Tuesday Terror: 6-5=2 (2014)

652-post

A group of friends go on a hiking trip and discover that the physical challenges are the least of their worries.

6-5=2 is the Hindi remake of a similarly titled Kannada film. The story draws inspiration from The Blair Witch Project.

The film does something very smart. It opens with a journalist interviewing Raja, the lone survivor.The young man is traumatized and is handled very gently by the newscaster. The journalist explains that they found the video camera used on the trip and asks Raja’s permission to share the footage with the world. Like a crime program on the ID channel, it gives the “found” video more of a documentary type of feel.

652-water

Once the movie switches over to the footage, I almost turned it off. The men of the group are annoying when they “prank” each other. Imagine waking up one morning, peaking out from under the covers and finding a butt/anus hovering over you. Yeah. Once they start the journey in earnest, there’s no time for crude jokes.

After a long day of trekking through the forest, the group is tired and decides to set up camp for the night. Two guys go to gather firewood and come across a tree that is full of human skulls and voodoo dolls. What do they do next?
1) run back to the group and insist they camp somewhere else
2) grab a skull and take it with them
3) cancel the remainder of the trip and start walking back down the trail
4) pull out a phone and see if they can find info about the tree on the Internet

Did you pick 2? You are correct – they bring it back to the group and explain where they got it. No one freaks out about the tree full of skulls.

After this, nothing goes right for our friends. The group gets lost, their provisions get burned up and a malevolent force closes in on them.

Oh well.

652-can

Tip: Don’t disturb human remains.

Tuesday Terror: Bedeviled (2016)

bedeviled1

Five teenage friends download Mr. Bedevil, a personal assistant app. This sassy, creepier version of Siri is actually a portal for a supernatural entity that takes issue with people who over-indulge in social media. Mr. Bedevil knows all of their childhood fears and jumpscares them to death.

Even though the teens have different fears (clowns, ugly teddy bears, grandma, etc), the deaths feel a bit repetitive. The victim is always alone in a place that has little in the way of light, there’s some teasing (a noise, a shadow) and them bam! I would have liked more scenes with the spirit haunting them in daylight.

No, you can’t just delete the app from your phone. Destroying your phone won’t work either. The movie offers several ideas for the why behind the evil app. I would have liked to seen this fleshed out a little more.

It’s a decent enough teen-scream flick. This is a nice appetizer before your main horror flick.

bedeviled2

Tip: Stop downloading strange apps; you’re going to get a virus.

Tuesday Terror: Temple (2017)

Temple

Three Americans visiting Japan decide to find an ancient temple with a troubling history. Almost everyone they encounter tells them not to go. Guess what? They find it and trouble.

Our trio consists of Kate (the beautiful), James (the jealous, yet unfaithful) and Christopher (the troubled). Kate and James are a couple. She and Christopher have been plutonic friends since kindergarten. James and Christopher are meeting for the first time. While the men are passive-aggressively challenging each other, Kate smiles her way through.

Take this relationship drama and drop it in a dark forrest with a haunted temple and you get a thimbleful of potential and a bucket of disappointment.

The movie uses a familiar narrative frame: a person is being interviewed by police about the events of the past few days because something bad has happened. The survivor/suspect has bandages all over their face – which one of our three main characters can it be? I won’t spoil it, but the answer isn’t too hard to figure out.

For every attempt at misdirection, there”s a huge clue pointing squarely at the culprit.

The story is lacking in a few other ways. For example, Kate’s is supposed to be visiting various temples for a class/research but she doesn’t act like it. She shows up with no plan, no list of temples to visit and no Japanese language basics. How do they find out about the temple? By flipping through a book at a random store.

Once the action gets into full swing at the temple (if takes our friends a while to get there), we are suddenly presented with several supernatural baddies. We are on the cusp of excitement! Then, despite an unexpected turn of events, the ending falls flat.

How to explain the ending without giving it away…

Imagine watching a show featuring an inexperienced magician. He’s earnest and easy on the eyes, so you overlook the extra card falling out of his sleeve. You smile politely when he accidentally drops the wand. For the last trick, all he has to do is pull a rabbit out of a hat. You can tell something is wrong; he’s hesitating.

Suddenly, a fire alarm goes off and everyone starts running. On your way out the door, you look around and realize the magician is still on the stage. He is smiling, relieved. The hat has toppled over and no rabbit is inside.

This is what Temple is like – a magic act that substitutes an abrupt ending for a real finale.

Tip: Night time in the woods is not a good time to have a heart to heart with your boyfriend.