Franken-tastic

Halloween is coming up so I guess it’s just fitting to talk about scary stuff such as movies.


A haunted house in Winchester...

Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built is not due to hit the theaters until February next year 2018 and I can’t wait. I’ve read about the Winchester house long before and I never thought a movie will be brewing many years later. Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built is based on a true story about one of the most haunted places in the world, the Winchester house located in northern California and I find the trailer is scary enough to entice horror movie fans like myself. I do not know the full  story behind the Winchester house but as far as I know it was inhabited by malevolent spirits and the owner wanted to confuse them that’s why she had stairs built leading nowhere and tons of doors oddly constructed serving no purpose. I think I might’ve seen it on TV (Ripley’s Believe It Or Not as far as I can remember) and I was perplexed because the house was massive, what a waste of space and money to turn it into something totally unusable. I still cannot wrap my head around the concept up until now really because spirits levitate in the first place and is able to pass through walls so the idea of confusing them is useless. Anyways, I’m just squeamish to know how the movie will turn out. 

Speaking of horror movies, I’m thinking of making a dedicated blog to list down my favorite horror movies/recommended horror flicks of all time. For now let me share a couple of my faves. 

THE CRUCIFIXION (2017)

British-Romanian Horror Film
(True Story)
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Father Dmitru and the four nuns present were sentenced seven years in prison for the death of a nun after a failed exorcism in Romania. This movie reminds me of this equally scary flick The Exorcism of Emily Rose which also resulted to the death of a person. The nun became depressed after seeing one of the elderly priests committed suicide by jumping off the monastery’s rooftop and later on started behaving oddly (talking in tongues, talking to no one etc.) reminiscent of a person being possessed by evil spirits. She died during an exorcism ritual which then led to the priest’s incarceration for murder. 

Nicole Rawlins, a journalist, who also happened to be a skeptic and an atheist flew all the way to Romania to investigate on the murder. Nicole, while investigating the sensational case also experienced creepy and peculiar things which she herself found inexplicable. She became acquainted with Father Anton who told her she’s very susceptible to demonic possession because she doesn’t have faith in God which will serve as her only ammunition against evil spirits. True enough Nicole was  possessed by an evil spirit and Father Anton did a successful exorcism ritual on her.

The movie ended with Nicole looking at a photo of her and possibly her sister before she leave Romania (which made me conclude could be the possible reason why she became a skeptic, something tragic might’ve happened in the past which triggered her pessimism although this is  just my assumption since the ending was quite a cliffhanger). The Crucifixion by far is one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in a while after countless nonsense Hollywood horror movies in such a long period of time. It was dark and non-pretentious creepy. It did not lurk behind scary movie trailers just to be disappointed in the end once you see the actual film. Not as scary as Insiduous but it’s worth watching. To check out the real story behind this movie please go here.

***

The Others (2001)

Spanish-American supernatural gothic horror film
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

• Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart - a devout catholic; mother of Anne & Nicholas
• Alakina Mann as Anne Stewart
• James Bentley as Nicholas Stewart
• Fionnula Flanagan as Bertha Mills 
• Elaine Cassidy as Lydia
• Eric Sykes as Edmund Tuttle

The story began post WWII, Grace hired Bertha Mills, Lydia and Edmund as helpers in her humongous house. During the tour of the house Bertha was perplexed why Grace demand all the doors shut/locked one after the other and all curtains drawn. According to Grace her kids Anne and Nicholas are badly allergic to sunlight thus explains why she wants all curtains drawn because they are having rashes once exposed to sun beams. Grace, a devout Catholic, home-schooled and teaches both her kids herself. Grace’s husband is a soldier who hasn’t come home in years. 

Anne often scares Nicholas because she’s fond of telling stories about ghosts and as punishment Grace would often ask her to read the bible for misbehaving. Anne also often talks about Victor, a ghost of a little boy who wants them to leave because he claims his family own the house which Grace of course would often dismiss until series of peculiar things started happening which drove her crazy such as strange noises, doors left ajar, music from the piano even if there's no one there etc. The final straw which jarred Grace’s sanity was when her kids woke up one day with all the curtains dismantled. Grace ended up firing all of her helpers because no one would like to take accountability for what happened. 

Fast forward,  I was under the impression the whole time that Grace, her kids and her helpers were amongst the living just to be jolted in the end to find they already perished from Tuberculosis and that ‘the others’ pertains to them being the ghosts who exist alongside the living. I also found that Victor (the little boy Anne is pertaining to) was the son of the new house owners. Bertha in the end also divulged to Grace she’s been waiting for the chance to tell her about what happened but she was afraid Grace won’t accept the truth so she just let things unfold on its own. The film ended wth Victor’s family leaving and the house will be eventually ‘for sale’ again.

I thought this film was brilliant because it was written from a ghost’s perspective which is not very common since most scary movies are written from the accounts of the living which is often biased.  What also made the film scary was when it incorporated non-fiction stuff to it such as veracity of those creepy post mortem photographs during the Victorian era. I also read before out of curiosity at one point with post mortem photography that, such dreadful photographs cost a fortune (sounds  even more dingbat to me).  Anyways, The Others scared me to my wits as much as The Sixth Sense. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  - highly recommended

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️      - somewhat highly recommended

⭐️⭐️⭐️          - it was alright.

⭐️⭐️              - nah.
⭐️                  - waste of time.