Ah, another movie review.
The Girl Next Door is based on a fictional book by Jack Ketchum that is based on the real life crime of Sylvia Likens. Sylvia was a young sixteen year old girl left in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski who ended up torturing the girl leading to her death. This was a huge crime in Indianapolis, so it's a close story to me. I even read the true crime book on this for a school project. I haven't read Ketchum's book, but after getting a Netflix account, I just had to watch this film.
I'm not going to go into too much depth on the movie. If you're familiar with Sylvia's torture than this film plays out a bit of the same. However, they altered the events heavily in order to make it more "shocking". It wasn't really necessary as what Sylvia went through was already horrible. In fact, the movie makes the whole thing worse that I was offended by it.
One of the changes is that they made the girls based off of Sylvia and Jenny, her sister who had polio, orphans. In real life, their parents were carnies who left them in Gertrude's care. The film also makes the children who Gertrude convinced to abuse Sylvia mostly male. Paula, Gertrude's oldest daughter, was one of the biggest aggressors in the case along with other females. They also sexualized the torture way more than what actually happened. The worse thing that happened to Sylvia was Gertrude forced her to strip in front of the kids and shove a Pepsi bottle in her vagina. Twice. And yet this film actually shows the boys raping the girl which never did happen in real life. I found going to this extreme too much. Sylvia faced true suffering and I wish if they were going to retell the story, they wouldn't sensationalize it even more than it has been.
The acting is rather subpar as well. The girl playing Susan, Jenny's fictional counterpart, has literally no expression and emotion. She is just there. Also, the mother I found her sadism a bit too forced. Even though Gertrude was just as mental, Gertrude made way more sense in her ability to convince the kids to abuse Sylvia.
As I had a personal investment in the real crime of Sylvia Likens, this movie offended me on how they had to "spice" it up. I get it's a fictional story based on real events, but it's too exploitative in my opinion. For a much more accurate movie I recommend An American Crime starring Ellen Page. This was closer to the actual events, but I hated how they made Gertrude a sympathetic character.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Small Update
When your mom gets a Facebook account, it's expected. You know eventually your out of date parents will try what all the kids are doing. But when you're grandparents get one, then Facebook's days are numbered.
Finals are happening next week and that means mostly nothing. Mostly since I haven't updated my Youtube in weeks. The last update was about my new cat and I really need to get back with Amnesia. Yet, I hate recording it with Quicktime as the top and right hand side just come out wrong. Recently something dawned on me. I could record my computer gameplay via a TV!! I remembered one of my old friends connected his Mac to his TV to make movies easier to watch. Tons of people do that and I figured, "Why not do the same with a game?" Unfortunately, I don't have the item that will require me to do that. Good news, I get paid at the end of this week and as long as new Monster High dolls don't come out, I could get it!! Then there is actually recording it. The last time I used Pinnacle it refused to allow me to save my video, so I don't really have a way at this point in time to record.
I was going to see if I could get a Dazzle and then hi-jack my sister's Mac, but she's moving to a different part of the state, so that's out. My Windows laptop is utter crap as well and I'm not going to use it. So....nothing. It's disappointing, agreed. I'd really would like to finish Amnesia and just do other walkthroughs, but I really just can't afford it and don't have the time. These are put off indefinitely at the time. I'm not saying I'm done or going to stop, just that I cannot at all do it.
Finals are happening next week and that means mostly nothing. Mostly since I haven't updated my Youtube in weeks. The last update was about my new cat and I really need to get back with Amnesia. Yet, I hate recording it with Quicktime as the top and right hand side just come out wrong. Recently something dawned on me. I could record my computer gameplay via a TV!! I remembered one of my old friends connected his Mac to his TV to make movies easier to watch. Tons of people do that and I figured, "Why not do the same with a game?" Unfortunately, I don't have the item that will require me to do that. Good news, I get paid at the end of this week and as long as new Monster High dolls don't come out, I could get it!! Then there is actually recording it. The last time I used Pinnacle it refused to allow me to save my video, so I don't really have a way at this point in time to record.
I was going to see if I could get a Dazzle and then hi-jack my sister's Mac, but she's moving to a different part of the state, so that's out. My Windows laptop is utter crap as well and I'm not going to use it. So....nothing. It's disappointing, agreed. I'd really would like to finish Amnesia and just do other walkthroughs, but I really just can't afford it and don't have the time. These are put off indefinitely at the time. I'm not saying I'm done or going to stop, just that I cannot at all do it.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Insidious Review
Every time a horror film comes out, I feel the need to go and see it. I hadn't heard anything about this movie, but decided to spend the money on it. Was it worth it? Hmm, maybe not what I paid, but it's still worth going to see.
A couple moves into an old house with their two sons and baby daughter. The wife is stressed that her husband has to stay late at work, trying to write new songs, and left to handle her kids. It doesn't help that her daughter is constantly crying. When their oldest son, Dalton, falls off a ladder and ends up in a coma. The doctors can find no real medical reason why Dalton is in a coma and so he stays for three months. The wife begins to see a man in the house and something keeps opening the front door, triggering the alarm. Tired of all this, they move to a different house, but this solves nothing. It turns out that the hauntings are following them because their son has astral projected himself into The Further and they must bring his spirit back before his spirit fades away.
The movie is better than I was expecting from James Wan. Everyone will recognize him as being the director behind the first Saw movie. He also directed Deadly Silence which I found to be rather boring and tripe. When you see the title for Insidious, it looks like one of those old '60-'70 films, so I started thinking I was going to see something rather campy like those films. The movie isn't like that at all. And it isn't really another possession story as well, unlike the movie poster and trailers have implied.
Some of the spirits are genuinely terrifying, for awhile. The first one we are introduced to, this man in an overcoat, was at first quite disturbing. I jumped big time when we first see him. There is even this entity that was at first reminiscent of spirits you see given form in African and Native American paintings. A very primal fear of the otherworld. When we first see him, I didn't see it coming and it scared me. I was seriously hoping they wouldn't show him again, but when they do, it's in a jokey manner.
The movie takes on a humorous manner when we are introduced to these ghost hunters. Both of them are trying to compete with each other in their own fields, one is the engineer the other is the sketch artist, it's funny. But the rest of the film suffers after this and it stops being scary.
Overall, I have mixed feelings. The first half of the movie is truly a good way to start off a horror film, so it's sad to see it fall apart somewhat in the end. My recommendation is that if you do plan on seeing this, a rental or just waiting until it's a $5 movie or it's at the cheap theater. It's not bad, but the second half doesn't justify the price of a full price ticket.
A couple moves into an old house with their two sons and baby daughter. The wife is stressed that her husband has to stay late at work, trying to write new songs, and left to handle her kids. It doesn't help that her daughter is constantly crying. When their oldest son, Dalton, falls off a ladder and ends up in a coma. The doctors can find no real medical reason why Dalton is in a coma and so he stays for three months. The wife begins to see a man in the house and something keeps opening the front door, triggering the alarm. Tired of all this, they move to a different house, but this solves nothing. It turns out that the hauntings are following them because their son has astral projected himself into The Further and they must bring his spirit back before his spirit fades away.
The movie is better than I was expecting from James Wan. Everyone will recognize him as being the director behind the first Saw movie. He also directed Deadly Silence which I found to be rather boring and tripe. When you see the title for Insidious, it looks like one of those old '60-'70 films, so I started thinking I was going to see something rather campy like those films. The movie isn't like that at all. And it isn't really another possession story as well, unlike the movie poster and trailers have implied.
Some of the spirits are genuinely terrifying, for awhile. The first one we are introduced to, this man in an overcoat, was at first quite disturbing. I jumped big time when we first see him. There is even this entity that was at first reminiscent of spirits you see given form in African and Native American paintings. A very primal fear of the otherworld. When we first see him, I didn't see it coming and it scared me. I was seriously hoping they wouldn't show him again, but when they do, it's in a jokey manner.
The movie takes on a humorous manner when we are introduced to these ghost hunters. Both of them are trying to compete with each other in their own fields, one is the engineer the other is the sketch artist, it's funny. But the rest of the film suffers after this and it stops being scary.
Overall, I have mixed feelings. The first half of the movie is truly a good way to start off a horror film, so it's sad to see it fall apart somewhat in the end. My recommendation is that if you do plan on seeing this, a rental or just waiting until it's a $5 movie or it's at the cheap theater. It's not bad, but the second half doesn't justify the price of a full price ticket.
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