8213: Gacy House

Why, oh, why did I not read any reviews before carelessly putting this into my rental queue?? Please do yourselves a service and don't make the same mistake I did. This isn't even worth a chuckle.

Apparently this is, in fact, "Paranormal Entity 2." I didn't see the first one; to read about it, we're led to believe it's infinitely duller and more derivative of "Paranormal Activity" and others of that ilk than we could've possibly imagined. I believe it. And wouldn't you know it? The opening screen tells us that this is "found footage" on the body of a victim, and "it has been edited into a narrative" to tell us what happened and why there's only a videotape left. Even the font is the same as "PA" and "PA2." The time stamps. Ev-er-y-thing.

The plot is more or less already outlined in the basic summary here. A bunch of "researchers"/ghost hunters decide to spend a night at 8213 Summerdale, which used to be where John Wayne Gacy's house stood. That house was torn down after 26 bodies were found in his basement, but apparently someone built a new house on the lot once Gacy had been executed. Now it's supposedly a hot spot for all sorts of paranormal shenanigans, so naturally a crack team of pseudo-scientists, cameramen and pretty blonde college students feel compelled to go there in hopes of communicating with Gacy's spirit.

There's really not much else I can say, plot-wise. If you've ever seen an episode of "Most Haunted" or "Paranormal State" on TV - or if you've so much as seen a commercial for them - you already know what happens. Things go bump in the night, everyone thinks one member of the team must be making those noises just to freak the others out, then something else happens (lights flicker! doors open and close by themselves! they check the camera footage!) which convinces everyone... Etcetera. For 85 long minutes. There's no gore to speak of; there are no legitimate scares whatsoever. There are night vision cameras in empty rooms. There's a medium-type to bless the house and ask that they be kept safe while they attempt to chat up ol' John. (They even bring in a "pure, white t-shirt" belonging to an adolescent boy to try to tempt Gacy's spirit out of hiding. Yes. Really.) The few "special effects" at the "climax" are beyond lame. There is a lot of hysterical running around because someone saw a shadow, or the fireplace made a banging sound. For eighty. five. minutes.

I am all for a low-budget, clever little popcorn horror film. I'm not a horror snob. I don't need art-house subtitles or buckets of blood or a high-concept twist ending or a "Hostel"-esque torture theme to be scared. What I DO need is a character who's even remotely interesting, or something that doesn't look like it would've failed as a high school drama project. This couldn't pass the muster. ANY muster.

I bet you can guess the ending. You've seen it dozens of times before, but done far better. Really and truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Take my word for it: if you spend one minute guessing how it all turns out, and the other 84 minutes doing anything BUT watching this...thing...you'll be a much less resentful person for it. Can you tell I'm bitter? I have nobody to blame but myself! But if I save JUST ONE of you from wasting those precious minutes... Nah, I'll still be ticked off.

All blockbusters have rip-offs. Paranormal Activity was an unexpected success and naturally people tried to clock in on that. The best rip-offs were the Paranormal Entity flicks.

But they just aren't that scary or creepy as the originals. The second entry here is also called "8213 Gacy House". And that is in fact what it is all about, go searching the ghost of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I wont go into the story of Gacy because this is fantasy and not based on the real life of Gacy but one things is a fact. When they here the ghost saying Kiss My Ass it was in fact his last words before his execution.

Where PA moves slowly into a ghost story the PE flicks do take a while before things go wrong. Here too you have to stand a lot of talking and noises before the crew searching for the ghost comes in front of the ghost. I can even say that it is creepy in the last 15 minutes when the séance go wrong. The other difference with the PA flicks is the fact that in PE you always have a bit of nudity.

The fact that you are involved slowly into the paranormal activity flicks do work and do gives goosebumps here and there but this stupid story just doesn't work. It's nice to see an extreme close-up of a boob but that has in fact nothing to do with entities.

It is watchable even as none character is believable, for horror geeks I wont recommend it but for those who are afraid of Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, stay away from it.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I've seen better acting in pornography. Don't waste your time, i'd rather be scratching my butt...

This review requires ten lines. I do not have anything to say about this movie that is remotely close to ten lines. I will now recite the alphabet: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z now i'm going to go watch paint dry...

Apparently this review is still not long enough. It's bad. It's boring. It's worse than Nicholas Cage's dramatic knee drops in "the knowing" (i believe there were 12). I would rather watch Bob Ross paint a landscape. I rented this movie for 99c, I'm kicking myself for not buying a taco instead...do not make the same mistake i did!

Is the "haunted house/Paranormal Activity/Blair Witch" thing a bit over done these days? Yeah. But me being interested in serial killers, this one kinda had me throughout.

First off, you got a guy that looks like McLovin in this, two fairly attractive blondes (one for the fans of busty girls and one for the more modest type) and the main actor looks like that guy from Kangaroo Jack. I loved the comparisons for everyone. It does do the kinda lame thing where nothing happens for a while and then the predicable shock happens, but what horror/thriller movie doesn't? On that note, I think this is more of a thriller than a true horror. If you have a scary ghost movie, of course there's going to be the creepy basement scenes-plenty to offer, and scenes where you say to the character "Dude...you really just went there alone? *Sigh* See you in the sequel." lol Okay, so the actors aren't the best, the camera work is a bit shoddy, but it's a fun movie to watch with a group of friends and a few beverages. Just have an open mind, expect nothing, lights off, and hit play.

...Because everything else is a waste of time. Apparently this is a sequel to Paranormal Entity, which I also disliked, but you'd not really think so as it has little in common with that. Everything just looked very slipshod visually, the camera work lacked focus, the effects while not the worst for the Asylum are still poor and somewhat half-baked and sometimes the lighting is so dimly lit. The dialogue is trite and repetitive, adding little if anything to the atmosphere, while I didn't care at all for the characters, they were annoying and you don't learn enough about them. The story did not engage in any way, the first half of Gacy House is so low-key and dull that you don't feel any tension or horror and you even question whether there is a story. The acting is stiff and phoned in in most cases. In fact, the one bright spot of Gacy House is the last fifteen minutes, while highly implausible it does have one or two good scares. All in all, a terrible movie on all levels apart from the end. 2/10 Bethany Cox