6WH: Oct 19

Wicked Little Things (2006) directed by J.S. Cardone
"I'm sick of these ghost movies," said my wife as she got up and left after 15 minutes. I wished I could do the same. You know the drill: pissed off ghosts start killing people. Heroes must do XYZ so they can rest. This time, the ghosts are a Newsies-ish gang of children killed in a mine collapse ninety years ago. They roam the Pennsylvania mountainside, killing and eating people and animals they run into. What they really want, though, is to kill the asshole decedent of the owner of the mine that fell on them.

There's some beautiful countryside with some neat old houses in the movie. The gore effects are pretty good and I suppose seeing children act like the zombies from Night of the Living Dead after downing a fresh kill is fairly boundary-pushing. Other than that, there's nothing to admire here. Mediocre acting, poorly fleshed-out characters and a tedious story made this a chore to sit through. (5/10)


Reincarnation (2005) directed by Takashi Shimizu
More ghosts. This time, they're pissed-off about being murdered in a hotel 35 years ago. Somehow, they exist both as ghosts and as humans, reincarnated into unsuspecting bodies. Isn't this a violation of some kind of paranormal law? Can I get a rule book? Also, by some huge coincidence, all of the reincarnated people are hired to work on a movie about the murders. Inevitably, the murders begin to be re-enacted on the set / in the original hotel, with the new bodies morphing into the bodies of the original victims. Blah, blah, blah, the main character finds out she's not the reincarnation of the little girl victim, but the reincarnation of the murderer himself. Cut to: her freaking on the movie set, with everything we've been watching for the past hour being all in her mind. Cut to: an asylum, where the ghosts of the child victims haunt the insane girl. So, it wasn't really in her head, or something. Also, there's a creepy doll.

Moral of the story: it's OK to haunt your murderer, even if he's already died and been reincarnated into the body of an innocent girl. (5/10)