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Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category

Movie: Faces in the crowd

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Rating:

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.

Posted in City, Psychological, Psychopath, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie: The Children

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Rating:

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.

Posted in Family, Horror, Psychological, Thriller | 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 »

TV Series: The Walking Dead Season 2

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Rating:

The first season of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” was a little bit diappointing – it started out great and then the tension was falling until it reached an over-acted finale that for me and most of my friends simply sucked. The general public thought so too, and the reviews dropped. The second season comes back with a blast and it’s finally regained the pace of the first few episodes of S01. No new characters, but there’s action, lots of zombies and new places. Some parts of the story were a little bit boring, but most of the time we’ve seen nice zombie action. This is the first episode in a while that resulted in me wanting to see the next one. And that was actually a last-chance episode. I thought that if it sucked I’ll stop watching tWD at all, and it did amazingly well!

Posted in Family, Psychological, Thriller, Zombie | No Comments »

Movie: Shark Night 3D

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

Rating:

So after the horrible Piranha 3D we now have another fish/teen movie combo, also in 3D, so be sure there's gonna be a fish jumping out at you from the screen. I’d want my money back normally, especially since Piranha was one of the worst movies of last year, but this time it’s not all that bad. Sharks aren’t in the movies all too often, and since Jaws there wasn’t really a good shark movie, unless I’ve been living under a rock or something. This is by no means dethroning Jaws from it’s rightful place – make no mistake about it. It’s not the king of fish movies, just a mix of a prince and a jester, but he does his job right.

I’m not talking about the 3d of course, because frankly I don’t think a good movie needs these effects at all (think “Insidious”), but aside from that there are some pretty good scenes here and some wild ones as well. It’s also VERY predictable, to the point that you can guess easily who and when will die, and you can guess the plot twists a lot faster, than the plot is trying to explain it. But movies like this are not for the twists and plot and good acting. Movies like this are about sharks violently devouring kids. By the way – why is it usually teenage/college kids? I’d love to see a shark movie at a retirement home, with old people fighting for survival. Apparently I’m the only one, so we get some “sort-of-hot” girls (they’re not THAT hot, trust me) and plenty of “accidental” camera pans towards their asses. If that’s what you need to sell a movie fine by me, but it won’t be a cult classic – sorry.

This is actually a job well done for a shark film in a genre (fish horror?) that is strongly underpopulated at all. If you’re not satisfied don’t worry – knowing the holywood producers talents we’ll soon see a 3d horror about murderous plankton or amoebas! God, am I the only one waiting for “The Thing” remake?

Posted in Action, Animals, Horror, Teen, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie: Super 8

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Rating:

Super 8 is a highly acclaimed thriller (not a horror, as it’s not scary) with some quirky elements that move it closer to E.T. go home, than a traditional thriller. It follows a group of boys making a movie, who accidentaly witness a terrible train crash. For those who don’t know that yet, it’s the scene from the trailers, that’s also almost the best scene in the whole movie (the very best scenes are AFTER the credits though, so it’s worth to wait the credits off or skip). The train accident was also portrayed in an interactive teaser made inside the Portal 2 Game from Valve – in it you’re on that train and survive the crash somehow. You can walk around the rubble, until you find out one cart is carrying something else. Something evil

Well, to be honest – it’s more of a teen movie than anything else. E.T. and Goonies come to mind when watching this. If you’re expecting evil aliens, explosions, gore and such, you’ll be disappointed. It’s not bad though, just not too good either. There are many plotholes, and the acting could’ve been better sometimes. For something that received so much hype it’s definitely a failure. It’s not really boring, but you can easily predict nearly every plot twist, due to the lack of originality in this one. The grainy, 70′s style visuals were probably a clever idea of the director, but all they do is they remind you about the movies this copies from.

Oh and for all those hoping – there are NO zombies here.

The best part is AFTER the credits, and has nothing to do with the plot itself – think of it as a completely different (though short) film.

Posted in Alien, Teen, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie: Repo Men

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

Rating:
Repo men is somewhere between a rip-off from Repo – the genetic opera, and an original piece of hollywood production. Sure there are MANY similarities, but there are still enough differences to distinguish the two. For starters this is NOT a musical. The first REPO wasn’t bad but two musicals about organ repossession would be waaaay too many. Nah this is a pretty standard sci-fi thriller with some gore and pretentious-philosophical underline that’s more funny than thought engaging. Still as an action packed thriller it does very well, and both Jude Law and Forest Whitaker deliver a convincing performance.

There are no scary parts here, but it’s nice visually and worth a watch, even for the sake of comparing it to it’s predecessor. And who knows, maybe a few years from now we’ll all have bar codes on our organs and liver mortgage plan. So yeah maybe it tells us something about the dangers of skyrocketing healthcare costs, or something. After all it’s hollywood so it has to have a meaning right? The action is there, the blood is there and a couple of well known actors to top it all off. What more to ask for if you’re in a mood for some pretty entertaining action? But i’d still recommend watching the first REPO movie before this one. After all it’s not a new idea.

Posted in Action, Gore, Sci-Fi, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie : The Road (2009)

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Rating:

What if you take an award winning book, adapt it for the screen and hire some good actors? You get “The road”. Not lord of the rings.

It’s not a horror film, it’s a catastrophic thriller, but it’s done so well on so many levels that it’s worth the mention. First thing – Viggo Mortensen. Forget that stupid lord of the rings movie which was a special effects crapfest that didn’t do the book justice. Forget you’ve seen him in some romantic comedies. Here he really does act here and his performance is what drives the whole movie.
He’s protecting his only son in a world that is all fucked up beyond belief, and at the same time it’s not clear what happened to the world.

It’s not boring, it’s really believable, things like that seem so probable, especially now, that it’s nice to skip the gorefest for once and watch something with a little meaning.

Posted in Family, Sci-Fi, Thriller | No Comments »

Movie : And soon the darkness (2010)

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

Rating:

Ok, this could’ve been a “close to true story” kinda remake thriller thing. It could’ve been good because those stories that you know, look kinda real are always quite scary. But this movie failed on so many levels I don’t even know where to start. First of all – there’s completely no atmosphere and no sense anywhere, two girls on a bike trip in Argentina get separated and one gets kidnapped. So the other starts her search and blah blah blah. Boooring. Actually the only action is near the end of the movie and it’s not any good. Sorry. Most of the time we see scenes that are supposed to make the characters look real to us, but all they do is inspire us to have a contest of who can produce a biggest yawn. The acting is not bad, but the story is so boring we actually ended up wishing both girls to get kidnapped just to get it over with. This movie is a thriller with no thrills. Skip it.

Posted in Action, Thriller | No Comments »