House at the End of the Street(2012)-Spoiler Free

I remember seeing the trailers for House at the End of the Street last year and thinking that I needed to see it.  Then it came and went in theaters and I forgot about it.  I don't think it really made a buzz and that is a bit of a shame as the movie wasn't bad. 

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Elissa, a city girl just moving to a rural environment.  The house next door is infamous due to a double murder that happened there.  Turns out the son of the couple married, Ryan (Max Thieriot) still lives in the house.  Elissa, of course, falls for this quiet damaged boy. 

Jennifer Lawrence puts on a much better performance than she did in the Hunger Games as she does seem to have some chemistry with Thieriot.  Thieriot himself plays his part very well.  The mother's (Elizabeth Shue) dialogue comes across as strange.  She keeps saying things like "I am trying to be your mother" that I suppose indicates a back story of an irresponsible mother.  The mother is, however, a doctor, so, I can see absent but not really irresponsible. 

Overall- It was a pretty good movie that plays well as a horror/thriller.  I think it sets itself up for a sequel but don't know if the returns will ever justify making one.  There is some language and I think the PG-13 rating is pretty much accurate.  I might let my 12 year old watch it if she stated interest. 

I Saw the Devil-Movie Review

I Saw the Devil is Korean thriller from 2010.  It stars Byung-Hun Lee (Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe) and Min-Sik Choi (Oldboy, Shiri).  It is probably one of Korea's most violent movies.

I watched this with a group of friends as part of a horror movie double feature.  The first movie we watched was Cabin in the Woods and we all loved that one and were wondering how we were going to follow it up.  XBMC (X Box Media Center, great way to organize your media in a visually pleasing manner) had this in the horror genre and had it rated higher than Cabin in the Woods and The Thing from 1982.  While my collection of horror is not the most complete, it has some pretty good movies in it and having this as highest rated was intriging, so we all decided this would be the second movie.  We were not disappointed.

The story is a simple revenge plot.  Kim (Lee) is after the serial killer that killed his wife (Choi).  The story does take some twists and turns along the way.

The acting was excellent.  Korea is very good for comedies as the actors tend to over emote, but there was none of that here.  The acors brought the weight into the performance that it deserved.  We attempted to watch it with English language dubs, but quickly changed our mind.  Watch this one in Korean with subtitles.  The English language dub is horrible. 

Overall, it was a great movie.  Not sure it was horror unless you consider man as the scariest monster their is.  I do.  It is our twisted minds that created all these monsters in the first place.  The only problem seemed to be the ability of the characters to recover from harm.  20 bashes to the skull with a metal pipe is going to kill anyone on Earth.  Maybe he should have worked the body with most of those strikes.  If you liked Silence of the Lambs and Taken, this one should be great for you.  I have heard it compared to Oldboy, but I still haven't seen Oldboy.  I don't think kids are ready for this one.  It was almost a 19+ in Korea. 

Creep

So I have been following Jennifer Hillier's blog for a while now.  She did it!  She got published and her book Creep is now available.  Now it isn't scifi, fantasy or horror, but it is a thriller and it sounds pretty good.  Below is the Amazon blurb:

If he can’t have her . . .


Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology. An expert in human behavior. And when she began an affair with sexy, charming graduate student Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, riddled with guilt when they weren’t, she knows the three-month fling with her teaching assistant has to end. After all, she’s finally engaged to a kind and loving investment banker who adores her, and she’s taking control of her life. But when she attempts to end the affair, Ethan Wolfe won’t let her walk away.

. . . no one else can.

Ethan has plans for Sheila, plans that involve posting a sex video that would surely get her fired and destroy her prestigious career. Plans to make her pay for rejecting him. And as she attempts to counter his every threatening move without her colleagues or her fiancé discovering her most intimate secrets, a shattering crime rocks Puget Sound State University: a female student, a star athlete, is found stabbed to death. Someone is raising the stakes of violence, sex, and blackmail . . . and before she knows it, Sheila is caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with the lover she couldn’t resist—who is now the monster who won’t let her go.


So what are you waiting for, support a fellow blogger and pick up a copy of her book.