Movie: Scream 4

February 13th, 2012


Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Why does this happen at all? Come on Wes Craven, do something different instead of milking that same cow over and over again.

So we get another part of the Scream series, in which the most innovative thing is that the killer uses an iPhone to call his victims, instead of those old, heavy and bulky cellphones from previous movies. I’m pretty sure he’s playing angry birds too, waiting for his victims. Or maybe fruit ninja, to practice his cuts and stabs. This is more of a comedy than a horror movie – the only horror’y thing here is the cliche loud noise with someone jumping out. The rest is typical teen gore that’s not completely bad, but nothing inspiring too. If you want to laugh over a beer or two with your friends (or your cat) over some teens being stabbed.

It’s really like a movie inside a movie, that became so iconic in a way, that it’s laughing at itself. In that respect it works and is even pretty fun sometimes. But even as a self-parody I’m not quite sure if it’s actually needed.

Movie: Children of the Corn – Genesis

February 11th, 2012


Rating: ★★½☆☆

They decided to re-do an old idea one more time, because that's called being creative.

Apparently it’s time for change in all corn related areas. Monsanto corp. engineered a corn that can grow on Mars, the band Korn started mixing in Dubstep, and the Children… Let’s not forget about the children! That one Stephen King’s short story from years ago turned out to be quite prolific. How many movies were there? 7? 8? Well in case you were wondering what new things did hollywood writers think of I have an answer for you. NONE! They decided to re-do an old idea one more time, because that’s called being creative.

Ok, so now you know my approach. At first I thought – what a pathetic attempt! I’m gonna hate this movie no matter what for the sheer lack of creativity involved. But this time actually it’s not all bad. Yeah, I know, it’s odd but happens sometimes.

We have a little twist in the story and the location moves from Nebraska to some God forsaken desert in California. Sure we still have a pregnant wife and her husband and a broken car. That’s something we should expect from a movie like that. But the good thing is that it’s actually different in many ways. Don’t wanna spoil it for you, but that ain’t like any of the other CotC movies before. It’s more focused on building the right mood, instead of corncobs stuck in eyesockets. (don’t worry they’re there, just not as prominent as before). All in all it’s one of those rare occasions when a sequel of a sequel of a sequel actually is better than it’s prequels. Worth a watch, although not really scary.

Movie: Faces in the crowd

February 1st, 2012


Rating: ★★★½☆

Not a horror, still good though

Faces in the crowds is another dive of Mila Jovovich into the thriller/horror genre, after the action packed Resident Evil series. This time though she’s not as tough (probably for the first time ;) and she’s not killing thousands of zombies. So if you were expecting here to run on the ceilings and shoot at the same time, you’ll probably be disappointed. But the good thing is that this is actually a movie about something, without cheesy 3d effects like throwing the sunglasses at you for no reason. Yeah, I still remember that crappy and pointless scene. Here we have a pretty decent thriller based on a neat idea of a loss of facial recognition memory. In other words – she has seen a killer, but due to a trauma she can’t distinguish people’s faces anymore. So the killer can be anyone. Her husband? The police detective. Her grandma. Me. Well maybe not her grandma, but the gardener perhaps?

The idea is cool and she actually does some acting instead of stunts here which is nice for a change. The movie is pretty well developed, doesn’t get boring quickly and is fun to watch. Not a horror, but if you’re looking for a decent thriller you should definitely check it out.

Movie: The Children

January 30th, 2012


Rating: ★★★½☆

Mothers of the world tremble in fear!

Wasn’t expecting much from this movie, so I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it doesn’t suck. In fact it’s a pretty entertaining horror film and a breath of fresh air, cause children are rarely that evil (well maybe if they’re children of the corn ;) ) Basically we have a scenario we all know and hate, a family vacation, around the new years eve, with lots of little kids running around in the snow. And there is a killer in the woods… Errm wrong movie. Nah, apparently the kids are evil, or become evil – that’s not completely explained but doesn’t hurt the plot. Maybe it’s even for the better, cause overexplained plotlines have a tendency to dive into absurd. Here we have a perfect family outing, with something going horribly wrong somewhere along the line.

And a movie like that could also work as a condom advertisement – “if you don’t make ‘em, they won’t kill you” ;) But seriously, worth a watch.

Movie: Innkeepers

January 24th, 2012


Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Yaaaawn. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a low-profile, barely known movie because it can lead to a great discovery (Grave Encounters for starters) but this time we definitely have a miss. The cheezy special effects are not even the worst part here, because they’re not that important. But nearly everything else here is utterly hopeless.

Even the story itself is pretty awkward with one of the main characters being lost (in fact it looked more like the actor was lost in what he was about to do). It all falls apart and I think old 60′s horrors were much less crappy than this one. Seriously. If you stumble upon this piece somewhere remember to skip it.

It’s almost like a 60′s movie done quite recently with a little budget and cutting corners everywhere. They aimed for “the shining” atmosphere in some scenes (like the old actress etc) but unfortunately it’s a failed effort :(

Movie: Don’t be Afraid of the Dark

January 4th, 2012


Rating: ★★★½☆

A fun movie, nothing more, nothing less. Creepy at times

Don’t be afraid of the dark was a little bit surprising. I wasn’t expecting a well executed thing from that, especially after the cheesy trailer. But all in all it’s a pretty good movie, original in the fact that rarely “the monsters from under the bed” are small and strong in numbers. It’s a nice change from one big-bad-guy trying to kill everyone. And the acting is pretty good too. There aren’t many scary moments, just a few loud-noise jumps here and there, but there’s some tension, some mood, and an atmosphere. Nice going! Definitely worth a watch which means a lot in this world of crappy remakes! The story is believable, although without many twists. One of the main characters (the father) seems almost completely unnecessary, but the rest of the cast did the job well. Fun!

Movie: 11-11-11

December 23rd, 2011

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Darren Lynn Bousman is a well known name in horror (and thriller) genre, so I was a little excited to learn there is a new movie coming and it’s about the 11-11-11 date that we witnessed (and survived) a couple weeks ago. I was always a fan of 11 as a number, and that date was something special alright.

The movie tries to tell us that there’s a secret cult of “eleveners” who believe that the world will end on that day, and they’re very secretive. In fact so much, that our main protagonist can easily find their videos on youtube’ish equivalent they used in the film. So we have a guy here, that’s a writer and his family’s dead, so he’s detached, sad and depression driven. He has a preacher family living in spain in a house that will become haunted or evil or something. It’s not quite clear until the very end, and the plot can be a bit boring at times, but all in all the movie’s not bad. Not great considering the potential of “eleven”, but not bad. If you’re a fan of Darren go watch it. If you want a scary movie go watch Insidious or something and quit bugging me ;)

Movie: Event Horizon

December 19th, 2011


Rating: ★★★½☆

So here’s an original piece of film. Let’s try and guess what it is: A small space crew is traveling on a rescue mission (for a long lost spaceship that started transmitting distress messages). Then they land and there’s nobody there. And they figure out after a while it wasn’t a cry for help but a warning. Sounds familiar? Is the first Alien movie rolling in his space grave right about now?

So that’s pretty much the plot for Event Horizon, except there are no flesh eating aliens here, but some other evil things. The similarities of the base plot are striking, but oddly enough this movie is actually pretty good. The way the story unfolds from the copycat base is pretty interesting, the acting is good enough for a space-horror, and there are even some nicely done “scary” elements here. It’s even more weird when you look at the director, because this is a little bit of a classic right now, and Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t really known for good movies.

It’s something worth seeing if you’re not put off by a little gore near the ending. There’s definitely something here, even if it’s just controversy. Some people love it, some hate it. At least it produces strong opinions right?

Movie: The Thing (2011)

December 14th, 2011


Rating: ★★★☆☆

Apparently writers were more creative pre-internet than now.

What happens when filmmakers run out of ideas? Yeah, that scenario that happens over and over again. But they do have a magic trick they can pull, because the movie making machinery can’t stop, right? So they look at what classic movie from 10-20-30 years ago can they re-do in a more modern fashion and make big bucks. Apparently writers were more creative pre-internet than now. It sucks but what can I do abuot it? Complain I guess, but that’s what I’m doing already so yeah. The Thing! One of THOSE films with great atmosphere, tension, scary, well acted and considering the production date (1982) amazingly good visually. So now we have a sort of Prequel to The Thing, and how does it stack up against the cult classic?

As a matter of fact not bad. Or at least not terrible. It doesn’t have the same level of acting and tension, but some characters are actually believable. The problem with it is that mostly the Norwegian guys seem to be right for the film, while all the American cast is as stiff as a Keanu Reeves reinacting the Matrix in Starbucks. But at least the Wikings deliver! There’s of course plenty more CGI here too, with weird morphing, evil creature kinda reminding me of the “Akira” movie. It’s gross at times, but I guess it had to be visible or the people would find a movie with no “creatures” boring if it only had “tension” and “fear”. Good thing is that they don’t overexplain anything here, so we won’t be stuck with knowing it was just an American experiment with bio-weapons or something. Nah, it stays plain and mysterious, at least another “The Thing” thing.

Good thing about the Thing is that it does it’s own thing well enough, and even has a little nod towards the 1982 movie, with the ending explaining the beginning scenes of it. And for that I give it one star more than the “2″ that I was going to rate it at. Worth a watch, but NOT unless you’ve seen the original, because the original is still better in every way.

Movie: Paranormal Activity 3

December 12th, 2011


Rating: ★★★☆☆

Not as bad as the second one, and almost as good as the first one
The first Paranormal Activity was a huge success, merging a camera-based blair-witch-like atmosphere with an in-house-ghost story. The studio soon realized that it “needs” a sequel, and the second part was created that didn’t really bring anything new to the mix, and it’s general mood and execution was lacking. Now we have the third part, and it still doesn’t bring anything new, but this time it’s done with a lot more attention to detail, and some parts can be called “quite” creative too.

Knowing how the first two parts ended making another sequel would’ve been pretty stupid, so as usual with such cases they decided to make a prequel. We go back to 1988, with it’s cheesy beta cameras, interlaced images and weird hairstyles. The girls would later become famous for being in movies (paranormal 1 and 2), but right now they’re just kids talking to their imaginary friends.

So is it a witch covent? Is it the devil? Is it casper the friendly ghost? Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters? Nah, probably just a pizza delivery guy, but this still works as a somewhat scary movie, and judging by it’s gross revenue people like ghost stories if they don’t happen to them.
I’ve seen better.

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