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Movie: The Thing (2011)

Wednesday, 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.

Posted in Alien, Gore, Psychological, Remake, Sci-Fi, Virus | No Comments »

Movie: Paranormal Activity 3

Monday, 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.

Posted in Curse, Family, Ghosts, Psychological | No Comments »

Movie: Panic at rock island

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

Rating:

Panic at Rock island is one of those rare movies about a virus killing a bunch of people, that's not really a horror, but we can assume it is for the sake of this review.

The story revolves around a rock festival in Australia, that’s supposedly a super big event over there that everyone wants to attend. There’s just one problem here though. The size of the stage suggests it’s not really big at all. There are maybe three bands playing, and the number of people there is also not quite convincing. Apparently the budget wasn’t high enough for more extras and a bigger stage. Well it doesn’t really matter if the movie is good, right? We can overlook some things, can’t we?

Well that’s not completely the case, as this movie is not something you’ll remember, but for a one time watch with a few beers and chips it might do the trick. Especially if you got nachos with some spicy dips it’ll do fine given all the vomit that we witness onscreen. The plot isn’t really original, with the deadly military virus outbreak and everything, but at least it’s not about vampires, right?

Posted in City, Family, Indie, Thriller, Virus | No Comments »

Movie: Red State

Monday, November 28th, 2011

Rating:

Religion has been a good part of the scary-movie genre for a while now, because it's something that we know and grew up around, so twisting it a little bit and showing a scary side can be more effective. But this movie is not about the devil, or the wrath of God. It’s about religious fanatics resembling the sect of Westboro if they had an incline towards guns. And since both silly religious compounds (Waco anyone?) and guns are so all-american, this movie sums up what’s right and wrong with some parts of the country.

Did you know that Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs got banned in the states, deemed dangerous? Yet guns are allowed and nobody sees any problem with that. It’s almost like the recent shitty declaration of pizza as a vegetable because it has tomato sauce on it. So battling that mentality is something Kevin Smith decided to do, and he did it extremely well. His recent movies were a little less original than “Clerks”, but here he comes back with style. This is an awesome movie, with everything done just right, and with amazing acting performances by pretty much the whole crew. Not a horror but I do recommend it!

Posted in Family, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie: Hellraiser – Revelations

Saturday, November 26th, 2011

Rating:

If Clive Barker had any idea what's going to become of the new hellraiser movie he'd probably put a bunch of nails in his own head too. Sorry ladies and gentlemen – we have another classic rape of a classic. It’s lost ALL of the mysticism, all of the tension and all of those dark, moody scenes we know from previous ones. Now it’s all there for you to see – gore, blood, nails in the head – all perfectly lit, because that’s apparently what people want. Yuck!

Any tries to establish the characters fail right at the very beginning. I mean come on, 99% of the time the characters behave completely without any logic, and it shows. I’m not making this up people! Whoever wrote that script was probably high and drunk, watching bugs bunny re-runs at 4 a.m.

This is not a hellraiser movie. This is another bunch of uncreative people trying to jump on the back of a popular horror series, but as usual they fail miserably. The plot is nearly non-existent (if you can count two spoiled teens running away from home as a plot), the acting can be compared to the first toy story (and the toys were really made of wood and plastic!), and there’s no tension, no suspense, no horror. Just another teen movie that you’ll forget 5 minutes after watching.

Skip it and go watch previous parts of Hellraiser.

Posted in Classic, Curse, Family, Gore, Horror, Torture | No Comments »

Movie: Final Destination 5

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Rating:

How much longer with this? I mean come on - the first one was something new. The second one was a little too obvious, and the rest we should just skip completely. They were high-budget failures and a proof that milking the same cow over and over again doesn’t always end up with great results. (or does it ever?). Now more unimaginative filmmakers decided to do it one more time for old times sake. So the team in suits (and converse sneakers – they’re hip now you know), the creative directors sat down and thought about how to make some money again but without too much effort. There was one of those guys, probably an intern who was there to make coffee, that shouted ONE a little bit creative idea that made it in. Yes, the ending here is not bad, but ONE creative twist and idea for a 90 minute movie is a little poor, don’t you think?

The good thing about the first part of this series was that the deaths weren’t as gruesome as they’re made to be now. It was more subtle, more focused on the mood and the impending doom. Here the tension is sucked out by pretentious humor and gore. It’s gone completely and it sucks. So should we expect another part of the series next year? Most definitely. Will it suck? Probably. But hey, you have me to tell you it does before you go lose your money to see it yourself.

This you skip. Seriously.

Posted in Curse, Gore | No Comments »

Movie: Riding the bullet (2004)

Monday, November 7th, 2011

Rating:

Stephen King is supposedly the master of Horror literature, and that in most cases is proven to be true. Sure he had some really bad books, but he also wrote Misery, Pet Semetary, The Stand, Carrie, Cujo and The Shining. So we can forgive him for slipping up sometimes. Who we cannot forgive are people who try to milk the successful author’s name by making movies out of his short stories and other unreleased things.

Riding the Bullet could’ve been a classic example of that philosophy, but thankfully it didn’t turn out completely bad as I predicted it to be. The story is about an art student that’s obsessed with death (aren’t they all?). His girlfriend dumps him (sort of), his mother’s in a hospital, and he has to hitch a ride to get to that hospital on halloween. The setting seems to be perfect for a good story. Especially when he gets picked up by a being that’s certainly not a human (although it looks like one). They chose the right guy for the role too – David Arquette is a guy that can be confused with some non-human entity (especially for his “Scream” appearances). So yeah it works out. We got a wimpy art student that’s not at all likeable, his alter-egos, some random people and the road at night.

Scary? No, not really. Fun to watch? Sometimes. If you want to see something based on Stephen King see it. If you’re a fan see it. But ask yourself this: If it’s just a short story, and you probably never heard of it, maybe there’s a reason? A steady 3 stars for this one folks.

Posted in Classic, Curse, Ghosts, Horror, Psychopath, Sci-Fi | No Comments »

Movie: Wrong Turn 4

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Rating:

The first "Wrong Turn" movie was something new. It was also pretty decent, entertaining and well made. Due to it's sort-of-success a sequel was made, and then the third installment. Each one was much, much worse than the one before, simply showing us that milking the same idea by uncreative people is as common as it is frustrating. So yeah, when I noticed that there’s a part “4″, this time set during the winter I though “Well ok, I’ll give it a shot”. Hoping for something different I rented the dvd, sat down, opened my beer and pressed play. What followed was 90 minutes of evil horror. Too bad it wasn’t because the movie was any good. It sucked so bad that watching it was more of a horror than the movie itself.

First of all it was way more disgusting than any of the parts before. The “Characters” are so stupid, with badly written dialogue that I actually wanted them to die as soon as possible. Well done – doing characters and plot the way that people hate them. Whoop dee doo.

The plot is a little different than before – now the inbred evil trio of brothers seems to occupy an old mental institution that got abandoned after they broke free 30 years before and killed everyone. And I’m asking here and now – Where IS THE LOGIC? I mean they killed everyone in the hospital (and probably ate them), and why didn’t anyone come? Like the police, army or whatever? No instead they just decided to stay there and live. That’s as dumb as a stick with a rusty nail.

Then we have the forced gruesomeness that is not scary at all, just disgusting as hell. The inbreds are pretty similar to the ones from the previous “wrong turns” which is a good thing for continuity, but it’s hardly “part 4″ when some of them died in the first three parts, and now they suddenly all resurrected. Unless “Bloody Beginnings” mean that they simply moved out of the asylum to the woods later on. But that we can forgive. The rest of the shit they keep serving us here we can’t. Sorry, no dice. This is what’s wrong with the horror movie industry. It’s movies like this, made by completely un-creative people that create the illusion that most horror movies suck. And if you want to see a decent “abandoned mental hospital” movie see “Grave Encounters”. This is a definite waste of time.

Posted in Canibals, Gore, Haunted house, Horror, Psychopath, Torture | No Comments »

Movie: Grave Encounters

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Rating:

Whoa! An actually scary movie that's jumping on that Blair Witch bandwagon. And it's done so well that watching it at night adds a little nervousness to the room. The scary parts are pretty typical, with evil beings jumping out at you accompanied by a loud noise, but for some reason in this movie it works much better than in others.

It reminds me a little bit of REC – here we also have a camera crew, shooting a scary tv series about haunted houses, but it has it’s distinctive elements too. Can’t really think if I’ve seen anything like this before, and there are many clever additions to the genre. The most important thing – as it is with all horror movies – to watch it at night, with the lights out. It might seem a bit boring at first but when it starts it STARTS. Seriously I’m not easily scared, and here I had a couple of moments of feeling “weird”. Not scared or anything, but weird. I also thought that the movie should be a little bit shorter, but when I got the the end I felt some relief. As if the tension was building up so much that I couldn’t stand it. There are a few glitches here and there – and at one point the tension is removed nearly completely when we realize what’s going to happen. But aside from that it still works.

That pretty much says SOLD on any horror movie. This is creepy, scary, weird and it stays in your head for a little while after watching.

Posted in Curse, Ghosts, Haunted house, Horror, Sci-Fi | No Comments »

Movie: Exorcismus – the possession of Emma Evans

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Rating:

It seems the devil is back, after the last few dreadful "vampire years". We had the new Omen recently, a pretty good “Devil” movie, Religious from top to bottom REC2, and the awesome “The Last Exorcism”. So if people started liking exorcisms, priests and posessed little girls, why shouldn’t everyone jump on that wagon? And some more people did with the poor Emma Evans being posessed because she played with the ouija board, and sort of brought it on herself. Boo hoo!

So we had the last exorcism, the Emily Rose one, and now Emma Evans is in the house, playing FIFA on Xbox and being all posessed and sad at the same time. Too bad it doesn’t quite work because compared to “The Last Exorcism” this movie doesn’t win in ANY category. It’s simple, not scary, oddly written and the characters seem a lot out of place. It reminds me at times of Sy-Fy productions, just not the better ones. The acting is so-so, and the thing as a whole leaves the viewer impression-less. Nothing stands out in this movie – it’s just a horror flick about a possessed girl – nothing more, nothing less. If you’ve seen all the other recent Exorcism movies, then maybe you should check it out. But if you want a good Exorcism see the original from the 80′s because it’s far scarier. Almost as if the devil became more mainstream, like the one from South Park.

Not bad, not good. Sorry. I’d seriously like to see a good horror film set in the UK, but this one is pretty mediocre.

Posted in Devil, Family, Horror, Teen | No Comments »