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Horror Movies

Odd Thomas 2013 Film review

11/18/2014

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By: Lindsay Morrison
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        The film Odd Thomas is an adaptation of the Dean Koontz book by the same name.  Odd Thomas (his mother says it was a mix up on the birth certificate however his father insists his name was always Odd) is a fry cook living in Pico Mundo. He also happens to be clairvoyant and works with the local Police Chief on homicide cases.  
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       The dead always find a way to contact Odd, by non-verbal means, to show who killed them, and Odd works to bring their killers to justice.  Odd has a girlfriend named Stormy, whom, according to a quarter fortune teller; he is destined to be with forever. Stormy and Odd understand each other completely and their love is solid. The movie represents this in such a way that you indeed want them to fulfill the prophecy.

        I didn’t want to compare this film to the book, but I feel it is important to do some comparisons.  I am a fan of the Odd Thomas book series.  It displays wonderful wit, has a great cast of characters, and it knows how to portray suspense while still maintaining humor. The books get big thumbs up from me.

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        The movie starts off with fast paced action that was rough.  It took me a good half an hour of continued watching of the film to get over how fast and how much action was presented.   The special effects used in this movie also really leave something to be desired.  The bad special effects, combined with how different the beginning of the film was compared to the book, left me a little disappointed. After the beginning, it is easier to pick up similarities to the book.
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 Odd is working at the diner; his cast of friends is present with wit, banter, adding into the premise of the story.  Odd sees Bodachs (The Bodachs, are present when someone is going to die, very reminiscent of the Graveling in the television show, Dead Like Me) and an interesting character named Fungus Bob come in. Odd sees these entities whenever someone if going to die, and there are more of the creatures than he has ever seen in one place. There is going to be a massacre at foot.  

Rating: Unrated

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Horror, Thriller

Directed: Stephen Sommers 


Runtime: 1 hr. 36 min.
 


 
Cast

· Anton Yelchin as Odd Thomas

· Willem Dafoe as Wyatt Porter

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Addison Timlin as Stormy Llewellyn

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Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Viola

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Nico Tortorella as Simon Varner

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Shuler Hensley as Fungus Bob

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Kyle McKeever as Officer Bern Eckles

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        Fungus Bob gets his name because he has a strange growth on his head.  He acts very odd (not Odd Thomas, odd). With all the Bodachs around, Odd suspects he is the cause of the upcoming upheaval in the desert town.  Naturally, he begins his sleuthing, following Fungus Bob to a home and experiences a fantastic entity consuming the home.

        As the movie progresses, wit and humor are aplenty, though it is often the same wit and humor recycled over and over again. He is an Odd one as we have come to know very well.  As appreciated as the humor is, they should have toned it down. Midway through the movie the humor finally found its ground, in fact, midway through, everything found its ground and the movie became fairly solid.  The suspense in this move was executed very well.  It has an accurate build up and throughout the movie the suspense never gets old.  The actor playing Odd, Anton Yelchin, could not have been a better pick for the role, and William Dafoe as the police chief was also fantastic pick.  The cast in general was pretty solid and made the fantasy story believable.

        After watching it I found myself wanting to revisit Pico Mundo.  The rough start aside, this is a good film.   Even though they pushed it through quickly, the story is solid, and they did have an entire book to condense into hour and a half of cinematic fun. The movie also stayed true to the book, with exception to the beginning.

        All around this was a good film. The special effects were not the best, but the movie accurately portrayed Odd, his clan and the world he lives in. If you are a Dean Koontz fan, this should be right up your alley. If you are a fan of whimsical horror/sci-fi, this is for you.  This is a movie that I could watch multiple times, and I recommend it for fans.
© 2014 Lindsay Morrison
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The Psychology of a Horror Fan

11/7/2014

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An Opinion Piece:

By Lindsay Morrison
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When considering the psychology of someone who loves horror, I have to go inward.  I am a huge horror fan.  Always have been, and by all likelihood, I always will be in some way.    
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My mother would often tell me; as soon as I could sit up I was watching horror films with my father.  She reminded me often on how she would tell me while viewing these that those things I saw on the films are not real; it is just masks, or make up and things of that nature.  Considering this, I could see as I grew older that whatever I saw in media, I could easily consider them not real.  I could make up in my mind that these bad things didn't really happen.  Though, I did know otherwise.

 It was not until I had my son that I understood fear on a new level. I had always had excellent preservation skills and I knew what fear was but there are so many facets of fear that I believe you cannot understand until you are put into them on deep levels.  But this brings me to the knowing and feeling are so completely separate things.

  There have been many studies on horror films and the people who watch them.  Some consider that there is a thrill seeking element to the enjoyment of them.  On a personal level, I cannot understand this as being the answer.  I would consider myself a mild thrill seeker.  I love roller coasters, haunted houses and things of that nature.  I would definitely parachute, paraglide, and more of those types of sports.  However, those feelings to me do not match up to viewing a horror film.    I feel exhilaration and a feeling with those thrill seeking activities.  Watching a film is, often, not producing that same exhilaration feeling for me.  So I look further to understand.

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  Others have hypothesized it is a feeling of pride to watch them.  Imagine a young male taking his female date to a horror movie.  She is scared and then he enjoys the experience more.  He can exhibit no fear and be a source of comfort to her.   I also cannot match up to this one.  I for one am female, and I would also be the one not showing fear. I have no sense of needing to show my attributes in this way.  It would not make me feel any better or worse to be with someone and feel differently then they did.

  There are interesting research being done, brain scans of horror fans and non-horror fans.  These, as they are done more should probably give good insights to the brain activity of these people.  It should prove interesting to follow these studies and see the outcome later.

 The facts of horror film fans I have come to consider is one of upbringing.  Those who I know and have had the pleasure of finding out some of their life story and then matching it up to being a horror fan seem to bring the same thing about.   They have, almost all, experienced some kind of tragedy in their lives.   Some event, or accumulation of events have happened, that did not coincide with an idea of sunshine and rainbows early on in life.

  Considering this, as I have for some time now, I try to mold this knowledge into what is the psychology of a horror fan.

  From one perspective, you can imagine people in a movie theater, an intense part comes up and someone while naturally yells at the screen, "Don't go upstairs!”   It is so easy for us to view this and know exactly how to handle the situation.  Of course, do not go upstairs!   Don't run back in the house.  Don't do this, don't do that!  Watching from the outside, allowing the stimulation of watching the fear and this dangerous situation play out you can easily gage how to act.

 If you want to start considering my observations on the fans, then it would make sense that watching these films, it is safe to see horror played out.  You are not going to experience it. You, instead, can sit there and allow it to play out, to experience it in a safe way and plot accordingly. 

This would make the horror of real life seem a little better then?

 But then, I consider this as well.  As I was writing this article, I took an obligatory social media break.  A friend posted a quote:

      “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.......             ..........And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

    From the outside this has nothing to do with horror films.  I took out some of the quote to shorten it down just to what I needed to get my point across here.  What if the real horror in this media is sitting there, watching it play out, planning your courses of action and realizing how powerful you are?  If you have experienced things in your life that you have to somehow overcome and you can safely release this through a media form and realize your strength.  Maybe that is truly terrifying to some people. 

 For the people who don't understand this yet, understanding their own psychology as a horror fan could be scary.  This could add the fear of the horror movie experience. The fear of seeing their own worth being played out in film form.       Or perhaps it is a good release.  Release to see these bad things in front of their eyes and know that everything is going to be okay, because they are safe watching them and not experiencing them.  Most horror films have a resolved ending.  Some moral of the story.  Horror films in general play by certain rules; laid out in the horror realm or by the work of art itself. If you can get release by seeing that things happen for reasons, it could calm the excitement of a person who has experienced real life tragedy down. It could give some sense of purpose to things that happen.  If you consider Marianne Williamson's quote in relation to what I have spread out here, if we can learn the rules of horror life, and play out a way to survive and be a beacon to others, it seems to be worth it in a big way.  Or if we can watch it be played out and see in ourselves how we would do it, we would then shine onto ourselves and give a sense of inner peace and purpose. There is so much more to consider.  No horror film is the same.  Some are playing by different rules, and like people, we do to.  This is not to say this is the answer for every horror fan out there.  The theories above of feeling superiority while watching them or seeking thrill are answer enough for some fans, and that is more than okay. Horror media is as complex as the fan itself.Copyright 2014 Lindsay Morrison

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Satan's Little Helper

10/28/2014

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By: Lindsay Morrison
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        Okay so with this film let's begin with the cover art.  It draws you in.  I will say I have seen this title for a while (well, probably about 10 years) and never watched it.  For some reason I had in my head this movie was a lot older than it is, even when I step back and consider it is 10 years old by now.
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The cover art is very nicely done.  It has just the right amount of darkness and a mischievousness that makes you wonder about this movie.

The beginning of the movie you instantly know, this is low-low budget. There is just no way around it.  I will admit I am not liking it just in the first few minutes because I have some weird thing about watching movies with this low budget type of camera  (By the way, if you know what camera was used, please email me, it is driving me nuts!).

I decide to give it a go anyway.  A lot of my favorite horror films are low budget.  I know sometimes there are gems hiding past all of the bad equipment.

This movie was not really the case.  It wasn't BAD.  Okay it was bad, but it was redeemable in some aspects.

So let's go on this adventure and see what was good and bad about it.   I will not give away any major spoilers.

The idea of this little film is a boy, Dougie (Alexander Brickel) who is 11, is obsessed with a video game called Satan's Little Helper. In the film you see this video game (and it somehow is on more than one platform?)  The game is bad.  Poor graphics and low quality game.  I give it a pass though; I am not holding the quality of the game against the film at this time.

Dougie is so obsessed with this game. His Dad bought for him and his crazy mother (Amanda Plummer) made him a Halloween costume of Satan's Little Helper, a character in the game.  We can see some character development here now. Everyone in this movie seems to just be so naive.  Mom lets the kid live in a dark fantasy world, and she (is not as bad as the "Mom" in Sleepaway Camp) seems to just float through situations, doing whatever is going to make people happy.


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Mom and Dougie pick up big sister from a ferry.  She is off at school studying theater.  She is coming home for Halloween to carry on the tradition of going out with Dougie.   (Sweet sibling moment)   Sister, played by Katheryn Winnick, brings home her boyfriend (Stephen Graham).

This does not make for a happy Dougie.  He was expecting to be with his sister (whom he states he is going to marry).  Now he has to share her (The family dynamic just gets stranger as the film progresses).

During the course of the day, Dougie comes across Satan.  He is in the middle of posing a body at a home he just killed.  Dougie is mesmerized by this!  All of his dreams have come true.  He is already dress in his Little Helper costume, so the next logical step is to ask if he can help Satan.  And I mean come on, why wouldn't Satan say no to this?

Parts of the film brings is through a bonding that Satan and Helper experience.  They purchase ropes, knives, & candy.  Break into homes... knock over pregnant ladies.  It is pure and innocent fun for them.  Well, for Dougie it is.  He cannot see that these things are really happening.  He is so struck in video game mode.

There is no real suspense in the movie up until this point.  The dark humor is coming in and out, which is a major plus.  The movie is saved by this.  Finding out Satan is a perv really added to his character.  It gave a depth he was lacking, just being a robotic "killer".

The intensity of a horror film finally comes and it is an intense moment.  This is a real game changer for every character and the plot.  You can start to feel the fear of the people involved now. It just goes on too long though with nothing to really heighten what we are doing here. After this moment though, the movie gets a lot better and we walk into the time that it is worth watching.

Even though I do not like the style of camera, the camera work and landscaping seemed to get better as the movie went on.  As did the acting.  It feels like this was the first attempt ever at making a movie and everyone learned as they continued.  However, the character development did not get better; it only got worse as the film went on.

Satan's strength was not consistent throughout the movie.  At one point he can barely push a guy around, and another he is throwing men through windows.  It just doesn't match up.

Dougie seemed to get dumber as the movie went on too.  We know that he is very naive, but his actions as the film progressed toward the end are just ridiculous.  He would have learned some lesson by that point.

The acting of Alex and Jenna, the sister make the film better, however their characters are just plain annoying.  There is a background story arc for Alex that plays through the film has a lot of potential, but falls short on almost every level.

 

The obligatory landscaping shots were good.  Nice colors and settings, however they did not match the movie either.

A shining character moment is Mom.  She went from being this aloof hippie to a real mom later in the movie.  She stands up to the tests of motherhood in crisis and does deliver.

The kills in this one is lacking.  There are a number of dead bodies, but you do not get to see a lot of the kill moments, but even if you did I don’t really think it would have made a difference.

Rewatchability?  No. Unless I am with someone who already has it on and wants to finish watching it.

How was it? Eh.  That's about all I got.  It was Eh.

Was it worth it?  I would say yes.  With all of its flaws and downfalls, it was worth a watch.  I can almost see how this has a small cult following.  Almost.

Direct to DVD released 10/04/2005

Premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003

Written and Directed by Jeff Lieberman

Starring- Alexander Brickel, Kathryn Winnick, Amanda Plummer, and Stephen Graham

Low Budget Black Comedy/Horror

The 100 minute running time felt like a LOT longer for this one.
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