znegative

I know some people would probably strongly disagree with me, but I'm sorry, Scott Derrickson cannot write, nor direct a scary movie. His previous effort, 'Sinister' had me reluctant to start 'Deliver Us From Evil', but with nothing better on my plate, I figured 'what the hell', I believe in second chances after all. Unfortunately, the master of suspense-lacking and stupid scary movies delivered a similar turd in the same fashion as his first successful piece of mainstream, brain rotting, piece of trash-Sinister.

I feel redundant saying this, but once again, with Deliver Us From Evil, we get a film 'inspired' by 'true' events. That's a short way of saying it's about a delusional cop and priest duo who become 'demon hunters', to root out the seed of Satan in the city of sin itself, New York City. Now, the main character, Sarchie, does exist in real life, and truly believes that he is a demon hunter. Is it just me, or is it starting to get really annoying how every time a paranoid or insane person speaks of fighting the paranormal, Hollywood craps out a movie? To be fair, perhaps I didn't go into this film with a very objective lens-I hated this directors previous piece of trash, and I also don't care much for police officers or priests. In addition, the idea of explaining the sin and atrocities that occur in New York City (where I was born and lived up until relatively recently) is the product of satanic influence is just...retarded.

I imagine that the group of people that like this type of horror film, and also consider themselves 'horror buffs', are the same type of people that think Cradle of Filth is the pinnacle of extreme metal music. Ignorant out of choice, this 'herd' is satisfied with anything supposedly 'scary' that is handed to them, and therefor choose NOT to dig a little for the real horror gems out there, like 'Martyrs' .

I watched this movie for free and I still feel cheated-don't waste your time. There are better things to do, like urinating on its cover.

The Quiet Ones is (another) supernatural thriller based (very loosely) on 'real events'. The story centers around an eccentric professor who's life work is to try and extract and isolate a poltergeist, from a haunted/possessed person. In this case, the possessed is an attractive young woman.

Unsurprisingly, the movie is a mixture of conventional film making and 'found-footage'. In the case of The Quiet Ones',our oddball professor (Jared Harris) and his team hire a young film-maker named Ian (Sam Claflin) to document the experiment. Things quickly spiral out of control, as it becomes apparent that the crew is dealing with a malevolent spirit rather than your run of the mill paranormal oddity.

There's really absolutely nothing original about the film aside from a few cool CGI effects, but unlike many of it's other paranormal counterparts (like Insidious or Sinister), The Quiet Ones is thoroughly and surprisingly entertaining. This shocked me because I went into the movie thinking that it was going to suck big time, that I'd have to turn it off after 30 minutes of tom foolery, but I was pleasantly gripped and sucked into the story for all of it's duration. I guess part of what made it stand out from a movie like Sinister is that the story was told through a scientific lens, whereas in other flops like the aforementioned title, The Conjuring 2, and Sinister, the screen writers were simply asking the audience as well as the characters to believe too much. The example that comes to mind is the part in Insidious when the old woman who's some sort of psychic explains that both the son and the father are masters of 'Astral Projection', which Patrick Wilson accepts as a plausible and rational explanation far too soon. If someone came at me like that I'd hit them over the head with a baseball bat!

In conclusion, while nothing really new, or particularly amazing, 'The Quiet Ones' is a decent enough paranormal/horror flick. If you enjoyed the Atticus Institute (which was slightly better IMO), you'll likely dig this one too.

I'd been waiting a while to watch Joshua, and finally got around to it last night, and while it wasn't quite what I expected, I really enjoyed it. I should mention first and fore-most, 'Joshua' is not a horror film or a thriller in the conventional sense, but rather a darkly comic drama, though it certainly borrows from the aforementioned genres. I just want to put that out there so people expecting a film along the lines of 'The Omen' won't be surprised.

The film basically follows the story of two parents, their nine year old son 'Joshua' after the birth of his sister. Joshua is a child prodigy, and as the story goes along, he embarks on a devious agenda to pick off his family members one by one. This doesn't necessarily mean kill them (though it doesn't exclude murder). He shows all the signs of a budding sociopath. The gerbils in his class all died from a mysterious 'fungal disease' explains his teacher at one point, and his pet dies, after Joshua takes him for a walk. His mother is the first to make the connection, and then his father. Eventually, Joshua and his father become adversaries, the father trying to figure a way to save his family from his son, and Joshua, plotting the disintegration of what remains of his family unit.

While it definitely borrows some horror and thriller conventions, the overall tone is more kin with the dark comedy found in '6 Feet Under'. I went into this expecting something totally different, but it was a pleasant change of pace for someone who watches constant horror movies as well as psychological thrillers. While it caught me off guard, I wouldn't have it any other way, and I highly recommend 'Joshua'.