Absintian's Horror Reviews and Thoughts

The Boogeyman 2023 is a new interpretation of the boogeyman legend done a multitude of times in the past. Compared to those older entries this one focuses on the characters and their problems that the boogeyman is the catalyst to healing. The handling of grief when losing a parent at a young age and how the world reacts is written well. Meanwhile, the entity itself is not managed as well as the therapy. Will and his two daughters are stuck managing their own grief of their mother’s death. They are alone as everyone else around them, including the therapists, seem to act on script with little assistance to them. Will is a therapist himself and shows the greatest inability to manage. He can dispense help to his clients, but he himself has turned to the bottle. Going through the motions of being a good father, yet his discussions of the event leading to his wife’s death are few and especially not to his kids. Sawyer, the youngest, is having nightmares of something in her closet and other ...

Haley and her friends gather for a Zoom call during the COVID-19 lockdown. Alcohol is definitely involved but this call is a little special. With the help of a medium they are going to attempt a seance through the Zoom call. They don’t take it seriously from the beginning which brings the attention of a very angry entity.  The plot is standard for ghost stories like this yet the Zoom interface and multiple cameras added a new way for the haunting to be presented. The initial setup of characters and items that will be used later on felt right to get an understanding of who these characters are and their basic personalities for the purpose of the film. The runtime is shorter at just under an hour but the story progresses well without feeling rushed so this runtime felt just right. The characters did not stand out in the way of new character types, just a bunch of friends getting together but they stood out in their reactions once it’s obvious this isn’t a fun night and all felt real in t...

The latest entry in The Grudge franchise within the US has promise. The Director, Nicolas Pesce, had a solid first film. In The Eyes Of My Mother he showed he can use characters effectively to build tension while at the same time give explosive scenes of horror in a background of bleakness. The fourth film in the american version of the franchise was touted as a re-imagining of the original. This would mean we get the elements of the original Grudge with a new twist by a different director. The acting, presentation, camera work and effects were wonderful but the lack of any build or use of the themes to draw tension made this re-imagining flounder. The film is presented in a disjointed manner similar to the original Ju-On and the American version. It begins in the infamous house where a violent tragedy occurred. An american working there as a caretaker witnesses something horrific and quickly returns back home to the states. We see that she is not the same when she returns, starting th...

Andre witnesses his son being pulled by some unseen force violently from his room into the night. 10 Years later, Andre has researched and developed a drug to hopefully look into the afterlife to find who or what took his son. For the final test of his serum he invites his team to a large home where they can monitor the effects of the drug as all of them take it. As the night progresses they find that the serum also lets the other side see them as an especially nasty entity, the smiling man, makes itself known. The characters, other than Andre, seem to only be there to serve the plot’s purpose. Within the first few moments of seeing these assistants on screen they display their use in the plot, one to be scientific, then artistic, and finally the philosopher. With only so much to work with, the actors did their best to try and bring these characters beyond what they were written as. There is no way to grow in the story so they end up being there to carry it. Andre is the only character...

The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books are the primary reason I like reading today. I would always check these books out any chance I could especially when I would be going to camp. The trilogy of books are collections of folklore, myths, urban legends and rhymes that were reimagined for easier reading without lessening the macabre themes. Add in a very talented artist to generate haunting ink drawings to accompany each story, a few of them even now I get chills looking at, and you have a classic anthology series.  When I heard that Guillermo Del Toro was going to produce a movie I was ecstatic. Guillermo has a talent for paying proper attention to what his source material is made of aesthetically and to use that for his films. Look at Crimson Peak for an example trying to bring out the classic Ghost story mixed with Italian giallo film. So if anyone could make a good rendition of the Scary Stories series it would be him. I’m happy to say that the crew hit that mark. With some sma...