Film Review: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

"Some People Believe If We Repeat Stories Often Enough They Become Real. They Make Us Who We Are. That Can Be Scary..."

Based upon the collection of short stories of the same name first published in 1981 and abstracted from the mind of American author, Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is the long-awaited big screen adaptation of Schwartz's tales after first being picked up for production by CBS Films in 2013. Produced by horror and fantasy aficionado, Guillermo Del Toro, a filmmaker fresh after his Academy Award win for the strange if impressive, The Shape of Water, and the man first tipped to direct, the mantle instead falls to Norwegian filmmaker, Andre Øvredal, whose previous work on the likes of Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe results in a slight step-up into the cinematic big time with an extensive wide release. Part Goosebumps inspired mystery, part portmanteau in the ilk of recent excellent examples such as V/H/S and its' impressive sequel, Scary Stories is a very familiar and well-worn ghost train of a ride, a well designed genre flick which takes very interesting ideas and creature concepts and produces them in a strangely lifeless fashion, a particularly irritating outcome considering both the talent and the gothic sensibility which for a horror fan such as myself, is always great fun to see on the big screen. 

With recent years seeing the "revival" of coming-of-age genre fiction being embraced by people across the globe, whether it be on television thanks to the success of Stranger Things or on the big screen with the likes of It and its' upcoming sequel, it's fair to say that Scary Stories works around an incredibly recognisable narrative structure, one which sees our central teen heroes, led by the rather impressive Zoe Colletti, attempt to tackle the forces of darkness after venturing into a particularly creepy household and stumbling across a mysterious book which continues to write stories by itself, tales of which soon spring to life and place the younglings at the clutches of a murderous spectre hell bent on revenge. With the movie then churning out set piece after set piece as it revels in the sight of throwing monster after monster at the audience in a similar fashion to Cabin in the Woods, it is clearly the individual acts which make the film rather entertaining, with fundamentally nightmarish ghouls designed within an inch of their life to scare the absolute pants off you the best aspect of the drama. Where the movie ultimately falls down is the rather dire central mystery itself and a sense that for a fifteen rated movie, it really isn't that overly threatening or scary, resulting in a picture that is too young for adults and too adult for the young and with such a crushing conflict at the heart of it, Scary Stories is neither a great movie or a guaranteed box office smash, two factors which means it will come and go like the snarly creeps at the heart of its' tale. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Death Wish

"How Did Faith Work Out For Those People..?"

Acting as a more than unnecessary reboot of the Michael Winner 1974 film of the same name, torture porn aficionado, Eli Roth (Hostel, Knock Knock) takes control of Death Wish, a ridiculously mainstream B-Movie attempt which swaps Charles Bronson for Bruce Willis as Dr. Paul Kersey who wreaks havoc on the criminal fraternities of Chicago after his wife and daughter are caught up in a robbery gone violently wrong. Forged around a screenplay by Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces, The Grey), Roth's latest is a strangely inert and viciously edited piece of nonsense which although fails to live up to perhaps the levels of incompetence many would suspect, is still a cliched and generously predictable ninety minutes with a Bruce Willis on hilarious form with arguably his worst on-screen performance in his entire career thus far. With vigilante justice a mainstay of cinema and television alike, with John Wick: Chapter Two and Netflix's thoroughly entertaining The Punisher released in the past year, albeit one delayed due to questionable murmurings regarding its' violent tendencies, the argument for whether yet another film depicting the horrors of U.S gun control in a day and age ripe with high profile massacres and murders is simply one I tend to stay away from, with instead focus directed primarily on the film as a work of cinema, rather its' place in the overriding social stratosphere. 

Unfortunately for Roth however, his decision to focus wholly on the power of violence and delights of retribution without any flip-side or depth to the film's leading character is where the movie ultimately fails, with Death Wish oh so quickly falling into a pattern of an on-screen violent murder followed by minimalist discussion through random radio off-cuts and then quickly back to yet another violent death without any real sense of purpose or character development other than just Willis' Kersey simply acting as cannon fodder for the film's plodding progression. For example, in a remarkably misjudged scene, Willis' Kersey enters a gun store with a busty, flirty female sales assistant happily flouting the power of the many weapons on show with Kersey questioning how easy it is for him to purchase such weapons, a question which I, and perhaps the entire audience, assumed would then proceed to satire the sordid state of affairs American gun control is currently in. Shockingly however, this discussion then leads to a scene later in the movie when Kersey returns hand in glove with a desire to purchase everything and anything in order to violently massacre whom he sees fit, showing that in fact, Roth's view of the American weapon fascination is only for the greater good. With the film so obviously edited to fit under the umbrella of the 15 certificate that at times the picture jumps frames so violently you feel as if you've been shot yourself, Death Wish is still not exactly terrible and at just over ninety minutes, is sort of bearable to some degree, but with lazy decisions and a god-awful Willis, Roth's movie is still utter nonsense. 

Overall Score: 4/10