Monday, August 26, 2013

PRACTICING FOR HALLOWEEN


I like to pretend I'm some special effects makeup artist when it gets closer to Halloween. (Would this be acceptable any other time of year?) I will be doing multiple Halloween videos on my channels this year! In case you didn't know, Halloween is my life, I leave a few decorations up year round, and as a wise person once said, "It's not a holiday, it's a lifestyle."
That it is.
Don't worry, both images are completely created by makeup and are not real. I apologize if they are a tad disturbing.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Movies I'm Looking Forward to this Year

V/H/S 2

I watched the original V/H/S, you can see my review HERE, and loved the originality of it. Wasn't the best acted by any means, but I am excited to see five new story lines in the second one. Looks like these may even be creepier than the last.

Carrie 2013

I'm actually not sure how I feel about the actors chosen for this movie. I love them independently, but in a horror? Obviously though, this being a remake of a Stephen King movie, I undoubtedly am excited for it regardless of its quality.

The Purge

I love the concept of this movie, however unrealistic it may be. I think this would make an awesome book as well. This may be more under the "suspense" category, but I'm including it anyway.

World War Z

Everyone loves a good apocalyptic type movie every now and again, and seeing how it's been a while since one was released, it was time. This one looks promising.

Friday, November 9, 2012

And I'm Back

Well, it's been quite a while since I've made a blog post. It's been almost a year now. I was going to give up on this ol' blog here because I didn't think the traffic was enough to keep up the effort truth be told. This remained the plan until I began getting more and more requests to update this blog, and one day I logged in and have 60 followers. I think, "When did that happen?" I don't care, I am grateful. Thank you to all that have followed me since I have been absent. Your faith in me posting is much higher than mine, but I appreciate the encouragement.

Let's see, how about we get caught up a little. Well, you should already be caught up if you have been watching my YouTube channel, which I do more posting there than here, but let's hope I can make it a weekly thing that I can keep up with. (On top of my fashion channel and blog, we shall see how likely that is.)

Actually, let's take a different spin. What do you want to see from me here? I'm assuming reviews, which I'm not going to lie, sometimes seems pointless to me because I state my reviews in video format on YouTube. But I suppose I could do both. Do you want photography? Anything horror related you can think of that you think I can manage? Please help!

No promises, but I will occasionally post here, just let me know what you want!

Make sure to follow all my social media networks to keep track of me if you choose to be a stalker, I don't mind.

YouTube
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Email: sarahhawkinson@gmail.com
xx

Friday, January 27, 2012

Favorites: Streaming Horror


So it was actually requested that I either do a video or blogpost on my favorite streaming horror movies on Netflix. Since I've already done a video on my favorite horror movies in general, I thought I would do the blogpost. Here is a list of favorites on Netflix, and a brief reason why.

Frozen (2010) (still above)
I have a review on this already, if you'd like to read click HERE
Otherwise, this is a psychologically disturbing film that could possibly happen in real life which makes it that much more chilling.

Carriers (2009)
This is a take on a "zombie" movie with a lot more plot than expected. It's moving, scary, well acted, and just simply amazing. Not a cheap scare at all.

Paranormal Activity (2007)
A classic. I made a video review if you'd like to see, click HERE

Insidious (2011)
One of my favorite horrors of all time. There's something unique and strange about it, which a lot of viewers didn't get. You love it or hate it.

Let Me In (2010)
A remake of Let The Right One In which is a Swedish film; definitely breathtaking like Carriers, the acting is amazing, and the entire movie is just beautiful.

The Descent: Part 2 (2009)
I really love this series for a cheap scare. It definitely better than some of my guilty pleasure horror movies, but it's not the best horror movie out there. I just like it because it's the basic form of scary, gory, and mediocre acting.

Creepshow 2 (1987)
Gotta give a shoutout to Stephen King here. I have been a fan of the Creepshow series for a long time now, and they're just classic short films. Almost iconic in a way as Stephen King is. Amazing short films, definitely watch if you're a fan of horror.

Watch all of them here for $7.99 a month. Such a good deal for unlimited streaming, and there are definitely gems out there. Trust me, I'm poor and I still budget specifically for this!
http://movies.netflix.com/WiHome

...and no this entire post is not sponsored.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

The Lazarus Project


This is a film that pops up everytime I log into Netflix, and I never gave it any time of day because honestly the cover of it looked so boring. I finally clicked on it, read the description, watched the preview, and was so excited to watch it.

It definitely begins slow, I found myself almost falling asleep for the first three quarters of it. It's only really at the end where things happen. And of course the beginning, but that's a whole nother story.

The plot synopsis goes like this: A man, Ben, is on his last day of parole when his brother, and partner in crime, asks him to complete one more for him before he gets killed. Their policy is no guns, just force, and they break into a company, (not a bank, but what company exactly is not important,) and it's Ben's job to break the safe and steal the gold. Whilst he is going about his duty, shots ring out. He runs back to see what's happened, and his brother along with another con man is dead on the ground, with police holding the gun. He is knocked out and dragged to jail.

Now, this is Texas, and the judge and jury declare that Ben is guilty for these men's deaths, and is charged with three counts of murder (another innocent man was shot). Of course, being Texas, when you murder, you get murdered. His sentence is to await lethal injection, and he sits on death row for two years.

His day comes and he must say goodbye to his wife and daughter, which is the hardest thing to watch, because the daughter asks, "When are you coming home?" and he can not respond in any other way except, "I'm not coming home."


He is strapped down onto the table, and can only watch as each vial of Sodium Thiopental, and Potassium Chloride is pumped into his veins. It's the saddest thing to watch, and I could not stop myself from crying, mainly because I didn't find him guilty, and he's honestly a good man.

The next thing we see after Ben flatlines, is a rainy environment, and someone walking alongside the road. A truck comes into scene, and stops at the man and offers him a ride. We find out it's Ben. The man tells him that he must be the new caretaker at the institution, and the whole feeling is strange.



The man shows him around the facility, things to clean and take care of, who to ask for help when he needs it, etc., and Ben goes about his duties. He lives in a cabin near the institution, (mental institution that is,) and finds a dog amongst the woods. He soon discovers he's no longer in Texas, rather Oregon.

(Side note, the scenery and everything about these scenes is absolutely beautiful, and I couldn't help feeling like it needed to be my home. Maybe oneday.)

This is where the movie drags on. There's scenes of him cleaning, Robbie sometimes helping him, showing his signs that he's a little mental. There is a scene with him and a counselor from the institution whom he ends up kissing. Nothing really too important. We see him drawing his wife's face, he even seeks her out on the internet and she only comes up by her maiden name as if they were never married.

He decides he wants to go home, however everytime he tries to leave, someone is stopping him saying "The only thing out there for you is death.You were given a second chance to start a new life." So he never attempts to leave. 

SPOILERS

It's grey in my mind exactly how it goes down, but I do remember there is a symbol that haunts him, as a patient at the institution tells him that they've drugged him, and he has a family, and another life. That patient commits suicide because he has no other choice but to stay. That's when Ben begins searching out on his own to find out what is going on. Why he can't leave, why it's like his previous life never existed, and who is following him. 

He discovers an implant in his arm, and upon finding it, realizes that everything is a lie. He confronts the man in the beginning, the one who showed him the grounds, and he tells him that he is a patient at the institution. Ben goes berserk and claims he lives in a cabin, and has a dog, and he kissed the counselor, she denies such thing. The man tells him the cabin has been vacant and that he has been hallucinating. 

This is where I was going to be disappointed because it had an ending too similar to Shutter Island. Now it would be that Shutter Island was copying The Lazarus Project as this movie was made in 2008 and Shutter Island in 2010. However, this wasn't the ending.

In denial, Ben runs out to the cabin, and it was empty like he had never stayed there. But then as he is walking away, almost ready to give in, he finds the yellow Frisbee that he and his dog had used to play. 

He confronts the man one more time, and the man confesses everything. He admits to performing an experiment of sorts, he takes death row inmates, and because the rest of the world believes them to be dead, secludes them in a mental institution to see if they can change if convinced that they are crazy. His project is simply to see if people could actually change their ways if given a new life with no memory of their first one.

Essentially this movie gives you two twists, one that is underwhelming, then in my opinion, one that is amazing. I love how they switched the ending to something greater, and it's such an original idea that I was blown away by this. Much better than the first ending. Though don't get me wrong, I love ending like Shutter Island.

In the end, Ben escapes and drives home to his wife and daughter in Texas, and it is a superbly happy ending. I'm glad they decided to end on a happy note, given the grief that the viewer must endure when we watch him die.

I would give it 8/10

Friday, October 28, 2011

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon


This is none other than my favorite book of all time. Not only favorite Stephen King book, but also the most underrated Stephen King book I think. Most know him for the infamous Carrie or The Stand, The Shining. However, to me, this is the most reputable book because he torments you with just his words in a way the others don't. There is no gore, no true "horror" purely terror and suspense.

It begins with three people, a mother whom is divorced, and her two children, the older brother, and younger sister, Trisha. The mother has planned a trip for bonding (the mother and son do not typically get along), and has chosen hiking the Appalachian trail. 
Trisha wanders off having to pee, (I swear not all my reviews will involve a female having to pee) does her business, and does not remember the direction she just came from. She attempts a short cut as the trail makes a Y shape, and she figures she could just walk from one spoke to the other.

She ultimately walks the wrong direction and becomes completely lost, only headed deeper into the miles and miles of forest. As night falls, she begins to panic. Only being nine years old, she has no idea what to do, but understands the severity, and that people are often hurt, starved, or killed by the woods.


She turns to her Walkman for a radio broadcast of her favorite baseball team's, Boston Red Sox, game for comfort. We discover early on that Tom Gordon is her hero, if we couldn't guess by the title. She hunkers down for a place to sleep after consuming some items of food she had brought for the hike.

Eventually, she runs out of food, including water and her beloved soda. Other things occur such as falling down a steep hill, being scraped and cut on the way down only to land in a wasps' nest, but right into water as she chugs. This water ends up making her very sick, and she spends the next few nights getting used to it while vomiting and having horrible diarrhea.

Trisha's mind begins to slip, and she is near insanity as she hallucinates that her hero is walking beside her, and she also visualizes clearly her best friend, Pepsi. She talks to them, and this comforts her. But there is also something stalking her, which is very real, just not the reality that is in her mind.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Frozen

Long time no review, I know a lot of you have been requesting an updated video on my PossessedbyHorror YouTube channel, and I'm getting to it, but to tide you over, here are my thoughts on the movie Frozen.


Basically, the story line goes a couple and the boyfriend's friend who doesn't really get along slash like the girlfriend go on a ski/snowboard vacation and spend most of the time on the bunny hill given the girlfriend is a beginner.

The friend complains that they haven't done anything epic yet, and she sacrifices and they all decide to do one last round. They had bribed the guy who was manning the controls earlier in the movie, nothing really important, and so they do it again and he agrees to let them go on one more time.


Now this is where I was skeptical, because if you watch the trailer, we know they end up stuck on the ski lift. I didn't understand how this could happen, though never being skiing myself, I'm not particularly skilled on how things work. So I was worried how they would set this up, because I kept thinking, "how could they just forget three people on a ski lift?"

So they take off on the lift. A coworker of the guy comes up saying he has to work the following weekend which he makes clear he had off for his brother's bachelor party. He runs off to talk with the boss, his coworker asks if they're all good to shut down. The original guy yells, there's three more coming down the mountain.

Cut to, the three on the ski lift, awaiting to jump at the proper moment to take the trip down. They see three young kids take a jump below them, and proclaim that they need to hit that jump on the way down.

Cut back to the guy operating the machine, he sees the three kids slide down the mountain and into the lodge. As far as he's concerned, all is okay for him to shut down the park.

So I'm still unclear whether this is really realistic or still pushing it, but the way it was acted, and the series of events that occurred, I could believe it.


Now we go to the three stuck on the lift, joking around, the girl exclaims she has to pee, yatta yatta. Eventually the lights shut off and they stark panicking knowing that the park closes that evening and doesn't reopen for five days. The know they need to do something or they will freeze to death. The boyfriend, (center), decided that he is going to try to jump, and from what they set up, it's a pretty far way down. Well, that's when things get really good.


Overall, I love this movie because of how real it felt, the acting especially from the girl was amazing, and it was so emotional and tense. There was one scene in particular where I had to separate myself mentally because my brain couldn't take the emotion I was feeling.


Now for spoilers...


I will finish describing what happens in the movie now, so if you want to watch it first, I would leave now.

The boyfriend jumps after first exclaiming he's done it before and was fine. Both the friend and girlfriend are saying "no it's too high" the routine. He replies, "someone has to do something" or something along those lines. He takes the leap, we follow his perception down, and hear a crunch as he hits the icy snow.

At first he thinks he's okay, he glances down at his legs, and whattyaknow, two compound fractures, bones protruding from his legs. His shin bone essentially popped out his knee caps. (To be honest I laughed, because when you actually see the bones, they don't look real whatsoever. That would be my biggest criticism of the movie is the gore factor = fake.)

He begins to scream, "oh my god I think I broke my legs" and does a whole lot of grunting. The girl screams, the friend screams, we all scream. Somehow they get down some things to him for him to be able to tie a tourniquet, then the friend says he has to go get help or his friend will bleed to death. He decided to climb back to a chair that is closer to the ground so that he may jump, without popping his knee caps out of his skin like a zit, and run for help.

We hear the friend below say that he's never actually done that before, shocker, and that the cable lines are razor sharp. The friend takes the warning, and has gloves on so hopefully it won't be so bad. He stands up, shaking the bench, grabs hold of the cable, and lets his feet fall from the seat.

He begins grunting himself as he pulls himself along about three feet and looks down. We don't see what he sees but he begins backing up like he's in a hurry. The girl is asking repeatedly what is wrong, and I love how they set this up so we don't know what's happening until the girl does, so in our minds we're saying the same thing.

The friend takes ahold of her face, makes her look into his eyes, and says "don't look." She of course turns her eyes to the ground to see a pack of wolves circling her boyfriend. (Earlier in the movie, one wolf came to sniff around and she threw her snowboard at it. Well, it was pissed and brought some friends.)

This was such an emotional scene that I had to distance myself from the plot so I wouldn't cry, plus it was making me feel really uncomfortable, normally I don't mind crying. (I watched this alone by the way.)

The camera goes back to the two on the lift, as she tries to look at what's happening but he won't let go of her face. They both are crying as we only hear the boyfriend being ripped to shreds, and eventually he stops screaming.

I like how they never show the finished product, not that I remember anyhow, they just leave you with that emotion without having to see the gore.

She blames him, he blames her, they make up, tell stories again, next thing they know they have fallen asleep and it's the next morning. She wakes to realize she has peed herself because she couldn't hold it, and while this sounds humorous, I actually got teary because it exemplified their desperation, and helplessness.

He declares something must be done, and decides to go for the cable again. The previous attempt left holes in his hands. He grabs on once more, pushes off, and in doing so, shakes a few screws loose of the lift, and it tilts to one side as one side gives. Once it's stable, he makes his way down the cable, screaming.

He finally makes it down to the next car long enough to take a peek at his damaged hands, they are pumping blood out of the holes furiously.

He finally makes it to a ladder on a main pole, realizes there is a wolf right below him. He asks for the girl to throw him a ski pole. She misses, of course, and it lands below him, and he knows he must make it to that pole before the wolf makes it to him.

He makes a run for it, beats the wolf, literally, and it runs off in pain. He then yells as he's running over the hill that he will be back with help.

Now it's just her. She's hanging alone above her boyfriend's body, and all of a sudden, gets a feisty urge to finally act. She becomes restless and knows she now has to do something instead of relying on these men. She shakes the lift chair hard hoping to knock it so she can fall. It knocks loose, comes flying to the ground, and stops about ten feet from the ground. She wiggles to the edge, holding on with her arms and chest, legs dangling and lets go.

She falls fine onto her butt, and the chair falls right behind her onto her ankle. This is really a big thing, she sort of cries out in pain, but it makes it clear she can no longer run, which is better in the long run. She begins to crawl through the forest, fast. Eventually she comes to find a bloody carcass, the friend, and a few wolves. They expose their bloody muzzles and snarl, she slowly turns her body away, signaling she does not want their food, and crawls away.

Finally, she finds a road. The first car doesn't stop for her, but alas the second car does and she is transported to the hospital.

The end.


Here are my thoughts in video form.