Ghost Team One (2013)

"Two roommates deathly afraid of ghosts both fall in love with a girl who believes their home is haunted."

I don't know why everyone is calling "Ghost Team One" a "comedy". It isn't funny, and it doesn't even have a particularly happy ending. What it does have is lots of awkwardness and the same atmosphere as the American version of "The Office" (which also isn't funny), and of course, a hot chick (or two) to ogle.

"Ghost Team One" is essentially another completely unneccessary "Paranormal Activity" parody which brings the number of such abominations up to an unlucky 13. How and why this has become a subgenre in itself is undoutedly due to the YouTube generation who can't seem to get enough of webcams, shakycams, and mediocrity. For those of us who prefer a real movie, these faux found footage movies are mostly an annoying waste of time.

There are a couple of neat effects in "Ghost Team One" which you don't often see in a glorified YouTube video like this, but it isn't a horror movie by any stretch of the imagination either. In fairness, though, I don't think it was ever intended to be. It's not "found footage horror" per se that this movie is lampooning but the whole "amateur-looking footage" subgenre in general. Even YouTube gets targetted!

The downfall with this, however, is that "Ghost Team One" is as tame as its targets when it comes to the adult situations: Punches are pulled everywhere, e.g. pornographic images on a bedroom wall are pixellated, and the "jokes" (if you can call them that) are little more than schoolboyish. Think Benny Hill but less creepy with it. For a movie which uses the promise of "horny ghosts" as its selling point (especially as the only ghost in it is supposed to have been a Vietnamese prostitute!), it's very disappointing.

Two guys I've never heard of and Fernanda Romero.

As I have no sense of humour when it comes to comedy-horror movies, spoofs or otherwise, I hate to say it, but I was slightly entertained by "Ghost Team One" in a low-rent "Men Behaving Badly" (British version, naturally) way. It's well written, the drama is nicely done, and the characters are stupidly amiable but harmless enough. Once you get used to the awful camerawork, the whole purpose of "Ghost Team One" is only an excuse to lust over Fernanda Romero anyway. If Fernanda wasn't in it, I doubt that I would have made it to the end.

Fernanda Romero (who keeps her real first name and clothes on throughout) steals every scene she's in to such an extent that "Ghost Team One" is best described as her "vehicle". If anyone else involved in this movie is deluded enough to think otherwise, they need to grab themselves a reality check next time they go to 7-Eleven for their taquitos and slushies, and understand that, apart from a few infantilised adults (who were born in the '80s and '90s) and their friends, the majority of people who will eventually buy this movie on DVD or Blu-ray are just going to skip to the parts with Fernanda in and crack open another box of tissues. Yes, she really is that hot!

Putting the novelty value of "Ghost Team One" as a "latino" movie aside, since I often tend to overrate any kind of Spanish or Mexican movie even when they are filmed in Los Angeles, I don't recommend this one. I'll give everybody credit for having a go, but "Ghost Team One" would have been better as a series of webisodes.

Fernanda Romero is the centre of attention.

Enough with the Paranormal Activity clones and parodies already!

Who would have thought that when "Paranormal CRAPtivity"—a low-budget haunted house movie that most people only liked because of buxom beauty Katie Featherston and the original downbeat ending which was changed to a lamer one—came out in 2007, it would lead to so many clones and parodies?

When it comes to clones, the Japanese almost got there first with their "Official Sequel" which came out (on November 20th, 2010) before the true sequel (actually a prequel) in their country but a month later for everyone else. It was a nice try though.

Predictably, we then had two more "Paranormal Activity" cashgrabs which gave us exactly the same jump scares all over again but even less so. Sadly, a fifth movie is rumoured to be on the way next year too.

Back to 2009, and The Asylum just had to make their own mockbuster version called "Paranormal Entity". Bizarrely, it's slightly better than the movie it clones, and it's cheaper to buy. But then they had to go and ruin everything by renaming some of their not very good movies for the UK. "Paranormal Entity 2" is really "8213: Gacy House" (2010), in case you didn't already know.

Keeping their artwork in the same style, The Asylum also delivered "Paranormal Entity 3: The Exorcist Tapes" aka "Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes" (2011) and "Paranormal Entity 4: The Awakening" aka "100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck" (2012) to the unsuspecting British public.

While not really the same thing, "Grave Encounters" (2011) and "Grave Encounters 2" (2012) would have earned less condemnation if they'd thought of some more original artwork to use. The sequel, however, is apparently full of YouTubers, which is enough reason to not watch it on its own.

It's this cloning of artwork that's started to get even more annoying than the movies on the DVDs inside the boxes! Shame on you, "Paranormal Incident" (2011) and "Paranormal Asylum" (2013). Who do you think you're fooling?

And then, of course, we had to have the spoofs, since horror has to be all about the comedy for certain Americans, doesn't it? Nyuk nyuk nyuk! No one cares! You may call it comedy, the rest of the Western world doesn't. We call it being jealous haters with no original thoughts of your own.

No, I couldn't find a sleeve for Jason Gerbay's "Abnormal Activity 2". I don't know if such a thing even exists (there's no IMDb page for it), but I don't intend to ever watch any of this no-budget "comedy" crap anyway. Perhaps it might be good, but I don't like comedies.

And then there were more... "Paranormal Calamity" (2010) and "Paranormal Parody" (2011). At least the latter unimaginatively lets you know exactly what it is!

And more... "Supernatural Activity" (2011) and "Paranormal Movie" (2012). Why?

Earlier this year, this nonsense seemed to reach its peak with Marlon Wayans' spoof "A Haunted House" (2013) and an inevitable porn parody. And that should have been the end of it. Really, it should have been.

But no! We also have an even more lacklustre offering in the form of "30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2013) and the equally abysmal "Paranormal Whacktivity" (2013) only released last night! Aaaargh!

For the love of God! Enough already! Please STOP!


Update: April 30th, 2015

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge of Typhoid Mary (2013)

"Mary Malone (aka Typhoid Mary) was committed to a NY insane asylum to live in solitary after being blamed for spreading Typhoid Fever in the early 20th Century. After decades in isolation she died alone on North Brother Island. Now, nearly 100 years later, two best friends and aspiring filmmakers are setting out to find out what really happened. What starts as a simple investigation turns into a battle for survival, as they discover Mary may be dead, but she's certainly not gone."

If you've been wandering around Walmart recently, you've probably seen this DVD a few times and wondered if it's worth watching. That coverart looks spooky, doesn't it? I bet you think it'll be shit-yer-pants scary! But let's cut straight through the chase here, it's not!

"Paranormal Asylum" is also nothing to do with the "Paranormal Activity" movies or even The Asylum's "Paranormal Entity", but you have to give the filmmakers credit for deliberately creating a confusingly named product which someone is going to buy by accident eventually. The thing is, the plot is nothing like any of those movies unless being a clone of "Grave Encounters" or its sequel counts in any way. Unfortunately, I haven't watched more than 5 minutes of either (except on fast-forward), so I can't say for sure. The word on the street, however, is that "Paranormal Asylum" is an even lower-budget knock off of that already low-budget crap, and I have no reason to doubt it.

Judged on its own merits, "Paranormal Asylum" is absolutely bloody terrible. The story barely makes sense, and the camerawork is so godawful that it's tiresome to watch. It's as if whoever filmed it has no idea how cameras work, how to frame anything, or how to position themselves for the best view. Couple that with the editing which cuts too quickly between shots, and it often becomes nauseating to boot. While I can accept that some of the earlier footage is supposed to look amateur due to small cameras being set up everywhere, in scenes where it's not supposed to be obvious that anyone is holding a camera (and close-ups take over which swing back and forth or whirl around characters), it's actually worse!

Like most low-budget horror movies, the acting is okay in some places and non-existent in others. It's so varied this time though, it makes me wonder if there was ever a complete script involved or if scenes were made up as they went along. Apart from a load of exposition, the rest of the dialogue sounds like it belongs in the cut scenes of a computer game or some crappy Japanese cartoon. Maybe it's just because Nathan Spiteri (who plays Andy) has that kind of voice and delivery, but it's more likely to be because everything is so disjointed and hastily thrown together.

Tying up your possessed fiancée and confining her to bed always ends well.

A somewhat hilarious scene (which isn't meant to be) is when Michelle (Laura Gilreath) gets possessed by the spirit of Typhoid Mary and turns into a flickering escapee from one of those bad '80s computer game movies. Watching her teleport between steps all the way to her car amused me for all the wrong reasons, and I couldn't take anything seriously after that. It's a shame because Laura Gilreath is uber hot and tends to perk things up considerably otherwise. There's no nudity, but at least she strips down to her bra and knickers eventually.

The other main character, Mark (Aaron Mathias), who has the best (albeit far too brief) supernatural encounters, does slightly better overall, despite taking approximately 47 minutes to realise that he's been seeing ghosts! Aaron Mathias seems to be a likeable chap with the right kind of borderline leading man looks to stand out although he doesn't do anything very memorable here. I suppose he does "scared" well enough, but he's the only one who is likely to be affected by any of the jump scares.

Outside of the threesome, minor characters randomly come and go with no rhyme or reason behind their appearances other than how Andy sets up appointments with them for Mark. How Andy knows any of these people remains a mystery within another mystery, especially as the ability to tell a story is not this movie's strong point.

I'm not going to spoil the ending for you because it's as stupid as everything else. Although it ties this mess together in the best way it can, it's completely out of left field and really not worth suffering through the rest of the movie to get to.

The artwork is the best part!

In that case, I'd hate to see a paranormal film that gets it wrong!

And some movies are better off not being made.

Don't confuse it with this:

For the love of God, make this cloning stop!

It's just as bad though.

An American Ghost Story (2012)

"When Paul, an unemployed writer, decides to rent and live in a house that's rumoured to be haunted, he puts his life and his relationships in grave danger as he obsessively attempts to get the story that will finally make his career."

Whenever a yet to be released horror movie which was made for under $10,000 achieves a 7.5 out of 10 rating on the IMDb, I smell shenanigans. Either not enough non-shills have found it and voted, or the "critics" who received screeners really did find it outstanding. The chances of the latter being true are invariably slim to none though.

Thus, as much as I didn't want to backtrack to another one of last year's movies—especially not one with a title change designed to cash-in on the success of FX's "American Horror Story" TV series—curiosity meant that I had no choice but to check out the ghost story formerly known as "Revenant". I'm pleased to say that I wasn't disappointed by my discoveries either. Although very little has improved since Derek Cole and Stephen Twardokus made "Human Behavior" (2006), at least this movie is in colour like something created in the 21st century should be.

Unfortunately, with annoying, atmosphere-killing background music throughout, "An American Ghost Story" fails to generate an ambience conducive to scares. Things improve enormously when silence reigns, but at its worst, the music sounds like a cat walking up and down a piano keyboard while a tone-deaf 5-year-old child practices chords next to it. Occasionally, it even overpowers the dialogue, and that's a real shame because the acting is fairly decent.

Stephen Twardokus is very good as Paul the obsessive ghost hunter who bites off more than he can chew, and natural beauty Liesel Kopp is ideal as his girlfriend Stella. Liesel Kopp has a lovely, expressive face with big, watery eyes that exude genuine fear in her nighttime scenes. It's a pity that Stella disappears from the movie after 30 minutes, but she's really only in it to represent the sane action which most people would choose when faced with living in a haunted house.

Even Paul's best friend Sam (Cain Clifton) is likeable, so I have to give credit where it's due for the casting choices and characterisation. Wendy Haines is a bit over the top as former resident Sue, and Jon Gale isn't quite so hot as Skip the house-owner, but they only have very small roles which don't add much to the story anyway. Both provide minimal exposition/confirmations about details which have already been said rather than falling into the "idiot lecture" trap.

So where does it all go wrong? Well, apart from the aforementioned awful background music which is only used properly in two action-packed places, "An American Ghost Story" is a very slow burn, and it's full of clichés and homages instead of originality.

There's absolutely nothing here that you haven't seen before, especially if you're a fan of haunted house movies. In particular, "An American Ghost Story" owes a lot to the "Paranormal Activity" series. You could even describe it as a conflation of all the jump scares from the "Paranormal Activity" movies without the camcorders and home security surveillance contrivances.

As much as I would love to praise the "old school" use of tripods and zooms to provide an easy film to watch, there are flaws with the cinematography. Some of the long shots never zoom in enough, and several others are poorly framed. One of this story's biggest contrivances is to have Paul investigating the house at night using a flashlight, which leads to scenes that are too dark to see properly. The intention may have been to cover-up a multitude of effects sins by using the darkness for cover, but it also makes Paul's actions moronic in a house with fully functional electric lights and no power outages!

The house itself is very modern, and amazingly neat and tidy inside. It may have a lot of mismatched wood going on—a mahogany dining table among light oak cupboards is the worst culprit—but it's not a sinister looking house at all. Apart from one of those Crosley Companion radios which is designed to look like an antique one, there's nothing creepy to see. The characters may keep saying how oppressive the atmosphere is, but the "Emperor's new clothes" technique doesn't work when the reality is so painfully obvious.

Even with its flaws, all but two of the jump scares work, but so they should since they've been done to death in other movies! Without spoiling things too much for you, I'll just mention that doors and cupboards open on their own, a basketball is predictably rolled towards Paul by an invisible being, the scary-looking radio switches itself on, and there's a chair-stacking homage to "Poltergeist" (1982) which made me groan. There are a lot of excessively loud bangs to catch you out, and one computer-based moment which I should have known better than to fall for (because I leaned in close to the screen) really works! All I'll say about it, after nearly soiling myself, is that I'm surprised that anyone still uses AOL mail... and you can't animate a jpg image! Well played, Derek Cole, you ass!

As you can see in the trailer, the big thing in "An American Ghost Story" is the use of "sheet ghosts" which, of course, also appear briefly in "Paranormal Activity 3" (2011). The last time I saw sheet ghosts before that was in The Avalanches' "Frontier Psychiatrist" music video. Sheet ghosts are traditionally used for comic effect as in "Beetlejuice" (1988) rather than being terrifying for anyone other than small children, but they work very well here. In its favour, "An American Ghost Story" seriously attempts to make sheet ghosts scary again!

What's my verdict then? All things considered, and with the wind blowing in the right direction, I don't think "An American Ghost Story" deserves its 7.5 out of 10 rating on the IMDb (note: it's now dropped to 6.2 and still falling), but I'm willing to give it a pass mark of 4.5 out of 10 simply because I was entertained. If "An American Ghost Story" was due to be released without any background music, it would be much stronger. It still wouldn't be more than a clone of other haunted house movies, but the sad truth is that the chances of ever seeing any groundbreaking originality in this subgenre is unlikely anyway.

"An American Ghost Story" is definitely worth a rental. If you aren't so enamoured by Katie Featherston that you've vowed never to watch another haunted house movie unless she's in it, you'll probably enjoy this a lot more.

Dark Skies (2013)

"As the Barrett family's peaceful suburban life is rocked by an escalating series of disturbing events, they come to learn that a terrifying and deadly force is after them."

While other people were getting all excited about the "Evil Dead" remake which, undoubtedly, will be reviewed on every horror blog this weekend until you are sick to death of reading about it, I chose to watch something different last night. There were no "Evil Dead" marathons for me because I don't even like the original anymore. Instead of getting caught up in the circus of Bruce Campbell grinning like a lunatic, chopping bits of himself off and waving a chainsaw about, I decided to watch something completely alien to me in more ways than one.

I endeavoured to find enjoyment in yet another Blumhouse Productions movie which has already been slammed by discerning horror critics from one side of the internet to the other. I heard that it had cats in it at one point, and really that's all a movie needs to keep me entertained nowadays. Well, that and a decent bit of storytelling, of course.

I'm not going to get into the finer details because I could easily sum up "Dark Skies" in a couple of choice expletives after it gave me another bout of "Juno Syndrome". For those of you who never read my blog regularly when I was more prolific, "Juno Syndrome" is my own term for when I enjoy a movie throughout its running time then realise 2 minutes after it ends that it was a load of contrived crap which doesn't stand up to any kind of critical deconstruction. "Dark Skies" has good production values, quite a few creepy moments, and I got fished into the Spielberg-esque suburban family problems, but almost as soon as the credits were over, I realised that I had been well and truly misled.

Already people will think, "Ah, but you're just a hater and don't like any PG-13 movies!" That's not entirely true. I didn't even know that "Dark Skies" was a PG-13. I also didn't know anything about the story beforehand other than it might have "extra terrestrials" in it. As long as a PG-13 movie doesn't intentionally have its punches pulled to earn that rating, I'm actually okay with it.

An anorexic teenager with a big head is behind you!

A lot of people also think that I'm totally against PG-13 rated horror just because horror shouldn't be PG-13. That's not actually true either as there are quite a few PG-13 horror and sci-fi movies which I've enjoyed over the years including "Poltergeist" (1982), "Signs" (2002), and even "The New Daughter" (2009). It's just as well really since "Dark Skies" is little more than a fusion of those three all over again. Unfortunately, with it being a Blumhouse Production, "Dark Skies" also shares the same plot construction as "Insidious", "Paranormal Activity" and "Sinister", and I really do hate those.

"Dark Skies" is "Poltergeist" with more discovery contrivances and the ghosts changed to evil grey aliens who look like "Slenderman". If you think you've seen it all before, you have. The only thing which stands out in a good way is the Apple product placement because I'm pretty sure that my next computer really will be an Apple after all the trouble I've had with Linux recently. It's refreshing to see the computers in use rather than being pawed by a certain immature blonde on YouTube.

No, I'm joking. The highlight of "Dark Skies" is actually the cat-owning "alien expert" Edwin Pollard, played by J.K. Simmons, whose exposition is up there with the best of them even if it borrows a lot from the scene between Roger Wayne (James Gammon) and John James (Kevin Costner) in "The New Daughter". I've seen J.K. Simmons in a lot of things. He's a great actor, but he'll still always be Vern Schillinger from "Oz" to me.

The rest of the acting is fairly decent too. I couldn't understand a single thing the little brother said, and the unnecessary close-ups of Keri Russell's upper lip mole distracted me, but it's fine otherwise. I can't abide kids in movies anyway, and Keri Russell is still fairly hot without any lipstick so I'm not going to condemn the cinematographer of "Dark Skies" for wanting to get near her. The characterisation is very good to the extent that the family and their lifestyle are more interesting in themselves than any of the alien abduction nonsense which comes along to ruin it.

The trouble is that aliens and alien abductions simply aren't real. It's total bullshit. If "Dark Skies" had been about a demonic house possession (which it really is anyway given so many "Poltergeist" homages) then it would be a worthy (albeit very generic) entry into the genre. Apart from an awesome (but borrowed) bird scene and one genuinely terrifying (also borrowed) moment near the end, "Dark Skies" is long on tension but disappointingly short on scares.

There's barely a trace of originality in "Dark Skies" other than the "twist" ending which should have quit while it was ahead. It seems to be a trademark of Blumhouse to deliver a great punchline and then ruin it all by adding too many anti-climactic minutes afterwards. It's not as if they care. Movies are just a pop product to them. As long as they make as much money as possible (as quickly as possible), to Hell with leaving the audience feeling satisfied.

A Haunted House (2013)

"Malcolm and Kisha move into their dream home, but soon learn a demon also resides there. When Kisha becomes possessed, Malcolm - determined to keep his sex life on track - turns to a priest, a psychic, and a team of ghost-busters for help."

Apart from Marlon Wayans, I've never heard of anybody in "A Haunted House". Actually, that's not entirely true. I also recognised David Koechner but couldn't place or name him until I looked him up on the IMDb. For those of you who also wonder, he was in "Final Destination 5" and "Snakes on a Plane' (which, ironically, is referred to later on).

Not knowing the cast of a theatrical movie is sometimes not a bad thing depending on the subject matter. As long as it's a real movie, you can assume that the actors have been in TV shows or other movies rather than being complete unknowns who don't know what they are doing. If this had been a straight-to-DVD movie, different rules would apply. When you haven't heard of anybody in a backyard "indie horror", for instance, it's definitely a huge warning sign that it will be a bad one.

Having said that, I wasn't expecting a lot from "A Haunted House" either. I hate horror-comedies with a passion, and I've never found any parodies which hit their targets successfully apart from the first "Airplane". I always give every movie a chance to entertain me (otherwise I wouldn't watch them), but I knew the chances would be very slim that I would get anything out of this one.

With great trepidation, I ventured into the uncharted territory of "A Haunted House", and it soon became obvious that all my suspicions were correct. While the parodies of the first three "Paranormal Activity" movies, "The Entity" and "The Exorcist" are almost perfect, none of them are funny.

Maybe it's because the "black American culture" references which are uncomfortably forced in are clichéd and outdated, or maybe it's just because the comic timing and delivery is off, but apart from the dog getting killed at the beginning (and its drawn out aftermath), I didn't crack a smile at anything else once. Dogs disgust me so put it down (no pun intended) to my own callousness that made me grin.

I liked how the various effects were copied so well from the parodied movies. I also recognised every scene including the quick nods to "Insidious", "The Blair Witch Project" and "[REC]". The thing is, I didn't think they were amusing even with all the sex jokes and toilet humour thrown on top of them. I'm no prude, it's just that such humour is feeble and too puerile in ways that only a tame American movie can truly make a mess of them. Ouside of stand-up comedians, American comedy doesn't travel well anyway.

The bottom line is "A Haunted House" looks the part, Essence Atkins is very talented as Kisha (especially when acting possessed), but the "comedy" is a waste of 80 minutes which you'll never get back.

Upcoming Horror Movie - Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

"The film takes place five years after Paranormal Activity 2, which ended with Katie kidnapping Hunter. It follows the life of Alice, her boyfriend Ben and her mother, as paranormal activity starts to occur in their home when Katie and Hunter (now called Robbie) move into the neighbourhood. A laptop is one of the techniques in the film, as well as the Kinect as seen from the trailers. After Katie goes to the hospital Alice's Mother takes Robbie (Hunter) in, which leads to strange occurrences around the house." (from Wikipedia)

Much to the delight of everyone who likes boobies, wobbly camerawork, and horror movies with only three strategically placed jump scares, Katie Featherstone will be back in "Paranormal Activity 4". Let's face it, she's the only reason any of us will watch this except to bitch about it, right guys?

You know I'm not a big fan of the "Paranormal Activity" movies. Basically, when "Paranormal Activity" replaced the "Saw" franchise as the must see Hallowe'en movie every year, it was the beginning of the end as far as the brief reawakening of the horror genre was concerned.

Even though I'm not privileged (or sycophantic) enough to have already seen a workprint of "Paranormal Activity 4", I can already tell from the (possibly misleading) trailer that it will be one of the most disappointing things this year, I'll still be right there with you (in spirit) watching this feeble alternative to a physical "haunted house" though. It's not yet rated, but it's bound to be another PG-13 so it won't be any worse than the last three in the series, will it? Ugh!

According to the official website, "Paranormal Activity 4" is due to be released on October 19th, 2012. You have been warned!