Count William Jannusch

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I just got back from the movies seeing The Night House. First of all, I am a lifelong horror film fanatic, ghost story fan, horror historian, and a writer of horror stories and songs myself(I write our song lyrics and music in my band from Chicago- Witchcross). But, anyways, I just wanted to make it clear that I love the classic style Occult thrillers of the 1970's and the old fashioned haunted house films. This film I feel has that old fashioned classic horror movie quality, but also puts an original spin on the classic haunting ghost story in a creepy house on a lake with a lonely young grieving widow woman(Rebecca Hall) unraveling more than her share of very chilling and disturbing secrets, after her late husband's unexplainable suicide. A secret affair or two, black magic and ghosts. This movie is awesome. Besides good acting and genuinely scary situations and outstanding atmosphere, there a few shock scares that sent me and my wife out of our seats! After I saw it once at the theater, my wife agreed it was great. It was one of those films that you know you are going to have to buy later on DVD!!

I unlike some, absolutely love the 2nd Blair Witch horror movie Blair Witch 2-Book Of Shadows, the film that supplied an actual professional horror film sequel to the first movie, which we all know was more of a home camera project . In my opinion, the first film in black and white, was a vastly overrated, though still creepy home camera forged project, that while it had some spooky charms to it, didn't truly scare me as much as it promised. I liked it to a point, having gone to see an early preview special showing at a downtown theater presentation of it. I actually was more scared by the fake tv documentary that came out first before the first Blair Witch. But when part 2-Book Of Shadows came out, it was made like an actual professional horror film. A group of college age fans of the first film, including a kind of conservative girl, a rocker goth girl and a wiccan hippie witch girl and a couple guys that are like college partier student types go to the actual site, which looks much creepier in this film. After doing some heavy partying and filming at night, they wake up in a mental black out, and suddenly find themselves in a terrifying curse by the actual witch, who appears in several forms. This spell changes their perception of everything and dooms them to die in a horrifying series of events. I actually loved this movie. I have watched it many times!!! It's very intense and scary.

This is a very intense and deeply emotional movie about the heartbreaking experiences of what a depressed young man(Joaquin Phoenix)who lives and works for his older parents in New York, goes through with, when he meets one woman who is a beautiful blonde neighbor(Gwyneth Paltrow) and has a short fling her, but she doesn't truly share his feelings, and is dating a married older man, and is kind of really superficial and manipulative. This woman symbolizes the kind of fantasy love that is beautiful on the outside, but often hollow and deceptive on the inside, a heartbreak waiting to happen. She deceives him several times, while he struggles to try to please her. On the other hand, he begins to juggle a second relationship, with a truly loving and honest brunette girl, who is also friends of his parents. He is kind of pressured by his parents to be with her, since it would bring a business merger between families. He does actually like her a lot though, but isn't sure about his feelings. He keeps being tempted to chase the first girl. When he goes back and forth, and is finally truly hurt by the blonde girl, who ends up nearly getting him to run off and leave his relatives and everyone behind and move to California, she again blows him off, once again becoming more serious with the married man she's chasing. He ends up going for the more honest and sincere brunette girl, who is actually more beautiful and sweeter anyways. Joaquin Phoenix gives a truly deep acting performance, in my opinion, one of his best ever. Its kind of like one man's dark sad quest for true love, in a depressing world, like an old style New York(it is actually set in the present, but feels like 1970's New York)being taunted one hand by a fantasy of what he wanted, and on the other hand a more sincere love. When he is ready to just give up and drown himself for a second time literally, he sees the glimmer of hope of a sincere love and lets it guide him to true happiness with the girl who is friends with his family, the brunette girl.. The music in this film is outstandingly emotional too. Between quiet guitar strumming sad intertwining passages, and opera, and emotional symphonic pieces. I truly loved it. It is sad, but it is very good. A masterpiece.

George Romero's Night Of The Living Dead is the ultimate zombie film of all time. If you can, seek out the Anchor Bay/Video Treasures 1995 remastered collectors item VHS or DVD or the remastered Blue Ray. These all feature a truly remarkable clarity and sound that you will never believe compared to the older prints of the film! I just watched mine again tonight and it is unbelievable awesome. The acting is performed very well, classically, without a lot of dialogue or speaking, though there is enough to communicate. The characters use intensely dramatic body language and eyes filled with emotion. The black and white film footage is truly chilling, and the music and sound effects combine with a very realistically scary and doomed feel of the loss of all hope. The blood and the fire really stand out in this kind of black and white film style. The suffocatingly condemned realization that there is no escape from the walking corpses, feeding on flesh, ripping out intestines, and devouring everyone truly creeps in slowly and insideously The suggestions of how to escape start to dwindle. But even more horrific than the murderous zombies is the cruelty of man to himself, and the inability of the living people to get along and help each other in this little farm house where they are trapped. They wind up fighting and having accidents and shooting and burning each other off, leaving more flesh for the living dead to eat. The most horrific scenes to me are always the couple burning to death in the truck after an accident by the gas pump, or the newly zombified little girl who stabs her mother to death with a small gardening sickle. The sound of her screaming is just terrifying. It is also very sad what happens to our hero in the end when he is shot and thrown onto the fire when they mistake him for a ghoul. I have remained a living dead fan all of my life, following not only all of the classic George Romero films such as Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead and all of its sequels and remakes, also the gory Lucio Fulci zombie films, the really low budget Andrea Bianchi stuff, the Umberto Lenzi stuff, and the other zombie spinoffs, and of course the incredibly killer Walking Dead TV series in all of its seasons. But, it all started with Night Of The Living Dead, which still seems scarier than all of the others.

First of all, I love having Hammer films back, being a lifetime fan of their films. This movie is very unique and unlike any previous Hammer film. When Hammer first returned we got films like The Lady In Black, a smooth classic that was more in line with the older films yet very scary. The Quiet Ones is good too, but in a different, much more stark and grainy yet subtly disturbing and ultimately terrifying way. It has a feel more in common with a "Tarantino Grind House" style of film making. This starts in the 1970's with a group of student parapsychologists and a teacher investigating a certain case of supposed mental illness vrs. possession, and it has some similarities to Legend Of Hell House, Haunting Of Hill House, and a possession film combined. The location is good, the effects startling, and the acting and the filmmaking is better than some have given it credit for. There are a few really horrifying scenes toward the end.The beginning is slightly slow moving and a little frustrating, but if you keep watching by half way through it really picks up, and it gets pretty shocking by the end.