Insidious: Chapter 2

There are some decent scares in this one. There is also some humor, although I am not sure all of it was intentional.

The Lambert family, with their oldest son now back awake, are still plagued by the demon that has haunted them in part one. It becomes pretty clear, that it has latched itself (himself) onto the father of the family. Again, that is.

The details of how he was possessed as a child are filled in via flashbacks throughout the film and ultimately also reveal the identity of the ghost/demon/person that took over his body. This happened when he was a boy first and then later his son...because the person taking over their bodies was himself robbed of his boyhood, because his crazy mother raised him as a girl (and then later made him kill women).

There are some clever overlaps with the first film, as well.

6/10

Star Trek Into Darkness

We start off with Captain Kirk getting in trouble (yet again) for ignoring protocol by risking his ship and crew to save one crew member. Spock, that is, who finds all this highly illogical, of course.

The threat this time around comes from one super human (?) that goes by the name Harrison but turns out to be Star Trek nemesis of old lore Khan. Khan and his people have been asleep for centuries but he alone has been woken by Star Fleet, to use him in any way they can (him being stronger, faster...generally better than everyone else). What they didn't foresee apparently was that he did not comply with their plans and hits them hard, right there in their own HQ.

What follows is a intergalactic man hunt that leads the crew of the Enterprise to Kronos, where they inevitably have a clash with the local Klingons before Khan saves (!) them and gives himself up after learning that 72 torpedoes are aboard the Enterprise. What Kirk and his crew do not know (yet) is that inside every torpedo is a creature just like Khan, so his first order of business is to save his kin.

The Enterprise gets an unexpected visit from a ship headed by star fleet commander Marcus, who wanted Khan dead rather than captured so as to cover up his misjudgment in waking him up in the first place. He is certainly right in warning Kirk about trusting Khan but has no qualms about blowing up the Enterprise with everyone on it. So Kirk, with help from Khan and Scotty, take matters into their hands and take over the now enemy ship.

Of course, Khan turns out to be a very bad guy, indeed. He takes the ship and forces the torpedoes to be transferred over from the Enterprise. As soon as the beaming is concluded he starts shooting the Enterprise. This leads to, first, a battle of the two ships in space and, second, an epic fist fight of Khan vs Spock back on earth, where in the end both ship make it, Khan's not quite in one piece.

Other than action and fists flying, there is also a lot of crying going on, as you can see in the representative photos. Even Spock cries. And he yells. And he gets very, very angry. What gets to Spock is Kirk dying. But, thanks to Khan's superior blood, Bones is able to save him. All is well.

8/10

Victim

This is the first English language film to use the word "homosexual"...42 years after its very first use in film (in the German 1919 film Anders als die Anderen).

Dirk Bogard plays barrister Melville Farr, who gets caught up in systematic blackmails of gays when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK. One young man, Barrett, is threatened with a photo of himself and Farr being exposed. To protect the much more prominent public figure Farr, he steals money from his employer when he runs out.

The police coming to the construction site where he works kicks the story off. He runs, unable to find much assistance from his friends, most of whom are gay and living a lie themselves and some of whom are also victims of the blackmailer. In the end, the police catch up with him and he hangs himself in his cell.

Farr, feeling guilty for not having taken Barrett's desperate phone calls, starts digging into the issue and trying to find people willing to speak up about the blackmails, but most refuse. Farr is married and his wife knew about a relationship he had with a man before their marriage but she is somewhat stumped that he still feels the same way. She does, however, stand by him throughout.

Ultimately, it has to be Farr himself that stands up against the blackmailers, even if it will cost him his career.

7/10
  

The Real-Life Murderess Behind the American Horror Story: Coven Character

If you have seen the premiere episode of American Horror Story: Coven you know that Kathy Bates plays a particularly evil slave owner. Her character, Delphine LaLaurie is based on a real person...who was far worse than the fictionalized version of her.

Read about her here.

HELL NO: The Sensible Horror Film

The X Files: Conduit

Sioux City, Iowa, is the location of this particular episode. Ruby Morris, a young woman whose mother has been involved in a UFO sighting when she was a girl, disappears from a site where she has been camping with her mother and little brother. Ever since, her little brother Kevin has been painting a series of zeros and ones on a pad, from clues he is taking from the white noise on the TV (Poltergeist anyone?).

Local law enforcement does not take the disappearance seriously because Ruby has been known to runaround with every other boy in town. Then one Tessa shows up to tell a tale of Ruby's relationship with a no-good boyfriend, who has not been showing up at his job for a few days. Then his body is found and it turns out that Tessa killed him because she was pregnant with his child and offed him in revenge for him hanging out with Ruby.

The ones and zeros little Kevin has been painting turn out to be top secret information, consequently getting him and his mother in trouble. She blames Mulder and Scully for the unwanted attention and does no longer want to speak with them. Mulder, of course, is not willing to give up and when he and Scully come to look for them in their house they are not there. What they find instead are more sheets of paper laid out on the ground floor. When Scully goes to the first floor and looks down she sees that they are actually a picture of Ruby.

Mulder takes this as a sign that the mother and boy must have returned to the site where Ruby disappeared. When the agents get there they find the two as well as a bruised and beaten Ruby, that may or may not have been returned from an abduction. Ultimately, her mother encourages her to not speak about her experience on account of herself having been ridiculed for speaking up all her life.

6/10

The X Files: Squeeze

The first episode that lands Scully in grave danger. This time it is Mulder's turn to save his partner.

But back to the beginning. Scully is contacted by a friend from the bureau, Agent Colton, who asks her for help in a case of serial killings he is working on. What has him stumped is that the victims have nothing in common and are often found in rooms without any sign or, indeed, option of any point of entry. Colton does sort of want Mulder on the case but fears for his reputation if he requests Mulder's assistance, directly. Also, he is very territorial and doesn't want any interference that what make it look like he did not solve the case himself.

This leads to Scully's loyalties being tested. Turns out her attachment to and trust in Mulder is very strong after only a short period of time of working with him. His theory is, as expected, out there. He retrieves a fingerprint from the latest crime scene that is to long and narrow to belong to a human. But when he alters the prints they take from a suspect they catch at a site of interest, one Eugene Victor Tooms, by elongating and narrowing it through the help of a computer program, it is a 100% match. Obviously, nobody believes him until the two locate a former agent that worked on a series of murders with the same MO 30 years previously. His suspect then was Eugene Tooms and he has the stake out photo to even make Scully believe that there may be something to Mulder's theory of a genetic mutant that is more than 100 years old, although she thinks more along the lines of a generation of mutants.

To complete the cycle pattern of 30 and even 60 years ago, Tooms has one more kill to go before going into hiding - or rather, hibernation - for another 30 years. Mulder's theory is that he spends that time in a nest they discover make from scrap paper and bile, while the livers he takes from his victims sustains him for his hibernation. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Tooms steals Scully's necklace, hence staking her out as his next victim. Small items have gone missing from the all the crime scenes and the agents have discovered the loot in a building that Tooms already lived in in 1903.

After a blowout with Agent Colton, who called off a surveillance team that Mulder and Scully requested, Scully is furious. Mulder returns to the collection of tidbits to find Scully's necklace and realizes the danger she is in. Meanwhile, Scully is drawing a bath when suddenly a drop of bile falls on her hands form an air duct above her. She arms herself and fights Tooms after he dashes at her from another air vent in the wall. Mulder comes in the nick of time and together the cuff Tooms to the tub.

The final shot shows Eugene Tooms smiling as he realizes that there is a slit in the door to his cell where the food gets pushed through. This is not the last we have seen of him.

8/10

Hey, isn't that...?
Eugene Victor Tooms is played by Doug Hutchison, who is now known as the creepy old guy that made the tabloid headlines for marrying then 16 year old Courntey Stodden. You know who I'm talking about.