Return to House on Haunted Hill

Victor Garcia's Return to House on Haunted Hill (thriller, horror)
6/10

Oh, RtHoHH. How I wish I loved thee. Firstly, I know that I should probably give you lot a review for the first movie in the series, unsurprisingly dubbed House on Haunted Hill. Or even the original Vincent Price film of the same title. Unfortunately for continuity, I've seen RtHoHH very recently, and HoHH not recently at all. I'll put it up next, scout's honour.

The cast of the movie is really nothing to get excited over. The only name you may have heard before is Jeffrey Combs, and that's only if you're a fan of either Star Trek or the film Re-Animator. Granted, he's done other stuff, but those are his popularly known roles. If you're of the former, you'll know him primarily as Weyoun (DS9), Liquidator Brunt (DS9), Commander Shran (ENT), Krem (ENT), Penk (VOY), Tiron (DS9), or Officer Mulkahey (DS9). Yup. I love me some Jeff Combs. I didn't recognize any of the other cast members. Not important in this instance, though, since they weren't using cast members to sell the movie. I hope.

I'll sum up RtHoHH in a single sentence. There's a house on a hill, it's supposedly haunted and likes to kill people -- yes, folks, the house -- and people still keep going in. There's a reason for the visit, this time, though: a priceless artifact is probably somewhere in its depths. Cue one group of people entering the house to find the artifact and give it to a museum, and another who want to sell it and be rich forever. I am deeply and truly surprised. And utterly lacking in the sarcasm department.

I could have overlooked the somewhat cliche plot of a priceless artifact had the scares been good enough to keep me twitchy afterwards. Unfortunately, all of the spook got used up in the first movie, or something. Garcia, the director, relied far too heavily on elaborate ways to kill his characters and completely forgot to make it anything more than intriguing. The first kill reminded me too much of Thirteen Ghosts (the remake) to take it seriously, and it only went downhill from there.

I was a little grossed out after a particularly interesting scene involving Combs' character, the ghost of Dr. Vannacutt. (Yes, the house really is haunted. Do you think they would have been able to pull a sequel out of their asses if the basic premise wasn't even valid? No. Anyway.) Being a doctor, his ghost is dressed in a lab coat and carries with him many surgical instruments. Like, for instance, a scalpel. He's rather good with his scalpel. It was pretty icky, but that it didn't warrant an adjective stronger than 'icky' means it didn't actually scare me. And, to clarify, that statement is rather enormous. I have two anxiety disorders and at least one mild phobia (that I know of); if I don't understand how it could be scary, it isn't scary. That's it.

While I would recommend this movie to someone with a penchant for Jeffrey Combs, I can't in good conscience recommend it to many other people. I know I gave it more than a passing score, but think of it in university terms: as my father likes to say, six-oh and go. Simply put, if you can't do swimmingly, at least keep your ass off of academic probation and get a 60%. Well done, RtHoHH. You may not have escaped the wrath of the illustrious IMdB, but you six-oh-and-go'd well enough for me.

Watch it, maybe. Meh.

The Happening

Told you I'd get it reviewed! But first, I have to come up with a system for grading said reviews. I was going to make something fancy involving marking schemes and rubrics, but I think I'll just give a movie a number and help you explain how I got there.

M. Night Shymalan's The Happening (thriller, horror, drama)
8.5 / 10

This movie got, and continues to get, a lot of flack from online movie reviews and the public in general. And I could not care less. I have been a fan of MNS's movies since I watched another of his unappreciated movies, The Village, at the drive-in. What the hell is wrong with The Happening?

Some reviews poo-poo the acting. Frankly, I think Mark Wahlberg did a half-decent job, considering that I have never seen him in a role that allowed me to take him seriously. I mean, come on! He's Marky Mark! Honestly, though, I thought he played the character well. I liked the character, and that's usually a good sign. John Leguizamo is an actor that reviewers loved to hate on, and again, I think he did alright. Maybe I'm a bit biased, since the first of his movies that I watched was Romeo + Juliet, and he was a total babe then. The man's been in every damn movie since the dawn of time, and he earns more money than you, so hush. Finally, there's almost nothing to say about Zooey Deschannel. She's always cute, but lacking in depth.

Story-wise, shut the hell up. I thought the plot was solid, and it sure had me interested from the beginning. I mean, when the action starts not even ten minutes in, you're never sure what you've gotten yourself in to. In this case, I got myself in to a movie that made a lot of sense, surprisingly enough.

Now, I'm going to talk a bit about the plot. If you know the basics of the movie, I won't be giving away any crucial information. However, I do reveal the cause of "the event" and if you would rather not know, skip the next paragraph.

Spoilers: The premise is simple: we pissed off Mother Nature. Our main character gives us enough knowledge to surmise the general plot when he mentions a nifty ability of the tobacco plant. Turns out, if the plant is being "attacked" by a certain species of catterpillar, the plant will release a chemical in to the air that tells nearby wasps where to find a nice, juicy catterpillar. It's a survival mechanism, and that's exactly what happens in The Happening. Plants all over north-eastern states in America decide that humans are big, planet-hogging jerks. Except, instead of plants signalling wasps to come munch us up, they release a neuro-toxin that effectively shuts off the human survival mechanism, and indeed seems as though it pushes it to the extreme opposite. Cue mass suicides. I guess MNS really wants us to cut back on the carbon emissions, or something. Done spoiling.

This is the first of MNS's movies to boast an MPAA rating of 'R', and deservedly so. If you can't handle gore, you won't want to watch this movie. In fact, you'll probably shut it off after the first ten minutes that I talked about earlier. As for the scariness factor, it gave me the willies, and I think I jumped once or twice. It wasn't anything that'll make you poop your pants, if you're old enough to be watching the movie in the first place.

Closing thoughts? If you don't like MNS, don't watch his friggin' movies. It's that simple. Didn't like The Village or Unbreakable? Don't bother with this one. You won't like it either. I found that a lot of his films were marketed poorly before theatrical release, such that they appeared to be of a completely different genre than they really were. This one was pretty spot on. If you're ambivalent to or a fan of M. Night Shymalan's films, you might get a kick out of The Happening. As always, with MNS, go in with an open mind, and you'll come out with a brain full of delightful MNS oddities.