Saturday is Horror Day #152 - The Keeping Hours, Silent Night Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

 The Keeping Hours

Mark (Lee Pace) and Elizabeth (Carrie Coon) are a loving, laid-back with a son named Jacob (Sander Thomas) whom they both adore. But tragedy strikes and Jacob is taken from them. The couple fall apart and divorce. Years later, Elizabeth has remarried and is a stepmother to two daughters who she loves, while Mark is single and a successful lawyer. He still owns the house where they once lived, and rents it out. After a pair of tenants trash the place, he goes there to clean it up, and encounters something he totally didn't expect to see - his dead son. Except he doesn't look dead. And he hasn't aged a day since he died. A startled Mark runs to tell Elizabeth about this, although they have nor relationship any more. At first, she is furious and refuses to listen, but gradually, she comes around. How is this happening...and why?

While the Keeping Hours is a ghost story, it isn't necessarily one in the traditional sense in that it isn't 

spooky or horrifying. Rather it's evocative and emotional. It's a story of loss and love, but also of forgiveness. I was really moved by this film. I have to say I am a huge Lee Pace fan, and he is terrific in this. So is everyone else, including the young boy playing Jacob. I am including it here both because it is a ghost story but also because I don't feel enough people know about it, which is a shame.

I will give this film 4 Stars

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

Derek (William Thorne) is a little boy whose world goes silent when he witnesses his father being killed by a toy that mysteriously arrived at the house on Christmas Eve. His mother Sarah (Jane Higginson) is trying to help her son while dealing with the loss of his father. She takes him to a local toy store owned by a toymaker named Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney), but there is something odd about Petto and his strange son Pino (Brian Bremer). And then there is a mysterious guy who hangs around both the toy store and the Quinn home. What does he want?

I'll start by saying that the fifth installment in the Silent Night Deadly Night series is better than the one before, but honestly, that's not hard to be. Again, it doesn't have the Santa Killer theme, but t does have a sort of horror take on Pinocchio and Gepetto.. Clint Howard returns as Ricky, and his only scene involves him and the mysterious lurker, who are both seasonal Santas. If you didn't look at the credits, you'd have no idea he was playing Ricky, and one wonders why bother. I guess to preserve the somewhat shaky continuity. Also, how did they talk Mickey Rooney into doing this film? One has to wonder.

 

The acting is still pretty lousy and so is the writing and plot. Wait until you find out who the mysterious stranger is and how quickly he is accepted into their lives. Seriously? The good news is that this is the last in the series, as the next one is actually a reboot of the first film. I have requested that. Also, I hear that another film is going to be made. I assume that it's part of the reboot, not the original franchise.

I'll give this film 1.5 Stars.

Saturday is Horror Day #150 - The Green Inferno, Willow Creek, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation

 The Green Inferno

Justine (Lorenzo Izzo) has the best of intentions when she joins with a group of fellow do-gooders to travel to the Amazon to stop the damage being down to the ecology by a major company. But she learns to her dismay that she was recruited for a reason, and her life was put on the line. The students' protest ends with them being put on a plane to return home.

But things go wrong when their plane crash lands in the jungle, and the young people find themselves lost 

in a hostile environment. They were previously told that the natives are less than friendly. They are about to find out how true that is, and that female genital mutilation is not a myth! And neither is cannibalism!

Eli Roth's film is notorious for the cannibalism, headhunting,  and brutality depicted, and that is true.  This film is raw and gory, make no mistake about that. But it also isn't a particularly good film, either. I don't think it was well done, too focused on grossing people out to worry about anything else. The opening is slow and clunky, and the acting is nothing to write home about. I had to google the ending to understand it, and I realized that that point didn't really come across very well when I was viewing it. I found Cannibal Holocaust more shocking than The Green Inferno (although not very good either). I hear there may be a sequel, and the ending is open to that interpretation. I'll give this film 1.5 Stars.

Willow Creek

Jim (Bryce Johnson) is a Bigfoot enthusiast, his dream being to sight the elusive cryptid. His girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) is not quite so interested, but she likes him enough to agree to visit Willow Creek, alleged home of Bigfoot. Willow Creek is the place where the infamous film footage of an alleged sighting was taken in 1967. Jim's dream is to find that site and locate Bigfoot himself.

Jim and Kelly visit all the Bigfoot related businesses in town and interview various town folk before 

heading into the wild. They find themselves in the middle of the deep forest, where they pitch their tent and begin their search. It seems like they are destined to be unsuccessful in their endeavors, until things begin to happen, and they end up huddled together in their tent, terrified... but of what?

It's worth noting here that this film was written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. This isn't a horror film in the gory, bloody sense, but I have to tell you, there is quite a bit of nail-biting suspense when Jim and Kelly are in their tent, and you can only hear but not see what is outside the tent. I really liked this film, and I would watch it again. Although the ending was unclear and I had to look up what happened, giving another layer to the film. I give this film 4 Stars.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation

Kim (Neith Hunter) is a would-be reporter who can't stop thinking about the mysterious death of a woman who inexplicably threw herself off the top of a building. Her boss Eli (Reggie Bannister) doesn't believe in her enough to give her the assignment, so she takes it upon herself to investigate and finds herself involved with a group of witches led by Fima (Maud Adams).

This fourth installment in the series really has no relation to the others, at least in terms of plot. One 

might make an argument for the brief scene in which a character is watching Silent Night Deadly Night and intones "Santa Claus killer!" But that's a weak argument  at best, despite the fact that Clint Howard plays a character named Ricky, who beings the movie as a silent sidekick but becomes suddenly quite loquacious and thoroughly creepy.

Despite this film having a few somewhat recognizable - Maud Adams was once a Bond Girl, Clint Howard is Ron Howard's brother and has done some really creepy films of his own, Allyce Beasley was in Moonlighting and Reggie Bannister was my favorite character in the Phantasm series - this movie is beyond horrible. Terrible acting, writing, directing, and the story.... think Rosemary's Baby, but with insects. I would avoid this one unless, like me, you are a glutton for punishment. I'll give this film 0 Stars.