Within ***
As a generic, ‘leap out of your seat’, popcorn-spilling offering at the cinema, Within ticks all the boxes – just don’t expect to be challenged any further.
Tag: Paranormal Activity
Devil’s Due **
The ‘found footage, handycam horror’ effect is fast becoming the norm in the horror flick stakes because it appears to suggest an ‘authenticity’ to forthcoming filmed events, like CCTV footage. Paranormal Activity paved the way for a new kind of cinematic style. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Devil’s Due borrows from this, with nods …
Sinister ***
Its blood-splattered poster, complete with promises of ‘genuinely scaring the hell out of you’ depends on your previous encounters with spooky goings-on in condemned houses. Sinister by The Exorcism of Emily Rose creator Scott Derrickson, in summary, certainly puts the ‘creepy’ back into four domestic walls, but the horror tick boxes of bumps in the …
Chronicle ****
These days, it seems the only cinematic way to suitably recreate the belief that unfolding events are ‘real’ and instil a climate of fear is a cross between pseudo-documentary shooting and mimicking the YouTube generation of ‘caught-on-camera’ moments, the likes of which Paranormal Activity to Blair Witch have successfully sold. Debut feature writer-director Josh Trank …
Troll Hunter ****
There’s nothing more appealing than a horror steeped with folklore that manages to question our sanity. This is precisely what foreign-based fantasies like Norwegian writer-director André Øvredal’s Troll Hunter achieve for the non-Nordic audience out there, desperate for mysteries such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to have a touch of authenticity about them. …
Insidious ****
Effective horror films these days are harder and harder to come by. But it all depends on what you want from the genre? In Insidious, Saw creators Wan and Whannell appear to have collected together all their favourite horror elements from scary classics – namely Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror and The Shining – but not …
The Ward – 3*
After a ten-year absence, John Carpenter’s return to feature films with The Ward is one of two exciting releases this week, including the 2010 remake of Meir Zarchi’s controversial I Spit On Your Grave. Both thrillers go head to head, but both offer a horror helping of differing proportions and for different fan bases. After …
Paranormal Activity 2 – 4*
Remember that feeling of not knowing what you were in for with the first film, and the subsequent dread that stopped you getting a good night’s sleep after watching? Don’t believe anybody who said they weren’t affected by Paranormal Activity; they’re telling porkies. The second film works on the same premise as the first; that …