Horror In The Hood

Despite my slow start this month, I'm pretty sure I can get more reviews in than I did last year at this time. Hopefully I can get this review in fairly quick and then find something to review at my other blog for Top Horror Movies Club. Even though I just did one there a couple of days ago, I try to get one in a week. I don't always get around to it though, which I think is pretty obvious at times. Even though I have some more DVDs waiting to be watched from Netflix, I wanted to get Hood Of Horror (2006) out of the way since it was moving up my DVD queue.

Hood Of Horror is an anthology movie. It is framed a cartoon where it explains how Snoop Dogg comes about collecting souls to take to hell. He also acts as a host to each story, as he talks directly to the camera. The first story is about Posie (Daniella Alonso), a girl who has a knack for art with spray cans. She lives in a troubled area where a lot of her work gets spray painted over by trouble makers. After somewhat standing up to some of them, she goes on the run after they chase after her. She runs into a derelict (Danny Trejo) who ends up giving her a tattoo on her hand and arm. She soon discovers that when she puts a big x over someones name, they end up being killed in some weird way. The second story follows Tex Jr. (Anson Mount) and his girlfriend/wife Tiffany (Brande Roderick). After his father died, Tex is set to inherit all the money, but his father has it in his will that Tex is too much of a spoiled brat in order to get the money. Tex has to spend time with his father Vietnam platoon in order to learn honor. These guys all live together in a building paid for by Tex's dad and all are retired. With the money they get from retirement and such, they do manage to get by. That is until Tex and Tiffany show up with their own plans with their money and home. The guys put up with Tex until he does something that goes too far. The third story is about Sod (Pooch Hall), a rapper who has hit it big. As he gets ready for a concert, he hangs with his people, while treating everyone else with disrespect. When confronted by the building manager (Lin Shaye), Sod is forced to confront the bad deeds he did in order to make it big.

Unlike other anthology films where they bring in different writers and directors for each segment, Hood Of Horror has different writers but Stacy Title is the only director. I never much of a problem with the film was directed, but I didn't care much for the stories. The first one telling us how Snoop Dogg's character became a collector of souls was somewhat interesting, but was a bit too long considering that it doesn't play into any of the other stories. Also, his appearance at the end of each story can feel forced. The second story, which is the first that isn't a cartoon, with Posie was almost like the first story. Posie is given a little back story that explains how her parents died. It is obvious that this event still drives her, but it doesn't explain why she gets into it with gang members and eventually decides to snuff them out with her new power. It was just an okay story at best. The middle story was my favorite of the bunch. While not a great story, I found it to funny at least with some nice gore to it. My only problem with it was that Ernie Hudson was given the majority of the lines and the rest of his group just stood around. The last story was the shortest, besides the intro cartoon, and maybe the most serious. It was also my least favorite. I think it was just because it could have done so much more than it did with more time.

One thing good about Hood Of Horror is that it could get gory at times. The most creative of the deaths is perhaps a beer bottle through the head after the person falls on it. I also liked an exploding belly. Even though I thought that the effects came off a bit silly, I can't really explain why I felt that way about that them though, I couldn't really complain about them looking bad. A lot of reviews complain about that acting the most. While I partly agree with them, I didn't find it as bad as others did. What I found fun about the cast was finding some of the bigger B list stars that can be found in each story. Danny Trejo and Billy Dee Williams in the first story. Ernie Hudson in the second story. "Diamond" Dallas Page, Aries Spears and Jason Alexander in the last story. At least I think Page was in the last story. Personally, I think Snoop Dogg should stick to his music, not that I'm into his music, because I don't think he makes much of an actor.

It seems that some fans of horror have started calling Hood Of Horror by another name: Hood Of Horrible.  As far as anthology films go, it does manage to scrape the bottom. Not by a lot, VHS beats it out I think, but it could have been a lot better than it was. The second story, with Tex Jr., was the only one that felt the right length. If you are into these types of movies, you could certainly do better, but you might still get some enjoyment out of it at least. Some of the ways people are killed makes it worth at least one run through.
2 out of 5 I will never think of caviar in the same way again

Burning Some Wicker Again

I didn't think it would take me this long to start another review here. My last review here took me longer than I thought it would when I hit a wall trying to figure out what to talk about. I managed to work through it, but it took a few days. I also did a review for The Purge, which took a few days as well. Not because I didn't know what to say, but because of work mostly. I didn't have a lot of time to get things done at home, so I didn't get much writing done. I did get it done last night though. I also watched The Wicker Tree (2011) last night. This is supposed to be the sequel to The Wicker Man, the original, not the remake.

We meet Beth (Brittania Nicol) and Steve (Henry Garrett) at their church in Texas as they get ready to leave the country. They are both born again Christians. Beth used to be a country singer, but has now turned to Christian music. She still seems to have fans though, as just about everywhere she goes, there is someone asking for an autograph. Steve apparently used to love to gamble. They are off to Scotland in order to spread the word of Christ, and plan to get married when they return. Being Christians, they have vowed not to have sex with each other until they are married. Once in Scotland, they meet Sir Lachlan Morrison (Graham McTavish) and his wife Lady Delia (Jacqueline Leonard). They have special plans for a festival that is coming up that involve Beth and Steve, but only if they can get them to agree on their own.

As I have said before, I liked the original The Wicker Man because it is such an odd film. Sure it took a long time before the horror part of the story kicked in, but the movie was so odd leading up to that, that it still made the movie enjoyable. Even though The Wicker Tree is supposed to be a direct sequel to The Wicker Man, it might as well be a stand-alone film. Unless I missed it, there was no mention of the first film. If there was, it wasn't enough to require one to have watched the original. Robin Hardy returns as director for this film. Unlike The Wicker Man, Hardy provides the script for this film as well. I suppose that if you have yet to watch the original film, The Wicker Tree might offer some surprises for you. If you have watched it though, it offers nothing new. I admit that things didn't end the way I thought they would, but it wasn't so far off to be a complete surprise either. The original film offered up a mystery to start things off, with the missing child and the cryptic answers the police officer investigating it was getting. The Wicker Tree has nothing to keep you involved with the story. I mean, spreading the word of Christ isn't something you hear about too much these days, and I would think that people in Scotland already know about it anyway. If they had set the film in the past, maybe as a prequel, then I would buy into the story more. I suppose that Hardy used this angle for his story since it would be a way to keep the characters pure. The only mystery that is offered is why Beth and Steve are wanted for the festival. If you have watched the original film, or its remake for that matter, then you already know the why.

There was hardly anything as far as special effects go. We catch a glimpse of naked people with blood on them, which is supposed to explain what happened to someone, and someone else on fire. Outside of those two things, which I suppose did look okay, there was nothing to be found. The acting was just okay. I didn't really get into anyone's acting this time around. I wasn't all that impressed by either Brittania Nicol, so far her only acting job, or Henry Garrett. The actors who played the Morrison's were a little better, but wasn't around near as much. Christopher Lee does come back for this film, but is limited to a flashback scene that has nothing to do with the original film. I don't think he even reprises his role from that film.

Like any film, I wanted to enjoy The Wicker Tree. Even though I found it strange to do a sequel to a film 30 some years after the original, it was still a film I wanted to check out. One of the things I liked about the original film was the music that was found in it. There are songs in The Wicker Tree, but they don't have the randomness that the original film felt like it had. Instead of feeling like a sequel, it felt more like a remake that kept the basic idea, but changed the story around it. I haven't found a review from someone who had not watched to original or the remake at least, so I don't know how someone from that perspective feels about The Wicker Tree. If you have watched the original, and you are like me in that you want to watch all sequels, then feel free to do so. I have a feeling that like me, and so many others, you will likely feel disappointed by it though.
2 out of 5 Never offer to be in a festival if you are just visiting

Chasing Cannibals In The Woods

After some debate with myself, I decided to go ahead with the book review I have been teasing with. I was going to get started on this review sooner, by my head has been bugging me, but at least my knee is feeling better. Some days I feel like I am falling apart. Anyway, I forgot to mention that I did a review a couple of weekends ago at Top Horror Movies Club for the film Black Rock. Check it out when you can! Before I get caught up on movie for here, I finished reading the book Dead Of Winter by Brian Moreland. So far Moreland has written two book, of which he says that Dead Of Winter is his favorite.

Set mostly in Ontario in the 1870's, we meet Inspector Tom Hatcher. Tom has had it rough over the last few years. Tom had been in Montreal working his biggest case yet. He has been trying to track someone who has become known as the Cannery Cannibal. He managed to catch the guy, who turns out to be the son of a wealthy family, but not before Tom's wife became the last victim. Taking a job from Avery Pendleton, who has a problem with cannibals as well, Tom is hoping to start over with his son Chris in the wilds of Ontario at a fur trading fort owned by Pendleton. Another fort, that is somewhat nearby, has sent the youngest person there to try and get help. She was the only one health enough to make it, but she is found almost dead because of the harsh winter. She has a diary from a priest at the fort that no one is able to read accept for a note inside which instructs that the diary be taken to Father Xavier in Montreal. Tom and others feel it is some kind of disease, while the natives think it is an ancient evil that has been hunting the area for a very long time, and Father Xavier believes it is the Devil himself.

On on a book review site that I found, those that didn't like Dead Of Winter said that it started off well enough, but went downhill from there. For me, the start of the story was the hardest to get through. The story was jumping around a lot between the different people who would become important to things later on. With it being set so far back, it was also a little hard to get into it because of that as well. Once I got passed these issues, and the story started to even out more, I really got into it. Unlike the last novel I read, Dead Of Winter has a somewhat big cast to keep track of. This wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be since the story mostly revolves around certain characters.

Moreland made an interesting choice by setting the story in the 1870's. It takes care of a lot of problems horror stories can run into by setting it so far back. I thought it made the story more interesting just because of the different things that the character believed in back then. You don't come across many people today that will believe that an ancient evil that lives on an island in the middle of a lake and comes out in the winter once the lake is frozen over. It was also interesting to see the different reasons for what was going on. Moreland manages to combine these reasons, for the most part. It might be seen as something different between the native people and religion, but in the end it was very real for both. Moreland doesn't really let one side be right as far as I could tell anyway.

If you are looking for a book that is heavy on character development, then you should like Dead Of Winter. While Tom Hatcher gets this more than any character, Moreland doesn't skimp on the other bigger characters that are found through his story. You will learn a lot about Tom. We learn about his drinking problem, and why he has it. It gets into why he has trouble with his son, and even why he doesn't like the natives very well. Father Xavier is another character we get to know a lot about. There is a little bit about his family in general, and a lot about his sister and how he got into the Order. It was a little bit of a surprise what some of the characters did at times, and what they were thinking. Not that I minded that. There was all kind of sub-plots going on, but what I liked about them is the majority of them lead in some way to the main story.

I don't know if Moreland does it with his other books, he has a couple more that are due out this year it looks like, but with Dead Of Winter he writes a lot of short chapters. In 327 pages, he uses 22 parts and 225 chapters. The nice thing about that is it made it easy to leave off at the end of a chapter while I was reading at work. It was a little odd to have so many chapters. Some of them deal with the same scene, like a group of people talking, but it would change character perspectives.

I thought that the middle of the book slowed down a bit too much. It became less about the horror that was going on around the snowed in forts, and more about the relationships between some of those people. Not that it wasn't interesting in itself for the most part, it just wasn't really what I was expecting to find from a book that uses cannibals. Even though I had some problems with Dead Of Winter, I still found it to be a very good story. It was a quick page turner once I started getting into it. I did see some complaints about the racism and sexism in a couple of reviews, but I got the impression that was sort of the point as to why Moreland set the story at this point and place in history, so he could play on those things in his story. If you are looking for something a little different, then Dead Of Winter is something you might just find worthwhile.
4 out of 5 I think I would find the fort life rather boring

Forest Demons Always Look Better Nude

I forgot that I had a book review to do. I am a little behind watching movies so I jumped right into the next one. Maybe I will get the book review in after this review. I'm home today so I did end up getting a three day weekend after all. I don't know what I did to my knee, but it sure does hurt when I put weight on it. Can't really afford to be off, but one has to sometimes I guess. Anyway, enough about my boring life. The next movie that would have been sent to me was Forest Of The Damned (2005), also known as Demonic. I could watch it on instant watch as well, so I thought I would get this movie in before sending a DVD back to them.

Emilio (Richard Cambridge) has bought a new van, one which everyone thinks is junk and it barely runs. To celebrate, he has invited his friends to go on a little camping trip out to a lake in some woods. Going with him are Judd (Daniel Maclagan), Andrew (David Hood), Molly (Nicole Petty) and his older sister Ally (Sophie Holland). After driving for a long time, and with it now being night out, they end up getting a little lost. With a warning light blinking, they decide to pull over in a small town to see what is going on. Some guy eventually comes up to them and warns them off about tales of people going missing in the woods. Being freaked out, they take off. The next morning, while still driving, Emilio nearly falls asleep at the wheel, but then notices something out in the woods. Being distracted, he doesn't see the woman in the road, and runs her over. With the van no longer working, and not being able to get a single, some of them set off after spotting a mailbox in hope of finding someone. What they don't know is that there are some fallen angels in the woods hungry for humans.

Forest Of The Damned is a film out of the UK. It was written and directed by Johannes Roberts. This is a movie that could have easily slipped into the soft porn genre if it had wanted to. It starts with a couple out in the woods making out. A woman who is completely naked walks up. At first the couple doesn't know what to make of this, but when the guy approaches the naked woman, they start kissing right away. After naked woman starts to bite off his face, the woman he was with meets other naked women, but gets away before being killed herself. This ends up being the woman who later gets run over. According to the story, these naked women are fallen angels who were kicked out of heaven for lusting after humans. They apparently have some kind of power over us humans since most of the time they let the angels do whatever they wanted, no questions asked. The problem for Forest Of The Damned isn't that it didn't delve more into erotic horror, but that it didn't seem to have much direction at all. The characters end up walking for what felt like forever in the woods looking for a house they think is there. I'm surprised they didn't give sooner that it was mentioned. This is where they meet Stephen, played by Tom Savini. Then they spend most of the rest of time trying to get away from him. While his story was somewhat interesting, the whole time I'm wondering why the real villains of the story are barely getting any screen time at all.

One character does come across them swimming, which he joins them. This was the first appearance of the women since the start of the film. There is a few scenes of this going on, and then we don't see the guy for a while longer. Once we do see him, it is somewhat obvious the women did something to him. We get a couple of short flashbacks, that don't bother to show what the women did to him, and then we don't see the women again for a good while yet again. Some films will hide what the characters are fighting or trying to get away from, and then have a big reveal late in the film. Forest Of The Damned seemed to be trying to do that as well, but what the point of it? We know who the villains are within the first five minutes of the film anyway, so why not have them more involved with the plot?

The effects do look good and can be gory at times. Lips get bit and chewed off, with one that looked very painful indeed. There is also an effect of one person getting pulled apart. I'm pretty sure this was meant as a nod to Savini since it looked like the same effect from...Day Of The Dead wasn't it? I thought the women pulled him apart a little too easily, but that had nothing to do with the good effect. The acting wasn't real bad, even though that seemed to be the biggest problem people on the IMDb boards had with it. The stand out to me was Sophie Holland. Her character is a total bitch towards everyone, most of all to her little brother, but I still thought she did a great job with it.

It was funny in a way to see Tom Savini as the top billed actor. I mean the guy usually does a good job with his roles, I'm not trying to knock him for that at all. I guess it shows that you truly cast a bunch of unknown actors when you use Tom Savini as your top actor. Some reviews really praise Roberts for his directing in the film. I admit that there was some scenes that I liked how it was filmed. However, Roberts annoyed me more than anything a lot at times as well. He seems to have a thing for close-ups. I mean very close up of eyes mostly, but there are also some of the person's mouth as well. I say he has a thing for it because it seemed like to me that it happened a lot. To my surprise, Forest Of The Damned has a sequel out there. It was made a couple of years ago. It doesn't appear that Netflix has it though. If you are interested in watching Forest Of The Damned, it is still on instant watch on Netflix, if you have that. It is called Demonic there, but a search for the original title still brings it up. I wouldn't go out of your way for it though. Unless you watch movies just for the nudity that is, in which case you won't get to see it that often here.
2 out of 5 The "stop everything and kiss me" power would be assume

And I Thought My PMS Was Bad

I didn't get as many reviews in this month as I did a year ago. The good news is I was only two (or maybe three short depending on when I get this review in) so I'm still ahead of my count for the year compared to last year. I had two movies in my saved queue, those movies that Netflix doesn't have on DVD, that I could watch on through their streaming. One was Lips Of Blood, which I watched before it was taken out a week or so ago, the other was Blood Night: The Legend Of Mary Hatchet (2009). It was also about to be taken out of instant watch, so I wanted to make sure to get it in.

Back in 1978, a young Mary (Patricia Raven) is combing her hair and being all normal like. Next thing we know she is killing her parents. Fast forward to 1989 and we find Mary (now played by Samantha Siong) is in a mental hospital. For whatever reason, she is sitting on the floor naked. One of the orderlies comes in and rapes her, which she gets pregnant from. Many months later she gives birth to a baby girl, but Mary is told she died due to complications. Afterwards Mary goes on another murder spree and is eventually shot by the police. She threw a severed head at them and was still naked, so she deserved to be shot, right? Fast forward again, 20 years this time, to 2008 and we find out that teens in the same town have now made Mary's death into something of a holiday. They apparently run around with Mary masks and tampons, vandalize places and what have you. This year we get to follow a group of seniors as they go to Mary's grave to try and call forth her spirit, party, and of course get killed. But is it Mary's spirit doing the killing, or someone else?

Frank Sabatella brings us his first, and so far only, full length movie in Blood Night. The opening stuff, 1978 and 1989, all happen before the credits role, which is a little over 10 minutes into the film. Once the credits start to role, we learn a little more about Mary and what has followed since her death. The first thing I noticed was that someone can't count. Newspapers say that Mary was 12 when arrested, but she was born in 1967, which would make her 11 at the time of the murders. If you missed it, 1989 to 2008 isn't 20 years. This in itself didn't make me hate Blood Night at all, just was a little annoying. I liked the opening fairly well. Even though Mary doesn't use a hatchet very often, Hatchet is something I think the teens gave her for a name since that isn't really her last name, it was still interesting watching her kill people. Meeting the group of teens that we will be following was a little less interesting. We never get to know any of them, outside of who likes who type of thing. A main character is never found either. I did find it funny when one of them finds the film Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes and calls it old school. Once the killing starts again, which comes as a bit of a surprise since there is no buildup to it at all, things really start to fall apart, no pun intended. I found the almost rapid fire killing, some of which is off screen so you have to rack your brain to try and figure who the bloody mess is, a little confusing at times and actually pretty damn boring.

Some of the kills look great, while others look very cheesy. The special effects was another reason I ended up not liking Blood Night. Sure they can be very gory, but they don't always look very good. They range from blood from a period, to people losing their head. To my surprise the cast wasn't too bad. Bill Moseley gets top billing even though he isn't in the movie a whole lot. His character, who used to work at the mental hospital Mary was in, is dressed like Crazy Ralph from the first two Friday The 13th films as a homage. Danielle Harris is next up, who is friends with some of the other teen characters. I don't want to spoil anything but will say that it was nice seeing these two play characters they don't normally play in a horror film. The rest of the cast was okay. You can find Nate Dushku, Anthony Marks, Billy Magnussen, Alissa Dean, Maryam Basir, Samantha Hahn, Michael Wartella, Connor Fox, Russel Dennis Lewis, Rich Ceraulo and Garett Stevens.

Apparently Mary's psychosis is more severe when she is going through her time of the month. I found that a little amusing and had to use it for my title in some way. Another character apparently has the same problem, which I thought should have shown up long before we meet her since she is plenty old enough to have had them for a long time. It was small things that added up to make Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet feel boring to me. It didn't help that there was no tension found anywhere. With this being Sabatella's first film, hopefully he will learn from mistakes and make a better film next time. While some people really enjoyed this film, I've read a enough reviews that follow the same thoughts that I had on it. Not a complete waste of time, and interesting for Danielle's character alone. I'm sure it can be found outside of Netflix somewhere if you are interested in it.
2 out of 5 Do you get PMS? If not, get it!

Do Not Say Bloody Mary Three Times

I was going to do a book review here. After going through my Netflix queue, I noticed a couple of more movies being pulled, so decided to get them watched instead. The book review can wait I suppose. I'm not that great at them anyway, so yeah. I'm sorry for any confusion I made in my last post. I do not have another three day weekend coming up. I started the last post last weekend, but didn't finish it before the weekend was over. I didn't update the start of the review, like I sometimes do if a review takes me a while. Anyway, I watched The Legend Of Bloody Mary (2008) last night.

Ryan (Paul Preiss) is having a lot of nightmares. They are reaching a point to where his girlfriend Rachel (Irina Costa) is ready to leave his ass, no matter how much she loves him. His dreams are about his older sister Amy (Rachel Taylor), who disappeared years ago after playing the Bloody Mary game. She discovered the game on a web site that explained the legend of Mary Worth (Caitlin Wachs), which is also explained in flashbacks, along with some friends. After they played the game, some ended up missing while others ended up in a mental hospital.With the help of Father O'Neal (Robert J. Locke), is it time for Ryan to play the game himself and possibly end the terror of Bloody Mary?

Director and co-writer John Stecenko made The Legend of Bloody Mary a bit too complicated. As others have pointed out, the Bloody Mary game should make a good movie. What hurts it is there is so many variations of the game, and not a lot of background for a full length film. Stecenko does a good job at giving Mary Worth some background. It is different from the stories I have heard before, but was still a good story. Set back a long time again, Mary Worth becomes pregnant. Since this is a big sin back in the day, for a woman who is not married, she is told to give up the father in order to spare being punished. Since she won't do that, the entire town gets to punish her while she can see herself in a mirror. She curses the town and of course a legend is born. The story set in modern day wasn't bad either. It had issues, but the overall story wasn't bad. The main problem was that Stecenko insists on using video clips from an actual Bloody Mary game that was once part of MTV 2 way back in 2006. I'm assuming this is where Stecenko got the idea for this feature length film, having Amy's brother grow up and all. Adding this story line in didn't make the movie harder to follow, but it muddles it up a lot more. We end up getting two different flashback stories, so three stories in all which jump around all the time between each one. I just thought the story would have played out better without the flashbacks for the Amy story line. Sure it plays a part in what is being played out in the present, perhaps more than the story for Mary Worth, but it could have been done with people explaining what happened, or a much shorter version in flashback.

There wasn't a whole lot as far as special effects go. All that is found centers around Mary Worth/Bloody Mary in some way. I thought that Bloody Mary didn't look all that great. However, how Mary Worth became Bloody Mary was a much better special effect with all kinds of cuts. The acting was never what I thought of as bad, but it can come close. Out of the three story lines, I thought that the present day story had some of the worst acting in it. The story with Amy and her friends was perhaps the best, with the Mary Worth story coming in a close second.I'm guessing that Paul Preiss was the main actor, but he really wasn't in it as much as I thought he would be.

Something that bugged me was the way the movie somewhat ends. I'm not talking about the very end of the film, but close enough. The Legend Of Bloody Mary takes itself somewhat seriously. There is some comedy thrown in, mostly by a female character who is helping Father O'Neal, who is also an archaeologist by the way. It was pretty normal stuff, something to break up the tension, what little there was. The ending turned a bit more towards this comedy side. At this point I didn't care for it. Since the rest of The Legend Of Bloody Mary was more serious, I wanted the ending to be that was as well. It wasn't over-the-top comedy, but it was still enough to make me frown at it. The Legend Of Bloody Mary came close to getting a mid range rating out of me, but after it was over and I had thought about it some, I realized it missed the mark for that. More than likely I would watch it again someday, but it isn't one I would go out of my way for.
2 out of 5 I can honestly say I never played the Bloody Mary game

Nothing Like The Edge Of A Knife

I'm so looking forward to the extended weekend. I don't have any plans, but it is just nice to have a extra day off and get paid for it. I noticed as I write this that I am nearing 1050 posts. This would normally mean that I would pick an old favorite to write about. I don't know that I will this time though. I've been having a hard time going back and finding favorites now, so I might stop doing that. I hate to since it has become something of a staple to my blog. I can probably squeeze a couple more out of it, but I knew I would have to retire it at some point. Ending it on my 1000th post feels right. Anyway, while I ponder on it some more, I managed to watch Knife Edge (2009) before it was taken out of my instant watch queue.

Emma (Natalie Press) is a successful stock trader. She seems to have a knack for finding just the right time to sell. Recent events are about to change all that though. First off, she has gotten married to Henri (Matthieu Boujenah), who has plans of his own for them. Then there is the fact that he five year old son Thomas (Miles Ronayne) is going to be a big brother. Henri takes Emma to England where he surprises her with a sprawling mansion, which is going to be their new home. He had been fixing the place up in secret, and it does look nice. Henri also has a surprise party in store for Emma, in which she gets Thomas to tell everyone the good news. We soon learn that things aren't going as well at work as Henri wants Emma to believe. Deals aren't going through, and money isn't coming in. To add to the stress, Emma begins to see visions of murders and hearing strange sounds in the mansion. To make things even worse, she is getting some serious pain in her abdomen. Are the visions of the past, of things to come, or is it just all in her head?

Almost every review I have read for Knife Edge has to throw out how this was a return to horror for director Anthony Hickox. Now that I have done the same, I can go on to say that I agree with the majority of the reviews in that I didn't like this movie all that well. Part of the problem was that it had a feel of it has all been done before, and better for that matter. The better part comes from the fact that the story wasn't all that great. Like when the family first gets to their new home, Thomas is told to stay by the car while they go in to check the place out. Of course Thomas takes off and does what he wants. It seems like a long time before either of them mention him again, and even longer before they see him again. Emma leaves Thomas to do whatever more times than not. I know you can't keep an eye on your kid all the time, but I would think she would be more worried about what he doing given that he is only 5 years old. There was also an issue I had with Emma's friend Charles (Hugh Bonneville), but I can't get into my reasons for that since it will spoil way too much of the plot.

There wasn't a whole lot with special effects. There is a couple of scenes, which repeat, that had some nice gore to it, but I don't think most will find it to be anything major. I didn't have any problems with what was shown at least. The acting was a big problem for a lot of people it seems. I didn't have as big of a problem with it, but I understand where some of the complaints are coming from. Hugh Bonneville and Joan Plowright, who plays the nanny, both put in some great performances, but neither of them are in the movie a whole lot. Both Natalie Press and Matthieu Boujenah) were both just okay to me. My main problem was the lack of chemistry between the two. I didn't buy into them being a couple at all.

To be fair, I wouldn't mind giving Knife Edge another watch sometime. Even though it wasn't long after I got off work when I watched it, I was having a hard time staying awake through it. I don't think it was the film itself, I wasn't finding it boring, just that I didn't get a good nights sleep all week and it had started catching up to me by then. I ended up getting to bed early later that night. Even though I don't recall how Knife Edge ended, I still feel safe to give it this review. Majority of the reviews that I checked out had the same thoughts I did about the film, so I don't feel that the very end of the film is going to change my mind about it by much. If Knife Edge does sound interesting to you though, by all means give it a watch. Even though I thought other films with the same type of plot managed to do it better, I still didn't hate this one.
2 out of 5 I don't think I would ever want that big of a house