Movie Review: Paranormal Asylum: The Revenge Of Typhoid Mary (2013)

a few phone snaps of the abandoned Renaissance Faire in NoVA

Elkmont Region Great Smoky Mountains, Sevier County, Tennessee

Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee lies Elkmont, formerly a pioneer Appalachian community, then a temporary logging town, and finally, a resort community. 

The first known permanent residents of what is now known as Elkmont settled here in 1840. The small community that developed was known simply as “Little River”, and, like the majority of Appalachian communities, residents developed a subsistence agriculture economy; most residents grew corn and apples, and kept bees for honey. Multiple gristmills (for grinding grain into flour) popped up along the the creek, Jakes Creek, that ran through the area. Unfortunately, only two structures from the pioneer era of Elkmont remain standing. 

In the 1880s, a Knoxville businessman by the name of John L. English began a small-scale logging project along Jakes Creek but his venture folded in 1900, likely due to a disastrous flooding of the creek in 1899. In 1901, Colonel Wilson B. Townsend purchased 86,000 acres of land along Little River and established the Little River Lumber Company. In 1926, Townsend sold most of the tract of land he purchased to the newly formed Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission, although he’d been given permission to continue logging for most of the next decade. The company ultimately ceased operations in 1939 and by then had produced 750 million board feet (1.8 million m³) of lumber.

In the logging company’s early days, Townsend allowed fishermen and hunters to use the Little River railroad to access the deep, game-rich forests of the Smokies. As the valley was stripped of most of its valuable timber, Townsend began advertising the area as a mountain getaway. In 1910, an affluent group of Knoxville gaming enthusiasts formed the Appalachian Club, built the Appalachian Clubhouse to use as a lodge, and many clubmembers began building cottages, making the club a getaway for Knoxville’s elite. Membership was difficult to obtain, so many rejected Knoxville residents purchased the Wonderland Hotel site in 1919.

Eventually, the U.S. government agreed to establish a national park in the area if the states of Tennessee and North Carolina purchased the land; this process was completed in 1926. Lifetime leases on the Wonderland Hotel and rustic cottages expired in 1992 and ownership reverted to the National Park Service. The park’s general management plan of 1982 called for all remaining structures to be removed to allow nature to reclaim the affected areas. However, in 1994, the Wonderland Hotel and many surrounding cottages were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving them a “special status.” 

Sadly, in 2005, the Wonderland Hotel collapsed due to a structural failure. Parts of the hotel deemed to have historical value were removed and the rest cleared, leaving only the annex and a chimney fall (pictured above). In 2009, the National Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and many cabins in the area. The remaining structures are to be carefully documented then removed. 

[Image stills courtesy of Jordan Liles]

Movie Review: Apollo 18 (2011)

Title: Apollo 18

Release Date: September 2, 2011

Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego

Run Time: 86 Minutes

Quick Hits: Two years after the Apollo 17 mission, three astronauts are sent back to the moon under the guise of a satellite launch to place monitoring equipment on its surface.  Upon arriving the astronauts find a Russian lander and evidence of the reason that we never went back.

Review: Apollo 18 is another "found footage" style horror film that is set in 1974 in which a group of astronauts are sent to the moon on a top secret mission to place sensors on its surface during the height of the Cold War.  The mission goes to plan until the astronauts come across a Russian lander that seems to be deserted and covered in blood.  Upon further inspection of the surrounding area they find a dead cosmonaut in a crater with his helmet removed and a rip in his suit.  The astronauts proceed back to their own lander where all hell breaks loose.  One astronaut on an "unplanned" moon walk heads out to pick up a motion camera that has apparently fallen down; while on this walk he complains of something moving in his suit.  Upon returning to the lander we see that he is bleeding; after further inspection of the wound, they pull what appears to simply be a moon rock out of his body.  Over the next several hours the wounded astronaut becomes infected and enters into psychosis. The movie ends with the two astronauts trying to flee the surface of the moon, against the orders of the U.S. government, while being attacked by strange rock spider beings that were apparently there the whole time, which also killed the cosmonaut they found earlier,unsuccessfully.

Well if you aren't a little confused after reading all that I applaud you.  The concept of the entire movie was that this "footage" was leaked to the net and shows a real lunar landing; that much is obvious, along with every jump scare that is in this whole movie.  The great thing about found footage movies is that you never really know why, or sometimes what, the "evil entity" is nor what it actually wants.  Everything in this movie is telegraphed at least five minutes before it is going to happen and that is where it really lacks in substance.  Granted many people say that it seems vaguely "believable" in that it was shot in such a way that you truly feel sorry for those involved (i.e. the little boy who will never see his father again), but that is also where it loses you.  The only redeeming quality that I can take away from this movie was that it had a slight Alien (1979) feel to it. You never saw, clearly that is, just what was attacking the two astronauts while they were on the moon till the very end at which point it is too late to save themselves, or the movies for that matter.  If you have an hour and twenty minutes to kill where you aren't going to pay much attention to it anyway go ahead and put this movie on.

Overall Rating: 2/5 

Movie Review: Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Title: Silent Hill: Revelation

Release Date: October 26, 2012

Driector: Michael J Bassett

Run Time: 94 Minutes

Quick Hits:  Set several years after the original Silent Hill (2006), we find that Sharron (now known as Heather) escaped the clutches of Silent Hill and is living with her father.  She is forced to face the terrors of Silent Hill once more to try and save her father from The Order whom only want to be freed from the clutches of Alessa.

Review: Set on the eve of Heather's (aka Sharron) eighteenth birthday, we open in a nightmarish carnival setting in which she is being chased by men in gas masks and many other creepy things that we would expect from the realm of Silent Hill (which I will be referring to from here on out by SH).  Lo and behold that is exactly what this is as Heather wakes from her dream being comforted by her father, Harry, who is then attacked by another SH monster in the same way that Freddy, Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, would do using a dream within a dream scenario; Heather actually wakes up this time and everything seems to be fine.  It is revealed to us that Heather and her father have been on the run because Harry had killed a man in "self-defense."  While at school Heather "falls" back into the SH "reality" without actually returning to SH, as she starts to see the walls rust away along with seeing young children in classrooms teasing a single girl saying "burn the witch," along with another monster coming towards her.  She snaps out of it as a fellow student, Vince, bumps into her.  Feeling as though she is being followed, Heather calls her father to come meet her at the mall; as he attempts to leave the house he is attacked and kidnapped by an unknown group.  Aided by Vince, Heather travels back to SH to try and save her father.  While in SH Heather learns of her origins, being the good portion of Alessa, and the scheme that The Order has developed to free themselves from the hell that they are in.  In the end she thwarts their plan by joining back with Alessa and a little help from everybody's favorite SH monster, Pyramid Head, dispelling the fog that had consumed SH.  The movie closes with Heather and Vince catching a ride with a trucker away from SH as a police convoy transporting prisoners drives into town as the fog and ash begin to rain down once again.

If you like the SH game franchise and have seen the first movie then you pretty much know the main players and the back story leading up to this point.  As a sequel to the first movie this one kind of falls on its face.  The way that Rose, Heather's adoptive mother, is able to get Heather out of SH (if you haven't seen the first movie they are stuck there at the end and not able to leave, sorry for the spoiler) is kind of a cop-out in my opinion and is feels like it was thrown into the script just to clear up confusion haphazardly; "I just happened to find a talisman that can only get one of us out of here so I gave it to her," come on now that is kind of weak.  Speaking of weak, that pretty much sums up the whole of the story for me.  At no point are we really given anything new to pull our attention and say "wow" to like in the first SH movie.  Other than the weak story I can say that the transitions that were used to move from reality to "SH reality" were very well done, they weren't forced and were very subtle.  Whether it was just walking through a doorway or using a cutaway so that a seemingly normal person could be SH-ified.  However this is the only uplifting point of the film that I can point out.  The movie was made during the "re-introduction," if you will, of 3-D movies during the summer/fall season of 2012 and thus is has several 3-D shots that I feel distract and detract from the movie.  I am sure that the effect looks good in 3-D, but in 2-D they just look god awful.  If you want closure on the story of Silent Hill I would suggest watching it, other than that I would can only give you the advice that Harry gave to Heather at the beginning of the movie: "I want you to promise me, no matter what happens, you will never go there."

Overall Rating: 1/5

Elkmont Region Great Smoky Mountains, Sevier County, Tennessee

Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee lies Elkmont, formerly a pioneer Appalachian community, then a temporary logging town, and finally, a resort community. 

The first known permanent residents of what is now known as Elkmont settled here in 1840. The small community that developed was known simply as “Little River”, and, like the majority of Appalachian communities, residents developed a subsistence agriculture economy; most residents grew corn and apples, and kept bees for honey. Multiple gristmills (for grinding grain into flour) popped up along the the creek, Jakes Creek, that ran through the area. Unfortunately, only two structures from the pioneer era of Elkmont remain standing. 

In the 1880s, a Knoxville businessman by the name of John L. English began a small-scale logging project along Jakes Creek but his venture folded in 1900, likely due to a disastrous flooding of the creek in 1899. In 1901, Colonel Wilson B. Townsend purchased 86,000 acres of land along Little River and established the Little River Lumber Company. In 1926, Townsend sold most of the tract of land he purchased to the newly formed Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission, although he’d been given permission to continue logging for most of the next decade. The company ultimately ceased operations in 1939 and by then had produced 750 million board feet (1.8 million m³) of lumber.

In the logging company’s early days, Townsend allowed fishermen and hunters to use the Little River railroad to access the deep, game-rich forests of the Smokies. As the valley was stripped of most of its valuable timber, Townsend began advertising the area as a mountain getaway. In 1910, an affluent group of Knoxville gaming enthusiasts formed the Appalachian Club, built the Appalachian Clubhouse to use as a lodge, and many clubmembers began building cottages, making the club a getaway for Knoxville’s elite. Membership was difficult to obtain, so many rejected Knoxville residents purchased the Wonderland Hotel site in 1919.

Eventually, the U.S. government agreed to establish a national park in the area if the states of Tennessee and North Carolina purchased the land; this process was completed in 1926. Lifetime leases on the Wonderland Hotel and rustic cottages expired in 1992 and ownership reverted to the National Park Service. The park’s general management plan of 1982 called for all remaining structures to be removed to allow nature to reclaim the affected areas. However, in 1994, the Wonderland Hotel and many surrounding cottages were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving them a “special status.” 

Sadly, in 2005, the Wonderland Hotel collapsed due to a structural failure. Parts of the hotel deemed to have historical value were removed and the rest cleared, leaving only the annex and a chimney fall (pictured above). In 2009, the National Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and many cabins in the area. The remaining structures are to be carefully documented then removed. 

[Image stills courtesy of Jordan Liles]

Chartham mental asylum

what if you get married to someone and then realize they used to follow you 

Often considered to be a remake of The Evil Dead; however, this is not accurate. The rights to show scenes from the original could not be obtained to re-cap what happened, so the beginning was remade to explain how Ash got to the cabin, etc.

Evil Dead ll (1987)