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.
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.
This wouldn't be an appropriate blog for me without my first movie review being The Ring. It originates from a Japanese film called Ringu, which I have actually not seen, but maybe one day I'll do a comparison of the two.
As for my review, all I can really say is it's not only my favorite horror movie, but my favorite movie of all time, so I might be a little biased.
If you're not a fan of horror movies, (and if you aren't why are you on my blog?) definitely do not watch this alone. I still, to this day, have not seen this movie alone. It deeply disturbs me, and there's not even a whole minute of gore. It's a psychological horror that really messes with the mind!
There is something terrifying about the "little creepy girl" scary phenomenon that happens in multiple horror movies.
Basically, for a summary, this movie follows a woman who had recently lost her niece to Samara, or the girl in the photo above. The first scene is a great opening scene because it sets the tone and feel for the entire movie. There's something about the sounds throughout the film that add to the effect as well.
So there's this videotape, (that is horrifying in itself,) containing extremely disturbing images of dead horses on a beach, a woman committing suicide, someone puncturing through their finger with a nail, and if you're not a fan of bugs, a giant centipede wandering an empty room with a chair for no reason.
After seven days, Samara (I so want to name my daughter that if I have one,) comes through the television into your living room/bedroom etc. and does something to you that distorts your face permanently and you die.
The whole premise is that she is angst against her death, she was murdered by her adopted mother, and kills people.
Overall, the plot is a little lackluster, but the compilation of images, sounds, actors, make for it to be a great horror film.
And for good parting, I'll leave a photo from the scene that is less than a second long that I can never watch, and literally had to cover the screen to save this photo on my computer.
So there's this obsession with horror that I have, that I cannot go through it alone. I will do movie reviews, book reviews, reactions, there could be videos, etc. I've seen a lot of horror movies, read a bunch of Stephen King, however I also have a liking for really bad, cheap, horror movies, bear that in mind.
It all started with an obsession with these books called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark when I was 5 years old:
The artwork is absolutely fabulous and gruesome, and I would hang it in my house in a second.
Then it progressed into the series Goosebumps, then Stephen King, then I saw my first scary movie: Pet Semetary.
Ever since, I've been possessed with a craving for it.
Feel free to submit your own reviews in the comments, as I want this to be an ongoing discussion. Next up, The Ring
