Gothika (2003) #507

 

Ghost movies were a popular and common sight in the late 90's and early 2000s and Dark Castle Entertainment was there to provide. First they remade popular films originally made by William Castle, such as "House on Haunted Hill" and "Thir13en Ghosts" before creating their own original material, such as "Gothika". A start studded film, starring Halle Berry, Charles S. Dutton, and Robert Downey Jr. and John Carrol Lynch, "Gothika" is a haunting ghost story taking place in a naturally scary location, a psychiatric hospital. Some may find the pacing of the movie a bit clunky when compared to today's sensibilities, but it felt quite at home in the horror films of its time. The production has some great value and visuals, except for some fire effects later in the film.

Halle Berry plays Dr. Miranda Grey, who works in a remote rural hospital in Connecticut with her husband Douglas, and good friend Dr. Pete Graham. One night while driving home, Miranda narrowly misses a young woman standing in the middle of the street, crashing her car. When she approaches her, Miranda is engulfed in flame before she falls unconscious. When Miranda awakes, she finds that she's being held in the very hospital that she works in, and that she is the sole suspect in her husband's violent murder. 

Miranda befriends a patient of hers, Chloe, who she begins to better understand the trauma and struggles that she's going through. One night, Miranda witnesses Chloe being raped, and that her claims of abuse were not delusions. She sees a tattoo design on Chloe's attacker, but no one believes her either. Miranda has problems of her own as she is haunted by visions of the girl from the accident. The ghost begins to torment Miranda by carving the words "Not Alone" on her arm, as well as throwing Miranda against the wall, making it seem like she's trying to kill herself. Miranda is able to escape from the hospital after the attack and drives to a farmhouse that Douglas was renovating. Looking for clues that she's had vivid visions of, Miranda finds a mattress and various torture tools, including a video camera. One of the video tapes shows Douglas killing a young girl on the mattress. Police arrive and arrest Miranda, but find another girl that Douglas had kept locked up

Miranda is taken to the police station for questioning. While waiting to see what happens next, Douglas's best friend, the sheriff Bob Ryan, comes to interrogate Miranda. Miranda tells bob that Rachel, her ghostly tormentor, was set up to look like she committed suicide, but the visions she's been given make it seem more like a cover-up. Being accused of his involvement in her murder, which he was, Bob tries to sedate Miranda but ends up getting injected instead. During the struggle, it's revealed that he is Chole's rapist. Rachel's ghost appears, and Douglas shoots at her, igniting a fire in the station. Burning alive, Miranda shoots Bob, setting Rachel's spirit free. 

Then sometime later, both Miranda and Chole are free, moving on with their lives after their trauma. 

Ju-on 2 (2003)

"Ju-on 2", the full length sequel to "Ju-on: The Grudge", is a surprising improvement over the original film that kick started Americans interest in Japanese horror films. The film has a stronger plot and is scarier than the the original. The effects are more effective and more profound, using photo techniques rather than out right CGI. The story is again broken up into individual chapters that focus on a primary character. The chapters are not in exact chronological order but are presented in a way that is not too confusing and makes sense when the movie is over.

The film focuses on a set of primary characters who are involved with filming a TV show inside the haunted house where housewife Kayako and her son Toshi were violently killed by their husband/father.

Kyoko is a horror movie actress and is set to make a guest appearance on a weekly TV show. This particular episode takes place and is about the violent murder of a housewife and the disappearance of her son. After filming the episode, Kyoko and her boyfriend have a horrible car accident (cause by seeing Toshi). Her boyfriend falls into a coma and she believes that she lost her unborn child; the baby turns out to be ok. While she survived her run in, her mother dies at home under mysterious circumstances.

Others at the filming also have run ins with the ghosts, including the episodes co-star, Tomoka and her boyfriend, the make-up artist Megumi, and the random disappearances of the camerman and sound guy. Only the director, Keisuke, lives more than a few days....

Favorite moment - A chilling scene where Kayako is coming for one of the characters but is stopped by another force!

Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)

For years horror fans had speculated that Freddy Krueger would go toe to toe with Jason Voorhees, especially after Freddy's trademark glove came up through the floor and grabbed Jason's hockey mask at the end of "Friday the 13th part 9". That was in 1993; it wouldn't be until an additional "Friday the 13th" was made and ten full years had passed before the world was given "Freddy Vs. Jason" in 2003. The movie....is what it is. It takes elements from both franchises, dozens of teens to kill, and a story that finds a way to blend the two together easily. The best scenes are of course when the two villains are going at each other but the teens deaths are fun as well. This film is more about action and satire than horror and that's ok. This is the last appearance of both title characters before each series was rebooted.


Freddy Krueher is trapped in Hell and can't escape unless the teens on Elm Street believe in him. Since no one remembers or knows of him, he decides to trick Jason Voorhees into going to the suburbs and killing on his behalf, hoping to stir up some memories. Eventually someone does, a patient in a mental hospital, and Freddy is released. But Jason keeps on killing Freddy's victims, so the two go head to head in Freddy's dream world. During this time, some teens are able to drug Jason long enough to return him to Crystal Lake where he and Freddy have a final showdown in the real world, where Jason has the upper hand.

Final Destination 2 (2003)

"Final Destination 2" follows the same line of logic that you can't escape Death's Grand Scheme, although you might be able to delay your death for a time. The film has a new catastrophe that is avoided by a group of strangers when one of them has a vision of the near future. The survivors soon learn that even though they escaped certain death, their lives are not yet saved and find themselves being killed off one by one in gruesome ways. There is the added element to this film that each character was some how associated with one the survivors/victims from the first film! Only one character from the original, Clear Rivers (played by Ali Later), has survived since the original. The movie has several moments of comic relief and keeps the death scenes unique and entertaining.


Kimberly is on her way to Daytona Beach with a group of her friends. As she approaches the freeway on ramp, she has a vision of a terrifying mass-car pile up where several people are gruesomely killed, including her and her friends. She also realizes that it's the one year anniversary of the airplane explosion and the story of the group of survivors that left the plane before it took it. As the line grows behind her of drivers wanting to get on the free way, and cop comes up and asks her what's going on. Kimberly gets out of the car and tries to explain her "crazy" story to the cop, but while doing so the accident's chain of events begins to the surprise of everyone, and Kimberly watches in disbelief as her friends who are still in the car are killed by a speeding truck. The story then focuses on Kimberly, the cop, and the eight others behind her car who were meant to die in that accident, and how they are killed off one by one in clever, nasty ways. They try to band together to save each other and even ask for help from Clear Rivers who eventually agrees, after hiding herself away in safety in a mental hospital.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

It felt like we had to wait forever for Rob Zombie’s directing debut movie “House of 1000 Corpses”. No one wanted to distribute it because of its extreme content and after seeing clips of it at one of his concerts, the crowd just wanted more and didn’t care how it came out. And when it finally did hit the theaters and his fans flocked to see it, they soon left confused saying “that was it?” The movie displayed Zombie’s unique taste for over-the-top and demented characters, jarring and twisted motives, and unfortunately was completely unaware that he was filming a movie and not a three minute music video. It also lacked any real scary moments or tension beyond the scenes where the character Otis is yelling and tormenting his victims.

“House of 1000 Corpses” is essentially a retelling of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with a bit of “The Hills Have Eyes” thrown in for flavor. Two young couples on a road trip exploring places with weird attractions get talked into seeking out the location where a murder named Dr. Satan was hung for his crime against humanity. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker named Baby, who happens to belong to a clan of demented murders. After the car gets a flat, the group is towed back to Baby’s house where they couples meet the Firefly clan. As they try to leave, they’re attacked by the family and then tortured and killed in various ways.

Haute Tension (2003)

“Haute Tension” is a gruesome French horror film from 2003 that has a few major plot holes and a bit too much violence than is necessary. The movie was pretty interesting until the plot twist is revealed at which time the viewer (me!) is left with a feeling of “oh, that’s it?” With its weak story line that makes the movie feel shorter than it is this film is really just a fancy, slick slasher film that has some unique death scenes. This is not a bad thing as the director, Alexandre Aja, shows a lot of promise and has gone on to direct several other horror movies that I intend to see. And for the record, I am never comfortable with scenes that include realistic violence against children; luckily the one that is in the film is quick and the violence is merely implied and not shown graphically as all of the others are.

Marie and Alex, her best friend, are going out to the country to study for the weekend. Alex’s family has a large house which they recently bought and it’s the perfect place to get away and focus for a while. After meeting the family and settling in for the evening, Marie goes out for a smoke. When Marie is preparing to go to sleep, a stranger comes up to the house and begins a violent and brutal attack, killing the family and tying up Alex. Marie is able to hide from the assailant and watches him kill Alex’s mother and brother. She finds Alex and tries to untie her but is unable to. Marie is able to sneak into the stranger’s truck after he throws Alex into the back. The three end up at a gas station where Marie tries to get help but the stranger kills the attendant. The stranger drives off without Marie who then steals a car to follow. The stranger notices Marie and forces her vehicle off the road; now that he knows about her, Marie is forced to run for her life and eventually fight for her life in order to save her friend.

Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Jeffrey Combs is back as my personal favorite mad scientist of all time, Dr. Herbert West! “Beyond Re-Animator” is the third movie involving this arrogant but brilliant “Frankenstein” style scientist, this time serving time in prison for his crimes against humanity, but dead and alive. Directed by Brian Yuzna, it comes at no surprise that the movie was filmed and produced in Spain, including a cast of supporting local actors. I was lucky enough to first see this movie at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in 2003, and I was one of many who loved how Dr. Herbert’s new assistant was lovingly named Dr. Howard Phillips. Like “Dagon”, this was the perfect place to see this movie, surrounded by fans who loved every Lovecraft reference and forgave every cheesy moment.

Young Howie watches his sister get killed by a runaway corpse that wandered away from a local cemetery after being reanimated by Dr. Herbert West. Finding a single syringe of Dr. West’s reanimation solution, Howie internally decides to dedicate his life into becoming Dr. Herbert’s assistant. Thirteen years later Howie is now a young physician and is now called Dr. Phillips. He becomes the resident physician at the prison that Dr. West is serving time in. Howie meets Dr. West when one of the inmates has a heart attack; Howie gives West his old syringe and they try the 13 year old solution on the dead inmate. It works and he comes back but not before wounding a guard and attracting the attention of the Warden. Howie also attracts the attention of a visiting reporter, Laura Olney.

During his time in prison, Dr. West has continued his research and has developed a way to extract “NPE” (Nano-Plasmic-Energy) from the living. With this energy and the solution, the dead that are brought back appear normal and retain their memories and regular motor functions. This of course only causes more problems when chaos breaks out in the prison, including the death of the Warden who has the “NPE” of a rat infused into him. The colorful cast of inmates take full advantage of the chaos and reanimation solution, and the ending is a fun chaotic mess. During the buildup to the big climax, Laura is killed (for a second time), Howie goes insane, and Dr. West escapes into the world to continue his research (aka cause trouble) once again.

Favorite moment – One of the inmates reminds me of Tom Savini and after he dies and is brought back, he runs around the prison missing his lower half. He hates Dr. West for killing his pet rat and tries to get his revenge. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un02Tpqwy5U

Wrong Turn (2003)

“Wrong Turn” is your average, mainstream horror flick filled with a cast of pretty people and a storyline that has a few thrills but nothing that really stands out. What it does show, with newspaper clippings and medical reports during the opening sequence, is how the inbred hillbillies of West Virginia have increased strength and a high resistance to pain. They also indicate that numerous people are reported missing every year in that area. Like other cannibal movies, it’s a family that is performing these dastardly deeds. And like other movies I’ve noticed, they like to leave a dead body lying around with a leg missing. Why?

Chris is on his way to a very important job interview but he’s running late. To bypass a messy accident on the highway, he takes the back road but ends up hitting another vehicle that was stop in the middle of the road. Everyone is ok but is quickly creeped out when they find a barbed wire tire trap that was laid out and ruined the tires of the first vehicle. The group of six breaks up; four walking around looking for a phone while two stay with the broken cars. The two quickly get killed (surprise!) by the cannibalistic hillbillies while the other four find the hillbillies house. There are piles of sunglasses, cell phones, watches, and other items collected by their victims over the years. The three hillbilly brothers come home, the four hide and hear/watch their dead friends get hacked up. Hacking up bodies is tiring, so when the hillbillies take a nap, the four survivors escape from the house. The rest of the movie is about the hillbillies chasing and sometimes killing the four remaining survivors. Of course Eliza Dushku makes it to the end, but that isn’t revealing much.