the 1970’s. The Shining and The Exorcist both used their surroundings to scare the living hell out of their audiences and first-time director Ted Geoghegan knows this well.

We Are Still Here‘s house is a prime example of how to use the setting as an effective character. The movie begins with the characters driving up to the house and then shots of the lonely rooms inside of its antiquated shell. Each great shot is dripping with dread and it really does not let up from these first few moments for the rest of the film. Setting this in the 1970’s was extremely effective as well. The absence of cell phones in We Are Still Here plays a big part in this story and I think Geoghegan knew this when he wrote it.

The cast is not especially incredible but it does not really need to be. Barbara Crampton plays the grieving and ever-optimistic mother role pretty well, carrying a few scenes that really needed a convincing performance. Andrew Sensinig does a convincing enough job as her husband and Lisa Marie plays a pretty damn good hippie with self-professed mental gifts. Monte Markham has a particularly good turn as the film’s menacing antihero, growling his way through some pretty dark scenes.

We Are Still Here‘s standout performance though, comes from Larry Fessenden. Evoking a stoner Jack Nicholson from The Shining, Fessenden grabs the screen from his first appearance as Jacob Lewis, husband of Lisa Marie’s bohemian telepath. He seems immediately lovable, providing the film with its first hints of levity from the opening credits. His ultimate scene though, is one of the most intense in the movie, reminiscent of The Exorcist at its most extreme. This scene will cause you to grit your teeth and sink into the safety of your couch and was really the standout of the film, for me at least.

Though We Are Still Here is set in the 70’s, the movie feels like it was filmed in that decade as well. It seems purposely low budget, not dirty, but not very polished. Scenes are awash in a sea of grey and earthy tones, making the red in the especially gory scenes stand out that much more. CGI is used sparingly, Geoghegan springing instead for physically acted frights. There are not many jump scares to speak of and darkness is used cleverly by the film’s cinematographer. The score is not overbearing and its electronic elements remind me a lot of Fulci’s films, as well as Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

I think why I enjoyed this movie so much was due to how they used the house. One of the most repeated quotes by multiple characters in We Are Still Here is, “This house needs a family,” suggesting ultimately, that the house itself is an active character. This idea has frightened me since I saw The Shining for the first time, imagining that an inanimate object can bend the will of humans. It gives me shudders and this film carries this idea out masterfully.

We Are Still Here definitely isn’t perfect. It precariously rides the fine line between B-Horror throwback and haunted house hall of fame. Some may understandably find the low budget schlock angle off-putting and even a bit silly. What the film lacks in polish though, it returns in a deliciously vicious mountain of dread. It takes quite a bit of love and dedication to make a haunted house movie this well, and to learn that this is director Ted Geoghegan’s debut is very impressive. I really can’t wait to see what he has for us next.

Final Score: 3.5/4

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Similar Films: The Innkeepers, The Evil Dead, The Shining

The Witch

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The Witch (2015) – Horror | Drama

Directed by: Robert Eggers

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Ineson

How I Watched: Amazon Instant Video

Best Line: “Wouldst thou like the taste of butter and pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

As a pretty big fan of supernatural horror movies, I was naturally pretty excited when I saw the first trailer for The Witch. One of the darlings of the Sundance Film Festival, the movie met critics’ adoration the world over, commending the film’s creeping horror and brutal dreadfulness. It hit particular theaters at odd times, so I didn’t get the chance to see it, but took advantage as soon as it started showing on online streaming services.

It’s not too often that a movie can inject dread right into your veins within the first few minutes. Dread is important in horror films and this is something The Witch more than excels at. In fact, I think it’s a perfect exercise in the art of dread, each frame dripping with an unforgiving despair that does not let up until the screen finally goes black. It’s surprisingly ruthless right from the beginning and completely unafraid to show what a lot of horror movies don’t.

I am personally horrified by religious fanaticism. The Witch is set in a 17th century New England, so there is plenty of this right from the beginning. The family in the film blindly follows the Word, Old English being uttered by each character throughout, leaving a very bitter taste in your mouth that grows worse as the story progresses. The plot of land they live on is dirty, unable to grow produce, and completely shrouded in a depressing gray hue that leaves you feeling completely hopeless. If any movie was to ever gloat about its ability to introduce a universe utterly devoid of a heavenly being, it would be The Witch.

In fact, not since Rosemary’s Baby have I been left feeling thoroughly creeped out by a Satanic force. Typically, it seems that directors have a difficult time making witchcraft and/or Satanism frightening. It usually comes across as if they’re trying too hard or even show too much, with a heavily made-up dude in red donning cloven hooves and a tail. The Witch though, without giving away too much, succeeds with terribly evil flying colors at making witchcraft downright horrible. It’s couch-clutchingly vicious at times and even momentarily bordering on the unbearable.

Another facet of the film that really helped me get into it was the setting. I grew up nowhere near New England, but the farm I grew up on in the Inland Northwest looks eerily similar to the one featured in the film. My childhood home has an open valley expanse meeting a dark treeline on all sides and in the winter, mornings and sunset strike an uncanny resemblance to The Witch‘s moody gray-soaked cinematography. My father kindly told us witches lived in the woods, seeking children in the night, so you can probably imagine how much I identified with this film (Thanks, Dad).

My one complaint about the movie is probably a silly one to some people. I mentioned previously that the film’s dialogue is drenched in Old English, and while I find it to be strategically a good move in authenticating the storyline, it’s next to impossible to understand some of the whispered conversations without switching on subtitles. I am not one to complain about subtitles, but the film is not meant to have them, so it was a bit annoying to turn them on (me being a film snob that likes to see movies as they are meant to be seen).

Really though, The Witch is a damn great movie. It’s hard to call it a horror film, as really, it’s more of a suspenseful thought-piece on religion with some unbearably tense scenes peppered throughout. I’m excited to see where first-time director Eggers goes with his career. The acting is convincing enough, even with the translation issues coming through the speakers. If you really get into it though, with the lights off and the sound cranked up, The Witch will intravenously creep right in and stay with you the next time you’re out in those dark, moonlit woods.

Final Score: 3.5/4

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Similar Films: Rosemary’s Baby, The Blair Witch Project, There Will Be Blood

Crimson Peak

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Crimson Peak (2015) – Horror | Drama

Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro

Starring: Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston

How I Watched: Amazon Instant Video

Best Line: “A house as old as this one becomes, in time, a living thing. It starts holding onto things. Keeping them alive when they shouldn’t be.”

Let me begin by warning you that this movie is not scary in the way that you’d expect an R-rated haunted house flick directed by Guillermo Del Toro to be. Crimson Peak is at times, uncomfortably frightening but it just manages to avoid terrifying you into oblivion. Its story instead grows increasingly insidious as it progresses and is almost surgical in its mental burrowing of the viewer. What it will not do however, is cripple you into fear like some scenes in The Conjuring or The Exorcist. Crimson Peak is a classically well-told ghost story built upon the back of a Victorian era love affair.

Those of you that are now planning to avoid this one due to the words, “Victorian era love affair,” hey, I don’t blame you. From the trailers, I could tell that this one was possibly more Jane Eyre than Del Toro’s exceedingly brutal Pan’s Labyrinth or The Devil’s Backbone. When all is said and done though, trust me, it works. Fear not, thy testosterone. There’s enough tense moments in Crimson Peak to get at least a couple nods out of even the most jaded Horror film aficionado.

If you’re familiar with Del Toro’s track record, you know he’s made some pretty solid films. Including the two mentioned above, he’s credited with the insane Cronos, the Hellboy series and Pacific Rim. Sure, Mimic and Blade II weren’t exactly Citizen Kane, but c’mon. Everybody is allowed to slip up once in a while. While The Devil’s Backbone is his only other true ghost story, there were plenty of horrifying scenes in Pan’s Labyrinth, as well as movies he helped produce like The Orphanage and Mama, so I was not worried that he could handle the task of scaring us again.

For a little background on the film itself, the story features a young American writer that is swept off her feet by a mysterious entrepreneur that lives in a haunted British estate. For a bit, I felt the movie was going to be like 2012’s The Woman in Black. English accents swept over the lines and it started to seem as it was going to be a costume-themed period piece, until it really began to pick up once the story moved to this British estate. Those that have picked up on it might have already realized that the estate is called ‘Crimson Peak.’ I won’t tell you why but really, the more I think about it, the stranger this story gets.

The cast in Crimson Peak is pretty good, but it’s not exactly something to write home about. I was a bit disappointed that Del Toro didn’t manage to slip stalwart Ron Perlman anywhere in the movie, but hey, Doug Jones made it in so I guess I can forgive the man. Leads Wasikowska and Hiddleston do enough the keep the story going, but I really think this one belongs to Jessica Chastain. Del Toro is famous for his absolutely stone cold, evil villains and Chastain does not break this chain. It’s pretty refreshing to see her play a character that is not emotionally or morally confounded in a muddled thriller and she definitely steals the show from the rest of the cast.

As I mentioned above, this movie isn’t going to turn your blood cold. A few scenes will have you gripping the arms of the couch (if you’re in the right mood), but honestly, Crimson Peak is just more of a really cool movie. The cinematography is absolutely stunning and though I felt Guillermo was a bit liberal with some of the CGI effects, it was not enough to take away from the tale itself. Del Toro weaves his story intricately with those scares and avoids the easy jump-frights that a good number of recent horror films are guilty of. He instead takes the opportunity to build the terror like a layered cake, until those final few moments when he knows he has you roped in and invested in the storyline.

Final Score: 3.5/4

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Similar Films: The Others, The Devil’s Backbone, The Shining