Hey, Google? Are There Black People in The Appalachians?

 

Hey, hey, Horror Nuts!  Welcome to another edition of WTFHM!

So, of all the things I have ever wondered about, I don't think I've ever wondered as to whether or not there were black folks in the Appalachians.

That's not to say that I didn't think that there were any black folks in the Appalachians...



Okay, that's exactly what I'm saying. 

I'm sorry, I realize how ignorant that sounds. Especially knowing that in 2022, yes, of course, there are black folks everywhere in the world. All I'm saying is that I'm also aware of the fact that there are spaces that...well...the surrounding population has made relatively clear we're not exactly welcome.

But, after a cursory Google search, I learned a little about the black folks in the Appalachians, and like just about every place in America, the Appalachians have always had residents of color (not just black) dating all the way back to the days of enslavement. 

And with all that, came their culture...including folk magic. Speaking of folk magic, this week's movie!

Spell starring Omari Hardwick, Miss Loretta Devine, Lorraine Burroughs, Hannah Gonera, Kalifa Burton, John Beasley, and Tumisho Masha.  

So, once upon a time, a lawyer named Marquis T. Woods (Hardwick) is living his rich dude life with his rich dude family when, one day, he gets a letter saying that his dad passed away. 

Marquis T. Woods then decides that he needs to fly himself and his bougie family in his personal single-engine bucket back home to the Appalachians. Which is all fine and good until the plane crashes.

Sometime later, Marquis T. Woods wakes up with a busted leg with a little old lady taking care of him...in a scene that looks really familiar. I can't quite put my finger on it, though...

Anyway, he spends the rest of the movie trying to escape and along the way, finds out that little old Eloise(Devine) leads a Hoodoo cult and, apparently, is planning on chopping him up and grinding his bones to make her bread or whatever.

That's basically the movie in a nutshell. Like I can go into details, but 

So, there are a few notes for this movie that have me kind of split in terms of how I want to rate this.  Let's start with the good.

The Good

1. I Got Two Words For You: Loretta Motherfucking Devine

That's it. That's the tweet.

If you don't know who this actress is, I highly recommend you educate yourself immediately.  There are very few actresses I've ever seen that have been able to pull off the balance between sweet as pie/evil as fuck persona as perfectly as Devine consistently does in this movie. Every second she was on screen I felt like I was a little kid worried if I was about to get a cookie or a spanking.

If there was any universal good in this whole movie, it was this woman.

2. Let's hear it for Horror Noire!

You know, in 2022, there are still people out there that are like, "Wait...there are good horror movies with all-black casts?"  Yes. Yes, there is. And if you've been following this blog for any length of time, I don't have to tell you that.

And all things considered, there are some pretty great legit horror moments in this movie that are worth watching.

3. The Guy to Watch

So, as it turns out, I've seen quite a bit of Tonderai's work.  He's directed episodes of Lucifer, Dr. Who, and Castle Rock. He also directed House at the End of The Street and Hush. With that resume, I wouldn't go so far as to say he's an up-and-comer, but he's definitely the guy to watch out there.

And now...

The Bad

1. Dear White Writer telling Black Stories...

So, while I was watching this, I noticed that our protag was making really out of 'character' decisions, even for a horror movie. Like, I realize that more times than not, horror movie protagonists make dumb choices instead of the right ones because, well, how else can the story happen?

I mean, yes, horror is not Shakespeare and, you know me, I rarely give bad marks for that unless it's just out of control.  In this case, I started to notice that Marquis T. Woods just isn't making instinctively choices that...well...a person of color might make in his situation.

This is a hard thing to pinpoint if you don't know. It's like, you know how Jada Pinkett-Smith in Scream 2 goes on and on about how white folks in horror movies "run up the stairs instead of out the back door". It's kind of like that. 

And over the years, with more black screenwriters and directors at the helm, I've noticed that black protags are making decisions and choices that are more natural, which for us black folks watching, makes the scares harder to dismiss.

(I mean, those choices probably won't save them because it is a horror movie, but still.) 

The writer of this one was Kurt Wimmer, who also wrote some pretty good movies such as Equilibrium, an arguably good film.  This one, though...

I don't know. Like I said, it's hard to put your finger on. All I can say is that as a writer, I've always counseled against writing about worlds you don't know, which is unfortunate because it's the only thing wrong with this movie. 

Anyway, the point is a black voice was needed in the writing of this story. The director cleaned it up as best he could though, so for that:

I mean, at the end of the day, I was still entertained. I still enjoyed the horror of the movie and all things considered, this is one I would recommend for your Black History Month Watch list.

So. Next week! We're ending this month with a little Midnight Melody! See you next week!

O~
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Getting Mind Spanked on a Bridge

 

Hey, hey, Horror Nuts!  Welcome to another edition of WTFHM!

So, this week, we're covering the good old fashioned Asian-ghost-girl-curse movie with a side of mindfuckery, which is a thing I had no idea I needed until now.  Because while I, for one, love a good Asian-ghost-girl-curse movie as much as the next girl, I really love a good twisty type plot to go with it.  Because folks, if I'd said it once, I've said it a million times:

And in the way of movies, it's one of the things that I look for, more or less in a lot of movies. Mostly because I like being surprised by them, which, these days, is kind of tricky...mostly because I watch too many horror movies.

But if you can get me, even a little bit, then that's a thing I'm usually into. Anyway...

This week's movie!

The Bridge Curse starring Ning Chang, Cheng Ko, J.C. Lin., Summer Meng, Vera Yen, Wa-Ru Zen...and...

We're totally missing at least one more name, but that was all IMDB had on this one, so, yeah.

Aaanyway...quick synop time!

Once upon a time there were some college friends who decided to do a "courage test" on the infamous cursed bridge near their university. See, the bridge was cursed by a young woman who killed herself after being dumped by her boyfriend. 

So, the test goes like this. One guy sits on the bridge blindfolded. He's sitting on a chair that's rigged with a bell and when his friends ring the bell, he's supposed to walk across the bridge and up the stairs without turning around. And this all has to happen on a leap year day at midnight. The friends of course do this and, of course, systematically get picked off.

So, this movie has all your typical ghost girl scares that we've all come to expect. Ghostly long haired spooky girl, lots of water, wet hair in drains and spreading around walls and ceilings. Pretty garden variety stuff.

Where this movie shines is in the presentation.  The special effects were pretty chilling to be honest.

The mindfuckery comes in the storytelling. We learn about the friends from two different perspectives and timelines. Given that the curse happens every leap year, or ever four years, we're introduced to the story by a reporter investigating the last known case back in 2016.

The story is also told from the perspective of the victims. We follow them as they live the terror in past and the reporter investigates in present day.  And that's the way it goes until, well...we find out that the curse is, well, an actual curse.

Remember that time you watched The Ring for the first time and when the protag laid little Samara (or Sadako, depending on which version you saw) to rest and you thought, "Oh, great! The ghost is happy now and the problem is solved and everyone can live happily ever after" and then this happened:

And then your stomach dropped because you realized that what the protags were actually dealing with was an ACTUAL CURSE AND CURSES DON'T JUST GO AWAY CUZ YOUR NICE TO THEM.

I mean, yeah, I know, with this movie, we did see it on the door on the way in being that it's called The Bridge Curse, but still.

This is one movie I don't want to spoil for you guys. Like, it seems pretty straight forward for most of the movie, but that last act hits like a ton of bricks and if I had to put it all together, I'm not doing it alone.

So, the big question.  Did I like this one?  Well, yes!  Of course I did.

This was a nice surprise. I mean, it isn't without it's plot holes, of course, but as I've said many times before, this is horror and:

And for what it is, it's still pretty good.

Next week's Movie! After looking at the guy looking back at me from the movie poster for weeks on Hulu, we're checking out Spell!  

See you next week!

O~
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Mad Scientists Make Mad Children

 

Hey, hey, Horror Nuts!  Welcome to another edition of WTFHM!

Happy Black History Chinese New Year!!!  And it's also the Year of the Tiger! My birth year!!

In celebration of this magical time all the movies I'll be reviewing this month will either have an all (or mostly) black or Asian cast. That being said, let's talk about mad scientists for a minute.

Everyone loves a good mad scientist movie. Or at least, I do anyway.  From Frankenstein to Re-animator, once you realize you're about to watch a mad scientist movie, you pretty much know, whether the movie is good or bad, you're in for a good time.

Case in point, This week's movie!

Black Box starring Mamoudou Athie, Amanda Christine, Tosin Morohunfola, Charmaine Bingwa, Troy James, Najah Bradley, Nyah Marie Johnson, Donald Elise Watkins, and Phylicia Rashad.

Yes. THAT Phylicia Rashad. Claire Huxtable herself.

So, once upon a time, a dude named Nolan(Athie) got into a car accident that killed his wife and left him to take care of their young daughter, Ava(Christine). The problem is that the accident has left him with amnesia.  This becomes a problem because he can't get his old job back and he's having issues taking care of Ava.

Enter Dr. Brooks(Rashad) who promises that she can restore Nolan's memory with her new invention that digs out old memories and brings them to the surface. Nolan's spidey sense is clearly going off, but he does it anyway.

The thing is, Nolan has nightmares. And when he goes under in Dr. Brook's machine, he sees a Crooked Man coming for him.

And everybody's faces are blurred out, which is also creepy.

But as it turns out, it appears to be working. Suddenly, Nolan can remember his wedding and little tidbits about his wife. So, yeah, he decides to keep doing it.

Everything's everything when he goes under again, except THIS time, he finds himself in an apartment with a screaming baby and, it appears, he's beat up his wife.

Yes, very, very bad.  So, Nolan asks his homeboy if he knew of a time where he was particularly abusive to the love of his life. His homeboy replies by saying, "Nah, you wouldn't hurt a fly.  In fact, in my personal opinion..."

Nolan's unconvinced, however and decides to look for the apartment that he saw when he was under and he finds it.  There's woman and little girl living there and it freaks him out.

So, Nolan decides the next time he goes under, he's seeing some faces, dammit. And he's going to face the Crooked Man monster that's stalking him and that way he'll get some answers.

And hey, he actually does it!  While he's under, he goes back to the apartment with the baby crying and the woman that he appears to have beaten. He kicks the Crooked Man monster in the chest and the blurred faces come clear and he finds...

He finds a few major things. The first thing? The woman isn't his wife.

See, the blurry face thing goes away and he sees the beaten woman is definitely not his wife and if that's not his wife, who's apartment is he in?

Don't worry, it gets better. You see, because then he looks in the mirror and sees this guy:

Who is this guy?  We-hell, lemme tell you.

Turns out THAT guy is his true identity, Thomas Brooks(Watkins) the son of Dr. Brooks.

I know.  Mindblowing right?  Here's how it breaks down.

Dr. Brooks' son was killed when he fell down a flight of stairs. So, Dr. Brooks on the verge of a scientific breakthrough decides to use her own son as a guinea pig and transfers his consciousness into a computer.

Enter Nolan. Nolan and his family end up in a car accident, he ends up in a coma, badda-bing, badda-boom, Dr. Brooks transfers her son's conciousness into Nolan's head.

Nolan, now Thomas, decides he's going to go back and reclaim his life. He drops Ava off at his homeboy's house and goes back to the apartment where he convinces his wife Miranda(Bingwa) that he is, indeed, her dead husband.

Everything goes fine until, well, he sees that she took all the pictures down of him and we all remember that Thomas has a little problem keeping his hands to himself.

He and Miranda get into it and she knocks him out. When he wakes up, he finds himself in front of his homeboy's house with Ava trying to console him. Nolan/Thomas freaks out and goes back to the lab and tells his mother that clearly this isn't working out. She convinces him to go back under and kill the monster in his memory.

And while all that is happening, his homeboy, Gary(Morohunfola), has been doing some digging and finds out what's going on. While Dr. Brooks has Nolan/Thomas under in her machine, Gary and Ava try to stop her.

Meanwhile in the in-between:

That's right. Thomas is fighting the monster. And just when Thomas is about to kill the monster, it's blurred face is revealed to be...

You got it.  Seems Nolan isn't trying to give up on his life just yet. Thomas, realizing that his mother duped him and he's really not supposed to be here, forfeits his life and walks off into the void.

When Nolan wakes up, he's Nolan again. Dr. Brooks loses her job and everyone lives happily ever after...

Or DO THEY??

But the real question is, did I like this movie??  Well, yes, of course I did.  Let me just drop this right here:

This was a pretty decent movie, I have to admit.  I really enjoyed the premise and the level of mind-fuckery was close to top tier.  This one is a winner!

So, next week's movie! I'm definitely going to choose an Asian horror.  Let's see about Bridge Curse, shall we?  Until then, see you next week!

O~
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