by Gene Michael Stover
created Tuesday, 2025 November 11
updated Saturday, 2026 August 1
original at cybertiggyr.com/oipvlcj.html
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In no special order...
The ends of Ringu (1998) & The Ring (2002), in which we learn that the way to save one's self from the curse is to pass it on to someone else, someone you don't even know.[see this] (And that reveal was after the delightfully creepy treasure-hunt ride that was the bulk of the movie.)
All the while that I watched Deadgirl (2008), I felt unsettled but couldn't figure out why. Yeah, the movie is gruesome, but gore & jump-scares rarely affect me, so that wasn't it. Hours later, I figured out the horror of that movie: The young men in the movie never, not once, not even when they first find the “deadgirl”, ask “Do you need help?” It's bad enough that they plan to create another zombie from the deadgirl, but (& this is what took me a while to realize) they don't view women as people.
For its second season, the Channel Zero series translated the “No End House” creepypasta to the screen. Though I enjoy many creepypastas, the “No End House” creepypasta is an exception to that. However, Channel Zero's adaptation, which is very different from its source material, is both fascinating &, when they reveal what's happening, unsettling. When they show the final fate at the end, it's seriously horrifying.
(Different media are appropriate for different stories. A good creepypasta differs from a good screenplay differs from a good novel. I'm surprised that any of the stories / seasons of Channel Zero work. I was unsurprised that among Channel Zero's other stories, I found the 4th (Dream Door) decent & the other two disappointing or just plain terrible.)
The first sequel to The Omen is disappointing at best. So it doesn't actually horrifying me.
If I look at what should have been, maybe was meant to be, the linchpin of the horror, it's a worthy concept that this movie fails to portray.
At one point in the movie, a teen-aged Damien realizes (or is told or whatever) that he's the Antichrist. If I remember the movie correctly (I've seen it just once, many years ago), Damien runs into a park for a while, but then he's okay with the knowledge.
This was a missed opportunity on the part of the movie. Imagine that, on top of all the problems of being a teenager, you learn that, because of who you are, nothing you've done & no choices you made, millions or billions of people will have painful lives & deaths. Oh yeah, & so will you. And you'll be remembered as “the Antichrist”, one of the most evil of evils, no matter what you do. That was the horrific concept in the movie. The movie failed to portray it, & I don't know whether that was by design (the movie's makers decided they wouldn't spent time on it) or they failed to realize that it's the real horrific concept in the story.
I enjoy Event Horizon (1997), but overall, I find it disappointingly un-frightening, except for the scene in which a possessed Ensign Justin enters an air lock, locks the inner door & begins the evacuation process, then comes to his senses & begs for help.