Here comes another American horror flick featuring a story and atmosphere located somewhere between "The Exorcist" and "Insidious". Genre fans will get what they need with this movie but everyone else should stay away from this.

The story is filled with a couple of stereotypes. There is a freshly divorced family father who looses himself in memories of the past and who has several problems with his provocative ex wife and her new snob lover whom he meets each time he passes to take his two daughters to his brand new home for weekend. The two young girls that are amazingly portrayed by the young and promising actresses Natasha Calis and Madison Davenport also suffer from the difficult relationship of their parents. While the younger one hopes for the parents' reconciliation, the elder one despises her father and only sees a looser in him who misses important meetings, breaks his promises and seems to be in some sort of midlife crisis. With a quite selfish and immature behaviour, the latter one takes somewhat revenge for what her parents made her live and creates an even bigger split between both parties while the younger one flees into isolation and starts acting quite strange since she convinced her father to buy a box with Yiddish inscriptions at a yard sale. Soon, her behaviour gets more and more hostile and she doesn't seem to be quite herself anymore. Tragic accidents start to happen around her and something evil always seems to be connected to her. The father soon realizes that the series of dramatic events has something to do with that wooden box and starts his investigations. He learns that the box was created to ban an evil female spirit and should have never been opened by his innocent daughter. The only possible help he can get at that point comes from a very dangerous Jewish exorcism practice.

Among the strong points of the film are definitely the solid acting, especially from the young actresses that are the possessed Natasha Calis and the teenage brat Madison Davenport as well as the charismatic Jewish actor Matisyahu. The movie introduces some too generic interpersonal conflicts that fall off the edge after quite a while and lack of a true culminating point. The story is also rather ordinary and predictable but the Jewish legend around the wooden box and its evil female spirit adds at least something new to the genre. The eerie background story of the box, the scenes turned in the Jewish community of New York City and the exorcism practices in the abandoned basement of a hospital can definitely be cited as highlights of the movie. The fact that there are still many things left to explain in the movie can be seen both as negative and as positive points. If this movie turned out to be a box office success, there would be room enough both for a sort of prequel that could explain how that female demon got into the Jewish box and how it arrived at the house we see in the beginning of the movie or for a sequel that could pick up from the uneasy ending of this film. Even though this movie here isn't all so outstanding, I still liked it enough to watch both a prequel or a sequel as the Jewish legend factor offers diverse intriguing possibilities and I think that many other spectators might feel the same.

In the end, this movie is a solid but not outstanding flick for genre fans that convinces with a gripping atmosphere, a solid acting and some intriguing elements around Jewish culture, lifestyle and religion which one doesn't see that often in popular movies. The weaker parts such as a predictable story line, some too generic interpersonal tension filled relations and a couple of notable lengths in the beginning are definitely there but the positive elements are still dominating. It's definitely not a classic but despite its flaws an enjoyable flick worth to be watched for a reduced price at your local cinema if you happen to like this kind of films.

Troublesome Night is the first part out of nineteen Hongkong movies created between 1997 and 2003 featuring loosely bound episodes about encounters between humans and ghosts. Many of these movies include cameo appearances of famous Hongkong actors as well as of promising acting talents. The films vary from quite humorous moments to scaring passages. The biggest thrill is that one never knows what to expect. Sometimes, an episode starts quite childish and predictable and suddenly turns out to be very intense and scary. In other moments, the settings for an episode are atmospheric and dark but rather turn out to touch a more dramatic, philosophical or romantic genre. Sometimes, the ghosts are wise and try to help humans, sometimes they fall in love with them and sometimes they just want to torture the livings.

This first part of the enjoyable series is neither among the greatest nor among the worst Troublesome night features. All three episodes are well directed and atmospheric enough to convince. The acting is solid but not always outstanding and so are the stories. Let's take a brief look on the four episodes featured in here.

The first one starts rather childish and is centered around some male friends that want to celebrate an anniversary at a lake next to an old cemetery. One of the young men suddenly sees a beautiful naked woman that happens to be a ghost but nobody believes him. The teenagers then meet a group of girls that are camping on a beach and they start getting closer. As they try to play a stupid game on the nearby cemetery by ignoring several warnings, the forces of evil suddenly strike and one can't tell what is imagination or reality anymore until a stunning ending.

The second episode happens on the streets of Hongkong when the young men and women of the first episode are on their way back home. A young man and his female lover are on the road on a dark rainy night to sell a house to an old lady. The deal though happens to be a failure and the secret lovers get into a serious argument. Meanwhile, the wife of the cheating husband is preparing the couple's marriage anniversary. Then, several accidents occur on the nocturnal streets of the city and one is not sure anymore who of the characters is among the living and who has died in one of the accidents until the truth is revealed.

The third episodes goes back to some of the characters that met on that tragic night on the beach featured in the first episode. A young man and a young woman have become more than just friends and are starting a romantic relationship even if they are still shocked about the deadly events they have all been through together. After a while, the young woman starts to act strangely. Her boyfriend comes to the conclusion that she is cheating on him and starts to investigate with one of his friends and with the help of a strange exorcist who briefly appears in all four episodes and who is some sort of story teller. Soon, the trio realizes that the secret lover of the naive girl is nothing but a normal lover.

The fourth and last episode features some of the young men and women on their walk to the local movie theatres to watch the premiere of a movie. The arrogant main actor and his superficial girlfriend are also there. Despite several warnings, the couple sits on some reserved places and attracts the anger of those who should have sit down on these seats. The cinema quickly becomes a prison and madness strikes both characters that can't escape from their fate.

In the end, each episode had its gripping moments. Personally, I preferred the first episode which had several changes of pace and surprises until the very end. The episode I liked the least was the second one because it takes quite some time to actually kick off. All four episodes are though diverting enough to easily get through this flick and make you want to watch the sequels, too. Any fan of diversified and vivid horror cinema that doesn't take it self too serious at some points, should definitely check the series out. I would also recommend this flick to those that generally adore well done Hongkong cinema. Anybody who's expecting an entirely funny horror parody or a bleak and gripping slasher film might though rather dislike the film because of its variety.

As a matter of fact, Chernobyl Diaries is another rather generic horror movie with only a few truly shocking scenes and a quite predictable ending.

The only thing that makes this release a little bit more special than other horror movies of the same kind are the exotic locations in the ghost cities Prypiat and Chernobyl, the intriguing historic background and the constantly solid dark atmosphere of the movie. The movie somehow feels more like a computer game than a real movie at some points but is quite well directed.

The acting is not outstanding but still better than many other films of the same kind. The characters are credible and show some great emotions but they could have been more developed and more profound.

The movie had the potential for more than just ninety minutes in my humble opinion and especially the ending comes too quickly and is rather disappointing after all.

In the end, I would recommend you to watch this flick at your local movie theatre if you show some interest for the history of Chernobyl and its nuclear disaster and if you are a fan of horror movies. I would not recommend a purchase of the movie and I wouldn't suggest anybody who doesn't like horror movies that much to watch it, too. This movie won't get you converted to this genre. It's a solid one and I had some pleasure to watch it but it's definitely nothing extraordinary after all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is not directly a remake of the classic movie but rather a story that is similar to the events featured in the original film with its own separate continuity. The movie takes a look on what has made Freddy Krueger the monster he has become and also features a few scenes before he was burnt. At some points, the movie offers a deeper look into the mind of this madman. These scenes are among the most intriguing ones in the movie alongside the nightmare sequences that are quite well done. There are no truly shocking moments though and can't catch up with recent horror flicks like Insidious but at least the tension is always quite elevated.

The rest of the movie is not what I would call spectacular at all. The acting is solid but nothing more and can't catch up with the charismatic acting in the early movies. The story is rather predictable and offers no big surprises to fans of the horror genre. This movie lacks of truly haunting or memorable scenes. After all, this is another chapter of repetitive American popcorn horror cinema without any surprises that digs in its own past.

On the other side, the scenes from the past and the nightmare passages pardon for the rest and the flick is overall quite entertaining on a little more than one hour and a half. It's a good movie to see with friends at home but definitely not worth a purchase or worth to be seen in the movie theatres. It's probably not the worst movies of the series but not among the best as well. At least, I must admit that the movie is able to inspire a lot to check out the old classics. It's a truly solid horror flick for fans of the genre and the series but anybody else shouldn't care much about this new release.

I don't know much about the Hellraiser series but this movie is surely one of the best surreal suspense flicks I have seen in a while. The story is quite twisted and you have many little scary scenes in strange visions of the main character, weird flashbacks about his parents or even on brutal video tapes shown in the movie. This movie breaks your head like a nutshell and shows us an interesting vision of the hell without any stereotypes which leads to a rather interesting final conclusion.

Apart of the scary scenes, the acting and incarnation of the characters is also well done. The main character is a bad cop who takes drugs, steals money and prefers having sex with a cheap prostitute instead of caring about his worried wife and little daughter that misses him so much. The other characters are as unique and addicting. You have the somewhat bizarre man from the ice cream van that collects pictures of naked woman, a mysterious sheriff that seems to come out of an mixture of a classic old American western and a David Lynch movie at the same time and who is helped by two mysterious martial arts fighters and a creepy old guy in a wheelchair with a strange childish laughter in a dark hospital. The movie is filled with a lot of surreal ideas.

There is not much negative to say about this movie. The scary scenes could have been even more intense in my opinion and they should have included some more background informations for those who don't know the characters from the previous movies but that's about everything I could criticize.

Otherwise, this movie is truly atmospheric, entertaining and a great experience. You should watch this with your headphones on or a good sound system to be able to appreciate each aspect of this scary flick. This movie makes me want to see the other parts of the Hellraiser series even if they don't seem to be as intriguing as this one. If they are only half as good, it will be at least worth watching them. If you have seen other Hellraiser movies and been disappointed, don't care about the low rating on here and try this movie out, especially if you like Japanese horror flicks or movies from directors such as Cronenberg, Lynch or Shyamalan. This one is not as great as the best movies of the mentioned directors but it's not quite far away and you will get a truly positive surprise.