Blog Archives
The Charnel House
So. I thought I was getting a ghost story with this one, but, uh, no…not quite. What I DID get was a super hot mess that was boring AF. When did Netflix become the home of terrible horror? On the one hand, I’m “yay!” because I’m pretty much always down for terrible horror. On the other, I’ve yet to find the GOOD kind of terrible horror so I am very sad about Netflix’s life choices. 😦 Anyway, back to the terrible terribleness of this.
This one involves an old slaughterhouse turned into lofts, a creepy kid, lots of former murders, and secrets (that aren’t exactly secrets, but the people in the movie seem to think so, so whatever). Welcome to the slaughterhouse, where the owner killed a bunch of employees or something? They weren’t super clear on this, but I think he just kidnapped and killed employees for 80 billion years before someone finally caught on. Then he threw himself out a window at the top of the building, trying to take his son with him. Fun stuff!
Years later, a couple with a kindergarten-age daughter turns the slaughterhouse into fancy-schmancy, state-of-the-art, high-tech lofts. It’s all very happy-making. Approximately 4 people move into these lofts – people who appear to have no jobs and spend most of their time either working out in the gym, making eyes at each other or researching old murders. Lucky bastards. The couple’s daughter is kind of a brat and gets kicked out of kindergarten (who knew that was a thing?), so ends up being at the lofts 24/7. She starts running around with an “imaginary” friend who likes to hang out in the TVs and destroy her artwork. What a jerk. Her father – one of the designers – has crazy migraines all the time and starts acting weird. Her mom is just, “WTF’ing?” all over the place. And then there’s a tenant whose father worked at the slaughterhouse back in the day; his father died when he was a kid, but the tenant doesn’t know if he was murdered there (I guess b/c the police really sucked at their jobs??).
It’s all very, very boring and very, very slow. Then comes the “twist”, which isn’t really a twist because they kinda told you in the first 5 minutes what happened – they just “explain” it – and it makes NO sense whatsoever, and frankly, I wanted to jump out the damn window myself by the end. Seriously. Murder & mayhem & imaginary asshole kids should be FUN. WTF, CHARNEL HOUSE? I am giving you my disappointed face.
If you like torture, you’ll love THE CHARNEL HOUSE. If you like fun & happiness, you’ll hate it (as you should). 0/10, do not recommend.
Devil’s Rock
Has anyone else seen this?? You’ve all probably already reviewed The Devil’s Rock
According to Netflix, this was a horror flick (and I mean, c’mon look at that cover!) but I wouldn’t categorize it as horror at all. I’m of the opinion that just because there’s a demon in a movie, that doesn’t make it horror but maybe that’s just me. I think I’d call this one more a “war drama with supernatural elements”. Oh, and don’t let that cover fool you into thinking this is some wicked cool Nazi exploitation type film either because I kinda thought there would be an Isla, She Wolf of the SS vibe happening but that’s nowhere to be found. All that aside, I dug this. Not the kind of dig that would make me watch it again but the kind that makes me go “Oh yay, I’m glad I didn’t turn that off after the first 20 minutes like I seriously considered!”.
Meet Helena.
Our story starts on the eve of D-Day when two New Zealand soldiers arrive on Forau Island. After navigating a beach planted with mines and tank traps, they are distracted by the sound of screams and gunfire. They approach a German fortification to increasing sounds of distress. Also this whole navigation takes TWENTY MINUTES. Just wanna throw that out there. I don’t mind a slow burn at all but this is the point where I almost stopped watching. There wasn’t a lot of character building going on in this time really, very minute as there was almost no dialogue, and not being a fan of war movies this had me concerned I’d opened up the wrong movie on Netflix. But let’s continue shall we?
Soldiers kill a Nazi and head into the fortress only to find a whole bunch of other Nazis dead in varying degrees of gore not to mention a little book of black magic. One soldier dies while the other is captured by the only Nazi left alive in the building and, after he is tortured for a bit, our soldier discovers that the Nazis called forth a demon, a shapeshifter, to use against the Allies. DAMN.
Say hello to…oh wait…still Helena!
Now our Nazi is pleading with our soldier to help him banish the demon before it’s too late and our soldier is being tempted by the demon who has taken the form of his dead wife, Helena. What’s a soldier to do?? I say watch The Devil’s Rock
Although not what I was expecting going in, this is a nice drama with sufficient gore and not a bad build up of tension. I was surprised at the lack of cheese factor (there was only one instance where I giggled inappropriately) and surprised (in the good way) by just how much I enjoyed this. Rainy day or looking for something other than a supernatural haunted house movie? Give this one a go.
Editor’s Note:Â Please excuse any spelling/grammar/mistakes of any kind as I’m functioning on 4 hours of sleep.
Cinema Schminema 