It Came From the Netflix Queue

Movies: Housebound, They're Watching, Sun Choke

With time on my hands this holiday season, I've been catching up on some spoopy films in my Netflix queue. Enjoy!

***

Housebound

This delightful, unique New Zealand horror-comedy is great for scary movie lovers who enjoy a little levity with their chills and thrills. Morgana O'Reilly plays Kylie Bucknell, a young woman who has run afoul of the law one too many times and is sentenced to 8 months of house arrest at her mother's creaky old home. There, Kylie must endure such horrors as dial-up Internet, her dorky mom, Miriam, and Miriam's taciturn boyfriend, Graeme. Oh, and also the house is haunted. Or so Miriam claims.

After a few bizarre and spooky things happen (including a creepy-ass, talking teddy bear), Kylie and Miriam tell Amos, the security guard charged with making sure Kylie doesn't leave the house, about their suspicions. It turns out that Amos is an amateur ghost hunter who can't resist trying to help them figure out who--or what--is haunting the old home, which is conveniently filled with creepy passages and hallways, secret compartments, and all manner of haunted house tropes.

Housebound, directed by Gerard Johnstone, hits the sweet spot between genuinely scary and hilarious, often in the same scene (see again: creepy teddy bears being punched in the face). It also contains enough twists to keep the audience guessing about what exactly is going on in the house. Although Housebound has its share of jump scenes, it's mild enough for folks who shy away from scary movies to enjoy, similar to The Cabin in the Woods and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

Grade: A-

***

They're Watching

They're Watching was very disappointing to me because it had a great build up which led to a rushed, incredibly cheesy ending. In this independent horror movie, the crew of an American "house hunters" type show travels to Eastern Europe to catch up with a Becky, a woman who bought and made over a dilapidated home in rural Moldova. The village that Becky lives just outside of is famous for having burned a woman accused of witchcraft at the stake--a measly 100 years prior.

Greg, Alex, and Sarah are three young, gregarious crew members in charge of filming. They immediately alienate the locals by secretly filming inside a church during a funeral. They, along with their horrendously bitchy producer, Kate, and the Moldavian real estate agent, Vladimir (referred to as "Disco Dracula" due to his tacky outfits), visit Becky and find that she renovated it her home beautifully. But Becky is not well liked by the locals--they are suspicious of her as a single woman living alone in the woods who does not go to church.

Can you see where all this is heading?

The first 80 minutes or so of They're Watching is pretty entertaining, despite portraying the local Moldavians as backwoods "Euro hicks". There is a nice, creepy build up and some spooky foreshadowing. However, the last 15 minutes of the movie are deeply, deeply cheesy (both in tone and in special effects) to the point of embarrassment. I don't understand how the filmmakers were able to create an atmosphere of genuine tension only to blow it in the final scenes. Whatever. In any case, the last few minutes of They're Watching dropped my grade from a B to a...

Grade: C+

***

Sun Choke

Sun Choke is an incredibly weird little indie movie from newbie director Ben Cresciman. It drops the viewer right into the lives of Janie (Sarah Hagan) and Irma (veteran horror actress Barbara Crampton), who have a bizarre, codependent relationship. Irma acts as Janie's doctor, psychiatrist, and guardian. She makes green smoothies every morning for Janie and guides her through yoga poses. She also "treats" her by clanging a tuning fork near her head, causing Janie to moan in pain. Why they live like this is never fully explained. There are flashbacks peppered in, but they really give no context to Janie and Irma's situation beyond the fact that Janie experienced a trauma and Irma took over her care (Janie's father is in Tokyo indefinitely for business).


The audience is made to feel like Irma is the bad guy, treating Janie like a child and even forcing her to wear an electroshock collar when she stays out past her curfew. But we quickly realize that Janie isn't the innocent victim she appears to be. During a rare excursion beyond the confines of the posh, Los Angeles home where she lives with Irma, Janie spies a beautiful woman and quickly becomes obsessed with her: following her home, spying on her and her boyfriend having sex, and even breaking into her apartment.

To say more would be to give away too much. Sun Choke isn't a particularly good or satisfying film, but it's a strange curiosity for the bored film buff.

Grade: B-