A few Shocktobers ago, I was particularly taken with the first Conjuring movie, enough that I eventually sought out the sequel, despite not being someone who seeks out horror sequels very frequently. So I was happy to catch up with the Warrens again, even if I’m still very behind on catching up with the larger Conjuring universe that has developed over the past decade. While The Devil Made Me Do It isn’t a complete revitalization of the series or anything (though it does pivot slightly away from ghost stories), it still leaves me curious to check out whatever Annabelle and that Nun are up to, perhaps against my better judgment. Continue reading →

It’s funny that the whole idea of doing “Possession” films for this year’s Shocktober was inspired by Exorcist: Believer when there were so many other (better) possession films released this year. I loved Evil Dead Rise, and I haven’t seen The Pope’s Exorcist yet (Expect a review from Sean later this week) but even its unimpressive 48% RT score is double Exorcist: Believer’s paltry 22%. Then there’s Talk to Me, a low budget, Australian Indie from a pair of YouTube creators, and it’s arguably the best horror film of the year.

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The second half of my PG-13 horror week is 2010’s The Last Exorcism directed by Daniel Stamm. A German filmmaker, Stamm directed this and another low budget indie found footage movie before he kind of disappeared in Hollywood. The Last Exorcism‘s success cast Stamm into M. Night Shyamalan’s orbit just as the cinematic universe trend was taking off, setting in motion the now familiar story of the low budget filmmaker suddenly thrown into a massive studio opportunity. In this case, he was to direct “Reincarnate,” a movie that would have formed the middle chapter of “The Night Chronicles” a series that apparently began with Devil, the scary elevator movie also from 2010. Except “Reincarnate” never got off the ground (although also it apparently hasn’t officially been cancelled) and instead Shyamalan had to make a bunch of movies to rehabilitate his own reputation, leaving Stamm to spend last decade plus grinding it out.

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Considering it was already reviewed on this blog when it came out in 2012 and was also featured on John’s favorite horror movies of the ’10s, the praises of Sinister have already been sung around these parts. One thing that stuck out to me about John’s original review is that he mentioned not seeing Ethan Hawke show up in things very often. That seems quite true of the period in which this film was made, as Hawke hadn’t quite rebounded with his Oscar-nominated role in Boyhood yet and was toiling in lower-budget obscurity. It perhaps speaks to Hawke’s current status that he doesn’t have nearly as much screentime in his more recent horror collab with Scott Derrickson, The Black Phone, but at least at this moment, we get a lot of Hawke doing a great job of grounding a movie with plenty of supernatural elements. Continue reading →

We couldn’t call this a “Possession Month” at Mildly Pleased if we didn’t cover at least one Exorcist movie. So I decided to cover two! Why two? Because, much like conjoined twins, Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: The Prequel to the Exorcist will always be inextricably intertwined. Even unpacking why is complicated, but let me try.

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A good PG-13 horror film is a rare and beautiful thing. Because of the way the genre has evolved, as perhaps the only type of movie that can find audiences despite budget, star power, or IP; I think it makes sense that the luminaries are drawn toward taking advantage of the most creative freedom they possibly can… and that means an R rating. But every once in a while, someone who really knows their shit takes a shot at playing within the boundaries that confine most bigger movies. Sam Raimi, hot off doing his Spider-Man trilogy, was extremely up for that challenge when he made Drag Me to Hell. He had worked his spooky quirks into the mainstream and succeeded and naturally the next step was to see if he could bring his new audience with him to something much further out of their comfort zone. So he went and found out exactly how gross a movie can be and still get a PG-13 rating. Bless him for it.

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