(HORROR) Scary Movie 5 - 2013 ***

I am a fan of the Scary Movie films. I know they are over the top and downright stupid in some parts but that's what I like about them. They always cheer me up if I need it. Scary Movie 5 continues in this vein. It draws on horror movies that have been out since like Paranormal Activity and Mama. Anna Faris isn't in this, but it doesn't really matter because Ashley Tisdale does well on her own and serves up a few dozen laughs all by herself. Snoop Dogg pops up randomly in a scene which is also quite amusing, he seems to have a habit of doing that.
I'll keep watching them for as long as they carry on making them.

(HORROR) The Innkeepers - 2011 **

Sorry, but this was a very poor excuse for a horror film. Sara Paxton is pretty rubbish and nothing much was going on here that would hold anyone's attention for long.

The Yankee Pedlar inn is closing, and the two employees who have been chosen to work until the end are determined to reveal and document the hotel's haunted past. This includes making a website and filming 'ghostly' activity.

Some of it was a bit eerie, but on the whole what annoyed me the most was Sara Paxton's stupid face looked concerned and worried in equal amounts. There is only so much of it one can take.

The Devil's Backbone - 2001 ***

Guillermo del Toro is one of those interesting directors, because he can bring out either a masterpiece (Pan's Labyrinth) or a pretty dire effort (Cronos), as well as a load in between that don't sway you much either way.

The Devil's backbone was bizarre. And I won't deny that it had some very frightening parts, and one of the cutest little boys I've ever seen in a Spanish film, but the story didn't flow right for me, it didn't connect, and I think that is what let it down.

The young boy Carlos, is sent to an orphanage towards the end of the Civil War, and is given the bed of a boy named Santi who died due to a mysterious explosion in the orphanage years ago. Carlos begins to see him as a ghost, but no one else does, and he realises that this is Santi's way of trying to get Carlos to avenge his death, and in the process of doing so, he uncovers some rather terrifying facts about his new home, and the people who live in it.

Del Toro has obviously stolen quite a bit from this for his later work 'The Orphanage' which features several similar ghostly scenes which send shivers down your spine. The war going on around them is significant, but it doesn't quite overpower the story like it did in 'Pan's Labyrinth' and I feel too much time is taken up with pointless scenes that don't add much to the storyline.

Worth a watch for a die hard Del Toro fan however.

Spirited Away - 2008 **** 1/2

I have never had the slightest interest in Japanese animation which is strange really because I love Disney and Pixar stuff.

However this was in my 1001 movies to see book, so I thought I would give it a go.

I have never seen anything so weird and wonderful in my life.

However I totally loved it and was gripped the whole way through except when my DVD skipped!

You can always count on Japanese movies to be totally bizarre. It was like watching a dream unfold before me and seeing all the strange make believe characters that you might imagine existed when you were younger.

The story is of a young girl who is in the process of moving to a new place with her parents, however after their car breaks down things start to go very weird and her parents, after gorging themselves on some food they find in an empty restaurant turn into pigs, leaving the girl to enter a strange world of spirits and monsters in an effort to save them. I cannot help but reiterate how amazingly weird it is, and I urge people to see it. It's a fable I guess, about living in the real world and escaping into a fantasy? Maybe Japanese people interpret it differently, but I certainly saw it that way, and it only added to my enjoyment. It's convinced me that I have to watch all the other Japanese anime movies I have noticed but never really taken much notice of.