Last Shift (2015) – movie review

Last Shift (2015)

written and directed by Anthony DiBlasi

starring:
Juliana Harkavy
Joshua Mikel
J. LaRose

 

This starts as a slow burning creeper. It takes a good half hour to catch fire but it does and it is worth the wait. A young rookie cop, Jessica, is assigned to guard an old police station on its final night of operation. The station has a new location on the other side of town. She has to remain at the old one until a hazmat unit picks up some evidence to discard. She is supposed to be alone. Clearly she is not.

The place is haunted by one terrible event. It’s haunted by the perpetrators of a violent evil deed. It’s haunted by the victims of that same deed and the young rookie cop’s personal connection to this event is cause for disturbance. She is tormented by the dead by vile means and is driven to the edge of sanity by crazy visions, psychological attacks and disturbing mind games. She is also tormented by the living connected to the event.

Juliana Harkavy plays a convincing part as the rookie cop struggling to keep her father’s honor and not abandoning her post, while being assaulted by the cult-ish freaks that haunt the halls of the station. The ending leaves a little to be desired but the journey was worth a watch. Currently available on Netflix streaming.

This is a fun horror flick combining both psychological and visceral terror with a super creepy climax.

I give it 3.9 horrifying haunted hails out of 5 on the crazy cult concubine from hell scale.

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parlor of horror – movie review

1408 – movie review

1408 (2007)

Directed by Mikael Håfström
Based on 1408 by Stephen King

Starring John Cusack
Samuel L. Jackson
Mary McCormack

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Mike Enslin writes about haunted hotels, motels an B&B’s. He stays in the scariest, most haunted rooms around the world. He writes about his experiences, but he doesn’t believe a word he writes. We get a little time to feel the character in this film, divorced, skeptic, going through the motions. If a motel gets a chapter in one of his books, they see increased bookings. Motel owners and fans send him invites and tips of haunted places in the mail. That’s where he gets a postcard about the Dolphin Hotel in NYC.

The manager of the Dolphin Hotel, Mr. Olin, (played impeccably by Samuel L Jackson) doesn’t want Mike to stay in room 1408. Mike thinks it’s a ploy to build mysticism. There has been a plethora of grisly murders, suicides and untimely deaths in the room. No one can last an hour is what the rumor says.

This isn’t a typical haunting, no spirit or phantom is guiding the action. Mr. Olin says it best, “It’s an evil f*cking room.” So don’t expect a ghostly apparition looking for revenge. The room just loves to torment the guests. It torments the mind. It torments the body, it’s torments from personal memories and personal feelings. Mike is ever the skeptic, ready to debunk every small incident, until he can’t any longer. But 1408 will not let him go even after he admits defeat. It wants to defeat him to the core of his soul.

If you like paranormal and psychological horror, this is one crazy film. You’ll have to keep your wits about you because at one point, the room lets Mike think he’s escaped its clutches when he hasn’t. And nearing the end of the film, when he gets through a lifetime of torment, the clock resets. He’s only been in the room for an hour. John Cusack performs outstandingly as the man being tortured to the brink of madness. I enjoyed his talking into a voice recorder, trying to rationalize what was happening and making little observations about the events. This helps to translate King’s story which relayed much of the thought processes of the Enslin character.

I understand a lot of people don’t like this film much. I liked it quite a lot. It’s one of my favorite Stephen King film adaptations. It’s like a modern equivalent of The Shining, but it’s more than that. You get the feeling of going down that rabbit hole, of falling through the looking glass and that once we’re untethered from reality, everything becomes possible. The haunting is of the mind, not the physical plane. And all is madness.

A frightening psychological paranormal adventure in a small room that finds a man’s greatest fears and thoroughly exploits them.
I give it 4.3 frightening feral accommodations on the malicious machinations of madness scale!

 

Trivia (via IMDB):

The first victim of room 1408 is a man named Grady, sound familiar? (Grady was the name of the bartender from The Shining)

The axe used by the Fireman to break into the room is the same axe Jack uses in The Shining.

At a book signing the Mike Enslin character says, “Stay Scared.” This is an oft used quote of King’s good friend, Wes Craven. Craven often wrote it with his autographs.

 

13 Trivia

We all know the numbers 1408 add up to 13 (1+4+0+8=13). But there are dozens of references to the number 13 regarding this film. I’ll mention a few here:

*The post card which has a tip to stay at the Dolphin Motel reads: “Don’t enter 1408” – it consists of 13 digits and letters.

*The Dolphin Hotel as located at 2254 Lexington Street in NYC. (2+2+5+4=13)

*The run time on the film is 104 minutes and 8 seconds. (1+0+4+8=13)

*The first death in the hotel was in 1912 (1+9+1+2=13)

*And the US release date of the film was June 22, 2007 (2+2+2+0+7=13)

As Above, So Below (2014) – movie review

As Above, So Below (2014)

Directed and written by John Erick Dowdle

Perdita Weeks
Ben Feldman
Edwin Hodge

I have to admit I have some claustrophobia concerning tight closed-in spaces. I was at one time plagued by nightmares where I was crawling through a tight, dirt tunnel and the tunnel ahead kept getting smaller and tighter until I could barely move. In this film there’s a scene where the character, Ben, gets stuck in one such tunnel and the more he struggles, the more the tunnel collapses on him. You can see the desperation and panic in his face and in his actions. This scene was so well done it was excruciating for me. I squirmed in my seat and cringed. I screamed at him to remove his belt to free himself.

Let’s back up a little. As Above, So Below is a Found Footage film with a bit of a twist, there are survivors in the end, which was a nice difference. It looked pretty grim at times and I didn’t think anyone would actually survive. The film concerns an urban archaeologist, Scarlet, who is desperate to solve a riddle concerning Aramaic texts that hold some alchemist’s secret of life. Scarlet takes increasingly risky chances following a trail of clues. It seems her father had committed suicide after trying to solve the same riddle and she has vowed to solve the problem in his name.

The trail leads her and a small crew, choreographer, Ben, and love interest, George, to the catacombs of France. She hires an outlaw guide and his crew with the promise of hidden treasure in a secret room as yet undiscovered by modern archaeologists. They follow a jigsaw of ancient maps and texts deeper into the earth, eventually leading them to a pathway marked ‘the gates of hell.’ (Those who enter, abandoned all hope). A collapse behind them forces the crew forward and some strange apparitions and occurrences plague them. There are some mighty chilling scenes here, enjoyable for a horror fan like me. In fact the scares were so well paced and executed that I was smiling in between the scenes. Aside from the paranormal chills, there were also the real life horrors of being in underground caves; the confined spaces, the feeling of being lost, the paranoia of the surroundings, and underwater tunnels (gasp), all portrayed for maximum effectiveness.

While the ending was not as satisfying as I would have liked, I enjoyed the journey immensely. The characters were quite likable and empathetic. I look forward to seeing more from director, John Erick Dowdle, who has previously written and/or directed great horror flicks like, Quarantine, Devil, and The Poughkeepsie Tapes. While some may be turned off by the Found Footage style I think it serves this film well.

A well-paced and interesting horror found footage film that dishes out many original chills and thrills, with both psychological horror and physical horror aspects combined. 

I give it 4.1 creepy quagmires out of 5 on the crawling through claustrophobic catacombs capers.

Fun facts

The term ‘as above so below’ is part of Hermatic theory and philosophy. It states that, As in heaven, so on earth – meaning if you think good thoughts, good will follow, if you think bad thoughts, evil will follow. Whatever we think or accept will be the circumstances of our lives.

The hexagram symbol in the movie is used by Satanists and black witches to both, call a demon forward or to keep it at bay. In other instances it is symbolic to create balance in life.

The Catacombs of Paris is an underground grave site which contains the remains of approximately Six Million people, many of which were relocated from existing Parisian cemeteries at the time it was conceived (1782). Underground mines which were no longer used for their original purpose became the housing for the overcrowded Paris cemeteries. The head of the Paris Mine inspection service in 1810 took it upon himself to make the mere housing of the bones into a mausoleum of sorts, stacking skulls and bones in a way that was artistic in some senses. He also used old artifacts and fountains from the original cemeteries to make it a visitable burial place.

 

 

look! I can make a shadow rabbit…with three ears!

lesson 1 – if you see a piano where it don’t belong, don’t play it!

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