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I went to see this yesterday, Thursday, May 21st, 2015, here in Vallejo, CA, at the CENTURY 14 VALLEJO, for the 8:30 p.m. advance screening in auditorium 1, 4th row ( counting from the front ), 7th column ( counting from the left ). The price of admission was $11.25. And I bought a small Buttered Popcorn ( $5.95 ) and a 20.0 oz VitaminWater Lemonade ( $4.60 ) at the concessions counter.
"Killer Clowns From Attic Space"
( 'sorry, I just couldn't resist it )
Quickie Review: The Bowen family moves into their new home only to notice that things go "bump" in the night. Because their house--as well as their neighbors'--sits on top of an old cemetery!
The audience seemed midly entertained by this remake of the 1982 original of the same title.
I didn't find this movie scary at all. Heck, the original wasn't even scary to me! In a sense, then, this remake is true to the original in the "scare factor." You might be better off waiting for this to come out as a DVD rental. ( Of course, I might want to see this again in 3-D. )
The original had more skeletons--real ones, too! Did you know that?
Without elaborating, this movie is not really about poltergeist activity.
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Back in Matina, Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, my family moved from an apartment and into our house on Mars Street in the GSIS Heights Subdivision sometime in 1972 ( ? ). My family was among the first few familes who moved into the subdivision.
To while my time away, when not in school, I would go across the street to hang-out with the carpenters who were upgrading the new house that would soon be home to a mayor and his family. One of the carpenters, Fermin, told me that he helped build my family's house and a bunch of other houses in the subdivision. And he said that when the hill was being cleared of trees, they would come across some huge snakes, Pythons.
But what Fermin told me that really scared me was that when the streets were being made by bulldozers, skeletons would be unearthed from their unmarked graves. And the find was not reported to the authorities at all. They just surreptitiously disposed of the skeletal remains!
During World War II, this whole hill was occupied by the Japanese because it offered a clear view of the sea. The Japanese had cannons, anti-aircraft guns and air-raid pillboxes lined-up halfway up the hill. It was also a prison camp for captured G.I.s and resistance fighters.
To this day, there are still three pillboxes behind some homes on the topmost street on this hill. The residents dumped their garbage in these pillboxes to keep curious children away because, more than likely, the Japanese set booby traps inside of them.
Further up the hill, close to where a local shrine is, there is supposed to be a secret passageway into the jungle. This secret passage was the Japanese' back-up plan in case the hill was overrun by the
Americans.
And on one side of the road leading up to the shrine is what once was a DEEP swimming pool that the Japanese made. This pool is almost the size of a basketball court and about 20 feet deep.
Anyway, back to the uncovered skeletons in unmarked graves which tie-in with this movie ....
The skeletal remains were probably those of G.I.s who died or were killed by the Japanese in the prison camp.
And There Were Some Scary Stuff Which Happened At This Subdivision. I talked to some of my neighbors. Their encounters with the supernatural ran the gamut from benign ghosts to bad spirits. Some even claimed to have made friends with teeny-tiny elves!
Of course, I myself, had encounters, too. Well, to be more precise, two benign encounters with the supernatural.
The first one being that I discovered at this place that I had the ability to control the wind, to make it stop and change direction. Whenever a strong wind would blow through the neighborhood, forcing everyone to close their jalousie windows, I would run out into the middle of the street because I could then play with my newfound friends, the Four Winds, away from the prying eyes of curious neighbors. And, oh, what fun times I had playing "traffic cop" to the winds!
The second encounter was when I fell from a neighbor's bicyle and hit my sternum against its handlebar, early one evening. I stood up unable to breathe. All of a sudden, a young American female's voice in my head commanded me, "Quick, run in a circle!" I did. I ran clockwise in a small circle. And I was able to regain my breathing ability. This supernatural incident marks the very first time that I started to hear a voice in my head.
For years since then, I wondered whose voice it was that saved me. I rationalized that it was an
American female in my future: Perhaps, a wife; perhaps, a daughter. But, later on, I de-romanticized the source because of the available evidence. More than likely, the voice belonged to either an American nun or an American nurse who was imprisoned by the Japanese and who died on that hill. R.I.P. And thank you for saving this little boy's life.
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