No Spoilers
I started off the day under pressure because I needed a post for the blog. I had been slackin’ off lately and missed posting a day last week because I was unable to come up with something to write. Watching movies takes time but I find writing about them is pretty easy once the movies over. So here we are. Things started off innocuously enough. Selecting the Amazon tab in my browser leads me to a page full of selected selections. The Amazon algorithm is another perfect example of a rankings system that’s broken. If it’s choosing what it thinks I like to watch then why do I spend endless hours of my life searching for something to watch. I’m usually perplexed when the algorithm computes my taste in movies. Maybe I’m just not believing it. Maybe I’m searching in vain/El Dorado/Atlantis/Etal but this time it was an anthology that made it to the front page so to save a little time in the perpetual perpetuity that is my life I hit the play button for Locker 13.
For those horror buffs among us anthologies are standard fare. A bunch of hair raising peeking out from under the blanket short stories with subtext between narratives that turn out to be a story woven throughout our tales. This ones central theme of course is Locker 13. I had faith you’d figure it out. Usually with some kind of twist or surprise ending for the curtain call. This time it’s a new hire on the set of a country/western wild west show out in some sun soaked cactus strewn desert cowboy rattlesnake nirvana. The scene starts off with with two cowboys exiting saloons and sheriffs offices. That standard of western cowboy bravado the dual at noon in the middle of town. It’s a duel for honor/gal/whiskey/blood feud and when the clock strikes twelve they’ll a be drawin’ down and only one man will be a walkin’ away. But it’s all part of todays noon staged show for the tourists and gawkers at our western wonderland. Now our new hire is being shown his janitorial duties at our faux Tombstone. Fresh out of jail but with a job he is lead to an authentic western pulpit where he will discover a pair of boxing gloves. This leads us into the first of four stories in our anthology.
It’s a nice little anthology with 4 stories (iirc) which were definitely entertaining however the most surprising thing to me was the actors. In the first story about a boxer it was portrayed by someone who was vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. Only at the end of the anthology when the credits started to roll did I see the name Rick Schroder which was better known to me as Ricky Schroder from the hit early 1980’s show, Silver Spoons. I grew up in the eighties so this child actor of course would seem vaguely familiar to me, I just didn’t recognize him as a grown man. Locker 13 is not another budget anthology as their are a few familiar Hollywood actors making cameo’s throughout the different stories. But there is one thing that really made this anthology stand out from the countless others I’ve seen just in the last few months (Tales of Halloween, The Witching, and Scare Package) and that is the acting. Because of the value of having some top billing throughout the stories, there was some excellent acting which really made this one standout. Those other 3 anthologies I just mentioned are also very entertaining and all on Amazon Prime. Not too bad as a first watch in the morning.
Following 13th Locker, I watched a Spanish (I think) found footage horror called The Entity. I had to watch this with subtitles, but I’ve found when watching horror the fact that it’s not in English usually doesn’t detract from the experience. I think more might be lost in translation when comparing Western and Eastern films, particularly Asian films. I think less so in a German to English translation. I mean there will be local customs, idioms, mannerisms even anecdotal verbiage which one may not be able to get unless one was from there, but that would be true in any language, and topic for a different editorial. I’ve been watching a lot of J-Horror lately as well as Korean horror (K-horror?). Horror is a genre in my opinion which might be universally understood despite the language barrier. The Entity shines as a found footage flick, does it excellently but it’s hard for me to tell if this is a low budget production. I didn’t recognize anyone but this is generally true of the genre and doesn’t per se mean anything. There was one part with a little too much crying that went on for too long. In fact the crying went on for so long I had to turn the sound down as I live in an apartment building with thin walls and I didn’t want anyone to think I was beating or killing someone in my apartment. She cried for so long I started becoming uncomfortable. Maybe it was a part of the movie leaving an impression by design to add to the unease of the psychological terror but if she cried half as long I don’t think it would have taken anything away from the movie. The characters portrayed are believable to the extent of what the movie is about and the special effects were polished and professional, which might actually turn some off the movie, cause it looks like these guys might have had a budget to play with. All in all a very entertaining story and a scary watch. I enjoyed watching this one.
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