IT

When you hear about Stephen King's IT, what do you usually think of?  Tim Curry?  Clowns?  Balloons?  Fear?
Maybe this?

The 1986 book IT gave people a fear of clowns, as did the 1990 TV series...and now the first movie in this set is about to do it all over again.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you'll know that the remake of IT has been in the works for several years and it was a real rollercoaster of a ride...but finally, 27 years after the TV series was released....IT has returned.

I love horror, and I have been hyped for this movie ever since the announcement the remake was out of pre-production (I wanted to see a scarier movie...don't get me wrong the TV miniseries is great, but still I felt it needed something more) and there have been some great things to promote the movie, including an 8-bit game and a minisite dedicated to The Loser's Club.  Something else that caught my eye was a social media account by Pennywise, a fan who really knows her stuff when it comes to this franchise and is well worth a look and follow....I honestly thought that she was official PR it comes over that good!

The movie is about a group of bullied outcasts called The Losers Club. They notice that the children of Derry are disappearing and discover there is an evil under Derry in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise preys on their fears.

This movie is brilliant, but you will be disappointed if you were expecting anything similar to the miniseries as there are more things faithful to the book.  The kids gave an awesome performance, as did the few adults you see too....but Bill Skarsgård's performance as Pennywise truly steals the show.  Pennywise the clown this time around is cuter, more child-like...and because of this, IT is even creepier.  This movie is not the scariest that I've seen, but the creepiness of Pennywise makes the movie so much better and gives it the edge that it needs.

The one thing I did wonder about the movie was if it was originally going to be shot in 3D or going to be made into 3D as the title sequence and quite a few of the shots in the movie looked like they were made for 3D so maybe this will be made into a 3D movie sometime in the future.

I watched this movie 3 times on release day (including the Midnight screening) and I loved the movie more with each viewng.  I was also able to get this awesome poster at the Midnight screening:

You'll float too!!  You'll float too!!  YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!!

This movie is so good, I honestly think this is the movie of the year for me.  If you love horror, go see this and have a blast...but if you have coulrophobia then perhaps you should be wary....roll on Chapter 2!!

IT Chapter 1 is in cinemas now and is rated 15

Splinter

I like a good horror movie, and I was recently recommended Splinter.


Splinter is about a young couple who retreat to the wilderness for a romantic camping weekend, but after damaging their tent everything starts to go wrong when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend on the run from the police.
As the foursome travel the back roads they find themselves in more trouble than any of them could have imagined -- there's a blood-crazed, parasitic creature in the woods, and the two couples are it's next targets.
They shelter at an abandoned gas station, they must use their wits and every weapon at their disposal to defend themselves from not only the creature but themselves.


I really enjoyed this movie, it was a good watch and well worth checking out.  I liked the idea of a parasite that infects you and causes spikes/splinters to grow out of the victims bodies (or body parts if removed).  After seeing a lot of lame horrors of late, this for me is the way horror should be...simple, but effective. It felt like I was watching some of the simpler horrors from the 80s (and that is nothing but a good thing, some great horrors were made in that time!) and I feel anyone who is going to make a new horror should watch this to see how it should be done.


Here is the trailer for this movie:




Splinter is rated 18 and available on DVD


"This concludes out broadcast day..."


NOTE - I got a tweet from Toby Wilkins, the director of this movie, thanking me for watching and reviewing the movie, it went as follows:
TobyWilkins: Thanks for watching and reviewing, glad you enjoyed it. // RT @yamerias: Fat Bloke Watching: Splinter http://dlvr.it/x3Nc
Nice to have him drop me a message like that!

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

As I will be watching the reboot of the A Nightmare On Elm Street franchise sometime in the next week I thought I'd watch the original movie from 1984.  The version I watched was from the US New Line Platinum Series "The Nightmare On Elm Street Collection".

The movie is about a group of high school kids who keep having the same dream.  They dream of a badly burned man wearing a brown fedora hat, a dirty striped jumper and notably a glove with blades on the fingers...and every time they dream about this man if they die in the dream they die for real.  The man in their dreams is Freddy Krueger, the son of 1,00 maniacs who was burnt alive by a group of parents after he escaped charges of child molestation on a technicality.

The are brilliant kills in this movie by Freddy, when he attacks Tina was a seriously jaw dropping moment when I saw it the first time as was Glen when he become the blood fountain...which had to be for me at the time one of the goriest scenes in a movie I had ever seen (I also would never forget the comment shortly afterwards "You don't need a stretcher up there, you need a mop"!) and it got me hooked on the horror genre.

This is a great movie, which for me still stands the test of time.  Wes Craven created a masterpiece and Freddy Krueger was certainly the man of New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye's dreams and New Line is often known as "The House The Freddy Build" due to the massive success of the franchise.  It was also the movie that introduced the World to Johnny Depp (He also was to cameo in one of the many sequels too!).  Robert Englund plays one of the scariest characters in a movie as far as I'm concerned (I'm talking about this movie, not the sequels which almost all just made him into more of a clown than a monster)

When it comes to old school horror movies, this is a truly iconic movie and does make you think...after all how do you defend yourself from your dreams...or your nightmares?

A Nightmare On Elm Street is rated 18 and available on DVD now...or if you want to import it you can get it on region-free BRD from the US or Canada.