philip_desaulniers Reviews

A Dark Song (2016)

Really Good Horror!

[8/10 · 9 June 2020]

I was so pleasantly surprised. This film had so much detail and foreboding atmosphere. Nothing over the top happened. Just a nice, slow, paranoid build and a payoff that did not disappoint for a change.

If you're a fan of the occult and demons and spirit worlds and dark rituals, this movie is for you.

It has an appropriate, albeit somewhat cliché score. Very nice settings, effects, performances. There are some bumps in the road plot wise, and I do wish I could have seen it with subtitles because I was not sure what was being said at some points, but overall, very good, unique horror movie.

Grave Encounters (2011)

Passable. Could have been much worse.

[6/10 · 30 April 2020]

Slightly higher quality, low budget, found footage horror flick. Not scary by any stretch, but also not completely awful.

It has the old haunted asylum trope that's been done to death.

I guess what makes this film better than it's other low budget cousins is the performances weren't that bad and the flick had a certain charm.

I'd recommend if you're truly bored. This flick doesn't bring anything new to the table but was still passably watchable. Could have done without needless CGI. Practical effects would have went a long way to making this thing better.

Dolls (1986)

Actually very good!!

[8/10 · 28 April 2020]

This flick surprised me with its quality and enjoyability. It was very good! I was expecting a low budget, by the numbers horror, the kind you usually get these days, but this a lot of fun.

It had cool characters, an interesting twist on the killer doll trope I was not expecting.

For a jaded, life long horror fan, I highly recommend this. Fun and well put together.

Sphere (1998)

Better Than Expected

[7/10 · 22 April 2020]

I do wish they would have shown the giant squid that attacked them though.

Deep in the Darkness (2014)

GET OUT Meets BONE TOMAHAWK

[5/10 · 15 April 2020]

Like the title says.

This wasn't a poorly made film. It was competently directed and acted. Just lacked charm. Things happen that don't make sense, just like in practically every horror movie. Passable make up effects.

Basically just a super average horror.

It was cool to see Dean Stockwell still acting though. Love that guy.

The Sentinel (1977)

The Ending Is Really Crazy

[7/10 · 4 April 2020]

Starts out like your typical ho-hum 70s horror / suspense. Not really good, no really bad. Mostly boring. Lady moves into building, her neighbours are all weirdos. Strange things happen that make her worry.

But the end, the final act, last third of the movie, things really start to pick up and crazy. You can tell that's were most of the production money went. Really enjoyed that.

If you like middle of the road, retro horror, I'd check it out. It's a bit of a snoozer til the end.

The House That Jack Built (2018)

Skip To The End

[8/10 · 20 March 2020]

The movie was painfully dull, let's face it. The only parts that intrigued me where the scenes with Virgil, where the screen is black and there's just the voice overs and occasional splash of water.

So anyway, the movie is dull and kind of makes your eyes hurt and your brain go dumb. Until the end, where it's Jack and Virgil walking around Hell. The set design was cool. We got some of that trademark Von Tiers slow mo shots. It got very visual, imaginative and fun. Whereas before, it was boring and lifeless. Really surprised me in the last 1/2 hour.

The Head Hunter (2018)

Good movie for movie monster lovers

[9/10 · 8 December 2019]

Really well produced and filmed. Great settings. Supremely well shot and acted. Make up and monsters really well done and practical.

The only gripe, kind of a tease action wise. Still, really enjoyed the film, the atmosphere, the special effects.

Don't Kill It (2016)

Actually Not Bad

[7/10 · 19 November 2017]

Sure, it has a low budget (i assume) but it really pulled off a violent, 80's caliber horror. Just the right amount of cheese and gore. Well paced, decent special effects, charming and funny in some scenes. The demon is just a relentless killing machine. Pretty cool.

Recommended if you like old school horror.

Clown (2014)

Surprisingly OK

[8/10 · 6 November 2016]

It's a movie about a dad that turns into a maybe killer clown. It was better than it had any right to be. Wasn't campy or over serious. No shaky cam (amazing in and of itself!) Just a good, well written, straight forward movie. Didn't try to be goofy or stupid. Told a good, engaging and, gasp, original story.

Very refreshing to a burnt out horror / movie fan like myself.

Wasn't heavy on gore. Hardly any jump scares. Story and pace flowed very well. No real lulls that I can remember. Actors did their job. Cool backstory. You could empathize with the characters.

An easy 8 / 10 from me.

The Caller (2011)

Some Spoilers

[6/10 · 25 September 2016]

This wasn't a bad or good movie. It was meh, dull and dragged in some parts. The settings were all bland and uninteresting. The pace was a little weird. The only thing I enjoyed was the premise.

The plot is a woman moves into an apartment and immediately makes fast friends with the gardener / groundskeeper, who gives her information about previous tenants when asked throughout the movie.

The main character starts getting calls from an old rotary phone. It's from a woman from the past. Main character does something that offends her and slowly present reality starts to change cause this upset woman from the past can change things.

She puts a drawing in a cupboard, walls off a closet, kills the gardener (in the past), kills somebody else, etc.

The woman starts to lose it and the movie ends with her killing her ex husband? I hate it when movies give these anti climatic, weird endings. Nothing really got resolved. Too bad.

Anyway, there's some cool back and forth between the two female leads during some scenes. That's about all this movie has going for it.

Blair Witch (2016)

Just bad

[1/10 · 22 September 2016]

What happened? Man, they really screwed up.

This movie has no subtlety. Everything, all the "scares", all the creepy forest sounds, the "plot", it's all so ham fisted and irritating. At some points, it is impossible to decipher what the characters are saying. The only thing that kept me going was my curiosity to see what the witch would look like, as I caught wind they showed her in this one.

This was a mistake, imo. It would have better to keep her existence a mystery. But no, they show her as some cgi humanoid thing with really long legs and arms. Some sort of blurry, tall, alien looking thing. Definitely more monster / alien looking than witch.

On top of that, they gave her or the forest super powers to stop time or prevent the sun from rising. They can switch up time and move sections of the forest around. That's why the forest made those creepy, wood cracking noises at night in the first flick. The forest was moving with witch magic???

To put it bluntly, nothing in this movie was good. It was bad top to bottom. It was hard to listen to and hard to watch. The original was cool because it was minimal and had subtleties. It didn't have glowing cabins, cgi witches, drone plane cameras that make the most abrasive noise in the world. The characters didn't get stuck in a permanent midnight. Time passed the same for each of them.

The characters in this movie went on this expedition because there was a new blair witch video found and a guy thought his sister was in it, so he goes and it turns out that new video they found was them and the tape travelled back in time? Like what!?