Review: Child's Play (1988)

Stars: Brad Dourif, Chris Sarandon

Budget: $9 Million

Directed By: Tom Holland

Oh child's play you know I looooove horror franchises, especially if they star some kind of weird homicidal killer. Be that a drowned retarded boy, a Shatner masked mentally disturbed brother or a guy who kills you in your sleep.
I am just a massive sucker for a series I can just stick on and watch start to finish for a good few hours of my life.

Running from the police Charles Lee Ray a serial killer escapes to a department store. When he is shot by detective Norris his partner escapes leaving him to bleed out. Before he dies however Charles manages to transfer his soul into a good guy doll.
As the spell completes a bolt of lightening levels the shop. Norris then discovers the corpse of Charles believing the killer has just bled out from his wound.

The next day we meet Andy Barclays mum who seems like a very hard worker just to keep her and her son with a home and fed. Andy has wanted a Good Guy doll, Karen manages to find one from a homeless guy for Andy.
The next night While Andy is being babysat once he goes to bed the sitter is attacked by the doll, proclaiming he's called Chucky now. After she is hit in the face by a hammer then falls from the window to her death. Detective Norris comes on the case and seems to think Andy may have had something to do with her death. His mother Karen balks at this idea and puts Andy to bed.

The next day Chucky forces Andy to take a train downtown so he can sort out one of his old friends, very same guy that left him to die in the store. Chucky sabotages his his cooker which causes it to explode and kill his ex-partner. Despite her misgivings as it's her son, Karen is powerless when the police section Andy in a mental hospital.
Karen very soon realises that the doll never had it's batteries put in from the get go, quickly she believes Andy's story. She goes to check out Chucky who comes to life in her hands and begins to fight her, biting kicking and kicking her.

Though he just escapes from Karen, going to the police she tries to make detective Norris believe the story, even showing him the bite mark. He doesn't believe her until he's attacked and nearly killed a number of times in his car by Chucky himself.
Chucky goes to his old voodoo friend who taught him the tricks of the trade, since he was able to bleed in doll form he's worried. Rightly so too as he's told being inside the doll for to long it will become more and more human until his soul becomes totally trapped inside it.
It is revealed he must transfer his soul to the first person he told his secret too or he will never be human again. Chucky kills his teacher when he refuses to help him, Karen and Norris show up just in time for the man to tell them he can be killed by his heart which is now totally human.

Chucky shows up at the mental hospital to try and get to Andy, the kid manages to trick the doll long enough to escape. He's unfortunately caught by Dr Ardmore he tries to sedate Andy unsuccessfully, he's then killed by Chucky with the electroshock gear.
Andy somehow makes it home only to be knocked out by Chucky with a baseball bat suddenly. He begins to cast the spell to transfer his soul and nearly completes it too before Karen and Norris get back to stop him. They manage to set fire to Chucky and think he's dead once he ends up an almost charred lump of plastic. Karen manages to shoot off Chucky's head, leg and arm, the rest of the police up to help then. Chucky's body is no where to be found proving he's still not dead, only for the burnt crazily mutilated doll to attack again.

As always i'll leave it there as THN doesn't spoil endings so we'll leave it there, this film was and still is a masterpiece of suspense. you hardly see the doll for a good portion of the film and just see from his perspective, this was a brilliant way to make the film more eerie back then. The films did lose that flair in the sequels which quickly devolved into more comedy horror as time went by, those reviews are for another day though. THN proudly awards Child's Play a maximum score of 5 out of 5!

Review: Stephen King's IT (2017)

Stars: Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard

Budget: $35 million

Directed By: Andy Muschietti

So we finally get the redo of the 90s
adaptation of one of Stephen King's
greatest books IT. People were very
weary of this due to a number of reasons.
A few being the initial look of Pennywise,
rose tinted glasses over the original and just
plain old it's a horror movie being made
in this day and age so is it going to be any
good?

Right off the bat I will say this is going to include
spoilers for the movie so if you want to stop
reading here I'll just say this in short:
It's a great film with awesome coming of age
aspects, amazing kid acting seriously some of
the best I've seen, brilliant setting, they pull off
the 80s perfectly. The 135 minute running time
goes so fast it does leave you wanting more,
additionally they wait time we have till the
sequel considering it's not even cast as of now
is bad as I want more!

Now the bad stuff, the actual horror is VERY
hit and miss as in it works 50% of the time
well, the other 50% it's a little to goofy and
yes silly CGI. Goofy? I hear you cry? But he's
a clown surely it's meant to be silly?
Yes I get that and Pennywise is awesome in this sorry Tim Curry for blasphemy but you were best aspect of the 90s version you know that! But when as mentioned you get some silly CGI rotting guy, what happens to Georgie or headless boy wobbling at you it just seems so I don't know removed from the rest of the story. Now don't get me wrong this doesn't mean it's not needed I just think that could have been done practically for the guy and looked better, also a little less comically for the boy, Georgie is to spoilery to add here. With a modest budget it had some more practical effects would  I have been nicer. I'm sure this isn't spoiling anything as it's not in context but when you do see it I'm sure you'll agree.

Now on with the spoilers I'm going to be breaking down the film here so don't read on any further unless you want to know more about the film!

The film starts with the typical opening of Bill making his little brother Georgie a paper boat to take advantage of the heavy rain outside. He sends his little brother to get sealing wax from the basement (their mother is playing so really tune in the pain too) Georgie is clearly scared and does does get freaked out but conquers his fears with a torch.
Completing the boat for his brother Bill watches as Georgie gleefully run's from the house to use his new toy. Unfortunately after a bump on the head Georgie is unable to keep up with the boat and it flows into a street drain. He is then greeted by a very dribbling freaky looking Pennywise, was so amusing to hear so many people gasp and squeal at this I just though it was funny because being afraid of clowns is just absurd to me at least. I did love his design and can see why people would be scared though.
Pennywise gains Georgie's trust through talking about fun things (an old woman comes out to see the rain and sees the kid kneeling at the drain eluding to the fact the townsfolk know that there's something going on with the town) luring him closer to the drain with the boat he then proceeds to bite Georgie's arm off.
Now this was shocking as it's a kid and you see him trying to crawl away in pain missing an arm, here's one thing though was it needed? I think just in my opinion something more subtle as just him vanishing would have worked just as well here, not that didn't like it it was visually gruesome and nasty but was it to just bump up the rating?
Anyway Georgie is dragged into the drain by the clowns extending arm, the woman watching on from the shadows of her porch step forward a bit just to see the kids blood mixed in with the rain in the street.

Cut to a few months later with Bill in school talking about checking out an area he thinks his brother might be, he doesn't believe Georgie could be dead despite everyone else thinking so, brilliant child naïvety. His first three friends are also shown here too. Richie, Eddie and Stanley who are leaving the school for spring break. We are then introduced to the school bullies the main one being Henry Bowers, who says he let bill have a free ride because of his brother but now he's going to make their spring hell.
We also see Beverly being bullied by other girls for being a slut, a young girl heavily hinted at to being abused by her father.
She runs into the 'new kid' Ben who despite being chubby and cumbersome seems to win over her heart. We also learn he's being bullied by Henry too. Lastly we see Mike who is home schooled as his grandad hates the town trying to dispatch a sheep with a boltgun, when he can't his grandad reprimands him, we learn Mike's parents died in a fire later on, he strangely enough is also bullied by Henry whenever he comes into town delivering meat to the butchers.

So one by one through either bullying by Henry or something scary happening to them they all meet up and become friends over the holidays.
Beverly helps them steal supplies to tend to a bullied, wounded Ben when they can't afford it. It's just great to see them all bonding and funny to see how googly eyed they get over Beverly as young teens.

Each kid is authentically different in attitude at style even in home life. Bills parents hate it that he won't drop it that his brother isn't dead, Richie is the funny one though we don't really see his home life and he seems the least effected and normal of the group apart from his nerdy appearance. Stanley is a young Jewish kid picked on for that also looked down upon by his father for not being able to learn his Hebrew properly.
Eddie is a mother's boy to a forced extent by his overweight mother who keeps him dosed up on many placebo's in an effort to keep him scared and dependent on her.
Ben is a new kid in town with no friends initially bullied for being overweight and new, it's very nasty what Henry does to him. Beverly and Mike I have already explained.

Anyway the kids bond making friends and experience life with each other, Ben has done research on the town as the new kid so he knows about disappearances over the years. Most of them are skeptical or at the least unable to believe that there's some kind of entity haunting Derry. Then each one of them have a run in with Pennywise making each of them believe to some degree, though some choose to not believe.
The biggest shove to believe is when they are all together and the clown attacks them all from out of a set of slides. They confront the clown a number times which tests some of their friendships even to breaking point, ultimately they find that together and being not afraid is their main strength against the evil clown demon. When Beverly is taken by Pennywise the kids regroup and go to save to her despite earlier confrontations.

I'll end it there so I don't completely spoil the film, at least it's ending, which as you know we rarely do here on THN unless the films a real stinker. In final words I really enjoyed IT and to see that a R rated (though only 15 rated in UK) has done so well is another good sign, especially seeing that it gives a green light to the sequel too which I personally would have loved to seen cast by now (Amy Adams would make a perfect older Beverly she look JUST like her) Spoiled only by for me at least by some iffy horror at times also jump scares never work on me but they were brilliantly timed and I always watch the reaction of the audience to which was funny and genuine.
If I could give IT a 4.5 stars out of five I would i'm really really split I didn't like the CGI, headless easter egg boy being all wobbly and wiggly and the whole Georgie thing. Bugger it Stephen Kings IT Chapter 1 Gets a full 5 out of 5 Stars from THN!

Review: With Friends Like These (1991)

Stars: Micheal Burns, Rachel Bruneau

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Multiple, Thomas Parkinson

Wow what can i say, I was trawling through the cheapo section of my local CEX, a place where you can go sell DVD's games etc.
I came across a DVD box set called horror 2 it featured 4 horror films. This, some weird pseudo documentary about bogmen (boggy creek 2), another zombie type one (Mutant) and the fourth i can't remember. It was like 99p for all four of them on two double sided discs.

Anyway this and the zombie type film were the only two decent films in the four set, I also mean decent in the furthest term i can like finding a nugget of corn in a turd.
Anyway this film is an anthology of friendships that go wrong, kind of told you so stories. You've all had that friend in your life who is more trouble than their worth but you keep trusting or giving one last chance too. So this film is three precautionary tales eluding to that topic.

Not sure the order they go in but here goes a breakdown of each one of the separate stories on offer in this anthology:

The Classic:
A young man buys a classic car but the car is possessed and leads him to do things he normally wouldn't do, starting to care more and more about the car than anyone else. He leaves his girlfriend/wife and relies on the advice the car gives him, to disastrous consequences.

Fridge guy:
Not it's actual name but it's been a long time since I've seen this anyway we have a massively dirty and lazy slob living a trashy apartment. He somehow has managed to bag himself a girlfriend too, she rightly complains about the smell and dirt when she's there.
This takes a turn for the odd when he inspects the smell coming from his fridge to find some food that's been festering in there for 6 months has evolved into a living lifeform. A moldman of sorts, using his DNA and totally sentient but only exists from the waist up. Initially they form a close friendship only to fall out and end up having a battle at the end.

To Good To Be True:
Ok possibly the worst one on here but still good in the story just poor in execution. A woman busy with every day life goes on a dating agency and gets paired with an amazing guy, she starts getting paranoid that he's to good. It culminates in the woman thinking he's a robot or something like that after she thinks she see's him power down, yeah..

Okay like many people have mentioned this about the film, I have to say it too. In the UK this film has an 18 rating which is our highest rating. This film is however is like watching tales from the crypt keeper (the cartoon) or goosebumps level of horror and gore.
Well this film is by no means good, but if you like anthology films and find this cheap, even if it's like the quadruple pack i got because Mutant was a decent b-movie flick too for 99p like I did then give it a go if you really want too THN awards With Friends Like These 2 out of 5 stars.