October 27, 2011

hauntings and demons and crawlers, oh my!

last weekend, my friend jenn and i bought a bunch of wine, salami, and cheese, and settled in for a night of scary movies while our boyfriends attended a zombie run somewhere in the middle of the woods in maryland.

i like scary movies, but i don't tend to watch them a lot... usually because it's pretty hard to find someone else to watch them WITH. and while i may enjoy them, i'm CLEARLY not going to watch them ALONE BY MYSELF in an empty house, because hahahahahaha no.

so when i do see scary movies, it tends to be in one of these marathon sessions. which is maaaaayyybe not the best idea if i want to sleep at all that week.

anyway, our screenings for the night: Paranormal Activity 3 in theaters, followed by The Descent, and Paranormal Activity 2, since i hadn't actually seen that one yet.

The Descent came highly recommended - both by friends and by rottentomatoes.com - but... eh. i'm clearly in the minority here, since it has a whopping 84% (!) on Rotten Tomatoes, but while it definitely had me jumping while i was watching it, i didn't really find it that compelling. don't get me wrong, it's not like i'm volunteering to go spelunking in that particular cave any time soon, but i'm also not haunted by the movie. like, thinking back to it doesn't make me uneasy, or shivery, or worried about being in caves. we also felt that there was a concerted effort to ensure that the all-female cast didn't veer into chick flick territory, but in doing so the director may have glossed a little TOO quickly over the character development for the main characters. we had no earthly idea who two of the women even were or how they ended up with the group, and found ourselves not really caring if various characters died as a result.

however, if you have a thing with claustrophobia and/or caves in general? i can imagine this movie would be scary as SHIT.

but dude, the Paranormal Activity movies..... i am STILL kind of messed up from those. seeing 3 before 2 was totally fine, since each movie so far has gone further back in the characters' timelines - so 3 happens long before 2, for example. (however: still see #1 first.)

Paranormal 3 apparently hasn't been getting outstanding reviews, but OH MY GOD it was pretty great. if by "great" you mean "i have had trouble getting to sleep every night this week because i can't stop reimagining scenes from it OH MY GOD IS SOMETHING IN MY BED?! *hyperventilate*"

the camera angle set up for this one is pretty genius - both jenn and i initially thought having a camera pan between rooms was going to be irritating, but quickly realized how much extra tension it brought. plus, kids + supernatural is ALWAYS freaky as crap. i'd heard the last 15 minutes of the movie "will mess you up for life," and while i didn't think that was QUITE the case for me, it does provide some significant long-term "holy shit that is messed UP" stuff to think about.

so basically, if you like freaky paranormal stuff? it's a good choice. also good if you don't want to fall asleep for a few days, for some reason.

11 comments:

  1. The Descent scared the shit out of me, but I know exactly what you mean about the character development.

    I must watch Paranormal Activity. I LOVE scary movies and I've heard from lots of people that these are insanely spooky.

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  2. So I just watched Sanctum and while it was a terrible (terrible!) movie, the claustrophobia angle scared the crap out of me. I cannot even think about The Descent without hyperventilating a little bit.

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  3. I was "forced" into seeing Paranormal Activity #1 and #2, but after BNF saw the 3rd one, he promised he wouldn't make me watch it.

    That didn't stop him, however, from describing it to me in great detail. And yeah, I still don't want to see it.

    Good luck with the sleeping!

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  4. Wait! So how did the zombie run go for the men?

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  5. I must confess scary movies scary the dead and living sh*t out of me. So, people had to trick me/force/blackmail me to get me to see one, and then they*have* to sleep with me afterward, since, um, no chance I am sleeping alone after watching THAT....

    Hmmm, thinking about what I just wrote, maybe I need to invite somebody to take me out to a scary movie if I want to get "some"....

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  6. I usually get bored with horror films and Sweets is afraid of ghosts, so we don't watch them in our house. Wait a minute, we really don't watch any movies at all in our house. Sad. ha.

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  7. I am soooo not into scary movies! Most of the time I get pretty freaked out by like CSI (true story). But I love that you love them!

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  8. I've seen the preview of Paranormal 3 and I CRIED. Tears, streaming tears from the fright from the PREVIEW!!

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  9. Loved me some Descent! Although I always have trouble spelling it.

    Hubs and I ran right to the movies Sunday after seeing your review of PA 3 on Twitter.
    I loved it! Until the end that is. I mean, what was that shit? They had me all scared and not sleeping in total darkness every since the first one. Then you find out the 'real deal' at the end of 3 and I was all, "Now that ain't so scary! They messed it up for me!" So I am confused about why people say that about those last 15 minutes.

    What other ones do you love? I love a good horror movie marathon.
    30 Days of Night was one of my favorites for a long time.

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  10. I could only read the first 3 paragraphs of this post. Because I really want to be able to sleep for the next year.

    It took me about 14 years to get over seeing "Alien" at a teenage sleepover.
    Yes, I am a wimp.

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  11. I like the scary movies that mess with your head and not just the outright make-you-jump-in-your seat kind. Ever seen Rosemary's Baby? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

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