Rating:

So here comes a sort-of remake of a 1974 classic, since the writers don’t have any ideas they decide to make another version of something, just adding modern day teens, cellphones and bad cgi. This is in fact the reason I rarely watch american movies and stay away from “remakes” of any kind. A couple of exceptions (halloween, the hills have eyes).

So let’s get over the facts :
The acting is worse. Well in this case it’s also true, but not entirely, since the acting is by no means terrible in the remake, it’s just slightly less engaging, but that might as well be the directors fault.

Computer graphics – sure computers have gone a long way since 1974, and we have plenty of “realistic” gore here, but gore gets boring after a while and stops being scary. What the original had was the suspense, the constant tension and fear, and here we just have the killing.

I have no idea why they still do that, this movie had only one good scene – the one with the cookies on the counter (not the meat ones) – that was actually good. But the rest is a typical remake that lacks any originality, and due to the lack of suspense is boring even if the killing has a larger scale.

I’d skip it.

Rating:

What’s going on with the american movie industry? After countless bad original movies and so-so remakes they come up with new and new ideas, and all of them are more or less failures. The Familiar explores a genre not often present in horror which is “very psychological”. But there is no depth here, there’s a simple story that’s acted out ok (which is a good new thing) but there’s not much happening. The dialogues are pretty bad, unconvincing most of the time. I mean, come on, who really speaks like that? Unless you’re trying to act instead of being your character.

What the script fails at some actors actually make this a little bit better. Especially the father of the main character, or the girl.

Visually it’s shot like it’s the early 90′s again – a little oversaturated and bright. This visual side doesn’t really work anymore. The camera man was probably taking short naps while shooting, since here we have a camera operator 101 at present. It all looks a little bit unprofessional for a movie shot in 2009.

So basically, to sum it up, it’s not a good movie. It’s a 90′s style mediocre movie that in 2009 doesn’t quite do it. In the 90′s they sure had worse visuals and a little wooden acting, but at least the stories were great more often. Here we have a so-so story that’s delivered in a very so-so way. Only the ending gets a little better, but as they say, too little too late.

Rating:

Spanish horror / thriller movies of late have all a couple of things in common. First of all – great attention and accentuating of visual details. Those movies are simply beautiful without plenty of SFX. They have unusual camera angles and creative ideas. So if we take that and match it with a compelling story like the one of “Pan’s Labirynth” or “Orphanage” (or even “REC” for that matter) we have an instant winner, that will have countless remakes in hollywood. Sometimes though, the story is a bit too simple, too stretched, and relying too much on the cheap “gotcha” elements. We have a mother and son duo, travelling on a ferry to an island called “Hierro” for their vacation. The latter disappears and the mother starts her search. What starts as very interesting piece, somewhere halfway through becomes extremely predictable and loses it’s charm.

It still has the visual flare that makes it stand out from many similar movies. And the acting is pretty good. The main problem is that this story has been done before and we can easily foresee what’s coming to us. Also it’s a little bit too long for my taste.

This is not a bad movie, don’t get me wrong, in fact it’s pretty good if you’re a fan of visual arts, and if you indulge in it and keep a blind eye to the how the story progresses, you’ll be entertained.
But there’s not much real depth in this one, especially comparing to what these guys did before.

Rating:

Whoa, this is almost as bad as the Twilight series. I mean seriously this movie has only ONE good element and it’s the nuclear explosion. Funny thing is that Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson both made fun of how english people pronounce nuclear, and here we have it. Nu-qe-lar. Other than that – come on – if you want to do good mutants you don’t have to have a big budget. Look at “Dead Snow” and how they did the zombies. And that was a student-funded movie! Here the mutants look like ordinary people with some paint on them. That kinda sucks and actually makes it funny. Also there’s no actual gore so a bunch of mutants surrounding a person results in them sort of pushing, sort of groaning. Not really doing much.

So the atmosphere is not present, even though the bunker itself looks quite promising. The acting is “bad for a horror film” which should say it all. Sorry, but I didn’t find anyone convincing. It actually looks like a homemade movie with someone getting a couple thousand quid from their grandma or whatever, to make the bomb explode, and rent the bunker.

This movie is like a nuclear explosion. You better stay away. Oh and duck and cover!

Rating:

This is a little bit better than the second part, mostly due to being new and a little bit more realistic at times. First of all the beginning is strong and disturbing, and then it only gets better. Since there are no men in the underground cave, and it’s only a little bit brighter than the second part, it creates a nice atmosphere of claustrophobia and helplessness. Sure it’s quite cliche to have female characters thrown at the face of danger and then become strong and predatory-like but hey, as long as it’s quite fresh in the genre we can put up with it. At least for a little while. It’s brutal, very brutal in fact, and very very intense. It slowly picks up the pace but when it gets to the “crawlers” it turns wicked.

So we have some added tensions between the characters, some old grudges, that aren’t overdrawn or destroyed with bad acting. Which is a good thing when a horror film has a backing story that puts things into perspective. And then there come the monsters. Sure it’s not really explained much why they’re there but seriously who cares, we’d expect monsters in underground caves right? Right! So the dames explore the caves trying to get over their old problems and then they get attacked and die. It takes some time for them to figure out what they’re dealing with and that’s also pretty typical. But the best thing about it is that most of it makes sense. There aren’t many plot-holes and stupid moments, so it’s worth a watch. Not really a classic, but british horror is actually gaining on the spaniards! Good, we love competition, especially since Americans are out of the way, doing mostly poor remakes of european classics.

Rating:

The first descent was quite interesting so a follow-up was unevitable. The only survivor – Sarah – comes out of the caves and joins the search party for her friends. Since it’d be a bit dumb to go back, the director decided to give her amnesia, so her memory will eventually come back of course, but it’ll be too late then.

This is a “dark” movie, due to most action taking place deep underground. We only see bits and pieces of poorly lit rocks and the characters. This makes it easier to indulge and actually experience some fear since when it’s dark it’s far creepier when something jumps out at you suddenly.

The bad guys are the same ones we know and (love?) from descent 1, and there’s quite a lot of them this time. All in all it’s a typical american film made with some clever ideas and clever shooting (mostly darkness). If you’re claustrophobic and afraid of the dark this one will keep you interested until the very end. Sure it has some cliche elements, sure the blood looks like raspberry juice, sure the acting is barely “ok”, but come on, it’s a summer-slasher film. Don’t expect the caves to be THAT deep.