Suicidal Ghosts

After their young daughter was found murdered in her bed, mom and dad go to a cabin deep in the woods to work out their grief. (Pffft – they’re probably gonna go make another daughter.) The cabin is situated near the abandoned Ives Prison. Why a federally-funded prison would be that far out in the dingles makes one’s eyebrow arch in a suspicious manner.

The wife is a photographer who still uses film. She takes pictures of the prison and after developing said photos, sees the image of Emma, her dead daughter. So she starts snapping lots of pictures, thinking little not-so-much-alive Emma is trying to contact her FROM THE INCARCERATED BEYOND.

But other weird doo doo is getting its ghostly groove on. The evil spirits of the cabin’s former residents keep popping up in mirrors, TV reflections, bathrooms when you’re trying to have a private moment… The married couple that previously died in the cabin killed themselves – she by slicing her wrists in the bathtub with her boobs showing, and he in the shed by eating a small but nutritious bullet Happy Meal™. Mr. & Mrs. Violent Suicide keep returning to do some evil haunting. FYI: Mr. & Mrs. VS weren’t evil in life, but by being converted into death made them so. I guess it’s in the rules.

The neighbors are beginning to act strange. So the husband goes to the town library and researches the town’s history. Yep, suicides and fatal “accidents” have occurred with unusual regularity for years on the very same date that’s coming up. So he has to get his wife – who’s starting to go to crazy train – outta there. But she doesn’t want to leave because she’s convinced their daughter is trying to communicate without a Ouija™ board. How the prison and the deceased kid factors in to all of this isn’t really explained. Neither is the girl’s murder. (If it was, I missed it because I was friggin’ bored.)

A stretch of a ghost story that moves about as fast as a car without gas. Or a turtle without gas. Every time a ghost pops up, it’s done so with a loud sound so as to keep you from falling asleep. (I listen to loud musical compostions, so that didn’t work on me.) Even with the occasional bare boobie shot, Dark Remains (2005) is as lifeless as that little dead girl.

Happy Hour Fairies

A turn of the Century photographer who loses his wife of 24-hours to a giant crack in the earth and who makes a living out of family portraits (no weddings, though, what with the “new wife just lost” thing) and exposing film trickery of alleged fairies. How these elements are connected isn’t revealed until the lame-ass end. But I digress through run-on sentences.

One day a woman offers a picture of her daughters playing with a fairy and asks the photographer to disprove it. He can’t – and that super ticks him off. So he goes to the village where the photo was shot and discovers the mythical creatures are indeed real.

Since fairies are invisible to the non-Lasiked eye, only by eating a special flower can one enter “slow time” (I call this “g-e-t-t-i-n-g d-r-u-n-k”), which notches down the senses, enabling one to view the speedy little fruit flies. Ironically, he eats the flower while sitting in a pub and drinking a beer and discovers the portal to a new world (I call this “Happy Hour”).

As misleading as this movie title is, Photographing Fairies (1997) does have nice cheese ball special effects effects and a cool psycho performance by Ben Kingsley as a non-believing reverend. OK, I’m off to that flower ’n beer bar…