tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1877722433362186484.post3233379979258871430..comments2024-03-25T10:30:09.319-07:00Comments on Film Thoughts: Halloween 2016: September 19Bonehead XLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04545161927886923285noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1877722433362186484.post-91048733252022327922016-09-25T07:52:02.887-07:002016-09-25T07:52:02.887-07:00I had high expectations for House on Haunted Hill....I had high expectations for <i>House on Haunted Hill</i>. I guess I thought it was going to be scary. The old woman shock is one for the ages! Very memorable. Actually, it's more than a fright, it's creepy. But after that there was very little haunting going on. This movie was more about distrust and double-crosses between the guests. It seems the movie is misnamed.<br /><br />Vincent Price really steals the show. He's such a ham, but he's so good at it. Richard Long is also excellent as his normal cool self. Carolyn Craig may me want to grab ear plugs. Her screams of terror made me cringe several times.<br /><br />This is another relatively successful Vincent Price movie, but almost entirely on the strength of his enormous personality and screen presence. <b>(5/10)</b><br /><br /><i>Q</i> is for Quirky...as in Michael Moriarty's performance. The impression I got before going in was that the winged beast would be the strangest thing in this movie. Instead, it's Moriarty. I shouldn't stop there. David Carradine is odd, too. In fact, most everything here is off a step. The dialogue is goofy and the conversations between characters is poorly timed or something. It's almost like they were ad-libbing much of the time.<br /><br />The stop motion animation is pretty weak, but it's good enough to make the final battle between Q and the police at the top of the Chrysler Building a lot of fun. It ultimately makes the movie worth watching.<br /><br />There were many times that "Q" gave me the same feeling I get when watching old episodes of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker". <b>(5/10)</b><br /><br /><i>1408</i> is really not that scary, but that might have been due to the distracting group of 13-year-olds in the theater who were blabbing on their cell phones when I saw it years ago. They were yelling out theories about what was going to happen on the screen. Little jerks... <br /><br />John Cusack was okay early in the film as an author going through the motions of pushing his latest book. His skepticism about haunted houses, gleaned from his uneventful stays in them on past reader recommendations, flies in the face of the source of his income as someone who writes about haunted houses. <br /><br />The movie builds up the suspense helped along by Samuel Jackson's performance. Cusack became less convincing once he became isolated in Room 1408, when the supposed scares were to begin. <b>(6/10)</b>whitsbrainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18171082058163775614noreply@blogger.com