Movie Review – Christopher Robin (2018)

In which some folks may be surprised to find out that there is a much softer, child-like side to this particular Horror writer. I’m not all dark spooky houses and blood curdling screams.

I’ve been desperately in love with Winnie The Pooh my entire life. On our first trip to Disney World (that’s the one in Florida) in 1972 I acquired my first stuffed Pooh Bear. I still have that bear. His fur’s not as thick and fluffy as it once was. One ear is longer than the other. His shirt is a bit grimy. And the top of his head is infused with more of my tears than I care to admit. He was and still is much loved.

As with Christopher Robin, Pooh was my friend, companion and confidant when I felt no one else was even up into my teenage years. I still have my original set of Winnie The Pooh paperback books, my bedroom curtains, and will sit and watch the original cartoons at the drop of a hat when I can. When my son was born, his bedroom was decked out in all things Pooh Bear.

When I saw the trailer for Christopher Robin I knew I just HAD to see it. I mean, it’s POOH BEAR for crying out loud. Finally, thanks to Netflix, I was able to watch it earlier this week. I was in tears before the darn opening scene was over with!

Christopher Robin is all grown up. He’s a busy, busy man with not a lot of time for his wife and daughter. Work is sucking all the life and fun out of him and he’s under huge pressure to make drastic cuts to the department he’s in charge of – 20% by the end of the week.

Then, along comes Winnie The Pooh – in all his walking, talking, rumbling in his tumbly flesh, so to speak. He appears on a park bench where Christopher Robin finds him and immediately freaks out. What follows is Christopher returning Pooh to the Hundred Acre Woods only to end up staying there much longer than planned. The plot is super, super simple and because of that, I was rather disappointed. Even the Disney cartoons from the late 1960s had more interesting plots than this movie. I got the impression that each of Christopher’s co-workers was based around a resident of the Hundred Acre Woods – but this was never explored. Would have loved to have seen this happen.

The animation was amazing and really blew me away, but even with that, the story just didn’t carry me as far into the world of Pooh as I wanted to go. It was dumbed down and simplified way too much and didn’t seem to take into consideration that long time Pooh Bear fans like myself would want to see it or journey back to our childhoods as Christopher Robin was able to do.

Be all that as it may, I enjoyed it for what it was even as I wished there was more to it. I’m glad I didn’t pay theatre ticket prices to see it, though. It’s a cute movie with a good message even if the plot was not in the least bit deep.

A bear of very little brain or not – Winnie The Pooh’s child-like wisdom is probably one of the best things going on out there in the world and for that, I’ll always love him.

In honor of Pooh, I’m skipping my traditional Raven Rating system on favor of Honey Pots and giving this a 2 out of 5. It’s a nice little smackeral, but not nearly as satisfying as this particular chubby little bear had hoped for.

 

Movie Review – A Boy & His Dog (1975)

Starring Don Johnson, Susanne Benton, Ron Feinberg, and Jason Robards. Directed by L.Q. Jones. Based on a short story by Harlan Ellison.

This little blast from the past was brought to my attention by my husband. He’d seen it before and thought I’d enjoy it so we sat down with a huge bowl of popcorn and off we went into the post-Apocalyptic world and the journey of well, a boy and his dog.

It’s 2024 and mankind has managed to remain alive, though far from civilized, following World War IV. Women seem to be at a premium because young Vic (Don Johnson) is horny as hell, but luckily for him his mind-reading, psychic talking dog, Blood, can sniff out a female from miles around. The two bicker constantly (mentally, of course) and no one but Vic can hear Blood advising, warning, and generally annoying Vic. All Vic wants to do is get laid. All Blood wants is to be fed. Despite their squabbles, they are a team and survive for and because of each other.

Eventually, Blood sniffs out a fine, ripe female for Vic at what passes for a town in 2024 and Vic is just about to make his move when danger befalls them all. A group of raiders descends on the place along with what are called Screamers. We never see these so-called Screamers, we just know they apparently glow green, scream, and kill everything in their path. After surviving the attack, Vic and Blood are ready to move on while the girl (Quilla) wants to return home to a place known as the Down Under. (No, it’s not Australia – but apparently a vast world located deep underground.) In order to escape from Vic (who wants to keep her around for sex) Quilla bashes him on the head, but Vic will not be so easily put off. He insists on perusing her and it is at the entry to the Down Under that he and Blood part ways. Blood keeps warning him that it’s a bad, bad, bad idea to go down there and agrees to wait for Vic to return, at least for a little while.

The boy really should have listened to his dog.

This movie is so 1975! It has a very Mad Max meets Fallout feel to it. There aren’t any special effects to speak of, just a weird bit of post-Apocalyptic shoot ‘em up fun about one young man’s struggles to get laid in a world gone to hell and a heaping helping a justice served in the end. This was a fun film that I really enjoyed. Not mind-blowing but certainly worth a watch if you’re looking for something a bit off the beaten path.

Raven Rating: 3 Caws.

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

 

Movie Review – Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978)

Starring: Bette Davis, David Ackroyd, Rosanna Arquette, and Joanna Miles. Directed by Leo Penn

With a job he abhors, a marriage on the rocks, and an asthmatic daughter who must pay protection money to a gang so she can make it safely to and from her piano lessons, Nick Constantine has had enough of life in the Big Apple.  When his wife suddenly inherits a small fortune from her father, the family decides a trip to the country will do them all a world of good.

They soon stumble upon the small farming community of Cornwall Coombe, Connecticut. By the looks of it, the inhabitants live in a world that bears a striking resemblance to that of the Amish or the original Puritans who settled the area back in the 1600s. They are dressed in old style clothing and are plowing and planting the fields for corn using horses and good old-fashioned elbow grease. Nick, his wife Beth, and daughter Kate are immediately charmed by everything and everyone in the Coombe and before they know it, they have left New York City behind to start a life that they hope will heal all their family’s wounds and woes.

Guided by The Widow (Bette Davis), the Constantine’s have a lot to learn about the Coombe and its traditions, known as The Ways. Everyone lives and everything is done according to The Ways. If you don’t follow, obey, and respect The Ways, you’ll quickly find yourself in a heap of trouble. Beth and Kate happily fall into the Coombe’s lifestyle. Nick, not so much. His curiosity leads him down a maze of strange and increasingly disturbing stories about the Coombe’s history. The closer the community draws to the greatest festival of all, known as Harvest Home, and the more Nick puts his nose where it doesn’t belong, the weirder and darker things become.

Based on the novel “Harvest Home” by Thomas Tryon, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, appeared on the small screen in 1978 as a two-part mini-series. For my young and impressionable brain, it became an instant and unforgettable hit. Forty years later, I still adore it. This is the sort of suspense and intrigue I love in a movie. Deep back stories, characters I can relate to, villains that don’t seem so bad at first, layers of mystery that build one atop the others and an conclusion that gathers it all together in a bundle of satisfaction so amazing it almost makes me want to lean back and have a cigarette after … and I don’t even smoke.

Despite the poor visual quality of the version I found free on YouTube, I can’t recommend this one enough.

Raven Rating: 5 out of 5 caws!

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

Movie Review – The Open House

The Open House (2018) – Netflix. Directed by Matt Angel & Suzanne Coote. Starring Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune

I went into this film completely blind. I didn’t watch the trailer. I’d only heard about it from another Horror movie fan in passing. Honestly, I don’t even remember what they said about it. I only remembered the title.  I had no idea whatsoever what it was going to be about and didn’t read a single review.

After the sudden death of his father, Logan and his mother, Naomi, move into Naomi’s sister’s vacation home in the mountains to get away from it all and try to rebuild their lives. The house is huge and gorgeous. Only problem, it’s also for sale. The Sunday after the mother and son move in, there is to be an open house. The realtor sends them off for the day and tells them in no uncertain terms to not return until after five o’clock. While they are away strangers come and go. Upon their return, the realtor’s assistant is still in the house doing a quick, last minute walk-thru. He hurries away as soon as he finds out they’re back.

Shortly after, the weirdness begins. Logan hears strange thudding sounds coming from the basement but finds nothing and no one down there when he investigates. The water heater, also in the basement, keeps shutting off. The two local people Naomi and Logan have met seem to have an unnatural interest in what’s happening at the house. One neighbor, Martha, appears to be lying about the death of her husband. Another is found prowling around the outside, peering into windows. What’s going on here? Who are these creepy people and what’s up with the water heater? Even when the police are called in they don’t seem too concerned or interested in what is obviously breaking and entering. They chalk it up to just some neighborhood kids having a bit of fun.

I had no hopes going into this beyond what anyone would hope for in a movie – to be satisfactorily entertained and I was to a degree. It’s far from the greatest things since sliced bread and the red herrings thrown in to keep the viewer off track on who is really causing all the problems were well done. Unfortunately, the viewer is never given a solid solution or explanation of the goings on. There seems to be a lot of backstory missing about the house, the neighbors, and maybe even the neighborhood in which is stands. We never find out much of anything and are just left with a wide open sore. You almost get the feeling that this is not a simple case of home invasion, but that the entire town is somehow in on it, but you’re never told why if that’s the case. The ending was full of one predictable cliché after another.

It’s wasn’t a TERRIBLE movie or what I feel to be a waste of 90 minutes, but it fell pretty flat when it comes to offering a satisfying resolution and stepping outside your standard Horror tropes.

Raven Rating: 2 Caws.

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

Movie Review – Hereditary (2018)

Directed by Ari Aster. Staring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne.

With all the ranting and raving I’d heard about this movie from so many different directions, I figured this has got to be awesome. Super scary, people leaving their lights on, afraid to look in the shadows, the whole nine yards.

So, to celebrate my Hubby’s birthday, he wanted to go see this movie. Of course, it’s not playing anywhere near us anymore, so the next logical choice was to hop on the motorcycle and make a whole day of it by riding to a theater 115 mile away. We decided to catch the first available show at 11:15 so headed out at 7am to give us plenty of time to stop for breakfast and get to the theater before it got too ungodly hot outside.

Four hours later with snacks and cold drinks in hand, we settled into comfy chairs and were prepared to be scared.

Annie Graham’s estranged, secretive, and controlling mother, Ellen, has passed away and quite frankly, Annie seems less than upset about it. Very soon after, Annie starts seeing what she believes to be her mother’s ghost. Her son, Peter, 17 and daughter, Charlie, 13, are also acting strangely and seeing their grandmother’s spirit. The only one seemingly immune to all of this is their father, Steve. Peter becomes plagued with nightmares and hallucinations. Charlie decapitates a dead bird for one of her strange little dolls – a foreshadowing of things to come.

Forced to take his sister to a high school party, Peter must later try and rush her to a hospital when she eats some cake with peanuts in it and goes into anaphylactic shock. Charlie opens the car window in an attempt to get some air, sticks her head out and BAM! is decapitated by a telephone pole. That moment, and her mother’s utter agony over the death of her daughter, was the most shocking and gut-wrenching part of the film for me.

The real insanity of the family comes full on after that, as little by little Annie begins to unravel the true, non-material legacy her mother has left behind. It’s bizarre and twisted and gruesome to say the least.

But, was it scary? Would I be keeping an eye on the shadows for weeks to come? Would I insist on sleeping with a light on? Would every waking moment find me haunted by images and thoughts of this alleged “…uncommonly unsettling horror film whose cold touch lingers long beyond the closing credits.” Would this “scariest movie of 2018” hunt me down even in my sleep?

Um, no. Not so much. And to rank it up there with The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby goes beyond the absurd.

I’m a big fan of weird stuff. I’ve dabbled in the occult since the day my grandmother decided I needed a Ouija board for my 13th birthday – yeah, you read that right. I’ve read hundreds of novels about vampires, witches, ghosts, demons, and all things that go bump in the night. I teethed on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Outer Limits. I grew up watching Twilight Zone and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I’ve read even more novels and non-fiction books about the subjects. I know what I find frightening and disturbing. Hereditary isn’t it.

It’s not even that I don’t ‘get’ what was going on in the third and final act. I get it. I know what old Gramma Ellen was all about. But, I was never scared. There wasn’t even a single jump scare. Actually, kids, I may have dozed off for a couple minutes at one point. Hubby wasn’t impressed either. He wondered if maybe it’s because neither of us are of the Christian persuasion. We both liked A Quiet Place better, even with its myriad of logic flaws. At least it had some real suspense and jump scares going on.

In fact, there were two far more frightening events that day than this movie. First, the very sudden, tire-squealing stop we had to make on the motorcycle and second the last half hour of the ride home through a cold and torrential thunder and lightning storm. Any idea how painful rain drops are on your bare arms and face at 50 mph?

2 out of 5 Ravens.

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

Movie Review – WAX (2014)

Movie Review – Wax (2014) Directed by Victor Matellano. Starring Jimmy Shaw, Jack Taylor, and Geraldine Chaplin.

Part Vincent Price’s “House of Wax”, part Hannibal Lecter, WAX invites the viewer to spend a single night inside an alleged haunted wax museum in Barcelona, Spain with journalist Mike through surveillance cameras, some strategically-placed cameras that Mike sets up, along with Mike’s personal hand-held. Mike agrees to be locked in for the night with no method of communication with the outside world other than a one-way telephone. The producer can call in, but he can’t call out.

What makes this museum just a little different is that one of the main displays depicts a still-living serial killer, Dr. Knox. But, don’t worry. He’s been caught and imprisoned. Along with his wax effigy, are a series of videos recorded by the killer himself, showing in rather gruesome details how he bound, gagged, and ate his victims while they were still alive. As the night progresses, odd things start to happen, items go missing and wax effigies have moved. But, his greatest horror comes when Mike looks at the surveillance camera focused on the Dr. Knox display – and the doctor’s figure is gone.

Mike has no way of getting out of the museum or calling for help. Fortunately, the producer calls periodically and he reports what’s going on to her. She assures him she’ll notify the authorities and get him out soon. In the meantime, just sit tight. Help is on the way! I promise!

I was rather enjoying WAX until about twenty minutes from the ending, then it kind of went South and became a little too predictable. The medical torture scenes were done reasonably well without being too utterly disgusting and there are a few decent T&A shots for those who like that in their Horror movies.  For a moment, it even felt a little Freddie Kruger-ish for some reason. The ending left me feeling somewhat disappointed, but it wasn’t the most horrible thing I’ve watched by a long shot.

There are enough mannequin\wax figure scenes to be kind of creepy, enough surgical gore to make you go ‘eww’ a few times, and a very suspenseful score that keeps you wondering what bit of weirdness was going to happen next. If you’re desperate to watch some Horror and nothing else seems worth the trouble, this will do in a pinch.

2 out of 5 Ravens.

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

Movie Review – The Ritual (2017)

Movie Review – The Ritual (2017) starring Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, and Sam Troughton. Directed by David Bruckner.

Five blokes: Rob, Phil, Dom, Hutch, and Luke, meet in a pub to discuss going on a trip together. Ideas are presented and rejected. Rob suggests a hiking trip in the wilds of Sweden. This too is rejected. On their way home, Rob and Luke stop at a store for another bottle of booze unaware that the place is being robbed. Rob is killed while Luke hides behind a shelf, cowering. This lack of bravery will go on to hunt him for a long time to come. In Rob’s memory, they decide to take the Swedish hiking trip. After Dom falls and injures his knee, they decide the quickest way back to civilization is through the woods, off the beaten path, deep into that place where things can go terribly, terribly bad – and they do.

It’s a cliché set up, to be sure, as the quartet quickly becomes lost and falls into fighting amongst themselves. Runic inscriptions begin to appear in trees, they hear and see something stalking them, something very, very big. Mayhem ensues. Nowhere is safe. The monster is pretty damn cool, I have to admit. I’d love to see a detailed shot of this thing in full light. I’d also like to know what the hell it was beyond the vague description one of the woodland locals gives it as a bastard child of Loki. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d not be at all tempted into worshiping this thing in anyway – sorry, I value my freedom too much to be enslaved to such a being regardless of the prize.

In the end, The Ritual left me unsatisfied. I get the symbolism regarding Luke’s journey to self-forgiveness and the inner demons he was battling even as he and his friends fought for their physical and mental well-being. It was okay and suspenseful and as I said, the monster was pretty damn awesome, but I wanted more explanation as to what it was and the why’s of it all.

2 out of 5 Ravens.

The Raven Scale:
1 Raven: Yuck! Don’t eat that.
2 Ravens: Bread crumbs, but it’ll keep us alive.
3 Ravens: Oh, hey! Peanuts, popcorn and cat kibble!
4 Ravens: Lunch time pizza place dumpster. Hell, yeah!
5 Ravens: Holy Shit, Fellas! Fresh Road Kill!

“The Blob”: Frog Spawn From Outer Space or Jersey Devil Chow?

It’s 1958 and you’re standing in line for the latest horror movie to hit the big screen, The Blob starring Steven McQueen. What you and your fellow movie-goers may be unaware of is that the terror-filled film you are about to watch was inspired by real events!

Flash back to the September 27, 1950 issue of the Philadelphia Enquirer and the headline that announces FLYING ‘SAUCER’ JUST DISSOLVES! The article begins, “Four South Philadelphia police officers had a new explanation last night for what happens to those flying saucers that people are always seeing. They dissolve.”

Two veteran police officers, John Collins and Joe Keenan are out on a routine patrol when they see something unusual in the night sky, a large, glowing, purplish-colored object drifting down to earth. They immediately head towards it in their patrol car and determine the object is going to land in a large, open field about half a block from Vare Avenue and 26th Street. The object reportedly glittered in their headlights as they got closer. After parking, the officers grabbed their flashlights and entered the field, finding a ‘purple jelly’. The substance, approximately six feet in diameter and nearly a foot thick at the center, quivered and appeared to pulse. As if that were not strange enough, when they turned off their flashlights, the purple glob glowed brightly enough to illuminated part of the field. The officers said they got the distinct impression that whatever it was, this thing was alive and they needed backup!

Two more officers, James Cooper and Sergeant Joe Cook, arrived minutes later. After what must have been one of the most bizarre conversations the four men would ever have in their lives, it was decided to try and lift it and get some sort of sample. They circled the mass. Collins was the first to work up the courage to actually touch it. Upon doing so, the blob immediately began to dissolve. It left some traces on his hands, but those too quickly vanished, leaving nothing more behind than an ‘odorless scum’. In less than half an hour the entire object had dissolved.

Seven years later, this particular purple glob would go on to inspire the movie 1958 you is standing in line to see.

StarJelly

Star Jelly. Not Purple. Not Glowing.

However, this was neither the first, nor last, reported incoming glob-blob sighting to fall to earth. Reports date back to as far as the 14th century and as recently as 2001 in both England and Massachusetts. The most common explanation is a substance called ‘Star-Jelly’, believed to be material carried into the Earth’s atmosphere via meteors. It’s not alive, it’s just space goo, the skeptics claim. Another explanation reports that these masses of quivering gel are nothing more than puddles of dead frog eggs. It’s claimed by experts that the eggs could have been dropped by a bird who caught a female frog primed to deposit her eggs. As the bird’s sharp talons disembowel its grab and go meal on the wing, the eggs are unceremoniously spilled and fall back to the ground.

FrogSpawn

Frog Spawn. Still not purple. Still not glowing.

This is all well and good and may explain some of this mystery, but neither of these hypotheses explains the purple glow, the pulsing, or the massive size of the 1950 Philadelphia sighting. That had to have been one hell of a big frog, not to mention the size of the bird it must have taken to catch and carry that unfortunate amphibian away. Remember, it was said to have been six feet across and a foot thick in the middle. Maybe the Jersey Devil was involved in some way. He/She/It is reported to be nocturnal, big, and strong and the Jersey Pine Barrens are less than an hour’s drive from Philadelphia, and a lot closer as the Jersey Devil flies. Plus, since when do frog eggs dissolve when you touch them? I’m a small town girl who’s had more than my fair share of frog egg encounters and, trust me, they don’t just dissolve as described by the four police officers.

So, what was it? Due to lack of any physical evidence whatsoever, we’ll probably never know. Either way, the real events from 1950 certainly inspired one of the greatest B-movies of all time and it’s one I would strongly recommend you see if you haven’t already.

For more in-depth information and speculation on these mysterious globs, check out Rob Morphy’s 2011 article “Beware The Blob” at Mysterious Universe.

Reviews – Two Books & A Movie

According to my Blog Calendar, this is the weekend I should be posting some sort of review, be it a book or a movie. This time around, being as I’ve been so intent on finishing up the first draft of my next Barnesville Chronicle novel this past month, reading anything too long and deep just hasn’t happened.

I haven’t watched any movies worth reviewing. Unless stating that The Adventures of Baron Munchausen isn’t my cup of tea, counts as a review. Technically it’s not a Monty Python movie, but Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle were both involved in its creation, as was Robin Williams! You’d think with that sort of line-up, it’d be something more amazing than I found it to be. It just left me confused and wondering what sort of drug Gilliam was on when he came up with all this. About halfway through, I decided I had more interesting things to do, like sort through my dresser for old clothes worthy of being donated somewhere.

Moving along, I did do a bit of reading.

Dreaming At The Top Of My Lungs by Israel Finn is a collection of short stories of the horror variety. There’s always a touch of envy in me for people who can pull off a successful short story. In a mere 112 pages, Israel managed to keep me fully engaged and amused for about ten days. As with any collection or anthology, by even the most famous of writers, there are going to be stories that readers will enjoy more than others. I have to be honest and say that there were a few in this collection I didn’t quite ‘get’ or felt like they were lacking somehow. However, the majority of them I thoroughly enjoyed and enough so that I’d easily consider picking up more work from this up-and-coming author. My biggest complaint about this book is that it was far, far too short.

Loch Ness Revenge by Hunter Shea was another quick read for me, coming in at 141 pages. Hunter is a pro at sucking the reader in and half-chewing them before spitting them back out covered in blood, goo, and whatever other sorts of partially digested stomach contents may have been in there at the time. And I mean that in nicest way possible. If you enjoy monster killing mayhem and madness, you really should check out not just Loch Ness Revenge, but all his other cryptid tales. I have the same complaint with this as I did Israel’s book – too short. I wanted more details about the characters and their lives, but with these shorter books, Hunter’s skills and talents as a story teller aren’t being put to their full potential. I really do prefer his novel length works. For me, a story is only as good as how well I get to know the players.

Short and sweet this time around, folks. I have some thicker works reaching the top of my TBR pile now and with first draft of my latest Barnesville Chronicle, The Witch’s Backbone finally done, maybe I’ll find some breathing room to do more reading.

Movie Review – 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Rated R – Psychological Thriller starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr. – Directed by Dan Trachtenberg

If you haven’t seen Cloverfield, go and do that first. Although you don’t NEED to have seen it to enjoy this sequel, it will help give you a better overall feeling for what’s going on.

After an argument with her boyfriend, Michelle (Winstead) packs up and leaves town. While on the road, her car is struck and crashes in a roadside ditch. On waking, she finds herself hooked to an IV, wearing a knee brace, and chained to the wall. She soon meets her captor, Howard (Goodman) who is just another crazy, conspiracy-theorist prepper who’s gone to the trouble of building a fallout shelter in his back yard, which is where they now are. A third member of the group, Emmet (Gallagher), confirms what Howard is saying, that something, and he’s not exactly sure what, has happened, but something that has resulted in the surface being uninhabitable for at least two year.

Howard is full of crazy talk, but just how crazy is he? If he’s not crazy, then some very, very bad things are going on topside. If he is crazy then some very, very bad things are going on underground because Howard isn’t being completely honest about elements of his story and explanations. Either way, it’s all good for us viewers. 10 Cloverfield Lane is full of suspense and it’s going to keep you guessing until the bitter end at just exactly where Howard stands on the Sane to Insane scale.

This is my kind of movie, the psychological thriller, and it lives up to that genre exceptionally well in my opinion. I love how it incorporates elements of the original Cloverfield, yet it still holds up well as a standalone story. The acting was well done and I was very impressed with Goodman’s portrayal of a nut job!

Five out of Five Ravens!