Prepared to be scared! Isn’t that what the movie trailer for every horror or supernatural movie screams out at you? A white knuckle ride through the suspension of belief and the willing and unwilling submission to a journey of terror and a full frontal assault on every audio visual sensation available? If we anticipate being scared witless (I’m being polite here) that doesn’t mean that we’ll be actually ready when it comes – in whatever shape or form.

And what preparation do we take? Take the other half with us so that when it gets really tense – we can squeeze up and see who screams the loudest? Or spook each other up when only one of us is really scared? That way movie producers get double screams and double sales? After all, do couples go to horror movies on their own?

Not in our instance, certainly. It was very much a case of ‘I’ll go, if you go – or only if you go with me!” And so, we sat down in our seats, a trifle uneasily to Ouija – Origins of Evil and prepared to be scared.

First the supernatural plot. In 1967 Los Angeles, widowed mother Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) unwittingly invites authentic evil into her home by adding a new stunt to increase her séance scam business. When the merciless spirit overtakes her youngest daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson), the small family must confront unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

The film captures the spirit of the sixties perfectly and the free and easy west coast lifestyle, in particular. This bit is very easy on the eye. So the innocence of youth, in the form of the elder daughter, on verge of womanhood, is a perfect backcloth, for the darker demons in store in the cellar.

Yes, the cellar, where else? In this case, walls don’t have ears so much as hidden skulls who in a previous bodily life had their tongues ripped out and are looking (naturally or unnaturally) for mouth to talk from.  This takes the form of the angelic looking young daughter who gets possessed and ends up speaking for them.

If possession is nine tenths of the law then surely her mom ought to look for an attorney to help? But no, who better to confront these demonic forces than the local good looking Catholic priest played by Henry Thomas. Especially as in another life, the two of them could have been more than just friends. We, the audience, are on familiar ground here already, even if none of the characters appear to know what’s going on.

Overall, Ouija has the feel of a made for tv movie and not one of the big budget box office sets. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in that there’s not an over reliance on raiding the special effects budget at the expense of a bit of old fashioned dialogue and character development.

So what of the test of the old adage for writers (or screenwriters); either write something different or better? Ouija is neither sadly – sadly because it’s not meant to be melodramatic, either.

Like facing a tired boxer, we know what to expect and when to expect it. This is cinematic shadow boxing. The slights of hand, too often miss their mark so we don’t have to put our fingers to our eyes to see where the next scary punch is coming from. And although people die, there’s no real killer blow.

We may have squirmed now and again but neither of us ever made it to the edge of our seats.

Prepared to be scared? Perhaps we prepared too well.

My cousin Rachel is not a little known late 1970’s B side from The Undertones. No inner city angst here in pre industrial revolution Cornwall, but the film version of Daphne du Maurier’s novel is about young male frustration and unresolved sexual tension in a dark tale of murder, madness and manipulation.

Philip (Sam Clafin) is a young Englishman who finds his elder cousin Ambrose dead after travelling to Florence, Italy. He vows revenge against Ambrose’s missing wife Rachel, (Rachel Weisz) blaming her for his untimely demise. When Philip meets Rachel for the first time, his mood suddenly changes as he finds himself falling for her seductive charm and beauty. As his obsession for her grows, Rachel now hatches a scheme to win back her late husband’s estate from the unsuspecting Philip.

Or does she? Is Philip blinded first by fury at his cousin’s death and then by infatuation at Rachel’s charms, that he can’t see her plan turf him out of house and home? Is she as innocent in motive as he is sexually? It’s a story of wills, both legal and mental.  She’s calm and measured but with a steely poise, whereas he’s posed to self destruct: a victim of desire and self doubt. What exactly has he let into his house and heart?

Can he trust his emotions; or Rachel as he finds evidence in his late cousin’s letters that seems to point to her role in driving him mad. Is history repeating itself all over again, as Rachel slowly inveigles herself into the life of the estate, eating at his table, while all the time, eating away at his mind?

This is a film that holds your attention without ever actually gripping it. There’s a certain distance and emotional reserve between Weisz and Clafin, despite the pangs of passion on his part.

Make your own mind up. The evidence is inconclusive and so is the film. Like Philip we are left wanting more as Rachel remains as enigmatic as ever right to the cliff hanger ending.

Two hours to fill, with just two characters for most of the time, plus a charismatic hologram, is a lot of time to kill on the cinematic screen. Oh, and most of the action is set in outer space inside a spaceship. Now there’s a lot of time and space to kill.

Plot time. On a routine journey through space to a new home, two passengers, sleeping in suspended animation, are awakened 90 years too early when their ship malfunctions. As Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence) face living the rest of their lives on board, with every luxury they could ever ask for, they begin to fall for each other, unable to deny their intense attraction until they discover the ship is in grave danger. With the lives of 5,000 sleeping passengers at stake, only Jim and Aurora can save them all.

When first Jim wakes up to the fact that he’s woken up way too early, play time turns to down time, all too rapidly. He has the run of the ship but soon runs out of ideas to occupy his time (well, wouldn’t you if you woke up 90 years too early?).

His cocktail conversations with the hologram barman (Michael Sheen) only serve to whet his thirst for the real thing. Cue, a spot of meddling with the space capsules of the other sleeping passengers. And guess, what a little reading on their timelines and a nice photo, reveals one woman who could be the ideal companion for those all too lonely nights and days. As a mechanic by trade, Jim’s tinkering with space and time, leads to a rude awakening for Auroa, a journalist, who signed up to the space journey to record the new life.

Now she has a new life as a virtual prisoner of virtual barman’s aminated prose and cheerful concoctions. Of course, Jim doesn’t tell her that she’s his play thing to so speak. At first, they meet for breakfast and Jim can take advantage of Auroa’s executive upgrade on her cereals. Small mercies, eh! Then it’s a full tour of the ship and let’s play together on the upper deck. No need to queue. A quick trip outside, reveals the true beauty of the stars and serves as a warm up for a later thrilling climax and a real race against time.

Cocktail time leads to a dinner date. Again, no need to book or reserve the best seats. Romance in is the air? After all, what else is there left to explore? Surely up in space, their love must be air tight?  But, message to self; never reveal your innermost thoughts to a hologram barman in case, he blurts it all out to your sole companion.  Aurora finds out to her horror that she could have still been a Sleeping Beauty if only Jim had been more of a Prince Charming.

She confronts him and he admits that she was handpicked to be his Giril Friday to his Robinson Crusoe. Naturally, she’s less than impressed that she going to die before she gets to the new world. For all Jim’s charms, hooking up with a mechanic in an empty spaceship wasn’t how she planned to spend the rest of her unnatural life.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of space inside for them to avoid each other. This stalemate could have gone on for literally ages, until the second half of the plot kicks in.

A third passenger is discovered, the pilot and cracks in the atmosphere and possibly the plot, reveal that the ship’s unstable, never mind its dying helmsman. Destined to destruct at an alarming rate, Jim and Aurora need to work together to save the sleeping passengers and the plot; although, as there’s only one spare pod, only one of them can go back to sleep. Tough one, eh?

Still awake? Actually, it’s not a bad movie, there’s plenty of space to imagine their dilemma’s and wonder what you’d do in Jim’s situation. Call up a nerdy, whinging old bore, to discuss the time of day over morning muesli – probably not!

The action adventure conclusion jolts the film into life, and fast tracks us into a life or death ending with a touch of poignancy besides.

All in all, it more than passes the time, forgive the pun, which I deliberately left until last.

At last, the arrival (pun intended) of an intelligent film about aliens. Or rather, an intelligent film about intelligent aliens. Or perhaps, even an intelligent film about intelligent aliens who try to share their intelligence with narrow minded global super powers each hell bent on trying to crack the code of the alien’s offering before their enemies. That is when they aren’t lining up most of their army to face a power whose motives they can’t comprehend (literally) or understand (philosophically).

When gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world, nations teeter on the verge of global war. Meanwhile linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators in a race against time to find a way to communicate with the extra-terrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.

Pay close attention to the opening scenes because cosmic awareness comes at a cost and big picture revelations have their own domestic dark side which is played out at the end of the film. Banks’s interplay with physicist colleague, Ian (Jeremy Renner), lights up an already stellar cosmos and their differing approaches to solving the same conundrum reveals more about their own nature and motivating forces as the storyline develops.

This is one film that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s beautifully shot; but that isn’t its main attraction. It’s not much of an action movie. The conflicts are external between rival countries and internal between rival approaches within the team. Forest Whitaker plays the sympathetic team leader, Michael Stuhlbarg the grasping, bitter boss. A few guns go off, there’s an explosion or two, but it’s mostly mouths firing obsolete military orders and a chain of command that missed the lesson about the unseen threat at West Point. Sorry boys, sending in the drones won’t help, here!

Indeed, there’s a quiet underlying stillness about Adams’ performance. Faced with the unknown, it’s those known qualities of stubbornness and determination that help see her through. It may be a race against time but it’s that very time (and space) to think that is crucial in beginning to understand what the alien’s may be offering. And its consequences.

Language both divides and unites us. And it’s not just the words but the concepts behind the words. Would a single language expressed through a knowledge of time help bring us all closer together? Are we really words not worlds apart?  And I’m not talking Esperanto, either.  Forget the space- time continuum, whatever that is, and settle back, engage brain and prepare not for take-off but a soft landing back into our inner selves. The first steps start in our own little worlds. It takes more than a simple block buster of a movie to make this point and get away with it.

Based on Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life,” for some, Arrival, won’t get much beyond the departure lounge. And that’s fine. But stay for the whole journey.

Your Arrival might be in hope whatever the time and the language on the destination board.

What’s your expected time of arrival?

The baddies led by the ruthless land grabbing Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) want to take over the mines of the peaceful western settlement of Rose Creek. They demand impossible terms and when some of the townsfolk try to resist they are killed in cold blood. The remainder are intimidated until, in desperation, a plucky young widow played by Hayley Bennett enlists the help of a lone black bounty hunter, Sam Chisolm (Denzil Washington). He assembles a rag tag group of renegades and outsiders and they proceed to galvanise the remaining inhabitants to prepare themselves for the coming onslaught.

And come it certainly does. The ensuing set piece battle for control of the town takes up nearly the last quarter of the 133 minute film. To say it’s all guns blazing would be an understatement. In the end there’s a duel to the death between the two leading protagonists and we learn that Washington’s motivation for assisting the townsfolk is also personal.

Fighting for a just cause against seemingly impossible odds allows a measure of personal redemption for the some of the Seven. Midnight Robincheaux (Ethan Hawkes) is a former Confederate sharpshooter who’s lost his nerve amid flashbacks of civil war carnage. He flees on the eve of battle, but changes his mind, taking courage in not deserting his trusty comrades who’ve placed their faith in him.

Card shark Josh Faraday’s motives (Chris Pratt) are more straightforward. Without a mount, for the price of a horse, it seems he’ll ride with anyone. Then there’s a former Indian hunter who looks like he still has half a bear on his back. Add in a Mexican gunslinger, a Native American bowman and an Oriental knife thrower and the mix is complete.

Like the plot itself, the Magnificent Seven take time to gel, mistrusting each other’s motives. The story line fairly gallops along, however, like their trusty steeds, although there’s still plenty of time for familiar reflective moments and personal soul searching on the eve of battle.

Washington plays it straight-laced throughout. Justice is justice while Pratt is mildly amusing in a role that sees him wisecrack his way to take on a Gatling gun single- handedly. The mercenaries must be in it for more than just the money because the final pay-out is odds on an away victory as the full might of Bogue’s forces descend on the town. By the end, I was past caring for most of the characters whether they’d hit the deck or were out on their feet but still standing.

Is the remake any better than the 1960 original – itself a copy of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai? I’ve no idea, and frankly I haven’t either the time or the inclination to find out. All I know is that I think the undertakers in this version probably had a lot more bodies to bury afterwards.

Like the shoot-out at the end of Skyfall, the finale here was just too long to retain my full attention. Like Sevenoaks after the great storm of October 1987, when the dust and smoke finally settles, the Magnificent Seven are seven no longer. Have a bet with your friends as to who makes it to ride out of town again. It might give you something to hang onto when the bullets start flying.

Based on a true story. I don’t know about you but when I hear this line during a Hollywood trailer, I cringe inwardly. Did they say this about Cecil B Demille’s epic Ten Commandments, I wonder? These days some might dispute it?!

Anyway, anything Hollywood proudly announces is based on a true story is almost bound to tug away at the heart strings. In a one man (or woman) triumph over adversity sort of way.

Cut to America in the mid 19^th century divided by the Civil War. Cue Newton Knight (Matthew McCaughey) as a poor farmer from Mississippi who becomes the figurehead for an uprising which results in Jones County seceding from the Confederacy – hence the film’s title. The film follows Knight’s disillusionment with the war and the Southern states’ pro slavery stance which exempts the sons of rich slave owners from being conscripted. Soon he’s leading a band of deserters and slaves into the swamps where they carry out guerrilla raids on the Confederate supplies all the while being hunted as rebels from a rebel army.

Post war reconstruction leaves things little changed. The blacks have the vote but that doesn’t count for much – in fact in some places it’s not counted at all. A system of apprenticeship replaces slavery and the true state for former slaves doesn’t change a lot, either.

In fact, for many it gets worse as the Klan rides into town burning more than just crosses as the Northern army considers it job done and disbands leaving blacks defenceless. Nothing appears to have changed very much. Knight’s black friends try to stand up for their rights but lynching’s are rife.

As a counter plot, there are courtroom scenes throughout the film, from 1948 where a descendant of Knight’s is being tried for a mixed marriage. He’s deemed to be one eighth black and has married a white woman. It’s a startling reminder of the segregation laws practised in many southern states until the 1950 and 1960s.

Knight had many children from both his white wife and the black former slave he first befriends and then falls in love with (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). After the war, it appears that they all lived together on the same farm. He bequeathed land to his black common law wife, making her one of the first blacks to own property.

So much for the extended history story and subject matter. What about the film itself? At 140 minutes long, sadly, it doesn’t so much as run along as crawl on its belly, at times. Perhaps the focus could have been narrower and more intense without losing any of its laudable meaning. Under those hot southern skies, it meanders through Knight’s journey to the self-realisation that he’s in the wrong place, fighting the wrong war.

For director/writer Gary Ross, the film was clearly a labour of love. However, like so many labours of love, Free State of Jones did feel somewhat laboured in parts.

After the initial gore and guts of the battle scenes has worn off, McCaughey is convincing enough as the hollowed cheeked bearded farmer turned post civil war, civil rights crusader. I think the film would have benefitted from a strong counter figure to Knight’s righteous cause. Say, opposition from a close member of his family, or a revered older relative, might have injected some inner turmoil or tension into Knight’s state of mind.

Perhaps the most telling scene, paradoxically, takes place in the 1948 courtroom scenes. One of the lawyers makes the point that in paternity cases, it’s usually about trying to prove who the father is. In this case, it’s about who is the mother – or great grandmother (and whether she was black or white). As if this should really matter.

The film did prompt me to do some research on Newton Knight. He lived with his black wife until she passed away and he himself died aged 84 in 1922. He gave a long, single interview the year before which accounts for much of the known direct information about him.

It seems that for many in the South today, he’s a deserter and adulterer. It also seems that not all of his descendants whatever their background are exactly best buddies. I don’t think Knight would be too concerned or surprised given what he went through. Like the film itself, things move slowly in some parts.