Tuesday Night Movies at the Crib: Ouija & Them!

 

I thought Ouija (2014) would be a decent afternoon horror film after a late afternoon storm (we also had an early morning storm). It is just very forgettable. I really do prefer the follow up which serves as a prequel. Olivia Cooke, around this time, was one of the actresses you saw on the reg in horror film and series. My daughter and I talked about watching another Cooke vehicle called "The Quiet Ones" made around this time. Cooke loses a dear friend to what is first thought to be a suicide by hanging using Christmas lights. But a Ouija board Cooke and Shelley Henning used to dilly-dally with eventually leads to a particular conjuring resulting in multiple deaths to their friends as well. Cooke and her gang (Kagasoff, her boyfriend, Douglas Smith, Henning's boyfriend, Coto, Cooke's sister, and Santos the waitress friend of the bunch) decide to test the board and see if Henning had actually killed herself and why, wanting answers. But they can't anticipate an evil spirit in the form of a girl or the girl's mother. Lin Shaye is a questionable source for Cooke to investigate in regards to stopping the girl or mother they see through their planchette. 

This is basically a body count PG-13 horror film with eyes of victims that go white, lots of jump scare soundtrack noise, paranormal activity involving "Hi there" messages, and Shaye giggling at Cooke for "being a sucker" when she found the body of the evil girl, opened her needled mouth, and released her to terrorize. Burning the found body of the girl and Oujia board just might do the trick. The murders are very tame. Cooke is a good young actress, but this film is just meh. 2/5

I've been planning to put together a Top Creature Features list for the blog, and I can tell you that Them! (1954) will be on it for sure. That opening twenty minutes is a masterpiece. One of the great crimes for me personally is not having a copy of this in my library. I need to rectify that.

Whitmore and Don Shelton are New Mexico State Troopers who come across a little girl roaming traumatized in the desert with Joshua trees and hot sand all around her. She is tied to a trailer with a giant hole ripped out of it. The top of her doll's head and a fragment of her dress are found in the trailer. This tells Whitmore she was in that trailer when it (and her parents) was attacked. Then the troopers call in the forensics and ambulance for the crime scene and girl. They hear the sound of the giant ants, the little girl leans up from her gurney, and she quietly lays back down without the doctor (William Schallert) or Whitmore seeing her. Then later once Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon (his daughter) arrive, called to help determine what it is the local authorities are dealing with, the smell of salt helps to unlock the little girl's silence, allowing her to "awaken" so to speak from her trauma. This whole opening is just a work of art, to me. Masterfully acted, written, directed...it was just great. How this extraordinary situation begins as a little girl walking in a fog in the desert, spotted by a helicopter pilot leads Whitmore (and eventually James Arness, as an agent...this guy was tall! He's all legs, this guy!) on a journey to saving two kids in an LA sewer system is really epic. There is a lot of military wondering how to keep the ants hush-hush while news reporters kvetch over a story they perceive is being kept from them. Gwenn is a delight as the doctor, so annoyed at the protocols of the police and military, trying to make sure all the ants are dealt with in a way that is safe and sure. The giant ants are just cool to me. Yes, today, CGI is the answer for giant monsters. But for the time, those ants are gnarly because their size really feels quite gigantic. I would love to do a serious write-up of this for the blog eventually. 4.5/5