Rating: 
What started out as a bit of a mindless torture/disgusting thing with not-so-great special fx, eventually went up a little bit in the middle of the movie. Normally a movie like that would get 1.5 stars or even less, but here the director did a clever thing that messes with our heads and makes us think : hey, what’s going on? This is pure creativity, and although it might not make much sense (to me it does, there’s an explanation) it is a good to watch movie if you’re comfortable with pretty disgusting torture scenes sometimes (not too often though). I don’t really like hostel-like movies so I looked the other way a couple of times since my lunch was a bit too good for it to come back (yet 
).
So without any spoilers, it’s a decent movie with a pretty main character, playing an american-psycho like sick killer that terrorizes a small neighborhood by torturing and then killing her victims. When she’s done with one house she moves on to the next. And of course she could’ve been caught / defeated a couple of times but by some odd luck she always ends up winning. Pretty typical so far. So after killing a couple of victims she finds a young guy who’s into music production and locks him in his studio/basement to have some sick and twisted fun.
And if not for the plot twists it would’ve been just a stupid movie with good acting by the psycho-killer – America Olivo – but nothing really fancy. I think it might have something to do with the recent british / spanish trend in horrors to think of a plot twist so original and wicked people will remember it. And then add another one. But the first few american movies done in this fashion we can certainly stand as opposed to the straightforward boring (and sick) torture flicks that Eli Roth makes.
Posted in Psychological, Small town, psychopath, serial killer.
Tagged with american, lower budget, psycho.
By HappyZombie
– July 21, 2010
Rating:
So we have the Machette (Danny Trejo), the famous Pianist (Brody), Laurence Fishburne and a couple of other guys, plus a big name of Robert Rodriguez as a producer. Also a different approach to the whole Predator series as now it’s not the predators coming to earth, but the other way around. Is it really a horror of any kind? Well it has the thrills and the waiting for what’s going to happen so apparently so. So how was it?
Well not so good for a horror, not so bad for an action movie. Which is somewhat 50/50 and thus 2.5 stars. It could’ve been better and deeper instead of being only about mindless violence. Sure violence can be fun in a movie sometimes, but here it’s just a bunch of people shooting at everything. Doesn’t quite live up to the first two Predator movies. Good for a summer action flick that doesn’t make you think too much, just enjoy the views.
Posted in Alien, Big budgets, Sci-fi horror, Survival, action.
Tagged with predator, sci-fi.
By HappyZombie
– July 15, 2010
Rating:
Taking on the “FEAR” and doing a deep, disturbing psychological horror – now that’s something that doesn’t happen too often. The only supernatural here is the fear itself, which is studied and divided into smaller portions. What this movie (a debut! of the director) does is actually pretty incredible. It manages to keep the viewer deeply disturbed without showing chopped of limbs and disgusting gore stuff. 99% of the scary action is not on the screen, it’s what we think will / can happen in some situations. This time a “study group gone wrong” is actually an image of what FEAR is, and since it’s in a form of an experiment, it actually speaks volumes about fear. Since each and every one of us has at least one time in their lives which was the most dreadful experience so far. Just watching this movie you can actually re-live your own fears, and even though unpleasant, it is meaningful. Because not many movies can leave that much of an impact.
The only downside is that it builds up slow and it’s not action packed – it’s more about the subtle touches, the little things that build up until we get to the ending that is like a hammer to the head. And it stays with you.
Posted in Psychological, psychopath, thriller.
Tagged with british, fear, Psychological.
By HappyZombie
– July 11, 2010
Rating:
This is one of those movies that we know will be bad even before we watch it. But we sometimes need a movie that can be funny in it’s mistakes and all of its flaws can actually be a good thing. Well not this time. First of all the acting – which in horror films is rarely any good – here it’s plain terrible. I don’t think any of the characters are believable, and most of the cast seems like they’re not even native english speakers. Or maybe they’re so scared of the birds. Anyway – we have a simple setup – somewhere in the woods for no real reason a bunch of giant mutant birds that look like pterodactyls decide that they’re hungry for human flesh and start hunting people. And since they’re big and strong and well … flying it’s pretty easy for them. To add some spice to the flavor a bunch of kids that are on a reso-program end up in those woods too and are being haunted by the evil dinosaurs / birds / whatever. And to have it all cliche ridden we have a blonde, a mysterious and smart brunette, a black guy, a rebel type leader, a fat kid and a hiphop fan whose lines are actually the funniest cause it seems he had learned them from just one rap album. And I mean ALL of it.
But funny aside – can it be scary? No. It’s pretty simple, there aren’t even many sudden moments with loud sounds. They’re running, they’re hiding, the birds are flying. Killing some people on the way. Pretty standard. And the ending wasn’t really that creative either.
Sorry guys, your birds are as scary as a bunch of chickens. Sorry Sci-Fi (or SyFy now) had many better ones. This one lacks pretty much everything.
Posted in Gore, Mutants, Survival, Teen, countryside.
Tagged with american, birds, Mutants, woods.
By HappyZombie
– July 6, 2010
Rating:
So the british strike again! And once again it has a typical british line of events : first half of the movie it’s slow, not much happens and it’s pretty straightforward, and then they howl plot-twists at you like crazy. By the end you have no idea what it all meant but sometimes you come out of that state fully entertained.
Is this the case? Not sure. The general idea of a group of “monsters” causing chaos through people isn’t new in horror films, but here it’s actually making a bit of sense. Sure it’s nothing fancy, but the acting is pretty good and there are quite surprising plot twists. What I hated about it was that it used that “loud noise + something appears” cliche, and to make it worse it used that even in “non-scary” moments. That’s a good way to ruin atmosphere and spoil the wait. So it’s not bad but not good either. If you’re looking for a good british film go see “The Triangle”. This one is ok, but no classic.
Posted in Gore, Religion, devil, thriller.
Tagged with british, occult.
By HappyZombie
– July 2, 2010
Rating:
So here we go again. After the first pulse they just HAD to do another. And after it did not so well in the ratings they decided to try and milk that cow over again, maybe this time it’ll work. But it didn’t. As usual with DVD releases this one reeks unprofessionalism and is a sad example of how horror movies shouldn’t be made.
We follow our favorite orphan Justine again, and this time she’s a bit older and a rebel so she acually TURNS ON a laptop! La di da! And falls in love in an online chatroom. So nerds didn’t die in the phantom attack! Whoa! Ah, right nerds have no souls so they’re immune to phantom attacks. So she’s going to the city to meet her internet lover and probably he has a gazillion nerdy friends around who also didn’t die.
Booooring. The special effects are quite frankly a bit like they were made frame by frame in photoshop without much attention to detail. There’s NO atmosphere of the first one and even no “moments” of the second one.
Let’s all hope they won’t make #4.
Posted in Experiment gone wrong, Sci-fi horror, Survival, Teen, countryside, ghosts.
Tagged with american, geek, tech.
By HappyZombie
– June 26, 2010
Rating:
Yeah, sure. We all know how it works, a movie becomes even vaguely praised and/or popular and we’re sure to see a sequel. And a third part too. Fourth possibly. They want to make money and if something works they reuse and re-do the idea until it’s so terrible it only comes out on DVD. And the legend dies. This happend to many movies, like “Wrong Turn” and “Ring”, and sometimes for some reason even the third part is pretty good (like Resident Evil series). This unfortunately is the former case. The first Pulse was intriguing and had a great atmosphere / awesome visual side. This is just another american horror film. Filled with cliches, wooden characters and not-too impressive sceneries. The only cool sequence of the whole movie is the beginning of it, but that whole storyline wasn’t even followed as much as it should’ve.
Sorry Justine, I hope you’re well but what the studio/director did to the series is far worse than any phantom in a full wifi range. Why 2 stars then ? There are some positives here, not too many, but enough to keep you vaguelly interested, but it’s not even scary. It’s more of a drama than a horror, but with that kind of acting they should stay out of drama.
Posted in Experiment gone wrong, Family, Psychological, Sci-fi horror, ghosts.
Tagged with american, ghosts, tech.
By HappyZombie
– June 25, 2010
Rating:
What an amusing piece of film. When you hear “computers” , “hackers” and “ghosts” combined with “american” and “students” we’ll all trembling in fear. Why? Because for sure we’ll hear about “cracking firewalls” and other nonsense technobabble that’s supposed to sound geeky and pro, but is in fact bullshit. Well ok, it can be funny to the people who actually know how a firewall works. But I digress.
This movie has only one of the flaws of the cliche those keywords would normally produce. And it’s the language – or the techno-babble they sometimes use. Luckily not too often. But for an american movie, come one! I can’t believe this is a hollywood production. (sure based on a japanese original) It’s deep! It has an european atmosphere (look at the city they live in!! the gothic like buildings, the dark and scary ambience of nearly every room).
This is a good movie ladies and gents. Sure it has those sudden noises and stuff jumping out at you but acting is surprisingly well, there’s atmosphere, nice looking ghosts and it’s scary even without those things jumping out suddenly. Seriously I recommend you this movie because it can really make you believe that americans can remake a japanese movie with style.
So yeah, sure it has flaws, sure it is a bit silly at times and the general idea is pretty silly too (ghosts from the internet?) But still it really shines. Really! Wes Craven! Thanks!
Posted in Curse, Psychological, Sci-fi horror, ghosts.
Tagged with american, computers, geeky, ghosts, students.
By HappyZombie
– June 24, 2010
Rating:
So finally after the not-so-horror “night watch” and “day watch” movies (which were quite good tbh) we have a russian movie that’s a horror made with an attention to detail. There’s a bunch of people trying to rebuild an old bunker into a club and as usual they get locked inside with whatever evil forces occupy the building. We’ve seen a similar scenario with “The Hole” but this one is actually a bit more scary. For most parts the acting is ok and the fact that they’re speaking russian is actually helping since it’s easier to let some acting mistakes slide (like looking into the camera).
The characters are quite cliche for such a movie – there’s a goth girl, a drug addicted DJ, a small thief, an honest builder, two “background girlfriends” and a power / money obsessed club owner that tries to fire everyone he doesn’t like. And he hates everyone. But for the movie to be interesting the characters have to be different from each other so that’s ok.
There’s a lot of good camera play and sound effects and some clever traps / moody places like old tunnels, water tanks, mass graves and such. This is actually pretty thought out and visually great. This is no low budget bullshit. This movie delivers visually, but we’re kinda used to that when it comes to russians, right? The Night Watch and Day Watch movies were a good example of their visual flair. Which is stunning and very unique to them, and yet quite different from what hollywood CGI serves us.
What was also pretty cool that there are some scary moments that turn out not to be supernatural in any way but most of them were pretty original.
And even though it’s sometimes a bit too simple it’s not bad, not bad at all. And this director should be followed carefully because his next movie can be a classic if he keeps up the pace.
Posted in Curse, Experiment gone wrong, Survival, Teen, Underground, ghosts.
Tagged with bunker, russian, teens, Underground.
By HappyZombie
– June 23, 2010
Rating:
Ok here’s the deal. Take some great actors like Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving and Benicio Del Toro, then make a 2010 horror film. It has to be high budget for those actors alone, so it has to be done very money-oriented if you know what I mean. Using all the safe ideas and elements that will for sure SELL. Especially since this is a studio produced movie, where they apparently made a lot of changes during the production to make it more appealing to a wider audience. But enough money talk.
What starts as a 19th century England warewolf tale at first turns out to be pretty interesting in the end. Sure the Gwen character is just a background for great acting by the leading trio, but overall the whole cast did a very good job at being convincing. The story itself at first seems to go into a typical blockbuster direction but then we have some nice twists (some expected, some not) and an ending that really works. Also the CGI here is not really overdone, and the transformations look great. The warewolves themselves are a bit “funny” when they have a face-closeup but for most of the movie they’re just fast creatures that don’t really have time to face-act. Which is good.
So money can actually sometimes lead to something quite good. That was unexpected, especially knowing how I rant about the studio fat cats being unimaginative jerks that just want to make money with the least effort. This time might’ve been the same but for some odd reason it all just works together. Not a deep thing, but a well made horror film ad. 2010. Which is a rare thing… The silver bullets are flying, the acting is great, the story quite unconventional. Sure, go and see it.
Posted in Big budgets, Gore, Warewolf, countryside.
Tagged with 19th century, england, Warewolf.
By HappyZombie
– May 30, 2010
Posted in Small town, countryside, ghosts.
Tagged with american.
By HappyZombie
– May 25, 2010
1984 Rating:
The original Freddy kept me awake for at least a week. And that wasn’t even the worst part because being awake as a little kid back then made me even more scared that freddy will pull me into the bed and there will be blood everywhere. The original movie was also a trendsetter for the genre with such memorable scenes as the one with a body bag in the school halls. And it introduced to the world a little known child actor called Johnny Depp who later played in some other movies which made them famous or something It also defined the career of one Robert Englund who became Freddy in many, many movies to come. Sure it was grotesque and the special effects were far from great but come on, it was 1984!
2010 Rating:
So what are we facing now? Well the studios in Hollywood are unimaginative pricks and they don’t have any original ideas. So what do those fat cats say at their meetings? Well, let’s do an american version of a Spanish horror film! Yeah, let’s! Any other ideas? Let’s combine some characters from different movies and call it a “vs”! Great idea Bob!
Oh! Oh! I have an idea! Let’s remake Nightmare on Elm Street! Whoa! That’s an awesome plan.
And there might be one little guy somewhere there saying “Hey, Boss, maybe let’s look for some original ideas to surprise the audience with something fresh and new?” And I’m sure their response to that is “You’re fired Jim!”.
Greedy bastards. The worst thing about it is the fact that over half of the remakes don’t even come close to the original (sure some are better like “The last house on the left”) and it kills the legend in the eyes of many fans. Remember how Lucas and Spielberg raped Indiana Jones? Yeah, exactly. But let’s get back to the movies, shall we?
If you haven’t seen the original yet you can’t really be called a horror fan because this movies IS horror. It is a prime example of the genre and thus should be watched. Period. Ok, let’s start.
The remake pretends to have an original story (that’s slightly different at times and “reveals more depth” in the character of Freddy) but the story uses nearly all the same scenes as the original such as : Bathtub scene, Famous corridor scene with the body bag, death in a jail cell and many, many more. Oh and the theme song sang by little girls here is too polished and it lacks the atmosphere of the original where the girls were often out of rhythm and that made it more spine chilling as a result.
So yeah, the movies have a similar story – some parents killed a child molester / killer and he comes back in their children’s dreams. But if you die in a dream you die in reality, and usually in a gruesome way. So the kids try not to sleep, or to pull Freddy over from the dream world to the real world and kill him there.
The acting in the original was “weird” but not overdone in any way.
The remake features some kids trying to be all “prime actors” and doing their best to overdue every scene like it was Sheakspeare. The special effects are better, of course, but the original even now makes you uneasy (if not scared) while the remake is “just another teen movie” – with Freddy played by another actor now we can sum it up with a big and loud : IT’S NOT THE SAME!
Posted in Classic, Curse, Family, Gore, Movie Fight!, Small town, Teen.
Tagged with american, Classic, Movie Fight!.
By HappyZombie
– May 15, 2010
Rating:
A bunch of swedes pretending to be americans are being hunted down by a bunch of swedes pretending to be gay-cannibal-monster-killers out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. Pretty standard setting for a slasher flick but it doesn’t quite live up to the standards of the first “The Hills have eyes” movie. The acting is surprisingly good but only on the emotional side. All dialogues are carried out with an odd accent and the script sucks big time. I mean come on how many people talk like that? It’s not realistic at all in that matter.
There’s some gore and some disgusting elements but the camera angles in a way that it doesn’t hurt the eyes. With better dialogue it’d be much better. I see a lot of people dissing this movie because it looks so low budget. But I think they actually took the low budget approach to their advantage with this one. Mainly because it’s very realistic. Fights don’t look like everyone knows karate. Not every thrown knife reaches the target. People get hurt from even falling down on some tree branches and jumping out of a moving car can render a person unconscious for a few minutes. No superhero stuff like some american teens pull every now and then when they graduate with a killer around. It’s a different approach and if not for the dialogue it’d be pretty standard. A lot better than american teen movies. And if you look past the dialogue it can be pretty entertaining.
Posted in Gore, Hillbillies, Uncategorized, psychopath.
Tagged with Hillbillies, swedish, woods.
By HappyZombie
– May 11, 2010
Rating:
After a pretty funny (but in a good way) “Creep” here comes a classical horror comedy with a bit of slasher elements and Danny Dyer (Moff in Human Traffic / Tommy in Football Factory) as one of the main characters here, again delivering a good mix of drugged / funny / confused. And hilarious to watch. The plot is pretty simple, a nice, law abiding company that sells weapons (which kill people ) sends their employees on a team building trip somewhere in southeastern europe. They travel to the middle of nowhere just to find out that there are some customers of their company in the woods, who aren’t satisfied with the quality. So they hunt the employees down, kill them, torture them. All that hostel’y fun stuff. But the reason this one is fun to watch is the comedic parts of it like two “escort” ladies trying to get out of a hole in the ground strip down completely and tie their clothes together to form a rope. There’s a lot of elements in this movie that are simply hilarious. It’s not “for real” and it’s not supposed to be scary really. You’ll see severed heads coming to some realisations here, a guy without a foot being fed ecstasy and loving everyone as a result and a classic yet memorable sentence :
Before the war the movies were silent and the women even quieter
If you like comedy horrors that are only a little bit serious check this one out. If you’re a football fan you’ve probably watched every Danny Dyer movie anyway.
Posted in Comedy, Gore, Survival, countryside.
Tagged with british, Comedy, Gore.
By HappyZombie
– May 10, 2010
Rating:
Whoa! There’s a boogeyman under my bed. And in my closet. Wait! I don’t have a closet and I sleep on a mattress. So where is he gonna hide? Oooh right, he’s a part of my imagination and if I believe in him then he’ll appear and kill me. Right. So following that logic – I don’t believe in this movie! It doesn’t exist! It doesn’t exist! I didn’t watch it! Or I am cursed forever. Teens had graduated (finally!) and turned into college students which makes it all the more boring and stereotype driven. So sure there’s a fraternity pledge, there are some smart and caring students and there are some non believers who also get killed by the boogeyman. La di dah!
If you want horror, look elsewhere.
If you want “scary” then turn the lights out and crawl under your bed, but watching this will only spoil the mood. What a terrible, full of cliches waste of time. Skip it, allright?
Posted in Psychological, Teen, ghosts.
Tagged with american, boogeyman, college, lame horror.
By HappyZombie
– May 6, 2010
Rating:
Here’s a British attempt at a horror / thriller / slasher movie, based in the UK and well it’s tough to decide about this one. On one hand it’s pretty good, very brutal but naturalistic, and the fear, anger, many emotions are there. There’s the good acting, especially from the main female character. And the evil teenagers are also pretty good, showing all sorts of personalities, with the leader being of course the catalyst for all the destruction. So what’s wrong with it? Well the most disturbing part is the fact that things like that can happen when angry teens with nothing to do suddenly find something to do. Like stabbing people. And torturing them for no reason. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just disturbing because it’s not some sort of unreal, out of this world story. This could happen to any one of us.
So a couple decides to spend a weekend at the lake, with Steve planning to pop the question and all that romantic stuff. His girlfriend, an overly nice preschool teacher comes along not knowing that he has the ring, thinking it’s just a regular weekend. While at the lake they’re confronted by a bunch of teenagers who steal their stuff and then in a bad turn of events end up hunting the couple in the woods. Since the lake is supposedly in the middle of nowhere, and they don’t know the way to the nearest town, it’s not as easy to escape.
It left me disturbed, especially the ending. I’ve met families like that. I see people like that on the streets of London sometimes. And on the other hand, despite all the odds – a big, muscular strong man should’ve had a better chance against a bunch of kids. If he fought them at the right time instead of running all would’ve probably turned out differently. But most people don’t fight, that’s also very real. Go watch it and watch your back next time you’re out camping. This one stays with you.
Posted in Survival, countryside, thriller.
Tagged with british, woods.
By HappyZombie
– May 5, 2010
Rating:
Now that’s stupid. Giving the Columbine type guys some new ideas on how to get back at the high school jocks? Don’t they have enough? I mean come on, this is like the dumbest idea ever, because sure – every nerd secretly wished to have a nice bloody revenge, but people get over it and usually those nerds become stronger later in life. So here we have a “typical” high school setting – a bunch of nerds gets harassed constantly by a group of cool, popular kids. So the nerds make up a party without revealing the host of course, get all the cool kids there, drug them and then comes the torture. I can’t say that I’ve found anything really good about this movie, the acting is “american-teen” type, maybe except for the black guy who does a really good job. Oh and dressing the nerds in nazi costumes – that’s all cool and nice for those lost, emotional artistic souls. Pfffff.
Generally this is boring, overdone in terms of trying to be another hostel and quite frankly I think that it might give some people some ideas. Because it kinda shows you the whole plan right there, and most of the “gear” can be obtained online. If it happens for real then the movie will probably get more publicity, right? Skip it.
Posted in Psychological, Teen, thriller.
Tagged with american, Teen.
By HappyZombie
– May 4, 2010
Rating:
Whoa! Wasn’t expecting much from this one after I’ve heard it’s from the same director who did “Creep”. I mean Creep was a fine movie, but nothing extremely out of the ordinary – running around the london underground with an evil mutant behind your back – sure it was ok. But this … Well apparently that guy gets better with age. This is third movie – so the title stands for it too – and well I haven’t seen the second one (I will) but this time it’s something completely different.
It’s not a classic horror story in fact. It’s more of a twisted thriller that some of the well known hollywood guys used to do. Won’t tell you which ones because that’d reveal too much. The plot is pretty simple – 6 friends and a sailing boat on the coast of florida. They go sailing and everything is fine until they hear a distress call from someone, but they can’t make much out of it. Then the storm suddenly comes and tips the boat over. 5 of them survive and witness that out of nowhere a giant cruise ship comes along. They board it but it appears to be deserted so they walk around trying to find help. And then the killing starts by some unknown masked stranger. That’s pretty standard to that point, right? Yeah. To about 25th minute it’s just a typical B-slasher movie and when the action picks up the viewer realizes that at this pace there won’t be anybody to kill and it’d been only 30 minutes of the movie. And then comes the unexpected twist that makes the whole thing so great. It has many twists and turns of the plot that follow that – so it doesn’t get boring and keeps you thrilled to see what happens but that one moment could be in my top 10 of the good story leads.
Can’t really say much about why this is so great without revealing too much but you just HAVE to see this movie and keep a close eye on that director. If his fourth film will top this one that means we got a new hero in our little horror community. Yay!
Posted in Psychological, Sci-fi horror, Survival, serial killer.
Tagged with sea, ship, weird.
By HappyZombie
– April 30, 2010
Rating:
Stephen King was more scary in the good ol’ days. And “IT” is a movie that made a generation of kids afraid of clowns. “IT” was a TV movie that’s nearly 3 hours long and has two distinct parts. One of them is the kids of Derry town battling an evil clown / monster who’s killing kids in this town. He lives in the sewers and uses all sorts of drains and pipes underground to erupt blood form ‘em. The acting is really good, all of the kids did a really good job. The clown is scary even with the early 90’s cheesy effects and his acting, and especially his voice. This is “scary” in the very essence. And if you watch it at night, alone it can get to you.
The kids manage to kill the “thing” and it all goes quiet for years. They leave the small town and all become successful. Well except for Michael who stays in Derry. One day he calls all of his friends and tells them “it’s back!”. And since they promised that if it comes back they will too, everyone’s back in Derry. And this part is a bit slower, although it has it’s moments too. All in all this is a classic that DEFINES scary clowns for all the horror movies to come. Not watching it if you call yourself a horror fan is a terrible mistake!
Besides it’s fun to see everything’s mechanical / puppets rather than computers all the way.
Posted in Classic, Curse, Small town, psychopath.
Tagged with clown, evil, kids, stephen king.
By HappyZombie
– April 29, 2010
Rating:
I think this is the last part of the Alien saga. Because Alien 4 was a disaster – a terrible, typical space action horror that didn’t match the previous three. So here we are again – Ripley, Hicks and Neut dream their sweet dreams while in cryo sleep but little do they know that somehow (now that’s tricky because I can’t think of a way that’d happen unless bishop did it) a facehugger got onboard. The cryo shuttle crashes into a planet that’s also a maximum security prison for men, but only 25 of them are there since the facility has been discontinued.
First of all being the only woman in a world where most men haven’t seen a woman in years is a pretty nice setting. Then along comes our little friend with teeth and the whole place turns crazy. In Aliens there were a bit more even chances since the marines had guns and flamethrowers. But since this is an abandoned prison there are no weapons whatsoever.
David Fincher as a director does surprisingly well since he wasn’t really known back then, and that was years before fight club. And with good direction, dark, gothic corridors of an abandoned prison and terrified inmates with no weapons a bit of alien monster creates a perfect mix that’s a constant reminder that some time ago there were good horror movies. And I mean REALLY good.
Posted in Alien, Classic, Sci-fi horror.
Tagged with Alien, space.
By HappyZombie
– April 28, 2010
Rating:
This is an almost direct continuation of Pet Sematary – with the same director and a couple of good actors – namely the kid from “American History X”. Of course it’s not really as good as the first – it goes a bit more into the style of “Tales from the Crypt” but that was the 90’s right?
So after his mother dies the kid with his father moves into the familiar town where the Creeds had some of their merry adventures. Some animals die first of course, then they come back in a bit more cheesy fashion, and then it’s time for the humans. They retain some sort of humanity this time – they don’t plan to kill just everybody which is a bit refreshing. The acting is really good most of the time so basically the only problem with this movie is the cheesyness that was so typical in the 90’s. But we can live with that because it’s still better than too much computerized monsters.
Posted in Classic, Family, Psychological, Small town.
Tagged with Classic, undead.
By HappyZombie
– April 27, 2010
Rating:
Classics are something that we either think it’s too cheesy for modern standards and skip, or we’ve seen ‘em years ago when we were young and stupid. Now that we’re older and still stupid and recent horror films make us barf going back to the classics is a pretty good idea. Especially if those classics were based on a Stephen King novel because in the 80’s he was in his prime. But let’s get back to the subject here. Which is Pet Sematary (misspelled on purpose) and what this “Sematary” is, is basically a bunch of pets burried close to an old indian burial ground. Which of course is evil, cursed, posessed and Barbra Streissand. Or whatever. Long story short – animal burried on the indian burial ground have the tendency to “come back to life” – although not showing any typical living symptoms – i.e. no heartbeat. They can be killed again of course, this time for good. So a spooky old burial ground and a pet cementary (I’m sick of that samatary name already), boo hoo. What’s missing in this picture?
Well of course a happy family – in this case it’s the “Creeds” but most of the action revolves around the father – Lewis Creed and his 4/5 year old son – Gage. They move into the town, buy a house, start a new life. It’s all cheerful and overly positive top to bottom. Until the daughters cat gets ran over by a car and the loving father along with a local old-timer (amazing role!) go and bury the cat. Of course they bury it in that burial ground, because otherwise it’d not make any sense, right? Yeah, as soon as the cat died we knew what would be next. But in this case it’s not a bad thing. So they bury the damn animal and the next day it comes back but with an attitude. A lot meaner, angrier and hissing constantly – so yeah it worked but not exactly. But the family is sort of happy again and perfect.
The culmination comes at a family picnic when running after a runaway kite little Gage stumbles to the road right under a pickup truck. Of course what worked on animals could’ve worked on humans too, right? So the father digs up his son and carries him to the indian burial. And indeed he comes back, but a little twisted – think “child’s play” or somewhere along those lines. And the rest is a really nicely done movie with great atmosphere, not too many scary elements but great acting and tension that grabs the attention (hey that rhymes!).
And that leads me to a little conclusion – I am watching those old movies recently and I see that on average the acting is about 10x better in the old movies than in the newer ones. Maybe we have dumber people with each generation that can’t play a chair if asked. Dunno. The special effects in those old movies are terrible of course in most cases, but they make it up with really great performances. And in a horror movie that’s more important than some CGI. Go and see it to get my point.
Posted in Classic, Curse, Family, Psychological, Small town, countryside.
Tagged with 80's, Classic, stephen king.
By HappyZombie
– April 25, 2010
Rating:
Ridley Scott made a great impression with the first Alien film, and since it was a success, the studios decided to make a sequel. They chose James Cameron this time and well let’s say the movie is entirely different. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right?
In the sequel Ripley is still the main character but instead of a sci-fi thriller we have an action horror of sorts. Evil alien picking remaining crew members one by one might’ve been scarier than a bunch of marines with guns fighting the aliens, but fortunately there are also some one-on-one scenes here too.
The story picks up right after the first movie (well 57 years of Ripley drifting through space wouldn’t make much of a story now would it?) and it’s pretty logical here.
Of course nobody believes her when she comes back, she’s degraded and has a poor job. Also so many years passed that she had survived all of her friends and even her daughter which adds up to the loneliness. On top of that she has nightmares about the alien constantly. So when a colony on the planet they have discovered the alien eggs before stops responding, she decides to go. With a bunch of marines and a company android of course. To take care of the alien and maybe get some closure too. Or whatever her reasons were. I wouldn’t go back after what she survived but I guess women are different.
This movie also had some things that defined the cinema in the later years – motion sensors and their sounds, computerized turrets, pulse cannons, figthing in air ducts etc.
There’s also more about the alien itself, this time we see it’s not a single predator (pun intended) but rather works in a pack. Similarly to ants the aliens also have a queen whose directions they follow without question.
The effects are well… 1980’s so sometimes we can see that those are just alien models and not “sort-of-real” aliens, but come on! Look at the production date and shut up already! Yeah, exactly.
There’s a bunch of varied characters that display all sorts of human emotions and motives, which is a nice thing after oh too many boring wooden-actors in many other space movies.
So to sum it all up – this is a completely different kind of movie than Ridley Scott’s first “Alien” but I think it’s really well worth the watch, since it explains a helluva lot more than the first one, and finally we’re not as helpless against that ugly bastard! At least not entirely. If you haven’t seen it yet you must’ve just been woken up from a 57 year long sleep or something. Go! Now! Classic alert!
Posted in Alien, Big budgets, Sci-fi horror, action.
Tagged with aliens, american, cameron, space.
By HappyZombie
– April 22, 2010
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