Search

Search only in certain items:

Halloween (2018)
Halloween (2018)
2018 | Horror
I got chills
#halloween? while at times extremely #silly is a very enjoyable & fitting tribute to the #johncarpenter original. I must confess I hadn't seen the #original Halloween until a few weeks ago (its 4k release) & found it to be incredibly tense, dripping in dread, unnerving & extremely #creepy with an awesome soundtrack. #Halloween2018 manages to lovingly recreate everything people love about the first one but doesn't manage to do it quite as well. While I did enjoy this film a heck of a lot it does have a lot of problems - first of all the first half fails to create a chilling atmosphere & any tension for that matter, there's just far to many silly jokes/bad humour & the pacing is far to fast with scenes rushing by quicker than a #michaelbay movie. This leaves no time for dread, tension or the #chills the creepy lingering shots the first film brought us & I really hoped it would slow down at some point & thankfully it does. Approaching the second half things take a real turn & the movie really starts to have #fun feeling less like a tv movie & more like a #horror film, there are some great stationary camera shots, cool cinematography moments, great imagery, messy deaths & some really suspenseful stalking scenes with genuinely scary reveals/brutal attacks. Soundtrack wise it also switches it up a bit while still feeling #nostalgic too & there's an amazing garden scene where it really heightens the fear & dread. Themes of #depression & how it can make us feel cast out/alone & how our mental burdens can be passed down & effect our our children are handled well while metaphors for fighting our demons together as a family also feel refreshing & current. Overall its opening 10 minutes are brilliant then the film makes some really bad choices but recovers itself well enough to make it a film that's so worth seeing at the cinema. A big #nostalgia trip done right & with all its flaws looking at the film now as a whole I think it works well & is a great #love letter to #80s #slasher films & to #terminator2 haha. #odeon #odeonlimitless #jamieleecurtis #michaelmyers #killer #gore #horror #scary #retro #fridayfeeling #filmbuff #filmcritic #mask #frightnight
  
40x40

Kristy H (1252 KP) rated The Rumour in Books

Feb 13, 2018  
The Rumour
The Rumour
Elin Hilderbrand | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
6
7.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
It's a busy time on Nantucket and the rumor mill is churning away. Their focus? Best friends Madeline and Grace and their families. Madeline, a writer, is struggling to follow up on her last novel, or risk returning her (already spent) advance. She's also pretty upset that Grace's husband hasn't returned the money she invested in him a few months ago. Meanwhile, her son, Brick, is having troubles of his own, while dating one of Grace's twins: Allegra. Grace is busy on turning her yard into the talk of the town -- a beautiful garden escape, but she's also focusing a little too much on her landscape architect, Benton Coe. Her husband, real estate agent, Eddie, is over his head with several spec houses and is trying to make back the money in some unusual ways. And neither Grace nor Eddie have any idea what their teenage twins Allegra or Hope are up to... As the rumor mill gets busy in Nantucket, how much of what is swirling around is true? Are these two families headed for a fall?

There is a small group of novelists who write about Nantucket, and I tend to get them confused, because I'm awful like that, but this book had been on my "hold" list at the library forever, so I probably read a review of it somewhere. It was a pleasant and refreshingly enjoyable read; I would categorize it as an ideal beach book. It's not going to win any writing prizes, but it was a surprisingly captivating tale of these two families on Nantucket. There was no one real identifiable character (both Grace and Madeline have their strengths and weaknesses and could be rather irksome at times) but it was still enjoyable. Even better, while the plot was silly and a little ridiculous at times, with the families still having far too much money, they also had some real problems and issues, which they actually had to address. It also wasn't completely predictable, nor did it just focus on a love story, which was nice for this genre.

Overall, 3.5 stars: put a paperback of this in your beach or pool bag this summer; it will be a fun diversion.
  
The End of the Ocean
The End of the Ocean
Maja Lunde | 2019 | Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry
8
8.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
The End of the Ocean by Maja Lunde is Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi) at its best and most stark. At its best, because everything that happens feels as though they are the reasonable consequences of what we are predicted now; most stark, because this is truly a terrible version of the future.

In the present day(2019), 69 year old environmental activist Signe discovers that her home town, and in particular her ex-boyfriend, is responsible for cutting up and shipping off ice from their glacier to sell to the rich, so that they can have glacial ice in their expensive cocktails. She decides to sabotage the shipment, and steals some of it - or what she can carry in her boat. She sails her ship through a terrible storm with the intention of taking it to the person responsible.

In 2041, David and his daughter Lou, arrive at a refugee camp after escaping from war and fire in their French home. There is little water and food, but David is hopeful that his wife and infant son (who they’ve been separated from) will be there or arrive soon.

The two stories are linked when David and Lou find Signe’s boat in the garden of one of the abandoned houses.

This is such a powerful book. It takes current scientific research and arrives at the extreme end of its prediction: drought, famine and war. I had to read it in short chunks, because I found the story so moving and intensely depressing, to be honest. It doesn’t feel exaggerated: I didn’t read it thinking “Well that would NEVER happen”. It’s all too plausible, in fact. I really liked how the two stories ran parallel to one another and joined up in the latter half of the book, with the boat as some sort of symbol of hope.

It’s not all depressing though. There is an element of hope, and we see the enduring strength of the human spirit. I have The History of Bees on my bookshelf, which I will read now - and I’ll definitely look out for the third in this quartet of books.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for my copy of this book.
  
    Design This Castle

    Design This Castle

    Games, Entertainment and Stickers

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    Design your Dream Castle! With over 800 highly detailed furniture items to customize with. Join the...