There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023)

SPOILERS (here and there, I'm too tired to find them and black them all out, it's very late where I live).

I saw this the other day. It's not terrific, but I think they were probably attempting to do some interesting things with it. I am still trying to figure it out.

It's about two couples, one of which has kids, renting "cabins" at some kind of camping ground. The cabins are pretty freaking nice, by the way. At first I thought they were just in a home that belonged to one of the couples. Anyway, the couple with kids has a girl who is around ten, and a boy who is... eight or nine, I guess. The boy looks like another girl, soooo that's confusing.

The couples hang out and talk for the first part of the movie, and they drink a LOT. I am pretty sure there is some kind of commentary on society going on there, because they are just drinking CONSTANTLY. They would have been absolutely plastered if they really drank as much alcohol as they are shown drinking. They also toke up a little, if I recall correctly, and the man in one of the couples takes lithium for a manic-depressive disorder. Sooooooo, yah. Good times.

The conversations that they have seem to be written in order to make some kind of points about having children, and whether it is necessarily the best thing to do. They talk about various adventures that they could have without children, and so on.

At some point they go for a little hike in the woods. They find the remains of some kind of old building... not a REALLY old building, like a Mayan ruin, but something from... I don't know, maybe a hundred years ago. They explore the foundations of the building, and they find a deep, wide hole in the ground. The kids seem to be drawn to the hole, and they almost fall in. The call the hole "the shining place," or "the place that shines." It has kind of a greenish glow, off and on.

I am pretty sure the shining hole is supposed to be some kind of trap to attract unwary humans. The glow reminds me of the glow from a bug zapper they show at the campsite, which, of course, is meant to draw bugs to their death. That can't be a coincidence, they even do a slow zoom-in on the bug zapper. There is definitely something related to bugs going on, although I can't quite figure out what it is. When the children (very predictably) turn evil, as they eventually do, sometimes one of the main characters sees their shadows and the shadows are not the shadows of children. They are the shadows of some kind of humongous praying mantises. They didn't spend money on CGI to show actual giant praying mantises, they just show their shadows. Sooooooo, whatever that means.

I am really struggling to figure out what the hell this movie was shooting for. Either I am just being very dense, or they just completely blew it. Possibly both.

They seem to have borrowed ideas from Pet Sematary, just in the sense that the aerial view of the ruined old building in the woods evokes my memory of the aerial shots of the old Micmac burial ground in Pet Sematary. But, the way the children act when they get possessed by praying mantises, or whatever the hell possesses them, is not exactly the same as the way Gage acts in PS. They seem to get far more intelligent than normal children, and more dextrous and probably stronger.

What was the old building supposed to be, or supposed to have been, decades or centuries before the movie took place? I feel like that is probably the key, here. If I could figure that out, the whole movie might make more sense. It must have been either some kind of super-science outpost, communicating with bug-like aliens, or maybe some kind of structure related to magic of some kind, summoning up the ancient spirits of some kind of insect gods worshipped by early Native Americans. I don't know. Argh.

One thing that I thought the movie did pretty well was to show the confusion of one of the men, when he first witnesses the children falling to their deaths in the hole, and then very shortly afterwards sees them running around and playing back at the campsite. He is clearly as confused as I was by the entire movie, and he shows that confusion convincingly.

I was reminded a little of The Tommyknockers, now and then. Possibly just because of the green glow. Also, of course, because somehow the people in the movie unearth some kind of ancient, advanced Evil in the woods, and get possessed by it. As I said, I'm not sure if it is supposed to be aliens or malevolent intelligent insects, but whatever it is, it is definitely evil.

So, um... two thumbs sideways, maybe a little up, maybe a little down...? I don't know.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2

Good God, why did anyone feel the need to make a sequel to a TV movie after all these years? Let alone the writer of the original? What's he trying to prove, except that lightning doesn't strike twice?

This one looks and feels DTV. They get the scarecrow costume right and they make sure to reference the original film's events to establish canon, but it was super boring. At least in the first one, you have the charming asshole Charles Durning to keep you entertained, but here? We got nothing. None of the characters are worthwhile, they use unnecessary bad CGI, and did I mention how boring it was?

At least this movie was less than 90 minutes. I don't think I could handle any more than that.

#Review

The Town that Dreaded Sundown 1976

Ah, the old 70s doc/slasher... once a rare collectors item unavailable on dvd for the longest time, thus a coveted title with a sort of biased popularity to it among us genre fans. Does it hold up, though?

From director Charles B. Pierce of Bog Creek fame, this guy seemed to like the documentary approach. I guess it works though. We skip all that boring exposition with a guy simply telling you the less interesting inbetween moments, and sometimes we see the law on his trail. Then we jump into some killer action, and this killer is pretty dope. Bag-headed and very Jason 2 esque, with some angst and zodiac vibes thrown in. He uses musical instruments as weapons, guns, knives, whatever. He stalks people in their cars, homes, wherever. He'll fuck with you a little before he kills you, because why not? I like his heavy breathing in the mask. Pretty effective, probably creepy as hell for the people who saw it back in the 70s.

And I got some vibes of Last House on the Left with the inept cop. Some real clown shit, like the clown cops in Halloween 5 sometimes. I guess it needed some comic relief for those wimps in the audience who couldn't handle those horror scenes.

I also like the part where he barges in the woman's home after shooting her husband dead through the window, then he shoots the woman in the face. She doesn't even die, and he shoots her again I think, and she still doesn't die. She crawls away and ends up surviving. That's some real Serpico shit, getting shot in the face and surviving.

Pretty good flick. I remember thinking the 2014 meta requel was okay, but I haven't seen it in about a decade. Maybe I'll give it a watch, but maybe I'll forget about it for another 10 years. We'll see...

#Review

An Important Matter For All Right-Thinking Americans to Ponder

In the hockey movie Miracle (2004), does the Kurt Russell character ever yell "Hey Sweden!" at the Swedes, at any point, when his team is playing against Sweden in the 1980 Olympics? If not.... damn, that was a hell of a missed opportunity. They totally could have come up with some excuse for him to say that.

What's Your Favorite Evil Corporation?

This topic happened to come up for me several times, over the last week or so. Actually, of course, it really comes up dozens if not hundreds of times every single day, if you are paying attention in real life.

Anyway, what is your favorite evil (fictional) corporation? Or law firm, it could be a law firm like Wolfram & Hart, from the Angel TV show. I'll make a little list to get started, starting with that.

Wolfram & Hart, from Angel
The RAMJAC Corporation, from Jailbird, by Kurt Vonnegut
Bromley Marks, from Daybreakers
The Umbrella Corporation, from Resident Evil
The Tyrell Corporation, from Blade Runner
The Wallace Corporation, from Blade Runner 2049
ZomCom, from Fido

You get the idea. What is one of your favorites? Please add new ones to my list. I guess I will pick the RAMJAC Corporation, for myself. I always liked that idea of a dotty old homeless lady who secretly owned nineteen percent of the United States.

The Strangers 2008

When this movie came out, everyone praised it as a Halloween-esque suspenseful home invasion movie. I saw it and I hated it. I've been known to come around to a movie after some space, so about 15 years later, I gave it another whirl, and it still sucks.

I'm not crazy about Liv Tyler to begin with. Something about her is awkward to me and I can't pinpoint it. The other lead Scott Speedman is an incredibly dull actor as well, so what does this movie have going for it besides a few well dressed villains?

Well, it has Glenn Howerton for some reason. He's the needy friend who doesn't mind his own business and causes our protagonists to make rash and stupid decisions.

What can I really say about this movie? It's a lot of ineffective tension and buildup to a lack of any real conclusion, and it tries to play upon that whole "based on a true story" angle with TCM opening narration, but it doesn't quite work. This movie is overrated.


Fortunately for everyone, the sequel is a LOT better. However, it seems to have wrapped up its killers in a nice little bowtie/bodybag, but wait a second... Renny Harlin just directed a new trilogy? WTF? Fingers crossed it copies part 2 more than part 1.

#Review

Among Friends 2012

Since I've been on a Danielle Harris kick, I can't ignore her first/only solo directorial effort. It was around this time that her career was hitting a horror resurgence, so she jumped in with both feet.

The premise has a group of friends heading to an 80s murder mystery party. Whenever there's one of those in a horror movie, you know it always ends up as more than just that. Our guests are quickly drugged so they can't use their legs, sat around a table, and forced into playing a sadistic game of questions and consequences. It's reminiscent to Would You Rather from the same year, though not so much about rich pricks getting their rocks off. This is more about revenge, even if the perpetrator of such acts is being a bit dramatic with her motives.

It's not a terrible movie. It has a good cast, a few laughs, and some gross out scenes, which is pretty much all you can hope for with a movie like this. There's one scene where a guest on mushrooms (coupled with the paralysis drug) starts hallucinating something heavy and then we get something mildly amusing. Not only does Michael Biehn appear in a flashback playing this game and complaining a lot, but Danielle herself appears, dressed in her H4 Jamie Lloyd costume, just for the lulz. I imagine she found herself that costume and decided to throw it in the movie for laughs, and it worked for me.

This movie seems like it's going somewhere, leading to a possible ending of intrigue where maybe they all deserve the punishment, but then it just kind of ends on a really inconclusive note. Okay then. Could have used more Michael Biehn and Danielle Harris. And more Kane Hodder.

#Review

The Boogeyman 2023

I'll spare you all of a meaningful review, because this movie doesn't deserve your time. This PG-13 turkey sucks a dick.

It's kind of like that movie Lights Out, since it has to do with monsters coming out in darkness. That movie also sucked, and so did Pitch Black, so fuck off with the darkness monsters already.

#Review

Danielle Harris

I forgot how I used to obsess over her when I was a kid. I saw Halloween 4 when I was about 10, so she was always alluring to me. She had captured my feelings in an interview where she said how a lot of her fans are right around her own age bracket because most of them were kids when they had seen her Halloween movies. She also mentioned that many of these fans have also told her that she was their first crush. It's like she's reading my mind.

I'm more inclined to believe that Danielle isn't human, but something more magical, like an elf. She is short, she looks exotic, and she has a magnetism. The ability to shine even in bad movies, which she has plenty of. Here's a few I watched on Tubi:



Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer (2010) - Think Henry, but more DTV. Lance Henriksen is the guy spilling the beans on a serial killer scoop to reporter Danielle. She's not in much since her role is to hear the story, though she does join into the big story at the end... in a minimal capacity. Okay then...

Hatchet II (2010) - Adam Green had to give her something respectable. Her lines are a bit redundant, "my family is dead!" but she looks damn good in this movie. The first movie's girl was okay, and I'm not sure why she didn't want to come back, but Danielle is always the best choice.

Hatchet III (2013) - I was starting to think that she could make for Crowley's perfect nemesis, should this franchise keep going. She looks damn good in this movie too, like in her jail cell outfit. They hose her down to get the blood off, and you can see that huge tattoo on her side. Not a fan of that tat. Covers/ruins too much of her skin. And then at the end, they have her go down in a blaze of glory... I could have sworn she was cut-and-dry dead at the end, but that final gasp in the end credits has me wondering if she could come back in part 5...

Camp Dread (2014) - You know you're in trouble when you're in a movie with Eric Roberts! This is a camp reality/slasher thing that I've already forgotten most of. She's barely in it. She comes in looking like she'll serve a good purpose, but then they write her out quick.

Redwood Massacre: Annihilation (2020) - Finally, a better effort. This movie looks a bit better made for a DTV type, and Danielle looks like she had a little more fun with this one. Some government slasher experiment in a military compound out in the redwoods, and Dani plays a tough type. It's funny seeing her little self overpowering a big guy. I'm not convinced! She can take me down anytime though. It's actually a decent effort, but the ending sucks.



Danielle Harris is too good for this world. The little girl who played Jamie Lloyd is going to be 50 in a few years. Time frightens me. I think she's aging great though. She was able to play a teenager at 30 in RZ's Halloween movies. I think about how I'm the same age as she was when I met her at my first con 11 years ago. Her life was already filled with loads of acting credits. I'm as old as she was then and I still haven't done shit. She's an inspiration, being in all kinds of random-ass horror flicks all the time. Her life must be awesome.

Creepshow TV show, segment called 20 minutes with cassandra

I have watched this twice now, yesterday and today. I thought it was quite good. I can't say much about it without giving spoilers... I can just say that it's about a very frazzled-looking young woman who shows up at a somewhat older (30s or early 40s) woman's home, raving that she is being chased by some kind of monster. I want to talk about this, but I shouldn't... I guess I'll just black out everything I say, and if you're sure you'll never watch it you can read it anyway. Or better yet, watch the show.

I was just very impressed by the segment, they did a hell of a job. I hope it gets some kind of acclaim. At first the dynamic between the two women feels a little like Hellraiser 3, where the kinda wild but desperate and borderline homeless young club girl ends up being friends and roomies with the slightly older, more established female reporter. But in this case, the young girl knows that she is being followed by a monster, and that it will attack and kill anyone that they might try to call in for help. Proof of this concept is provided in the next few minutes, as a UPS guy and a pizza delivery guy are both brutally killed by something very big, and very fast. Soon, we even get to see the monster, and it is pretty scary looking. It made me think of a much bigger, hairier version of wolfed-out Evil Ed from the 1985 Fright Night, or maybe one of the werewolves from The Howling.So, things get off to a scary start. But gradually, you start to notice that the young woman (who looks a bit like one of the punk chicks from Dolls) is strangely chatty, and keeps making conversation about practically anything other than what she clearly should be talking about: the huge monster that is prowling around outside, killing delivery people and apparently getting ready to kill them too.As it goes along, the tone of the segment gradually changes. The older woman is approached for a sort of parley, like in John Wick 3, by the monster. The monster is actuallly quite articulate, and even nice, in a gruff way. He doesn't seem to like his job very much.I don't know how much I should say. It's just really funny to watch the monster and Lorna (the older woman) talking, and even sitting next to each other on the couch, sharing a bottle of wine. They kind of get to know each other, and they find that they share a dislike for the younger woman (Cassandra). Cassandra has her reasons for what she does, and we end up having some sympathy for her. Nowhere near as much as we have for Lorna though. Or as much as we have for the monster! We are increasingly sympathetic to the monster, if not exactly "on his side," as the episode goes along.Another thing is that they seem to make a few Stephen King references. I'm not sure if they are just for fun, or if they mean something. A local coffee place that they refer to a few times is called Stillson's, like Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone. Lorna's last name is Snell, which MIGHT be some kind of reference to Sue Snell from Carrie. Also, I saw somewhere online that the street address of Lorna's house is apparently a reference to a place in Stephen King's It, somewhere of significance to Pennywise.The two things that stand out for me, and that I'm pretty sure I'll be thinking about for awhile, are Cassandra's reasons for allowing the monster to be in her life, and what the ratio is of her conscious to unconscious complicity to what the monster does might be. That's one thing. The other thing is just the way Lorna and the monster talk to each other. It is so funny to see, and to hear.
Anyway, I just wanted to write my thoughts out before I forget them. I hope you find this episode and watch it. The main actresses are Samantha Sloyan and Ruth Codd, maybe that will help you track it down.