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JT (287 KP) rated Mama (2013) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Mama (2013)
Mama (2013)
2013 | Horror, International
When a film is presented by a well-known director it initially has a certain weight to it that will place it above the shoulders of others. In the case of horror/thriller Mama it has the backing of Spanish director Guillermo del Toro which is a certain plus point for any one who is a fan.

However, any big name attachment is probably there to push the marketing of the film, sadly this one doesn’t quite do itself much justice and falls some way short of achieving any greatness.

It’s a film of two halves, which as the second and third acts take shape becomes more and more ridiculous.

The film is brought to the big screen by director by Andrés Muschietti who also helmed the short three minute piece. It follows the story of two girls Lily and Victoria who are taken away by their father Jeffrey after he goes a bit doolally and offs his co-workers and wife.

When the car they are travelling in crashes they take shelter in a house deep in the forest, riddled with guilt Jeffrey then decides to enter into murder suicide, but something supernatural stops him and the girls are left to fend for themselves.

Move ahead five years and Jeffrey’s brother Lucas continues his search for the girls hiring a couple of hicks to trail the forest looking for the derelict cabin. When they are finally found the girls are practically feral and need psychiatric supervision as they are welcomed back into society.

Lucas and his grunge girlfriend Annabel are given custody as well as a nice new house for them to live in, all under the watchful eye of Dr. Dreyfuss. Once inside the house its clear to see that the girls have brought something back with them, something that doesn’t want to let them go.

Mama starts well enough, with a frenetic opening that glimpses the supernatural entity through blurred vision it moves from eerie strength to strength building tension and then unleashing it in small doses not giving the audience long enough to draw breath.

Of course it sticks quite closely to now tried and tested horror clichés, with things lurking in the shadows, children talking to imaginary nothingness and the so old “what’s in the closet” routine?

Then the director, whether bored with just giving us tit bits of the mother like antagonist, decides to reveal ‘it’ in all its glory. It then moves from scare mongering horror to poorly constructed ghost story in the space of a few minutes.

The acting is nothing to write home about, Jessica Chastain while so dominant in Zero Dark Thirty is flat and a little off the mark here, why the need for the grunge look is beyond me. Maybe it was in keeping with the Gothic back story?

The young girls do well, sweet and innocent yet dependable when needed, the rest of the cast pretty much fall by the wayside. The ending was for me beyond ridiculous and undid most if not all of the good work the start gave us, although saying that it was pretty much on the decline when Mama herself becomes much more of a central character.

It’s not as main stream a horror as you would expect, but the protagonist shadows the central figure that graced the god awful Darkness Falls and that is one supernatural entity well worth staying away from.
  
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Necole (36 KP) rated The Patient in Books

Nov 24, 2021  
The Patient
The Patient
Jasper Dewitt | 2020 | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Asylum Fright
November 20, 2021

I just got done reading The Patient by Jasper Dewitt and was not expecting to get sucked into a one morning read-a-thon. I think I read it in maybe 2 ½ hours. With that being said, I gave this book a 3-star review, although it should be a 3 ½-star review. I will start with the good and end with the bad.

A young, overconfident psychiatrist gets a new job at a mental asylum and chronicles his attempts to treat a profoundly disturbed patient who has been in the hospital since early childhood through a series of online posts. Each chapter is a new day and a new post that Parker has shared with the readers. This manuscript writing style was a unique way to give us Parker’s perspective and account of what occurred with patient “Joe”. I also enjoyed the transcripts and the audio tapes added into the chapters. These few thing added more layers to the story, sucked you in deeper, and gave an unexpecting twist to the book. It was like you were really reading a true account from whom it occurred to.
After reading all the hype and the synopsis of the book, I was hooked and reeled in. A psychiatrist, a mental patient, an asylum set in my home state of Connecticut, strange occurrences to those who have treated patient “Joe”, misdiagnosis’, undiagnosis’, a 30 plus year mystery … The Patient seemed to have it all!!! Even dark, creepy, supernatural horror!!! A perfectly blended cocktail of psychological thriller and supernatural horror.

Unfortunately, it fell flat for me. I kept anticipating more twists, turns, gore and scare. I wanted this book to haunt me well after I finished. The ending felt rushed and not well thought out, I felt like I was cheated out of being scared out of my mind. There was enough horror, suspense, thrills and mystery to keep me reading but after completing The Patient, I just felt let down. I feel like even as the story unfolds, Jasper could have gotten more in depth with the creepy and horror factor but instead it was almost basic. I tried to let my imagination scare with the images the author tries to put in your mind but again I was disappointed.
If you want a quick read that will scare you a little but will keep the suspense up, then pick this up because one person’s opinion is not another’s and who knows, you might scare more easily than me.
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) rated The Outsider in TV

Apr 17, 2020  
The Outsider
The Outsider
2020 | Drama, Thriller
A great adaptation
I've had this series recorded on my box for quite a while, lockdown has finally allowed me time to watch it and it really is a brilliant adaptation of the King book.

It isnt an entirely accurate adaptation of the book, but it is a very good attempt. There are some changes but there are a lot of things that match the book too, and the majority of the changes aren't necessarily for the worst either. The story is a great one, not a surprise considering it's based on a King novel. It moves seamlessly from a detective crime thriller to a supernatural horror and the cinematography and soundtrack support this so well along with a decent amount of gore. It also has a fantastic cast. Ben Mendelsohn is perfect as Ralph and Cynthia Erivo is too as Holly, backed by a wonderful supporting cast.

There are some changes that I didn't appreciate as much though, some fairly small and minor nods towards the books - especially the references to Holly from the Bill Hodges trilogy series. Also I didn't appreciate the mid credits scene at the end of the final episode which appears to hint towards another series and a different ending. This series works so well as a standalone and I really dont appreciate them potentially looking at turning this into yet more series! It's also frustrating that the Bill Hodges trilogy has been turned into the Mr Mercedes series for another network, as really these 2 series should be linked with the same cast and theme.

Overall though this is a brilliant adaptation and definitely worth a watch.
  
Sirius The Jaeger
Sirius The Jaeger
2018 | Action, Animation, Thriller
8
7.3 (3 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Good Vampire Anime, fluid animation and beautiful fight scenes, unique characters and interesting group dynamic (0 more)
Hard to say if some themes are viewed as classic or cliche (0 more)
Search For The Ark - 8/10
Sirius The Jaeger is a supernatural action thriller anime written by Keigo Koyanagi and directed by Masahiro Ando and produced by P.A. Works. Original character designs by Kinu Nishimura, with Mai Matsuura and Souichirou Sako adapting the designs for animation and music by Masaru Yokoyama.


Under the guise of the "V Shipping Company", a group of vampire hunters called "Jaegers", follow a group of vampires from China to Japan in 1930. Among the Jaegers, is a werewolf named Yuliy, whose home village was destroyed by vampires. Both sides battle over possession of holy relic known only as, "The Ark of Sirius". Which if acquired could have the potential to give power of a God.


This series was great. As some of the more pickier critics point out, it's hard to say if something is "classic" or cliche, but I for one really liked and enjoyed this show. The characters were pretty unique and I was very interested in both the group dynamic and the overall story arc and where it was going. The animation was very fluid, lots of energy in the fight scenes and good choreography. I really liked the progression of the main character and feel it makes up for him being kind of sad and mopey, especially in the beginning. Things do change towards the end when it becomes less about the group but it had a pretty satisfying ending and was more emotional than I thought it would be. I give it a 8/10 and recommend it for anyone who likes vampires or vampire anime.
  
Girls of Brackenhill
Girls of Brackenhill
Kate Moretti | 2020 | Philosophy, Psychology & Social Sciences, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
As a kid, Hannah spent several summers at Brackenhill, her aunt and uncle's beautiful mansion in the Catskills. Joined by her older sister, Julia, they enjoyed a peaceful time away from their troubled mother and her boyfriend. But that final summer, Hannah made the journey home alone after Julia disappeared. Now, seventeen years later, Hannah is back at Brackenhill, accompanied by her calm and steady fiance Huck, to deal with the aftermath of her Aunt Fae's death. Her uncle Stuart is quite ill and Hannah must handle the necessary affairs. But once at Brackenhill, long buried memories flood to the surface, along with some undiscovered family secrets.

"She'd escaped Brackenhill once. She could do it again."

I read this completely captivating thriller in one breathless day. It's such a wonderfully eerie and ghostly mystery that excellently captures the spooky atmosphere of Brackenhill. I'm all for a read with a creepy castle, ghostly happenings, and a history of missing girls. Told in a then (Hannah and Julia's summers at Brackenhill) and now format, Moretti sucks you in from the beginning, making the reader feel as if they are a part of the haunted happenings at Brackenhill.

"The Ghost Girls of Brackenhill are an urban legend."

The result is a twisted and dark story--a true Gothic ghost tale. I figured out a few pieces, but still found this impossible to put down. Moretti excels at weaving in the devastation of family secrets and small town mystery. As Hannah unravels the mystery of her family history and her sister's disappearance, we do as well, and you'll share her sense of dread and the overall foreboding that sweeps across the pages.

I wished the ending offered a bit more resolution, but this is an excellent, haunting, and spooky supernatural read. You'll be madly flipping the pages (with the lights on)! 4+ stars.
  
The Foster Child
The Foster Child
Jenny Blackhurst | 2020 | Contemporary, Horror, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This story is told from multiple perspectives, but mainly, Imogen and Ellie are the ones sharing their feelings and thoughts. I liked Imogen as a character, but sometimes her actions and decisions were silly and not very thought through. Ellie was a mystery from the beginning till the end, and I kind of liked that the author left this mystical aura surrounding Ellie until the last sentence of the book. All the characters in this book were quite disturbed, carrying some baggage from their pasts.

The narrative of this novel was quite tense, there always were little incidents related to Ellie, that made this book very absorbing. I liked the topics this book discussed, such as pregnancy, parental love, bullying, fighting your fears, child’s behaviour problems, attachment, and many more. I enjoyed all the little twists and turns the author threw in this in this book, it made this book a true page-turner.

The writing style of this novel was easy to read, but quite confusing. Till the last page, I could not understand what was going on with Ellie. In some places, it seems that she was supernatural, and in other places, it was brushed off as fabrication, so this thing did leave me baffled. The chapters had a very decent length and they didn’t leave me bored. The ending of the book was quite surprising but it rounded the story very nicely and left me satisfied with the outcome.

So, to conclude, I really enjoyed this psychological thriller, it has very complex and disturbed characters, as well as the plot that is always trying to confuse the reader, and filled with turns, twists and very important topics.
  
The Broken Girls
The Broken Girls
Simone St. James | 2018 | Horror, Thriller
8
8.5 (8 Ratings)
Book Rating
Captivating, ghostly thriller
Idlewild Hall has been abandoned since 1979. Until then, it was a boarding school of last resort, where parents sent the daughters they'd sooner rather forget. Now someone is looking to restore it, bringing back all of journalist Fiona Sheridan's memories of her teenage sister, Deb. Deb was murdered and her body left in the fields of Idlewild. A rich teen--her sister's boyfriend--named Tim Christopher was charged with Deb's murder. But it never seemed quite right to Fiona. So, she decides to write a story about the restoration, but encounters more than she bargained for as she begins to uncover years of long-buried secrets.

This is a wonderful, captivating book that drew me in immediately. I've never read anything by Simone St. James, so this was a welcome surprise. The novel alternates between two time periods: 1950 and 2014. In 1950, we hear from four girls attending Idlewild Hall--Katie, CeCe, Sonia, and Roberta. One of the girls soon goes missing and her disappearance ties to 2014, where Fiona is both searching for more information about her sister's death and, eventually, more knowledge about the missing Idlewild student. It's incredibly well-done and extremely suspenseful, drawing you quickly into the narrative and the two separate but related worlds.

The book plays on the boarding school mystique and offers up more supernatural elements than I was expecting, but they somehow work here. The novel is creepy and not one I always wanted to be reading alone in the dark! Like some of my favorites, Jennifer McMahon and Carol Goodman, St. James has a flair for the eerie and the ghostly, and it works well in this context. The boarding school stands stark and haunting in the book-terrifying at times-and you feel the fear ooze across the pages from the various characters.

Indeed, St. James does a great job capturing her characters, whom practically come to life before your very eyes. The group from boarding school are excellent--each different in their own way--and Fiona is an excellent, complicated character as well. While the two eras stood alone, I enjoyed how the stories intermingled and slowly tangled together, making the book quite fascinating and a real page-turner. This one wasn't what I expected; at times, it could be quite heartbreaking and touching.

Overall, this is an incredibly well-done thriller. It's quite captivating with lovely characters. A great discovery. I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review. More at http://justacatandabookatherside.blogspot.com.
  
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Last Night in Soho (2021)
2021 | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Straight off the bat, there is a whole lot to love about Last Night in Soho. It's a modern-London thriller with a dashing of supernatural horror. It's a modern horror with lashings of giallo. It's a giallo that is also a murder mystery. It bursting with colour, and has two exceptionally talented actors at it's helm.
I enjoy Anya Taylor-Joy in pretty much anything she's in, and the same applies here, stealing most of the scenes that she's in. Thomasin McKenzie is an infectiously likable protagonist, whether she's battling seedy-men ghosts, or the struggles of going to University in England (the scene near the beginning where she's stuck at a dorm party is a literal nightmare put straight onto the screen if you ask me). She's fantastic here as she was in Jojo Rabbit.
It boasts a strong supporting cast as well. Matt Smith plays a convincing shit-bag, and is quite clearly having a ball shouting in a cockney accent. It's always a pleasure to see Terence Stamp, and of course, Diana Rigg was one of the best in the game, and her performance here in her final role is testament to that.
LNIS is dripping with style, which is to be expected from Edgar Wright, but it's more subtle than a lot of his other works, substituting clever edits, cuts, and comedy for a film that's visual crack with a more serious tone. The vibrancy of its colour pallettes, both in the modern and 60s settings are as important as any character. Every frame feels like it's been lovingly poured over and is cinematic in every sense of the word. It also boasts a stellar soundtrack. I didn't realise how much I fucking love a bit of Cilla Black but here we are.
The only minor gripes I have is that it does drag ever so slightly during the final third. At one point it feels like a natural resolve is near, but then the narrative continues for a while longer before the twists and turns land. It also goes a little slasher-y at one point, which isn't necessarily an issue, but it feels a bit alien to the rest of the vibe (still manages to be a visually striking moment though!)

Overall though, Last Night in Soho is an incredibly engaging and enjoyable thriller, and is a proud addition to both Wright's filmography, and the modern resurgence of top quality horror.