Review Club #5 – Jessabelle

 

Up first is the other Mel (hehe), from over at The Creative Fox Den:

Firstly, I have to say that I love Sarah Snook. She has some serious acting chops and I thought her performance in Predestination was incredible. Unfortunately, her performance in Jessabelle was not as inspired.

I have to admit that the movie started out reasonably well; it set the tone for the character that Sarah Snook plays and the overall feeling of the film. The audience even has hope for the father, even though we know that he has a very sordid past.

The fist scare of the movie is done really well, actually. When the “bathtub incident” occurs, I jumped out of my seat. I was genuinely scared and I anticipated that the rest of the movie would have similar moments.

Unfortunately, it did not. The horror is downhill from there. The father, that we somewhat familiarized with, becomes a completely unlikable character. Furthermore, the plot becomes very predictable.

Also, the fact that the romantic interest is married and obviously interested in the main character has little validity. It isn’t a relationship that is explored enough to merit the dedication that supports infidelity. What’s the purpose here? Are we supposed to be rooting for this couple? Because we aren’t.

Overall, there are probably two scary moments in this film. Does two frightening moments a scary movie make? I don’t think so. The ending is equally ridiculous and undeserving of praise for innovation. I wouldn’t recommend this one overall but there is some production value behind it.

Overall score = 4/10

 

Next, we have Rob, over at MovieRob:

Jessabelle (2014)

I am not, never have been, and probably never will be, a fan of horror movies; they just don’t appeal to me personally.

When Mel chose this as the Review Club film, I gotta admit that I was pretty scared because when going into a movie that you have no expectations or care about, how can you appropriately give an unbiased opinion?

So I decided to still give it a go since I felt that I need to sometimes do things that I don’t want to do in order to try and broaden my (movie watching) horizons.

And guess what…?

I LOVED this movie. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen and when it was over, I wanted to pop it back in and watch it again.

REALLY???? You may ask.

Welll………

Nah. It actually it met all of my sucky expectations.

The plot didn’t feel original at all and I was sooooo bored while watching this that I just wanted everyone to die sooner.

Thankfully, the movie wasn’t so long so I was able to endure without (too many) thoughts of slitting my wrists. 😉

This movie used the tried and true idea of someone revisiting their past home and awakening both feelings and spirits long buried deep down below.

The idea of found footage has also been way overused in the past and I didn’t feel that it added enough to make this movie feel unique in any way, shape or form.

The ending wasn’t much of a surprise for me and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t anticipate something like that.

Suffice it to say, watching this movie didn’t make me change my initial thoughts about the genre and although I may dabble in it every once in a while, don’t expect to see many horror flick reviews coming from me in the near future.

That being said, I’m not upset that I gave this one a whirl.

2/10

Tnx Mel!!!

 

Next up is Abbi, from over at abbiosbiston:

Here’s my review for Jessabelle:

On the day that Jessie (Sarah Snook) is supposed to move in with her boyfriend and start a family together they are involved in a terrible car crash. He dies and she loses her baby and the use of her legs. With no money and nowhere to go she is forced to turn to her estranged father (David Andrews) who brings her back to the creepy Louisiana home she grew up in. While looking around her room Jessie finds some videos her mother (Joelle Carter) made before she died. The creepy videos show her mother doing tarot readings for her unborn baby that suggest that very bad things are going to happen. At the same time Jessie is having terrible nightmares about a dead girl attacking her and spewing black shit all over her… but are they really nightmares and who exactly is this dead girl?

[HERE BE SPOILERS]

I am going to start by saying that there was absolutely nothing scary about this movie. I get freaked out easily but I didn’t even jump one single time. That might be because there is nothing original about this movie. We’ve all seen the creepy dead girl before. We’ve all seen the spirit reaching for someone through a curtain before. Even the voodoo stuff is old. And there was so much stuff I just did not get… like this:

– Why did Jessie’s mom have her own room in the house and why did she not find it weird that her parents weren’t sleeping in the same room?
– After her dad flipped out and threw her wheelchair in the swamp he gave her her mother’s wheelchair but it’s never mentioned that her mother was in a wheelchair and in the videos she’s walking around.
– Also I mean pushing a disabled person’s wheelchair in a swamp is pretty crazy behaviour, would Jessie not at this stage call her health worker for help?
– Why does Jessie not have a cellphone until Preston gives her his?
– If the real Jessabelle died as a baby why is she an adult dead girl?
– Supposedly Jessie’s dad adopted her as a child to cover up that he had killed the real Jessabelle… who was black… how on earth did no one notice the baby had changed race? Someone must have seen the original baby… like the doctor that delivered her. It’s a small town.
– Why did they write in a wife for Preston? It was just an annoying distraction.
– What the hell is up with Sarah Snook’s voice? She was so annoying.

I am going to strongly recommend that you don’t watch this movie because it is a load of crap. 0/5

Sorry I didn’t like it but I hope that someone does!!

Abbi

 

And finally, here’s mine!:

Mel’s 5 Second Review: Jessabelle
(2014) Sarah Snook, Mark Webber, Joelle Carter, David Andrews, Amber Stevens, Chris Ellis, Vaughn Wilson, Larisa Oleynik

Let me start by saying that I didn’t hate it as much as the others did. True, it wasn’t very original, and the ending got a little silly (and a lot predictable), but I still kinda liked it. The acting was surprisingly good, especially for such a small production. It wasn’t very scary, which was disappointing, but it had one or two tense scenes. That’s pretty much it, though. Movies like this are alright while you’re watching them, and I don’t want my time back, but in the end, they’re ultimately forgettable, not inspiring me to write about it. Oh yeah, one last thing before I go. We saw WAY too much of the ghost. I’m of the opinion, as some of you may know by now, that less is more. A ghost that’s onscreen for that long just completely loses its scare-factor. All in all, a decent film, but nothing special. 6.5/10

This film isn’t currently on Netflix, but it is playing on TMN and TMN On Demand.

M.

And that’s it! Join us again in two weeks for more review goodness! 😀