Ghost Team and now I'm emotional

GHOST TEAM (2016)

I'm not crazy, my fiance was abducted by aliens

When I saw this trailer awhile ago I thought it looked hilarious and was excited to see last night it was on itunes. But what I was not expecting was to watch a very emotional, character driven film. I'm actually still undecided about it. I don't even know if I would classify it as a horror, or a comedy, or a drama. It's like a weird mix of all three.

Directed by Oliver Irving, Ghost Team was released this year and stars Jon Heder as the lead role of Louis, David Krumholtz as his very depressed best friend Stan, Melonie Diaz as the gorgeous and adorable Ellie. Then there's also Justin Long as the security guard Ross who completely gives himself to this role, the hilarious Amy Sedaris as Victoria the "psychic" and Paul W. Downs as Zak, Louis' nephew.

I felt quite connected to this film because Louis and Stan are two people who spend their nights watching ghost shows like Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, only in this film it's Ghost Getters. And in fact Jason Hawes from Ghost Hunters plays a member of Ghost Getters in this movie. Louis and Stan feel like if they can hunt ghosts too then their lives will have meaning.
I remember when I was in between schools and working part time at a dry cleaners and just felt completely lost. I would obsessively watch ghost hunting shows and Oprah and I would spend our nights running through graveyards trying to find any evidence.

Louis works at a copy store and Stan lives out of his car, completely depressed after his fiance never showed up on their wedding day. Stan deals with this by believing his wife was abducted by aliens. Which is quite heartbreaking really. He can't face the reality of her leaving so instead creates an implausible reason for her disappearing. Ghost Getters are holding a competition where if you can send in the best evidence of the paranormal, you can join their team. This is a dream for Louis and Stan who decide to get together a ghost hunting team of their own.

This includes Ellie who Louis has a bit of crush on who works next door to him in the salon. Ellie herself is interested because her brother overdosed a few years back and she wants some closure. Zak who is working at a Best Buy type store will be their tech specialist. Louis considers him a genius because he believes Zak graduated college two years early with an engineering degree when in reality Zak quit after two. Ross is the security guard of the mall and joins them to protect them, he also comes with his own sad back story - after attempting to join the police he is turned away because he's not "tough enough". And lastly they have Victoria as their psychic who is in fact a fake TV psychic trying to make a living.

This mismatched team head to an abandoned farm house/barn and proceed to fumble along capturing some EVP's, some thermo cam evidence and seeing footprints. But when each one of them start disappearing one by one, Louis and Ellie are left alone to discover what is really going on here.

Qualms with this movie? Amy Sedaris is very under used. She's a power house of comedy and yet is barely given any screen time. The scares were very minimal and I feel like they could've upped the creep factor to make the ending and the comedy land better.

What I loved? How emotional this movie was. It really asks the question about those of us who are obsessed with the paranormal and why we are. Is it because we lost someone, or we're stuck in our own boring lives, or we're trying to run from something, trying to prove ourselves? For as long as we have known, the world has been obsessed with the paranormal because ultimately it answers the question of what happens to us after death.

I really loved how everyone's characters developed and came into their own. One night has changed all of these sad misfits forever and made them closer to each other, forming a group of friends. During the climax of the film, all of these characters are given a chance to redeem themselves and prove to themselves that they're better than they believe they are.

Stan was my favorite. He was the funniest and the saddest and was given the greatest chance to show himself that life is worth living regardless of what happens to us after death.

So yeah, Ghost Team was completely unexpected. I went in to watch a horror comedy expecting lots of laughs and gore and instead felt very introspective and emotional.

I quite enjoyed it!

That's it for now,
Stay spooky!

The Uninvited and too many ramblings

Sooooo my original plan was to watch The Hills Have Eyes from 1977. I downloaded it and got about 10 minutes in before I realized that not only was it not The Hills Have Eyes from 1977, it was the sequel to the remake. I was watching The Hills Have Eyes 2 Where'd Ya Get Those Peepers?

(Also I know I preach a hard game of supporting horror movies and spending the money but in my defense I am FLAT broke from the move sooooo....don't download movies kids, it's illegal, and you might end up watching awful sequels to remakes.)

I actually did sit through the whole thing and Mitch joined me for the last half. It was awful. But I felt like I'd already dedicated time to it so I might as well finish it. It was awful. GARBAGE. So many plot holes, so many bad character decisions, so many stereotypes.

Ohhhh boy it was bad.

I've had a productive weekend so far - aka watched a lot of horror movies, played Until Dawn again (see my review here) and pre-ordered Batman V Superman on DVD with my amazon gift card (thanks Aunt Sam!). And if you want to send hate my way for loving the shit out of BVS please direct your hate mail to my best friend Ben Affleck's bank account. 

Oh, also....ya'll should be watching Deadly Possessions, Zak Bagans new show. It's so awesome! He has opened a museum in Vegas that houses his collection of haunted items and has people bring him their own haunted items. This week's they had Bela Lugosi's mirror and some letters from Charles Manson.

Today I decided to watch a movie that I had seen when I was much younger and remembered loving it. I also remembered it having some sort of twist ending but not really what it was.

So...let's talk about it:

THE UNINVITED (2009)

We survive by remembering. But sometimes we survive by forgetting. 

So as soon as I started the film I remembered the twist right away but it didn't really ruin the film for me. It was more fun to watch it and see how they trick you into believing what is true. The Uninvited is a remake of the South Korean film, A Tale of Two Sisters and was remade in America by the Guard Brothers. The movie was filmed here in Vancouver, and specifically in one house which I will one day own because it is stunningly beautiful and everything I want in a home. Aka isolated and next to a lake with a creepy boat house. Stephen King novel realness.

It tells the story of Anna who has returned home from the psych ward. She was in there after the tragic fire that took the life of her already deathly ill mother. When she returns home she finds her father has started dating the much younger nurse who took care of her mother and her sister is drinking a lot and miserable. As Anna readjusts to life, she starts to suspect that perhaps the nurse is not what she seems and she starts seeing the ghosts of three little children who may lead her to the truth of her mother's death.

Elizabeth Banks does a wonderful job of playing the nurse, Rachel. Every word out of her mouth can be interpreted in so many different ways and you spend the whole movie wondering if she really is evil. She plays scary very well. Emily Browning, in the lead role of Anna, does a great job of pulling you along as she lives day to day in this emotional and confusing new world she's found herself in. Browning is a phenomenal actress who I believe deserves more credit than she's given. She's also breathtakingly beautiful.

I'm sure a much smarter person than I could figure out the twist in this film very quickly. But the first time I saw it I honestly had NO idea and it came as a complete and amazing shock. The scares in the film rely solely on the big "jump". It's not a scary film for the average horror viewer. Although the scene where Anna is sleeping in her bedroom and wakes up to hear a bell ringing and sees a figure sliding along her floor....that shit creeped me out.

Overall I do enjoy this movie, it's isolating and a full bodied story without too many gaping plot holes.

8/10

Stay Spooky!

the exorcist that haunted a maze.....idk...titles are the worst

Allergy season has arrived. I had three months of glorious snot free fun but it's all over and the hell begins. Which means spring is here - rain and sun alternatively every 5 minutes for an entire month, and all the pollen you could dream of. And that means I stay indoors, more than usual, and read a lot of books while ignoring the sun streaming through the window, and watch horror movies. So this post is brought to you by pollen - an introverts great excuse to not "hang out" for 9 months. 

What I've been reading lately:

aka I'm on a good book roll and I'm gonna brag about it

The Exorcist

First of all...wtf is on the cover? This is the exact cover I have and every time I put the book down I would just stare uselessly at the cover going WHAT IS IT?! WHY IS THIS THE PHOTO THEY CHOSE?
Second of all....I've owned this book for six years and am livid with myself for not reading it six years ago.
I'm not going to explain the plot to you because you must've been living under a rock not to have heard about it. Young girl gets possessed - says some crazy shit - girl gets an exorcism - people die - everything's fine.
As phenomenal as the movie is, the book is even better. Especially the scenes where the adults view Regan, it's honestly horrifying and disgusting and captures the imagination in the worst ways. You become attached to the priests a lot more in the book, and the background characters are far more developed and lovable. I highly recommend reading unless you are currently possessed in which case maybe you shouldn't because you might get ideas.

Also on goodreads if you go to the page for this book, someone asked the question "is it scary, i'm going to read it to my 5 year old?" and I'm not entirely convinced that I didn't write it from the future.

The Maze Runner - series

A young adult series! So original!
But seriously, every fucking YA book I pick up and read seems to magically have 6 or 7 other books that follow it. Why can't ya'll just write one nowadays? Do young adults need 1000 book long series to fully understand what's happening?
BUT the Maze Runner and it's companions were actually super fun and one of the rare times I even bothered with an entire series (except a song of ice and fire - love you boo). They're also super quick reads because they are incredibly suspenseful and I may have stubbed my toes multiple times while reading and walking.
It's a post apocalyptic world...stay with me...where a disease released by the CDC has wiped out most of humanity....stay with me....and to find the cure they locked up a bunch of kids in a giant maze and made them try to survive....see? it was worth staying with me.
The maze is only in the first book but the kids continue on through trials and distrust and death and although I never fully understood the scientists logic, I bought it.
It's also a movie now! Which I watched half of before wandering off somewhere else. I'm determined to re-watch though.
Warning....there are only two female characters. Which kinda super sucks.

I Am Haunted

Ya'll know I love me some Ghost Adventures. It's probably one of my favorite TV shows and I believe every single second of it and I even watch all the spinoffs like Aftershocks and that one where other groups investigated while Zak looked gorgeous and paced back and forth judging them.
This is Zak's second jump into writing and I devoured his first book in about two days. The first one is more about how Ghost Adventures started, the science behind the paranormal, and some really interesting theories on residual spirits.
This one is more about the effects of ghost investigating, some personal tidbits about life after the success of the show, and lots of juicy details about Zak's purchase of, and future documentary about, the demon house.
This book is basically only for people who give a shit about Ghost Adventures. The first one is way better to recommend to up and coming paranormal enthusiasts, but this is just straight up beautiful self indulgent Zak-ness. 

I am currently devouring The Silence of the Lambs. I started it yesterday morning and have barely been able to put it down since.

GO READ BOOKS YA FILTHY ANIMALS