For the month of October, I joined a 31 Days of Horror Movies challenge. But book, wine, and tea reviews will be back in November.
Altergeist (2014)
I picked this movie because it takes place in a haunted winery, and I love me some wine.
There were four movies that it reminded me of; Blair Witch Project, April Fool’s Day (favorite horror movie), The Ring, Tron, and Hellraiser thrown in for good measure. The blend actually worked.
I was a bit worried at first with the shaky hand cam going on, but it was briefly at the beginning and too much throughout. This is where the Blair Witch Project came in. And while I really loved the Blair Witch because that was the first I had seen of that style of filming, I quickly became annoyed with it since it seemed to be in every horror movie afterwards.
As for the April Fool’s Day part, it was how they were all introducing themselves on camera at the beginning. Along with the gratuitous sexy body shot, and someone having a gun when they were not supposed to have one.
The Ring was more so towards the end with the twitchy person coming out of the basement (well), and how they flickered… I think there might have even been a groan or two from them. Hellraiser because of the alternate dimensions and Tron for all the pretty grid/laser lights.
I enjoyed the movie. The death scenes were not anything unique; a gun in the mouth, bludgeoning, drowning, etc… The ending had a fun little twist.
There were a couple parts where I was like, Really! You are there to capture paranormal, but when you go off on your own to explore, you don’t bring a camera or anything with you. But of course, it’s more spooky when people are alone.
The other thing was the music. I love horror movies where I am getting tense and realize it’s in part because of the music. But the score on this one was a bit too much in your face at times, not subtle at all.
All in all, it was a fun horror movie with some Sci-Fi thrown in.