Horror can be defined in many ways.  It can be terrifying, where you’ll have nightmares for weeks.  It can be horrifying, where it is just plain horrific and you squirm in disgust.  It can be scary in a totally different way (Katherine Heigl anyone??).  But sometimes all you want is a good old fashioned scare.

‘The Woman in Black’ will give you exactly that.  Set sometime in the early to mid-1900s, the movie follows Daniel Radcliffe’s Arthur Kipps, a widowed lawyer sent to follow up a deceased estate known as Eel Marsh House.  Upon his arrival, the townsfolk are determined to make him leave – with Kipps even more determined to stay and finish his business.  What he is unaware of is the curse that haunts the town, a ghostly woman in black hell bent on wreaking vengeance on anyone who lays their eyes on her.

It’s tricky not to give too much of the plot away, so I won’t go into too much of a synopsis of the film.  Radcliffe is a great actor, which makes me more sorry that all I could hear in the back of my head was “You’re a wizard, Harry!”  He seemed rather young to have such a young son, but that was a reflection of the times, I suppose.  The movie had all of the typical clichés of a horror movie: dark hallways, locked doors, misty marshlands.  There wasn’t a great deal of score, something I feel contributed to the overall feel of the film.  It did take a good half hour before anything major happened, however the last thirty to forty minutes of the film were truly engaging.  There was a few jump scares, but honestly it was the creepy doll factor that scared the bejesus out of me.  I don’t scare easily but they gave me some serious wiggins. 

I would definitely recommend ‘The Woman in Black’ to any horror fan.  I love a good scare and I feel like I definitely got my money’s worth.  I am predicting that the movie wouldn’t have as much of an effect had I have been at home (unless I was alone and it was dark), so on that note please spend some cashola and check it out at the cinemas.  You’ll hate yourself for the parts you jump at, and I can say that from experience.  But you’ll definitely come out of the cinema feeling satisfied. 

Just a shame we got it so long after America.  Ahh, gotta love the way Australian cinema appreciates horror.

Admit it.  You love it when you watch a film that sits with you for hours, even days after.  Your stomach twists and turns, you cover your eyes but peek through your hands because you can’t miss a minute.  You get that strange internal shudder that goes down your spine all the way to your toes.  Your mouth tastes slightly off afterwards.

Yes, I love a good ol’ sick movie.  Not necessarily scary as in jump-scares.  More like scary as in could-this-really-happen-cos-if-it-did-I-would-never-sleep-again.  The most disturbing horror movies have a range of characteristics; while some are stomach-churning with oozy visceral goodness, some are mentally disturbing that leave you questioning the sicko who actually came up with the film’s concept.  I know when I find a movie disturbing because I get a headache from frowning so much and I get the walkabouts.  Here are the ones that particularly resonated with me – for all the WRONG reasons.

10. Dread

‘Dread’ is an interesting, thought-provoking movie; it follows a group of college students making a documentary about the things people dread most.  It’s a relatively slow film but quite enjoyable… that is, until the scourer scene pops up.  In short, one of the girls in the film has a dark purple birth mark that covers one side of her body and after being humiliated, attempts to use a scourer and a bottle of bleach to ‘clean’ her body.  That scene alone really messed with my head.

9.  Deadgirl

Hmmm… interesting is all I have to say for this one.  Oh, ok, I’ll give you a summary.  So this film is about a group of high school boys who discover a woman in an abandoned mental asylum who is literally unable to die.  Bound to a hospital bed, the boys’ hormones get the better of them and they proceed to experiment (in a number of different disturbing ways) with the woman.  It is quite disgusting and creates a lot of questions about morals and integrity.  Worth a look but not for the weak stomached.

8.  The Woman

Similarly to ‘Deadgirl’, ‘The Woman’ once again has a woman help captive for a multitude of disturbing reasons.  However, Jack Ketchum’s film is centered around a seemingly family man who discovers the last remaining member of a wild clan of people.  He attempts to ‘civilize’ her by chaining her up, however he is unaware of the effect this woman is having on his family.  The film is violent and brutal, yet quite an interesting piece of social commentary.  This fact doesn’t make it any less disgusting.  I get quite squirmy when people are not ‘normal’; any deformities that are created for the purpose of sheer horror really make me feel quite ill.  I have recently added Ketchum’s ‘The Girl Next Door’ to my Quickflix queue, so I’m interested to see where that would’ve ended up on this list.

7.  Funny Games

Not to be confused with the Naomi Watts remake of the same name (which also stands solidly on its own), ‘Funny Games’ is an eerie German movie about a family who is tormented by a couple of sick neighbours while on holiday.  This is one film you definitely feel the need to watch with one eye closed; not for the scare factor, but because it is quite horrific in a totally different way.  The thing that makes this film so disturbing is not only that it could truly be a possibility, but the lack of remorse and the sheer pleasure the tormentors get out of their sick games will burn a hole into your mind.

6.  House of 1000 Corpses

I like Rob Zombie’s music and his films are quite good.  This one, being his first, still churns my stomach to this day.  I first watched this movie as a teenager and while it wasn’t particularly scary, some of the moments were quite horrific in my book.  I can still picture the half-man-half-fish (Dwight Schrute everybody!) and it gives me some serious wiggins.  Let’s face it: anything with deranged carnies will make anybody feel sick.

5.  Irreversible

I had only heard a little about this film before watching it.  My partner’s friend said his girlfriend had banned it from their house and said “I bet your missus can’t sit through more than half an hour of it”.  Challenge accepted!  But did I expect such a brutal, violent, grizzly film?  Not at all.  There are a lot of online references to the nine-minute rape scene of Monica Belucci, however I felt absolutely disgusted at the head-bashing earlier on in the film.  Not for the faint hearted but worth fulfilling that sense of curiosity we all have.

4.  Se7en

Probably considered more thriller than horror, ‘Se7en’ is by far one of my favourite movies.  Of all the concepts highlighted in the film, I have to say there is one sin that really got to me: Gluttony.  I won’t say any more.

3.  The Hills Have Eyes

As I mentioned before, mutations and deformations make me absolutely sick to the stomach.  As in those made for sheer horrific entertainment.  The remake of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ is one of the most disturbing films I have ever watched and is relentless even after multiple viewings.  I will count all of the mutants as equally disturbing in this one.  However, it is what they do to the family motor-homing across the state that really freak me out.  The baby, the rape, the scene where they go into the mutants’ house… ugh.  My stomach is gurgling as I type.

2.  I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

Rape and torture, when paired up, are always going to be incredibly disturbing.  I’m not usually affected by these things, even as a woman, however this film sat with me in quite an unsavoury fashion.  While I didn’t enjoy the rape scene, I oddly enough enjoyed the revenge inflicted on Jennifer’s tormentors, no matter how sick to my stomach they made me.  When there is no supernatural element to a film, no demon possession, no comical masked serial killer, just sheer human brutality… that marks a deeply disturbing film which only leads to one thought: This could happen to me.

1.  Pet Semetary

I know I’ll probably cop some flack for putting this at the top of my list, but there are just so many elements of this film that give me some serious heeby jeebies.  The flashback scenes with Aunt Zelda freaked the you-know-what out of me – and I only watched this movie for the first time a couple of years ago!  There are a lot of actual scary moments in this film (a lot of them include post-mortem Gage), however this was one movie that truly made my stomach turn, primarily due to Aunt Zelda.  Definitely worth a watch (and a highly recommended book by my dad), this is one that really disturbed me out for days to come.

Ahhh, I know, I know.  This isn’t horror.  Well, technically it isn’t.  Perhaps in someone’s book it is…  But, alas I had promised a certain someone I would write one chick flick review.  So I thought it only made sense to write about the only chick flick I’ve really watched recently, which just so happens to be ‘This Means War’.  And ok, I’ll admit it… my gigantic crush on Tom Hardy may have influenced this movie choice.  But that’s irrelevant… sort of.

The movie is centered on Reese Witherspoon’s character Lauren, a likeable thirty-something who is down on her luck when it comes to men.  Enter her somewhat-loony friend Trish (Chelsea Handler, who is on fire as usual), who posts an ‘interesting’ profile on a dating website in hopes to get Lauren back in the game.  Cue my green-with-envy face when Lauren clicks on the profile of secret CIA agent and super sweetheart Tuck (Tom Hardy), with whom she goes out on a drink date.  Unbeknownst to Lauren, Tuck’s best friend and co-worker, the extremely slick FDR (Chris Pine), is at a nearby video store waiting in the wings to rescue Tuck should the date turn sour.  Of course Lauren was bound to run into FDR – and that is where the love-hate relationship begins.  Lauren agrees to go on a date with FDR (mostly to shut him up), while at the same time intending on seeing Tuck.  Little do the guys know (until revealing their new girlfriends to each other at work) they are dating the same girl.  They agree to keep dating her, without her knowledge of them being friends, and pretty much let the best man win.  Of course, with the super spy resources they have at their fingertips, it isn’t quite the subtle battle one would imagine.

This was such a funny and enjoyable movie.  I love both Hardy and Pine and their characters ticked all the boxes for me.  Handler was fantastic as potty-mouthed Trish; I am fairly certain she was playing herself.  Throughout the whole movie you are constantly wondering who Lauren will eventually choose – Tuck?  FDR?  Neither?  And of course you want both of them to be picked!  But although I was a little dissatisfied with the end result, I felt cheery and entertained when we walked out of the cinema. 

Let me just say though:  Paintball will never be the same.

Ever since the concepts/trailers/images were released on the internet, I was secretly obsessed with ‘Chronicle’.  I do like a good superhero movie, particularly when they have cool abilities like telekinesis and telepathy – no Wolverine, retractable claws aren’t exactly what I mean.

If you’ve seen the trailers for ‘Chronicle’, you’ll know that it follows a group of teenage boys who inherit telekinetic abilities from an unknown force (a force which isn’t really described in great depth in the actual film).  What makes this film a cut above the rest is that it is a found-footage film (think ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Cloverfield’, ‘Paranormal Activity’ and just about any other movie filmed with a hand-held camera that makes your tummy jubbly).  Generally I’m not so much for found-footage films; excluding ‘Cloverfield’, I find them kind of annoying and pretentious… yeah, they suck.  But the amazing thing about ‘Chronicle’ was that it didn’t suck!

To give you a rough rundown of the film, the main character is Andrew, a stereotypical social outcast with no real friends apart from his cousin Matt, who doesn’t really care for Andrew all that much.  Andrew insists on filming all aspects of his life, much to the annoyance of those around him.  It is during a party where Matt’s friend (and Mr. Popular) Steve encourages Andrew to join him and Matt in a cave somewhere in a forest where they have found the strange force that eventually gives them their powers.  The rest of the film follows the boys learning to use their powers and filming their progress as they go.  With his newfound friendships, Andrew becomes a well-liked part of society… until his mentality slowly begins to unravel.

You know the drill, I don’t like to give too much away.  I found the film so interesting and it really sucked me in for its short 84-minute running time.  The thing that really got me was the effects.  I just could not get over how realistic everything seemed when the boys were toying with their powers!  It seemed so lifelike that I could honestly see this happening!  Now that’s messed up…

Give ‘Chronicle’ a fair go.  It’s one of the few movies I’ve really enjoyed lately and hey, it’s original, which is a lot to say for films these days.  Definitely sets the bar high for 2012 films.