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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated The Black Phone (2022) in Movies
Aug 8, 2022
After a swift MCU detour, Scott Derrickson is back in the horror business, and it's a welcome return. The Black Phone is unpleasant and tense, well crafted in its execution and pacing, and possesses quite a bit of heart, portrayed by a great cast, the stand-outs of course being Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw. The two child actors provide some outstanding performances and ensure that their character moments pack a punch. Opposite to them, Ethan Hawke gives us a genuinely creepy horror villain, a villain who is unhinged, and acts in a manner that is grounded in reality, reiterating what makes The Black Phone scary in the first place. This film plays on the very real fear that ones child could be taken. It's bleak, and hardly enjoyable, but it's effective. There are some moments of more supernatural horror, as well as a couple of well earned jump scares, and whilst this makes proceedings a little more unsettling, it doesn't take away from how utterly terrifying real life can be.
The Black Phone isn't perfect by any means, but it's a tight horror/thriller that looks great, and will worm its way under your skin.
The Black Phone isn't perfect by any means, but it's a tight horror/thriller that looks great, and will worm its way under your skin.
Sonofdel (6291 KP) rated 77 Shadow Street in Books
Jun 3, 2022
I have always loved Dean Koontz because of the way he immerses you in the situations in his book. Its not many authors that make you feel as if you are actually in the book not just reading it. Loved this book because whilst it is a work of fiction there are a lot of instances that ring true, particularly the way we are giving AI too much power and information. At first glance this is just your run of the mill horror house novel, but once you get into it, its so much more. Great character and development and i love the way that he does not concentrate on just one persons story. There are lots of different characters ranging from a small girl with autism to a contract killer and its blended in well to create an atmospheric, horrific and frightening novel. Its split into two books and i must admit that when i was about half way through i thought it was drawing to a close, how wrong i was. Well worth a read A++++
ClareR (6129 KP) rated The Book of Koli in Books
Mar 6, 2023
I’m a bit of a fan of dystopian fiction. I say “a bit” - I like it a lot. It’s just that I tend to dream about what I read, and a lot of dystopian fiction can be quite scary. So I had a few nights dreaming about killer trees and plants, drones that just want to shoot you, and people that want to eat other people (potentially - that becomes clearer as the book goes on!).
It’s entirely believable though (in MY head, anyway!). Some catastrophe has happened in the past that has rendered all technology completely useless - unless you have the gift, that is. And Koli, it turns out, has. Except he’s not supposed to, and he’s exiled from his village.
Tech is considered to be like magic, and so when Koli actually manages to switch something on and learns how it’s done - it’s a revelation!
This first book is really just the set up for the next one I think, where we get to know the main characters of the next book (Koli, Ursala, the Drudge), and I’m definitely up for book 2!
It’s entirely believable though (in MY head, anyway!). Some catastrophe has happened in the past that has rendered all technology completely useless - unless you have the gift, that is. And Koli, it turns out, has. Except he’s not supposed to, and he’s exiled from his village.
Tech is considered to be like magic, and so when Koli actually manages to switch something on and learns how it’s done - it’s a revelation!
This first book is really just the set up for the next one I think, where we get to know the main characters of the next book (Koli, Ursala, the Drudge), and I’m definitely up for book 2!
RavenclawPrincess913 (253 KP) rated Lakesedge in Books
Aug 1, 2022
I love the cover of Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone it's very pretty. I love how she's running up the stairs.
So to start off the mom burning Airen was messed up. There's never an excuse to hurt a child it's disgusting.
Quote: "I want his shadows." The monster said is why it wants Arien. He gives off bad vibes.
It also must have been weird for Airen's sister Violeta to have to ride with the monster as well. It also must have been scary when they were running from the monster in the woods.
Quote: "Tendrils of darkness unfold from the ground and snare the wolf, wrapping it's legs like vines." Very descriptive and scared me to be completely honest.
Quote: "This monster, who claims there's darkness in my brother who wanted to take Arien away and leave me behind, he came back for me." Does the monster have a little crush on Violeta?
This book was very interesting and loved it. The plot was so amazing. Love the relationship between Rowan and Violetta. I also love how she sacrificed everything. I would definitely reccomend reading this just be warned it's a very emotional story.
So to start off the mom burning Airen was messed up. There's never an excuse to hurt a child it's disgusting.
Quote: "I want his shadows." The monster said is why it wants Arien. He gives off bad vibes.
It also must have been weird for Airen's sister Violeta to have to ride with the monster as well. It also must have been scary when they were running from the monster in the woods.
Quote: "Tendrils of darkness unfold from the ground and snare the wolf, wrapping it's legs like vines." Very descriptive and scared me to be completely honest.
Quote: "This monster, who claims there's darkness in my brother who wanted to take Arien away and leave me behind, he came back for me." Does the monster have a little crush on Violeta?
This book was very interesting and loved it. The plot was so amazing. Love the relationship between Rowan and Violetta. I also love how she sacrificed everything. I would definitely reccomend reading this just be warned it's a very emotional story.
ClareR (6129 KP) rated Hunger and Thirst in Books
Apr 6, 2026
It’s no lie when I say that Claire Fuller is a writing chameleon - every book I’ve read has been a different genre. I’ve loved them all, as well.
Ursula has been in the care system, moving from one foster home and children’s home to another since she was 8 years old. We meet her as she starts her independent life in a halfway house, and a new job in an art school post room. She moves from the halfway house to a squat with a work colleague, and this is where it starts to get really uncomfortable. There’s a really menacing air to The Underwood, and that, along with Ursula’s traumatic childhood, really ramps up the tension.
In the present day, a documentary maker uncovers what she believes is the truth about that summer, and the adult Ursula, known as Uschi, realises that the past can never stay hidden.
I love a slow burn, and it really added to the menace and tension. There were some seriously scary elements, made worse by the fact that you never really see what you’re scared of (my favourite!). The contrast of Ursula’s friends home and The Underwood exacerbated the looming threat.
Ursula has been in the care system, moving from one foster home and children’s home to another since she was 8 years old. We meet her as she starts her independent life in a halfway house, and a new job in an art school post room. She moves from the halfway house to a squat with a work colleague, and this is where it starts to get really uncomfortable. There’s a really menacing air to The Underwood, and that, along with Ursula’s traumatic childhood, really ramps up the tension.
In the present day, a documentary maker uncovers what she believes is the truth about that summer, and the adult Ursula, known as Uschi, realises that the past can never stay hidden.
I love a slow burn, and it really added to the menace and tension. There were some seriously scary elements, made worse by the fact that you never really see what you’re scared of (my favourite!). The contrast of Ursula’s friends home and The Underwood exacerbated the looming threat.
Fatal Reunion
10.0
Rate It
Book
As Monongahela County's new coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams gears up for a third day searching for a...
Lee (2222 KP) rated Max Winslow and the House of Secrets (2019) in Movies
Oct 13, 2020
Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is a family film, very much in the vein of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Maxine Winslow (Sydne Mikelle), or Max for short, is our Charlie Bucket, coming from a single-parent family and living with a mother who is struggling with debt. Tech-savvy Max is also a skilled hacker, demonstrating this by taking control of her neighbours video doorbell and making it ring so that he comes running outside. Kind of like a modern-day Knock-Down Ginger.
Max heads into school, where we’re introduced to some more teens who are set to join her later on, including a social-media obsessed girl, a boy addicted to gaming and a boy who enjoys trolling people online. As they settle down at their desks, the face of eccentric billionaire Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray) takes over all of the TV screens throughout the school. He tells them that five students are to be selected to spend the night in his high tech mansion, and undertake a series of games, with the winner becoming the new owner of the mansion. When the confirmation text messages start coming through to the student phones later that day, we already know most of those that receive the big green tick on their screens, so they head off to the mansion, ready to spend the night.
Atticus himself isn’t at the mansion to greet the group. Instead, an AI named Haven (voiced by Marina Sirtis) opens the door for them, orders a takeaway delivery and gives them their instructions for the night. Basically, whoever solves the most puzzles and earns the highest score wins the mansion!
The puzzles start off ridiculously hard, with a locked door requiring a six-digit code to open, and only three attempts allowed. Max spots three jars of candy in the room and automatically decides that the total pieces of candy in each jar can be combined into a six-digit number, obviously. And you’re not supposed to think about how she managed to get them in the right order, or why the plate of cookies on the table wasn’t included in the code…
From there, the points come a lot easier for the team, such as simply putting on a pair of sunglasses(!), before turning slightly sinister as the group separates and everyone heads off on their own. Haven begins to go a little bit rogue, although with her monotone delivery of thinly veiled threats, she never really comes across as scary as I think she is meant to be. The games become a way of showing each individual the error of their ways - narcissistic Sophia is trapped in a bathroom talking to her mirror reflection, which has now turned into a nastier version of herself, while others are trapped in VR scenarios designed to show them where they’ve gone wrong in life.
It’s at this point that the movie struggles. The VR recreations are mostly dull, while other scenes utilise some pretty dodgy VFX and there’s never any real feeling of peril or threat. The young cast, for the most part, give some pretty good performances. However, with a mediocre script, none of them is really given very much to work with. Consequently, some of them, particularly the character of Max, feel a little wasted, not fleshed out enough.
While entertaining at times, Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is too scary for young children and not dramatic or scary enough for adults to really enjoy. Hopefully, though, the teen audience that this is squarely aimed at will pick up on the strong moral messages at the heart of the movie and will manage to gain some enjoyment from it.
Max heads into school, where we’re introduced to some more teens who are set to join her later on, including a social-media obsessed girl, a boy addicted to gaming and a boy who enjoys trolling people online. As they settle down at their desks, the face of eccentric billionaire Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray) takes over all of the TV screens throughout the school. He tells them that five students are to be selected to spend the night in his high tech mansion, and undertake a series of games, with the winner becoming the new owner of the mansion. When the confirmation text messages start coming through to the student phones later that day, we already know most of those that receive the big green tick on their screens, so they head off to the mansion, ready to spend the night.
Atticus himself isn’t at the mansion to greet the group. Instead, an AI named Haven (voiced by Marina Sirtis) opens the door for them, orders a takeaway delivery and gives them their instructions for the night. Basically, whoever solves the most puzzles and earns the highest score wins the mansion!
The puzzles start off ridiculously hard, with a locked door requiring a six-digit code to open, and only three attempts allowed. Max spots three jars of candy in the room and automatically decides that the total pieces of candy in each jar can be combined into a six-digit number, obviously. And you’re not supposed to think about how she managed to get them in the right order, or why the plate of cookies on the table wasn’t included in the code…
From there, the points come a lot easier for the team, such as simply putting on a pair of sunglasses(!), before turning slightly sinister as the group separates and everyone heads off on their own. Haven begins to go a little bit rogue, although with her monotone delivery of thinly veiled threats, she never really comes across as scary as I think she is meant to be. The games become a way of showing each individual the error of their ways - narcissistic Sophia is trapped in a bathroom talking to her mirror reflection, which has now turned into a nastier version of herself, while others are trapped in VR scenarios designed to show them where they’ve gone wrong in life.
It’s at this point that the movie struggles. The VR recreations are mostly dull, while other scenes utilise some pretty dodgy VFX and there’s never any real feeling of peril or threat. The young cast, for the most part, give some pretty good performances. However, with a mediocre script, none of them is really given very much to work with. Consequently, some of them, particularly the character of Max, feel a little wasted, not fleshed out enough.
While entertaining at times, Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is too scary for young children and not dramatic or scary enough for adults to really enjoy. Hopefully, though, the teen audience that this is squarely aimed at will pick up on the strong moral messages at the heart of the movie and will manage to gain some enjoyment from it.
Sarah & Duck - Day at the Park
Games and Education
App
Sarah & Duck - Winner of the 2014 Best Pre-School Animation BAFTA The Official BBC Sarah & Duck...
Sarah (7800 KP) rated Underwater (2020) in Movies
Oct 18, 2020
Better than expected
Underwater stars Kristen Stewart as an engineer working aboard a deep-sea laboratory, who must fend for her life alongside her crew when an earthquake devastates the station.
I’ll start by admitting that I’ve never been a big fan of Kristen Stewart, with Twilight to thank for this rather negative opinion. However I’ve come to realise she’s actually a decent actress, especially in action packed films, and this really helped me to enjoy Underwater a lot more than I was expecting.
The action in this is virtually nonstop. There’s no lengthy or drawn out introductions, we’re submerged (literally) into the main plot of this film less than 5 minutes in and it continues in this vein throughout. It’s an edge of your seat thrill ride that’s tense and gripping, and there isn’t a dull moment. The horror aspect is rather well done and paired with the unknown and often claustrophobic circumstances the characters find them in and the very good score, it becomes quite a scary and nerve wracking film. The plot is decent and whilst the reveal on the cause of the earthquake isn’t entirely unpredictable, it still proves to be great entertaining.
Sadly despite my gushing, Underwater isn’t perfect. The biggest problem with it is the CGI and special effects. The props and set design themselves look good, but they’re let down when we’re shown these huge CGI underwater scenes that are meant to look impressive but instead look horrendous. I’d be interested to know how this looked on the big screen, but in a home setup it looks decidedly dodgy. And slow motion every time something explodes is cringeworthy.
Underwater also suffers from your typical survival film clichés. The plot itself is very typical of a survival film, and paired with ridiculous and predictable actions by underdeveloped characters, it lets it down. The cast too are also let down by the cliched characters, and even Vincent Cassel and John Gallagher Jnr are given little to work with. The only character that has had any development whatsoever is Stewart’s Nora, who is a decent and fairly likeable protagonist.
I really wish Underwater had a little more money thrown at it. If they had dramatically improved the CGI then I think this would’ve made for a cracking good sci-if/horror. The critical reception for this hasn’t been great, which surprises me as overall this is a very tense, nerve wracking and sometimes scary film that just falls short of being very good.
I’ll start by admitting that I’ve never been a big fan of Kristen Stewart, with Twilight to thank for this rather negative opinion. However I’ve come to realise she’s actually a decent actress, especially in action packed films, and this really helped me to enjoy Underwater a lot more than I was expecting.
The action in this is virtually nonstop. There’s no lengthy or drawn out introductions, we’re submerged (literally) into the main plot of this film less than 5 minutes in and it continues in this vein throughout. It’s an edge of your seat thrill ride that’s tense and gripping, and there isn’t a dull moment. The horror aspect is rather well done and paired with the unknown and often claustrophobic circumstances the characters find them in and the very good score, it becomes quite a scary and nerve wracking film. The plot is decent and whilst the reveal on the cause of the earthquake isn’t entirely unpredictable, it still proves to be great entertaining.
Sadly despite my gushing, Underwater isn’t perfect. The biggest problem with it is the CGI and special effects. The props and set design themselves look good, but they’re let down when we’re shown these huge CGI underwater scenes that are meant to look impressive but instead look horrendous. I’d be interested to know how this looked on the big screen, but in a home setup it looks decidedly dodgy. And slow motion every time something explodes is cringeworthy.
Underwater also suffers from your typical survival film clichés. The plot itself is very typical of a survival film, and paired with ridiculous and predictable actions by underdeveloped characters, it lets it down. The cast too are also let down by the cliched characters, and even Vincent Cassel and John Gallagher Jnr are given little to work with. The only character that has had any development whatsoever is Stewart’s Nora, who is a decent and fairly likeable protagonist.
I really wish Underwater had a little more money thrown at it. If they had dramatically improved the CGI then I think this would’ve made for a cracking good sci-if/horror. The critical reception for this hasn’t been great, which surprises me as overall this is a very tense, nerve wracking and sometimes scary film that just falls short of being very good.
Scott Tostik (389 KP) rated A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) in Movies
Sep 5, 2017
Most of the cast (1 more)
Jackie Earl Haley
Reimaging folk, not remake
I know I'm probably going to catch heat for this from self proclaimed horror movie God's. But, I enjoyed this movie.
With a few exceptions. ROONEY MARA WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN DOING IN THIS FILM!!!! Her dry and unimpressive portrayal of Nancy, a role made iconic by Heather Langenkamp, nearly destroyed this movie for me.
But along came Jackie Earl Haley. An amazing character actor who attacked the role of Freddy Krueger and honestly made him dark, destructive and truly demonic again. While he may not be Robert Englund, Haley made Freddy scary again. No more with the cracking jokes, no more fun. Just rage, destruction and murder.
And that's what you want in an iconic horror character.
Who cares if he's not 6ft 4.
Who cares if he's not funny.
That's the point of a reimagining.
Platinum Dunes did it well with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As far as I'm concerned they did it fairly well with Friday the 13th.
And IMHO, they did it well with this movie.
Everything needs an update to evolve these days. And that includes even the most iconic horror movie characters.
With a few exceptions. ROONEY MARA WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN DOING IN THIS FILM!!!! Her dry and unimpressive portrayal of Nancy, a role made iconic by Heather Langenkamp, nearly destroyed this movie for me.
But along came Jackie Earl Haley. An amazing character actor who attacked the role of Freddy Krueger and honestly made him dark, destructive and truly demonic again. While he may not be Robert Englund, Haley made Freddy scary again. No more with the cracking jokes, no more fun. Just rage, destruction and murder.
And that's what you want in an iconic horror character.
Who cares if he's not 6ft 4.
Who cares if he's not funny.
That's the point of a reimagining.
Platinum Dunes did it well with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As far as I'm concerned they did it fairly well with Friday the 13th.
And IMHO, they did it well with this movie.
Everything needs an update to evolve these days. And that includes even the most iconic horror movie characters.