Horror Triple Bill

Following the apparent suicide of her best friend, Laine (Olivia Cooke) remains unconvinced about the events concerning her friend’s, Debbie (Shelley Hennig), death so she investigates her house and finds an Ouija board. She convinces a few of her chums to join her in attempting to contact Debbie to find out about her death, however, they unwillingly open the gates to an evil, angry spirit who intends to pick off these devilishly handsome teenagers one by one.

Ouija is a bad film and the only way to make it enjoyable is to gather a load of friends around, drink enough alcohol to knock out a hippo and casually mock the wooden acting, clichéd jump scares and how incredibly attractive almost everyone in the film is. Everyone in this film is considerably better looking than I am and film is shot equally attractively as its stars but these are only factors worthy of any note. Ouija is the epitome of what is wrong with PG-13 horror films designed only to get bums on seats (the film made almost 2000% profit) as Ouija is a PG-13 without any suspense or a tense atmosphere and  as a horror without the merest hint of gore to make up for it the film is as bland and generic as horror movies come.

1.5/5

A team of US archaeologists unearths an ancient pyramid buried deep underneath the sands of Egypt, but before they have a proper chance to investigate they are told to wrap up and leave because the Egyptians in Cairo are a bit pissed off about something (the authoritarian government). However, before they leave they send in a robot to quickly scan the inside of the pyramid but the machine is attacked.  As a result the group must go into the pyramid to recover the robot, however, they get lost in the winding, narrow confines of the pyramid.

The film Pyramid mostly reminded me of was As Above So Below, which in turn made me think of The Descent, in which a group of explorers find their selves trapped gallivanting around the catacombs of Paris. In this case we find a group of explorers gallivanting around ancient pyramids filled with booby traps and mythical monsters. The film achieves a degree of claustrophobic  tension in the first stages of  the film as the gang explore the pyramid but the horrendous dialogue (the line "stop being an archaeologist and start being human being" is particularly worthy of condemnation) and incomprehensible cinematography results in Grégory Levasseur 's Pyramid being a chaotic mess.

1.5/5

Based on the novel by Joe Hill, Horns stars Daniel Radcliffe as Ignatius "Ig" Perrish who the whole town suspects him of murdering his wife (Juno Temple). After porking an old friend Ig grows a set of horns that enables him to look into a person's memory and force them to reveal the inner most secrets. To prove his innocence he sets about using his new found skills to find his wife's murderer

Credit has to go to Daniel Radcliffe for attempting to shave off his Harry Potter reputation and be taken seriously as a actor (his work in Kill Your Darlings and on stage is noteworthy). His performance in Horns is perfectly fine but not a particularly remarkable one. Anyway, Alexandre Aja's adaptation of Joe Hill's novel of the same name is one that has its moments, the religious symbolism and surreal imagery is quite interesting and the horns ability to bring out the people's true feelings and inner most secrets can be slightly amusing. However, when Ignatius "Ig" Perrish builds a rapport with a number of snakes it becomes impossible to take seriously but apart from that the film is an enjoyable mix of body horror and comedy.

3/5