Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Randy Moore
Jim, his wife Emily, their son
Elliott, and their daughter Sara, are on their last day in Orlando.
While taking a phone call on the balcony of their hotel room, Jim
discovers that he just lost his job. Rather than tell his wife what
happened, he decides to keep it a secret to avoid ruining their last
day. The family heads off to have some fun together.
While on the monorail, Jim sees two
young girls get on with them. The girls pretty much make out without
actually kiss, give him enticing glances, and generally act like huge
sluts. Emily notices, rolls her eyes, and gives him a gentle smack
before realizing that her son keeps staring at them too. Though the
family plans to spend most of the day in the parks, Elliott gets sick
after Jim takes him on a roller coaster. Emily agrees to let him take
Sara to the Magic Kingdom while she takes Elliott back to the room
and they can meet up later.
While on one of the rides, Jim gets
distracted and loses sight of Sara. He later finds her outside the
ride, sitting on the ground, and crying over a scraped knee. A man in
a motorized wheelchair accidentally hit her and knocked her down. Jim
snaps at the man before taking her to the medical center. This gives
him the chance to stare down the nurse's shirt and halfheartedly
listen as she talks to him about the cat flu sweeping through the
parks.
It's kind of hard to explain this
movie, so let's just say that a lot of weird crap happens. Jim keeps
seeing the same two girls from the beginning making out around the
park, acting like they might make out, or run off with two guys. At
one point, the two girls ask him to run away with them but they turn
him down. He also has far too much to drink and throws up, which
embarrasses his wife, and he sees rich businessmen fondling the
Disney princesses.
Escape from Tomorrow caught my eye
when I saw the cover. How can you resist a cover like that?
Unfortunately, the movie really failed to deliver. This turned out to
be one of the most confusing movies I've watched in recent months. As
I watched the film, I kept thinking that there would be some wild and
crazy twist at the end. I thought maybe it was all a figment of his
imagination, that it would turn out that it was all a dream, and I
had about a dozen other theories. Turns out that the ending makes
about as much sense as the rest of the movie.
I can point out that Emily is
easily one of the most annoying characters I've seen in awhile. The
director wants to show that the two aren't happy but he goes a little
too far. At one point, Jim attempts to kiss her while riding a ride
with their kids in front of them. She acts like he tried to rape her
and she had to fight him off. She then yells at him for not putting
sunscreen on their daughter, for daring to take their son on a (gasp)
roller coaster, and snaps because he bought her a souvenir from the
park. It got to the point where we all rolled our eyes as soon as she
opened her mouth.
Setting a horror movie in a park
like Disney World and the way the director and actors did it, i.e.
filming late at night, keeping things low key, and doing it without
the permission of Disney, took some balls. It had a great premise,
but this movie just lost me.
Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: July 30, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Anthony C. Ferrante
Fin and April are back from the
first movie and ready to tackle New York. Actually, April wrote a
book called How to Survive a Sharknado, which shockingly my
Spellchecker say is not a word, and she gets to shill it on Live with
Kelly & Michael. Fin is clearly unhappy about things, pointing
out that he did in fact lose several friends and apparently no longer
cares about the other survivors from the first movie. Fin also isn't
happy because he has to see his sister Ellen and her husband Martin.
The two were once best friends, but I guess he didn't want his friend
marrying his sister.
When Fin looks out the window, he
sees a sharknado forming in the sky. In a nice twist to The Twilight
Zone, we have to wonder if it's really there or all in his mind. Of
course it's really there! The sharks attack, April gets attacked, a
bunch of people die, and the plane makes an emergency landing.
Emergency workers carry April off as she lost a hand in the battle,
and Fin goes off on his own to save his family from the sharknado
invading NYC.
I didn't necessarily like the first
Sharknado movie, but I definitely didn't love it either. I think the
roommates (of which I now have two) were probably a little surprised
that I picked it out. I have to say though that I kind of loved it
and I thought it was a lot better than the first. A bunch of reviews
claimed it was a far cry from the first one, not as good, and
something that even fans of the first wouldn't care for, so I must be
in the minority.
Ian Ziering gave an interview where
he talked about how they went overboard and just threw in as much as
possible, and that's pretty clear within the first few minutes. The
number of cameos in the movie is just insane! Here's a quick sample:
-Kelly Osbourne
-Andy Dick
-Tiffany Shepis
-Perez Hilton
-Billy Ray Cyrus
-Peppa
-Biz Markie
-Richard Kind
-Al Roker
There were a lot of times when
those cameos pulled you out of things and made you remember that you
were watching a bad horror movie. How can I possibly pay attention
when I'm constantly looking to see who will be next and what I know
him/her from? I'll also point out that I had a hard time believing
that Vivica A. Fox and Ian Ziering could have been former crushes of
each other until I found out that they are literally the same age.
Eh, the roommate didn't even realize Vivica Fox was the same woman
from Independence Day when he saw this one.
Can we also point out that the
director could have replaced Tara Reid with a cardboard cutout or a
wooden box and got the same results? I know that it's one of the
things fans laughed about with the first one, but she was even more
annoying her. She had so little emotion on her face that I was just
praying for a shark to eat her head off. Sigh.
At least we did get Kari Wuhrer! As
a long-time Sliders fan, and yes I even watched the "bad"
seasons, I did a little happy dance when she popped up.
Unfortunately, she doesn't get nearly as much screen time as the
other characters. I also had to give it up for seeing Judah
Friedlander. It was so weird seeing him without his glasses that it
took me a few minutes to figure out who he was, but it did make me
want to go back and watch Feast for the first time in years.
Sharknado 2 did have some fun
moments, and it kept me and my roommates laughing and singing the
theme song. What more could you ask for?
Runtime: 77 minutes
Release Date: May 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Jim is obsessed with Bigfoot, so
much so that he convinces his girlfriend Kelly to take a trip to the
site of the infamous Bigfoot video captured in the 1970s. Kelley
seems more comfortable shopping or at least in a hotel or spa, but
Jim is completely in his element. The two travel to the town
associated with the original Bigfoot sighting to film a video that
Jim can hopefully use to prove that the creature exists.
The early part of the trip goes off
without a hitch. They check out the local statues and museum devoted
to the creature, and they even dine on a Bigfoot burger. They also
meet some locals who don't really believe in Bigfoot, but even that
doesn't deter Jim. Things do get a little serious when Kelly points
out that she really needs to move to Los Angeles to get more acting
jobs and Jim points out that he'll never live in the city.
After documenting the area, they
decide to head to the woods and the actual scene of the original
footage. They come across a local who makes it clear that he wants
them out. The man snaps at them and eventually yells at them until
Kelly convinces him to turn the car around and leave. This leads to
them taking a back route and finding their way to the original site.
When they find that things really do go bump in the night, they might
not make it out alive.
I was so excited to see Willow
Creek that I went right to the local video store and grabbed a copy
on the day it came out. Now that I've seen it, I'm not sure why I
wanted to see it so bad. An online review called this the best
Bigfoot movie ever made, and after watching it I had to laugh. There
is nothing, absolutely nothing about the actual creature in this
movie except for the background and the premise.
Reading the synopsis, you might
expect something completely different. I read that it was about a
couple in the woods trying to find Bigfoot, and I assumed it was The
Blair Witch Project mixed with a Bigfoot story. Instead, I got a
movie about a couple on a weekend trip together. Seriously, go back
and read the first few paragraphs I gave as a plot description. Would
you believe that this is almost the first hour of the film?
I know that directors want to set
up a story, but Bobcat took things a little too far with this one. We
see Jim and Kelly driving around, talking with locals, eating doing
their research, and doing other crap. By the time they actually get
to the woods, over half the film is gone. Then we get a few scenes of
the two making out in the tent and hearing noises in the woods. I
will admit that when something starts attacking the tent and the
noises start, the movie gets a little unsettling. Unfortunately, that
doesn't last long.
After maybe 5 to 10 minutes of
that, it's morning. They then go in the woods and try to find their
way back to their car, get lost, and end up back in the exact same
spot. We then get another few scary minutes, and boom, the movie's
over. It was incredibly disappointing and not at all what I expected.
I hope someone takes this same idea and does something better than
Willow Creek.
Runtime: 84 minutes
Release Date: August 25, 2012
Rating: NR
Director: Jeffery Scott Lando
Ghostquake, better known as Haunted
High when it originally aired on television, is one of those films
that seems like someone put it together after a night of drinking.
Does that mean the movie is so god awful that you should avoid it?
Eh, not really. Does it mean that you should immediately run out and
add a copy to your collection? Eh, probably not.
Set at the fictional Holloman High
School in New England, Ghostquake tells the story of a bunch of
random high school kids trapped inside the school. One of those kids,
Quentin, finds himself brought into the basement by a teacher who
seemingly has pedophilia in his eyes. Instead of raping him or trying
to get him to pull his pants down, the teacher goes off on a tangent
about how he knows that Quentin has a connection to Danforth, the
former headmaster of the school. Danforth apparently operated some
crazy cult out of the school in the 1950s. Quentin drops some old
gold coins on the ground, and when he grabs them and runs, the
teacher reveals that he hid one under his shoe. That coin combined
with him knocking over a time capsule somehow lets the ghosts of
Danforth and his assistant come back to this world.
While all of this is going on, we
get a brief introduction to your stereotypical high school kids.
There's the bad boy with a lecherous dad who smokes, the
goodie-goodie perfect singer with a crush on her teacher, the
nonthreatening lesbian goth girl with a crush on the singer, the
straight A student, her jock boyfriend, and let's not forget the
overweight nerdy guy obsessed with the paranormal who somehow is so
good with computers that the court ordered him to never touch one
again.
Once Danforth escapes, he sends his
assistant to dispatch some of the teachers and students left trapped
in the building. In the middle of all this, we meet Danny Trejo. He
has a name, but I don't really care what they call him because he's
clearly just playing Danny Trejo. The old cult members killed his
younger sister, and he's remained behind as some type of guardian
ever since. He pretty much just hangs around for years working as a
janitor in case something bad happens. Danforth randomly kills a
bunch of kids as they look for a way to escape and Danny Trejo tries
to bring him down.
The copy of Ghostquake that I
rented had Charisma Carpenter's name listed on the front above the
title next to Danny Trejo and her picture on the back. After watching
it, I want to know she owed money to that necessitated doing this
movie. She's in it for maybe three minutes and has lines that pretty
much amount to "who are you?" and "ahhhhh!".
Being a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, it was a little unsettling
to see her in such a minor role in a bad TV movie.
This is the type of movie where you
see very little. The perfect singer girl has the assistant ghost
(ha!) come after her and make her sing as high as she can, which
causes her head to explode. We get to see her face and head getting
bigger and bigger, but then the camera moves to the wall, and we see
the explosion from her shadow. Another girl gets dragged down inside
a toilet, and someone else gets suffocated/has her neck broken by a
musical instrument. See? The movie showed so little that I'm still
not even sure how she died!
I know that Ghostquake is just a
television movie and that I shouldn't judge it too harshly, but
damned if it wasn't bad for a TV movie.
Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: April 25, 2014
Rating: PG-13
Director: John Pogue
Joseph Coupland is a college
professor who believes that there is no such thing as the paranormal
and that science can explain everything. He shows a film that seems
to indicate a child who is the victim of possession. After showing
his class what he captured, he claims that he can identify a medical
condition/mental illness that would fully explain every symptom of a
so-called possession.
Coupland brings Brian, one of his
students, out to an old manor home. He plans to work with a young
woman named Jane and identify which disease led others to think she
was possessed. He introduces Brian to his two assistants and the
patient. Jane claims that everything odd that happens to her or
around her is the result of a doll named Evey. Coupland thinks that
by doing a series of experiments on the young girl that he can
definitively prove that possession doesn't exist.
Concerned about some of the things
he saw Jane do, Brian decides to do some research on his own. He
learns that a young girl named Evey has telekentic powers and the
ability to set fires with her mind. She was part of a cult that died
when a fire broke out in a house. All of the members and Evey herself
all died. Brian then decides that she must really be possessed. Both
sides must then fight to prove whether she really is possessed or if
she's just crazy Evey kills them all.
The Quiet Ones had a good premise,
but it wasn't really a me kind of film. Don't get me wrong, I have no
problem with films set in past decades, and I even have a soft spot
for the 70s. I couldn't stop pointing out all the furniture,
decorations, and clothing that I loved. There was just something
about this movie that I couldn't get into while watching. The movie
was plodding at times, and it felt a lot longer than it actually is.
The real standout of the movie is
Olivia Cooke. Cooke is probably best known for her role on Bates
Motel, but it took me about halfway through the movie before I
realized who she was. She really does a good job of channeling a
completely different character. She also had some good chemistry with
Sam Claflin, who played Brian. I've only ever seen him in The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire, so I wasn't sure what to expect. He's clearly
in good shape given that he occasionally looked like he might burst
out of his button up shirts, which made it hard to buy him as a
geeky/nerdy guy. I did, however, have an easy time buying that he
would care about what happened to a girl he just met.
The Quiet Ones also did a good job
of tying up the beginning of the film with the later part of the film
and showing the connection that the professor had with the original
case. It's just hard to believe that someone would deny something so
much. I also enjoyed some of the experimentation scenes. It reminded
me a lot of the history I read as a psychology undergraduate.
This all makes it sound like I
liked the movie but I really didn't care for it. The Quiet Ones was
just a little too slow and lacked the excitement that you would
expect from a possession flick.
Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: March 30, 2012
Rating: ?
Director: Adam Bartlett and John
Pata
Charlie and Sam have the perfect
relationship, or so it might seem on the surface. When Dead Weight
starts, Sam calls Charlie at home and asks if he saw the news. She
then guesses that he's actually sitting around reading comic books
instead of doing something productive, since it seems like that's all
he does. Charlie flips on the news and hears of a deadly infection
spreading throughout the country. It hasn't yet hit his hometown of
Toledo, but it has hit Sam's current town of Milwaukee.
The film then jumps an unspecified
period of time into the future. Sam now finds himself traveling
across the Midwest with three other men and one woman. He frequently
thinks back to his time with Sam, which gives us a better glimpse of
their relationship. We learn that she originally moved to Milwaukee
for a three month internship that turned into a job she took without
talking to Charlie first. Despite the two having some serious issues,
he only cares about finding his way back to her.
Along the way, Charlie and his
group encounter a number of problems. They have a hard time finding
food anywhere, aren't sure about shelter, and frequently wonder what
will happen next. Three men approach them and attempt to kidnap the
only female in their group, which ends badly. They also meet a nice
couple with no ulterior motives, but when that couple reveals to
Charlie what happened to the town where Sam went, all bets are off.
Dead Weight does a really smart job
of bouncing back and forth between scenes of Charlie and Sam in the
past and his current location. In a Momento-like twist, the film
tells the story of their relationship backwards. We start out seeing
him visit her in Milwaukee the last time, and we then get to see his
first visit, how he learned about her job, and at the very end, we
even see how they first met.
This should make us care a lot
about the two characters as a couple but things hit a little too
close to home at times. Sam occasionally comes across as if she
doesn't care about Charlie as much as he cares about her. She shows
clear signs of disliking his lifestyle, as in the way he slacks off
at times, and she doesn't seem happy that he's perfectly content to
spend the day reading comic books and watching television while
visiting her instead of going out and exploring the town on his own.
I don't know about you, but if I was in a new city where I knew no
one except for one person, I'd probably want us to do things together
instead of spending hours wandering through the city on my own.
Maybe if I cared more about that
relationship, I would care more about Charlie's journey. As it stands
though, Charlie is one of those characters that you really can't care
about. The choices he makes and the things he does are completely
unforgivable. He even seems to change the way he thinks and acts. He
goes from doing whatever it takes to save a girl from being raped,
but he then completely deserts that woman in the middle of nowhere
and does something pretty bad before leaving her. He justifies his
actions by claiming that he does it to get back to Sam, but it really
just seems like he's searching for something to hold onto and that
makes him go a little crazy.
It's not your typical
zombie/infection movie either, namely because we pretty much never
seen any zombies. There's lots of talk about infected people, but we
never see a single one until the last few scenes of the movie. Most
of the film follows the same four people traveling around and looking
for food and flashbacks of Charlie and Sam.
While there were some scenes and
moments that I truly liked, Dead Weight didn't really feel like a
horror movie. It felt more like a sad love story between two
characters who really didn't belong together. Though I did feel
tempted to shed a few tears at the very end, it just left me wishing
that the two shared some better chemistry and had more of a
connection that would have left me caring more about their future.
Runtime: 82 minutes
Release Date: March 16, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Jeremy Berg
The Invoking, also released under
the name Sader Ridge, relies on a fairly typical horror movie
premise. A girl inherits a house from a family member she doesn't
know and takes her friends to check out the house before she decides
what to do with it. While a lot of horror movies take this idea and
stick with it, The Invoking has a slight twist.
Sam is a college student who has
few memories of her early life. She was only five when she was
adopted by another family and spent the rest of her life raised by
those people. A lawyer called her out of the blue to tell her that
her aunt passed away and left Sam her former home. Her ex-boyfriend
Mark, best friend Caitlin and friend Roman, who has a crush on
Caitlin, all agree to go with her to check out the house.
Once they get there, they find the
caretaker Eric waiting for them. He's a reasonably attractive man and
a former military vet coming home after fighting overseas in
Afghanistan. Eric is initially only there to unlock the gate and let
them into the home, but he then gets a little weird. Caitlin, who
seems completely oblivious to Roman's feelings, does some hard core
flirting with him, but he makes it clear that he has no interest in
her.
The first few days go fine, but
then Sam starts seeing weird things. Caitlin and Mark do some minor
flirting in the barn and do some more major flirting. Sam thinks she
sees him attacking her friend and hits him in the back with a block
of wood. She then reveals that he once did a bad, bad thing to a guy
who once did a bad, bad thing to her. Mark claims that he would never
hurt her and that he would never lay a finger on either of the girls.
Sam tries to get over what
happened, but she keeps seeing strange things. She keeps thinking
that she sees a man shouting at her and beating another woman. Oddly
enough, the man she keeps seeing looks suspiciously like Mark. Eric
then reveals that the two of them knew each other as kids. Though she
has no memories of him at all, he claims that they were once
inseparable. When Eric starts encouraging her to tell him about what
she sees and that those things are real, Sam doesn't know what to
think.
There came a point while watching
The Invoking that my roommate looked at me and another friend sitting
on the couch and said, "I have no idea what is going on in this
movie." As he did a little homework for a college class, he had
an excuse. I have no excuse. I watched the entire movie from start to
finish without taking my eyes off the screen, except when opening a
pack of gummy bears, and I still have no clue what happened.
This movie had the type of ending
where you want to pause and rewind the movie just to go back a few
scenes and see if you can figure out what happened. Was Eric some
crazy serial killer with an unhealthy and unexplained connection to
Sam? Were they really friends as kids? What the heck did Mark do to
some random guy that ended with him making up for it? What did he do
that was so bad that the two of them stopped talking? Why would her
best friend keep making eyes at her ex-boyfriend? These were just a
few of the unanswered questions that I had at the end of this one.
Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: October 1, 2010
Rating: NR
Director: Christopher Saint Booth,
Philip Adrian Booth
This documentary is the perfect
example of why you should never read the description on Redbox
without finding out more about a film. Described as a documentary
about the true story of The Exorcist, Redbox described it more as a
found footage movie that deals with that story. I didn't really get
either thing.
The Exorcism Files: Haunted Boy is
a documentary from The Booth Brothers that should have been more
interesting than it was. The author of the book drew inspiration from
a case he read about in the local paper. Hoping to keep the identity
of "Robbie Doe," as he was known at the time, William Peter
Blatty agreed to change the character in his book into that of a
little girl.
While researching an idea for a
book, I wrote about a local college that is supposedly haunted
because some of the artifacts used in the actual exorcism were stored
there. Writing that article led to more research into the true story
and some info on both the book and film. All that information was
fresh in my head when I sat down to watch this movie, which might
have tainted my experience a little.
The original boy is still alive,
but he naturally doesn't want to talk about his experiences. The
filmmakers then went to one of his relatives to get an idea about
what he went through. They also tracked down archival footage from
priests involved in the case and some who knew the original priests.
That gave the documentary a "he said, she said" sense that
left me wondering what was true. I can tell you what so and so said
to me on camera, but does that mean I'm telling the truth?
They also try way too hard to make
a connection between the actual case and the hauntings in the area.
The former hospital where Doe once stayed was torn down. They talk to
men who saw or moved some of the furniture that he used, and they all
claim that they felt weird things and saw strange shit. They also
talk to some of the people involved with the demolition of the
hospital, who also say his former room was haunted. Plus, we get to
see a big crack in the parking lot, which is supposedly the same spot
where his former room was.
Even more ridiculous is the
in-depth exploration of the house where Doe once lived. The owner of
the house bought it because it was "the exorcist house," so
you know anything he experienced there is tainted. It doesn't help
that he basically cleaned out Doe's former room and doesn't use it
for anything. A completely empty room in the middle of a big house?
Yup, that wouldn't seem creepy at all.
At one point, my roommate checked,
saw there was still 40+ minutes left, and threatened to live the room
if I made him watch anymore. Sadly, we stuck it out. I would
recommend it for those interested in learning more about the true
story, but that explains my roommate and he barely made it through.
Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Rating: NR?
Director: Cody Calahan
Sam is just like any other college
student except that she's in love with a total tool. After talking
with her boyfriend, who seems anything but a good boyfriend, via
video chat, she tells him that they need to talk about something.
Sensing that she wants to break up, he decides to pull the plug on
their relationship and end things completely. Upset, she turns to
RedRoom, the Facebookesque site everyone on campus uses to keep in
touch, where she learns that he spent the night with another chick
the night before.
Luckily, she has her best friend
and the much cuter Mark by her side. As it's New Year's Eve, he
suggests that she come over to his house for a party. Though she
isn't really in the mood to party, she agrees to stop by, which was
probably a huge mistake.
See, there's a virus sweeping the
country that seemingly uses RedRoom to spread. Kaitlin wants nothing
more than to party and have fun with her boyfriend Steve, while Jed
seems more interested in video chatting with one of his friends
online. While Kaitlin does a strip tease for Steve upstairs, Jed's
friend warns them of the upcoming danger.
A knock on the door reveals that
one of their friends from earlier in the night came back. Jed warns
them that he's infected and showing some of the more common symptoms,
and they agree to send him away. Sam throws up in the kitchen sink,
but no worries, she's not infected. She's actually pregnant, which is
what she wanted to tell her boyfriend about earlier.
After checking out RedRoom on his
phone, Steve becomes infected. It doesn't take long before he starts
showing symptoms, so you know Kaitlin is infected too. Sadly, the
whole group is stuck inside a house that they locked down and
barricaded from the world, so who knows who will make it out alive?
Well, I know, but if you want to know, you need to just watch the
movie.
I first heard about Antisocial a
few months ago while checking out trailers on XBOX Live. It looked
really interesting and made me tell my roommate about it, but I
promptly forgot about it. Picked it up at Redbox the other night, and
I'm glad I did. Antisocial was a refreshing change of pace from the
Hollywood hack films that came out lately.
It's hard to explain what the movie
is because it tends to jump around. It's definitely a plague/virus
film, but it later turns into something of a zombie flick. We've all
seen too many bad zombie films lately, so it's nice that this one
offers something a little different. We all use Facebook or some form
of social networking nearly every day, and this one might make you
think twice before you log on the next time.
Antisocial does a good job of
setting up the plot early in the film. Sam, while still chatting with
her boyfriend, sees a man seizing on campus, who later turns out to
be one of the first victims. We also see some video clips from two
young girls on their blog as they succumb to the virus. When the
movie jumps into an explanation of what happened and how the virus
spread, I started to lose focus. When it jumped to a cure for the
virus, I was all in.
I know I’ve said this a few times
lately, but Antisocial is one of my top horror picks for the year. It
had characters I cared about, some nice acting, and a strong story
that hooked me in and made me keep watching.
Runtime: 76 minutes
Release Date: October 18, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Rob Kuhns
You know how you sometimes watch
the "making of" and special features on DVDs and just kind
of roll your eyes because all the information documented is something
you've seen before. That's pretty much how I felt about Birth of the
Living Dead.
I've watched a number of
documentary films on Netflix, and I have a tendency to love the ones
that cover B movies, cheesy films, and horror movies. When this one
popped up as a recommendation for me, I added it to my queue and sat
down to watch it when I had a few minutes. I assumed it would be
something like The Elm Street Legacy, but it came across as a been
there, done there kind of film.
When I discovered that this has a
fairly high rating, I was shocked. Do people really enjoy it that
much, or is just a case of giving it a high rating because it
involves George Romero. I kept waiting for it to touch on something
new or at least give me some inside stories that I never heard
before, but it just felt like a rehash of information I can find
dozens of other places.
Maybe it's because I’ve owned and
watched DVDs on everything from Night of the Living Dead to Survival
of the Dead, but it felt more like an ode to Romero than a
documentary that would actually cover the making of the film. Oh,
Romero lost the rights to the film and now every one and his brother
can sell copies? Gee, that must explain why it turns up on EVER
horror movie compilation of all time. Oh, he didn't mean to make a
statement when he cast a black man in the lead role? Where have I
heard that before? Oh that's right, on every single interview he ever
gave in his life.
If you're looking for something
basic that gives you a brief introduction on the original Night of
the Living Dead, head on over to Netflix. If you want an in-depth
documentary on the actual making of that film, keep looking.
Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: March 10, 1972
Rating: PG
Director: George McCowan
Pickett Smith, who I absolutely did
not realize was Sam Elliott, is a photographer working on taking
pictures of animals and nature. While working in a canoe in the
swamp, siblings Clint and Karen speed by in their boat, which causes
his canoe to tip over. After snapping at them about losing his work,
Clint offers to replace all his damaged equipment. They take Pickett
back to their family home, which is the Crockett Estate on an island
nearby.
There, he meets the head of the
family. Jason is stuck in a wheelchair and doesn't seem too happy.
Though he wants to celebrate the Fourth of July and encourages
Pickett to remain for the festivities, he can't stop complaining
about the snakes and frogs living near the house. He sends one of his
workers out to use some pesticides to kill the animals. Pickett finds
the man's dead body and notices that he's covered in snake bites, but
despite learning of the problem, Jason decides to push forward.
You know exactly where this is
going. As they start planning for the holiday, amphibians keep
flocking to the island and killing everyone in new and not so
interesting ways.
Frogs is a film that I added to my
Netflix queue when I went through a "killer animals" phase
last year. There's a good chance that the movie's been in there since
I had an account 6-7 years ago too. When I noticed some of those
older movies expiring, I decided to take some time to watch some of
the older horror movies before they disappeared too. Frogs was the
first one on my list, and if it's any indication of what might come,
it's probably time to weed out my queue.
Frogs is easily one of the worst
movies I've seen. It wasn't one of those "so bad it's funny
movies" either. My roommate and I giggled once or twice, but for
the most part, we just kept checking how much time was left. At one
point, he even begged me to just shut off the movie or move on to
something else. I persevered and got through the movie but it's
probably not something I should brag about.
This came out at a time when
directors mixed existing footage with new footage to make a film.
While that sometimes works in the right way or the funny way, it
didn't work here. You get multiple scenes of frogs, snakes, and
crocodiles moving through the wild before seeing someone thrashing
around on the ground and screaming in pain or mock horror.
The one funny moment came when a
man was attacked by a crocodile. The way he was rolling around in the
water made us laugh and contemplate whether he was fighting or
playing with it. This was one of the smaller crocodiles, and the way
he kept looping his arm around it and dragging it around make it look
like the poor thing just wanted to escape the bad movie.
If there's one reason to see the
movie, it's for Joan Van Ark. Given the frightening way she looks
today, it was kind of fun to see her back when she looked normal and
even pretty.
Runtime: 240 minutes
Release Date: May 4, 2010
Rating: NR
Director: Daniel Farrands, Andrew
Kasch
Confession time: I actually own two
copies of the original series and three copies of the first A
Nightmare on Elm Street. I bought the original boxed set when it
first came out and watched it multiple times. When I was in the mood
to watch the films last summer and couldn't find my set, I bought the
newer releases that stuck 4-5 movies in each set. I later found the
original set in my garage, boxed up with some other movies from our
move...three years ago. And I own the remastered version of the
original that came with a bunch of special features. Um, and I may,
may (may) still have the set on video too. Needless to say, I love me
some Freddy. BTW, if you haven't read Englund's book yet, go buy a
copy today. It's way better that Bruce Campbell's book, which I also
love.
According to IMDB, Never Sleep
Again: The Elm Street Legacy came out in 2010. I don't know how I
missed it, but when I saw it on Netflix, it took me 0.5 seconds to
add it to my queue. When I saw its runtime, I figured the odds of me
actually sitting down and watching it were slim to none. I decided to
take my time and watch an hour or so at a time and later found myself
watching the entire thing one Friday night. Hey, give me a break! I'm
a single gal still nursing wounds after a bad break up. What do you
expect me to do? LOL!
Never Sleep Again is probably the
most in-depth documentary that we will ever get about the Nightmare
franchise. It starts with the first film in the series and goes
straight through until Freddy vs. Jason. While it doesn't mention the
remake of the first film, it would be interesting for the filmmakers
to go back and update the film with some info about that one. That
said, this is incredibly interesting and far better than I expected.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a
classic horror movie, but far too many people say that their fans and
haven't seen the movie in years. This documentary starts with Wes
Craven, Heather Langenkamp, Bob Shaye, and everyone else from that
film talking. It delves into the arguments that went on behind the
scenes between Craven and Shaye that led to Craven leaving the
series, and it gives Langenkamp the chance to talk about how the film
changed her life.
Each film gets a good portion of
the documentary, and the stars of most of those films do come back.
Patricia Arquette and Johnny Depp are probably the two most notable
stars that didn't participate, but did you really expect them to come
back? It's entertaining to hear Tuesday Knight talk about taking over
the role from Arquette and hearing what others thought about coming
back for the later films even though they knew they would die in the
story.
The biggest surprise was listening
to Lin Shaye talk about her role in the first one and how she only
got the role because of her brother. She's such a funny woman and
such a great actress, but she doesn't shy away from putting some of
the blame on Bob for Wes leaving the series. It's also nice to see
Wes on camera talking about why he later came back and how happy he
was with the first film.
I also loved the section of the
documentary dedicated to the second film and whether the director
tried to make a gay movie. It was hilarious to hear them talk about
how they just wanted to make a horror movie and never considered the
gay implications while some of the more talked about scenes play.
My only complaint is that the
documentary focuses way too much on Langenkamp. While she was in
three of the films, she also spent a large portion of her career
trying to get out from underneath the series and get her fans to
focus on her other work. I think it's funny that after she had
problems finding work, she finally decided to go back to the
franchise and accept that most people will know her as Nancy.
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street
Legacy bills itself as "The Ultimate Nightmare Documentary."
After watching it, I have to agree. I don't think we'll ever see a
documentary that delves so deeply into a horror franchise.
Runtime: 103 minutes
Release Date: July 15, 2011
Rating: R
Director: Gil Cates Jr.
Lucky opens with a pretty blonde
woman buying a lottery ticket at a convenience store. After the clerk
attempts to flirt with her badly, she grabs her ticket and leaves.
Noticing that she left behind her license, the clerk runs after her
and finds her gone.
We then get to meet Lucy and Ben.
Old friends, the two now work at the same office but rarely talk. Ben
is your typically nebbish guy who lives with his mom and doesn't
really have any friends. Lucy is a super happy and peppy woman who is
in love with her coworker Steve. Steve ends their affair at lunch,
which leads to Lucy telling his clients during an important meeting
that they were lovers and basically quitting her job.
Ben's mom calls and asks him to
come home because of an emergency. When he rushes home, he finds the
local news waiting to congratulate him for winning $36 million in the
lottery. Ben heads downstairs, watches the news, and hears about a
new missing girl. He then goes to his closet and sees the dead body
of the girl from the store and lets her know that her ticket was a
winner.
When Lucy finds out about his win,
she decides to finally give him a chance. This leads to her
frequently turning up wherever he is and kind of throwing herself at
him. They start dating and eventually marry. Lucy seems to bring out
the bad side of Ben, convincing him that as a millionaire, he can now
do whatever he wants. On their honeymoon in Hawaii, Ben kills a hotel
maid after imaging that she's Lucy. She oversees the murder and
thinks about calling the police before finally deciding to stick with
him. When they get back home, Lucy realizes that this wasn't a first
time thing and that her new husband is a serial killer with an
interest in women who look just like her.
I heard a lot about Lucky before I
sat down to watch it, but as much as I like both Colin Hanks and Ari
Graynor, this film didn't do either of them justice. Lucy is such an
annoying character that you can't possibly root for her. She goes
from loving a random man at work to deciding that she needs to win
Ben, even though she never cared for him before. All she cares about
now is his money, which she makes clear when he runs out on their
honeymoon.
Everything that she does in the
film is because she just wants his money. There was one point in the
film where I thought she might actually care about him. After finding
three bodies buried on their property, she digs them up and moves
them. Turns out that she's just worried that if someone finds them,
she might lose out on her gravy train.
I loved Hanks in Band of Brothers,
Orange County and on Roswell, but there is nothing to love about him
here. Not only is his character incredibly boring, but he isn't even
a very good serial killer. The movie tries to make his scenes funny
or light but it fails completely. After murdering the maid, he sets
up the room to make it look like she slipped on a banana peel and hit
her head. Instead of making me laugh, it made me groan.
Lucky was in my Netflix queue
forever, but now I think I understand why I waited so long to watch
it.
Runtime: 103 minutes
Release Date: July 18, 2014
Rating: R
Director: James DeMonaco
The main problem that myself and a
large number of other people had with The Purge is that it was too
much of a condensed story. Once a year, everything you can imagine is
legal. People roam the streets, attacking, raping, pillaging, and
murdering anyone who gets in their way. Instead of showing us that
violence, we got a story about one family stuck in a house for the
night. The Purge: Anarchy finally gives us what we wanted to see.
Eva is a single mom working as a
waitress to support her daughter Cali and her father. On the night of
the Purge, she stops by the pharmacy to get her dad his medication.
He lectures her about spending money on things they don't need and
mentions that the medication doesn't do anything and that he doesn't
have much time left. After he tells them he wants to take a nap, he
leaves a note on his pillow and sneaks away.
Shane and Liz (Kiele Sanchez, "30
Days of Night: Dark Days") are a married couple on the way to
Shane's sister's house. The two are in the middle of separating, and
she wants to tell his sister, while he wants to keep it a secret
until after the Purge. When they leave a grocery store, a man jumps
on the the car (and literally made me jump in my seat) just as a
reminder of what's to come. On the way into the city, their car
breaks down, and just minutes before the Purge starts, they find
themselves stranded and alone.
Sergeant (Frank Grillo, "Mother's
Day") is a man mourning the loss of his son one year ago. His
ex-wife stops by to check on him and sees pictures of the man who
killed his son on the wall. Realizing that he plans to go out, she
tries to change his mind, but he tells her to go back to her new
husband and leave him alone. He then reveals a souped up car that he
made bulletproof just for the night.
Eva and Cali find the note from
Papa, which says that he sold himself to a wealthy family for the
night. She explains to her daughter that the rich by people to purge
for themselves and that they mainly choose those who are sick or
desperately in need of money. When a man breaks into their apartment
with plans to rape them both, they try to fight back. A large semi
pulls up outside and a group of military-looking people climb out.
As the man comes at them, a series
of shots ring out and come straight through the walls and windows.
Though they try hiding in the closet, two of the military men find
them and drag them outside, claiming that they picked them especially
for an unknown figure. Sergeant comes down the street at the same
time, and though he promises himself not to get involved, he winds up
saving the two women. Shane and Cali manage to hide in the backseat
of his car, and despite his best wishes, the five decide to work
together to get through the night.
I went to the drive-in this weekend
to see Lucy and The Purge: Anarchy. While Lucy was fairly blah in my
mind, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen for this one.
Frank Grillo has leading man written all over him, and while I fondly
recall him from his days on the soap Guiding Light, it's nice to see
him on the big screen. The role of Sergeant almost seems written for
him. Though he doesn't talk much, he conveys everything he needs to
say with his eyes and facial features.
The movie does a smart job of
introducing just enough characters to keep the film moving without
bringing in so many stories that we struggle to keep up. Papa, the
father of Eva and grandfather of Cali, is probably the only throwaway
in the film. He's really only there for us to understand what the
rich do during the annual Purge, but after a few lines, he's gone and
never mentioned again.
The film delves deeply into the
dichotomy between the rich and the poor. The poor find themselves
stuck in the city slums with barely any hopes for living through the
night, while the rich throw elaborate parties and spend money to kill
people, while turning it into a fun event. I won't get into the
political side of the film, but trust me, it's there. All I will say
is that there's a group on the fringes who believe that the Purge is
wrong and they create a viral campaign around bringing an end to the
annual event.
My only minor issue with the film
is that The Stranger from the first movie makes an appearance in this
one. He turns up as one of the fringe fighters and helps our unlucky
heroes, and while he makes it clear that he doesn't agree with the
Purge because of what he went through before, he's really just a
throwaway character. If they wanted to bring him back, they should
have given him more than two scenes and a few lines.
The Purge: Anarchy was exactly what
most of wanted from the first film. It takes the action outside of
one setting and lets us see what happens to people living deep in the
city. We see people hiding in the subways, the rich spending their
money to kill and maim people just for kicks, the middle class
kicking back with wine and music, and how people go to great lengths
to make money during the Purge. If you wanted to see more action in
The Purge, you'll want to see this one.
Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: March 28, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: The Kondelik Brothers
I never know where to put this bad
movies: here or on my television movie blog. Since I have a tag for
disaster flicks, I'll just go ahead and put it here.
Airplane vs. Volcano opens with
some poor dude checking out an inactive volcano and later watching as
it goes off and kills him. We then see an airplane flying through the
sky, unaware that there are a chain of volcanoes going off in front
of them. The military somehow gets involved and decides to evacuate
people living on the closest islands without giving a damn about the
people in the sky.
This makes Robin Givens extremely
unhappy. I know she has a character name, but since she'll always be
Robin Givens to me, I didn't bother to learn her name. Robin is some
kind of volcano expert and her second in command is on the flight. He
somehow manages to get a phone call to the military base to let them
know that the people on the flight are still alive, but it really
doesn't seem like anyone in the military gives a damn about them.
The whole point of the movie is
that there's an airplane stuck in the air with volcanoes erupting all
around them. Dean Cain pops up looking a little less sexy than he has
in the past...Oh, who am I kidding? Dean Cain could pop up with a
massive bald spot, wearing a University of Michigan shirt (not a
fan), and singed off eyebrows, and I'd still rip off my clothes and
attack him. He's a pilot who picked the wrong flight. When the pilot
and co-pilot die, he has to take over the plane. Unfortunately, the
plane is on some kind of auto pilot. He can make the plane move to
the left or right slightly but can't really do anything else. It's up
to Robin Givens and Dean Cain to save the day while up against both
bad military personnel and erupting volcanoes.
The best parts of the movie take
place on the plane. For some reason, everyone on board decides that
they hate Dean Cain. Look guys, Futuresport was bad but it wasn't
that bad. The air marshal has to kind of keep everyone under control
and keep them from attacking. It would probably be super bad if they
did, given that he's the only one who can actually fly the plane.
There are a bunch of other characters in the movie but most of them
are pretty forgettable. I think there's a mom flying with her kid and
some guy with tattoos who we're supposed to find threatening. He was
far less scary than the guy I saw at Kroger earlier tonight with
tattoos completely covering his arms, face, neck, and bald head who
incidentally bought a large amount of food with a food stamp card
before paying cash for beer, a carton of cigarettes, and some
fireworks. Definitely scared the crap out of me.
Airplane vs. Volcano is from the
great minds at The Asylum, so you know it has the worst special
effects. When the volcanoes went off, it actually reminded me of some
of the bad video games I've played over the years. On the plus side,
we actually get erupting and flowing lava, fireballs, and sparks that
basically shoot out of the sky and at the plane. Those effects kept
me laughing for far too long.
This one is just another bad movie
from the folks at The Asylum, but if you're like me and love watching
"serious" movies that will make you giggle, you have to
give it up for Airplane vs. Volcano.
Runtime: 84 minutes
Release Date: November 23, 2007
Rating: NR
Director: Paddy Breathnach
The first time I saw Shrooms was
when I had Netflix the first time, which was probably around 2008 or
maybe 2009. I liked it so much that I gave it a four star rating and
maybe even a five star rating. Every time I came across it somewhere
else, I would stop and point out that I liked the film. While I still
liked it after watching it recently, I didn't like it as fondly as I
did in my mind.
Tara and some of her friends arrive
in Ireland to hang out with their friend Jake. Jake previously
studied at their college and had some kind of relationship with Tara.
Though we never find out exactly what happened between them, it's
clear that she still has a crush on him. They plan on camping in the
woods by a former children's home and spending the weekends tripping
on shrooms.
Jake gives them a quick primer on
what to look for and what to avoid, warning them about the black
deathcap mushrooms found in the woods. When the group splits off,
Tara finds one of the deathcap shrooms and eats it. Though they find
her and get her back to the camp, she has a major seizure and sees
what will happen to them over the course of the weekend.
Later that night, Jake tells the
group about the ghost stories that locals tell about the old
children's home. Though everyone laughs it off, they also seem a
little worried about spending the whole weekend away from
civilization. It doesn't help that Jake takes all their phones and
locks them in his glovebox to prevent them from freaking out on the
shrooms and calling the cops. After one of the friends has a fight
with his girlfriend, he drinks some of the tea made from the
mushrooms, has a trip, imagines himself running into a man in a robe,
and dies at the other man's hands. The remaining group members later
find themselves running from a mysterious killer, but as they all
drank the tea, there's no way of knowing what really happened and
what is part of their trip.
Shrooms is never going to win a ton
of awards or probably even acclaim from horror movie fans, but damn
if it still isn't entertaining. One of the best moments occurs when
Bluto, one of the jocks from the groups, hallucinates a talking cow
in the middle of the woods. Not only does the cow warn him about
going off on his own, but it gets the best line in the movie. When
Bluto points out that the cow can talk, the cow responds in a deadpan
voice, "that's cause you're outta your mind." How can you
not love a horror movie that includes a talking cow?
On the second viewing, it took me
about halfway through the movie before I remembered what happened in
the end, which I consider a success. Far too many horror movies today
are so one dimensional and predictable that you can almost guess the
ending in the first few minutes. Shrooms just kind of pulled me into
the movie and let me focus on the story and characters before I
thought about the ending. That led to me making some weird, "oooh"
sound and my roommate yelling at me not to ruin it for him.
Shrooms is a fun little movie that
offers some nice distractions and a fun story. If you haven't seen it
yet, jump on Netflix.
Runtime: 84 minutes
Release Date: June 3, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Jeremiah Buckhalt
Laurie and her boyfriend Hugh
recently bought a new home in the country, which they hope will help
them grow closer together. Hugh is still something of a party animal
and a little immature, while Laurie hopes that buying a house
together will make him think about the future and settle down. Her
hopes disappear when Hugh informs her that he invited some of their
friends out to the house to help them celebrate.
Not long after moving in, they
discover an old boarding school located right next door. Though
hidden in the woods, their group of friends quickly find the old
crumbling building and decide to check it out for themselves. They
manage to make it back all in one piece just in time for hundreds of
other people to arrive for the big party.
When one of their friends has the
urge to partake in a little recreational party, she makes the mistake
of heading back to the boarding house. A figure dressed in black with
a white mask covering its face pops up and makes the girl wish she
just said no. The following morning, Laurie realizes that her friend
is missing and no one knows what happened to her. Her car is still
there, but the others convince her that she probably just got a ride
back to the city with someone else.
Cut to the former owners of the
house giving them a call to warn them about hanging out in the
boarding school. Apparently, the school closed down after one girl
went a little psycho and murdered all of the students in the school.
She later disappeared into the night, and no one seems to know what
happened to her. Well, except for just, because we can see her
running loose through the old school and stalking the people in the
house. I don't know about you, but that seems like something that
should come up during closing. Naturally, the Blood Widow comes after
the people in the house and starts killing them off one by one.
I'm always willing to give new
horror writers and directors a chance, but the only good thing about
Blood Widow is the ending. It's the type of ending that you both love
and hate at the same time. While you want the killer to get his or
her comeuppance, you also want the hero of the film to survive. This
has one of those endings that leaves you feeling satisfied but also
leaves you feeling bad for the characters in the film.
Danielle Lilley, who plays Laurie,
is the standout of the movie. She previously appeared in Five Across
the Eyes, which I know that I've seen and know that I have a copy of
somewhere, so I need to track it down and give it another watch.
Laurie is the hero/heroine of the film, and Lilley does a pretty good
job of making you feel for her. If you've ever been in a relationship
with someone you loved but worried about what would happen in the
future or thought the person didn't really give a crap about you,
you'll understand where Laurie comes from. That's what makes the
ending of the movie so much harder. I'm trying not to spoil it for
you, but let's just say that if you aren't a fan of her character,
you'll love the ending.
Blood Widow, while not a great
film, does have a few elements that show what both the writers and
director can do. Hopefully they get some more money and time for
their next films.
Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: April 17, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Greg Mclean
Two police officers working in the
wilds of Australia want to catch a speeder and get some action. After
noticing a truck driving a little too fast, they decide to pull him
over. The driver, Mick Taylor, acts like he's surprised they stopped
him and attempts to leave before they reveal that they're serious.
Mick gleefully kills them both, shooting one and decapitating him
before tying up the other officer and setting him and the car on
fire.
Cut to two German tourists
backpacking through the wilds. After heading to Wolfe Creek, they try
to get a ride back to civilization but find themselves stuck. They
decide to camp overnight and try to find a ride the following
morning. While fooling around in their tent, they see a bright light
outside. Mick steps out, warns them that it's illegal to camp in a
national park, and offers to drive them to the nearest town. The man
feels a little uncomfortable and denies his request, which leads to
Mick stabbing him in the back.
Instead of running, the female
tourist goes into shock and literally cannot function. Mick grabs
her, forces her to the ground, and attempts to rape her, but her
boyfriend pops up and smacks him over the head. This is the point
where my nurse roommate went off about how the guy should be dead. As
they fight, the girl continues to basically lay on the ground and
cry. Katarina, the girl, later wakes and sees Mick chopping her
boyfriend into small pieces.
This is the point where she
realizes that she should probably get her ass in drive. While he's
distracted, she runs off into the wilderness and manages to hide from
him. Katarina gets to the road, flags down a car, and jumps inside.
The driver, Paul, is a surfer visiting from Britain, and while he
can't necessarily understand her, he does offer to help. Mick chases
them down the road and manages to fire off a shot, which kills
Katarina on the spot. It then becomes a cat and mouse game between
Mick and Paul, and once Mick catches him, all bets are off.
Wolf Creek was a great movie. When
Blockbuster went out of business, every store around here somehow had
dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of copies in stock, and I ended up
buying a replacement for my missing copy. Most of the horror movie
fans I know were undecided on the film, but I liked it. As soon as I
heard there was a sequel that featured the same guy and the same
director, I couldn't wait to see it. That said, I wasn't crazy about
Wolf Creek 2.
This is the classic example of a
sequel showing way too much of a villain. I was a big fan of Vacancy
2 just because that movie set up the characters from the original and
showed why they did what they did. This one seemed like it wanted us
to learn even more about Mick, but I don't really need to know that
much about him. Do I care that he hates the British? Not really. It
would make sense if the film revealed some big reason why he would
hate tourists and go after them, but it seems more like he just
doesn't like people.
Wolf Creek 2 occasionally felt more
like a remake than a sequel. While the opening moments were amazing,
we then get stuck following two annoying tourists. The scenes of them
backpacking together, talking with other tourists, getting rides, and
basically sightseeing left me checking my watch and wondering where
this was all going. Then, as soon as we finally get invested and want
to see Katarina survive, she's dead. We then need to invest in an
entirely new character, and in the end, the movie pretty much ends in
the same way the first one did.
Though Wolf Creek 2 got some good
reviews, I'll stick with the original.
Runtime: 85 minutes
Release Date: April 4, 2014 (US)
Rating: R
Director: Clif Prowse, Derek Lee
Clif and Derek are long time best
friends. Clif always dreamed of being a filmmaker and often cast his
friend in his short films. Derek eventually found a stable IT job and
decided to settle down. When Derek learns that he's dying and only
has a short period of time left, the two decide to take a year off
and travel the world together. They start out in Paris, where they
hang out with two of their friends who are in a band and make plans
to meet back up one year later when the band returns.
While out at a bar, Derek meets a
gorgeous woman named Audrey and brings her back to the hotel. The
other guys decide to play a prank on him, but instead find Derek in
bed by himself covered in scratches and bruises. He has no memory of
what happened when they got back to the room or what happened to
Audrey, but they do find her clothing, purse, and phone left behind.
After Derek and Clif leave for
Italy, Derek begins exhibiting some weird behavior. He passes out in
bed and has problems being in the light, and when they go out to
lunch, he vomits all over the restaurant after trying to eat normal
food. He also breaks out in intense hives and blisters when exposed
to sunlight. When the two friends get into a fight, Derek punches
straight through a solid rock wall.
While all this happens, Clif
documents the drama and experiences on a website the two started
about their trip. Friends and family warn Derek to come home and for
Clif to get him to the hospital, but Derek eventually embraces his
new found powers and strengths. When the two attempt to rob a blood
bank and get Derek the only thing that makes him feel better, they
find Interpool on their tails.
There is a lot about Afflicted that
I'd like to write about but those moments feel like spoilers. The
synopsis above really only covers the first half of the film if that.
We then focus on Derek and his quest to find Audrey in the hopes of
uncovering why she turned him and what he can do to cure himself.
Through it all, we get an inside look at the action through the
cameras the duo brought to document their trip.
Afflicted looked like an
interesting movie and had a great trailer, but I don't know how I
felt about it. It's kind of a vampire movie with a twist, but the
twist has nothing to do with the vampires themselves; it just so
happens to be a found footage film that focuses on vampires. There
are some great scenes in the movie. One involves Derek trying to take
his life with a shotgun blast to the head, while another involves him
attempting to see how the sunlight will affect his skin.
One of the biggest debates online
is about the Audrey and Derek relationship. She mentions that she
never turned anyone before, and when he asks why she chose him, she
tells him that he was already dying and that she felt pity for him.
I'm on the side that believes she deliberately turned him because she
felt sorry for him, but there's a large group of people who think she
accidentally turned him.
Speaking of death, the film lets us
know that Derek doesn't have long in the first few minutes, but it's
completely easy to forget about that later on. I kept waiting for a
scene where Derek would wonder if living life as some crazy vampire
was better than dying, but that scene never came. You would think
that he would bring it up at least once, but it never happens. He
goes from barely having the ability to walk and act like a human to
being a crazed madman trying to track down the person who infected
him so fast that I kept wondering what flipped that switch in his
mind.
The found footage genre, which is
admittedly pretty bad at this point, actually works in this film.
Clif spends most of his time behind the camera, but you get used to
the sound of his voice and actually believe that he has a close
relationship with Derek. The YouTube type site where they post their
videos gets responses that seem pretty realistic. I'm not sure I
would keep watching after my friend vomited bright orange sludge all
across a restaurant, and it's a little funny to read posts from
people that basically say, "get him to the hospital" or
"that's not right."
Afflicted wasn't a terrible movie,
but I wasn't as crazy about it as I thought. There was something
about the film that just didn't do it for me, and I had problems
paying attention. I'm sure many people will love it, but it wasn't
one of my favorites.
Runtime:96 minutes
Release Date:June 17, 2004
Rating:R
Director:Declan O'Brien
I almost didn't even want to write
this review because the movie is so bad but I'll do my best.
Joy Ride 3 opens with a girl
clearly strung out on either meth or crack fooling around with a guy
in bed. Literally three minutes after the movie stars, they're having
some rough and tumble sex, but she stops him when she realizes
they're out of drugs. He comes up with an idea to talk to a truck
driver, lure him into the room, and rob him because all drivers carry
large amounts of drugs. She makes the mistake of hitting on good old
Rusty and inviting him to their room.
When Rusty learns of their scheme,
which he apparently does before he gets there, he attacks them both.
He then straps them to the front of his truck and gives them a
chance. If they can hold on for a certain amount of time, he'll let
them live. If they let go, the chains holding them down will drag
them under the truck. The girl lets go, and they both die. It's a
great way to open the movie but it just goes downhill from there.
There are a bunch of highly
annoying twenty somethings planning to enter some random race. As a
NASCAR fan, I have my questions about what level they're racing at
and what's going on. I also didn't bother to learn any names because
most of the characters seem fairly interchangeable. There's the
douchy guy, the slightly less douchy guy, the annoying female
girlfriend, the other annoying gal, etc..
After stopping along the way for
some food, they decide to take the race car, which is very expensive
buy the way, out of the trailer and drive it the rest of the way to
the race, which is a very stupid thing to do because those cars
aren't decide for regular roads. They naturally come across Rusty,
piss him off, and he decides to kill them all.
Joy Ride is one of those hidden gem
movies that I found by accident. Featuring the too cute for his own
good and gone too soon Paul Walker and the adorable and hilarious
Steve Zahn, a bought a copy back in the days when I would buy new
movies that looked interesting without knowing anything about the
plot. I love it so much that I recommended it to all of my friends.
Sadly, Joy Ride 3 makes me wish they had stopped with the first film.
One of the things, okay the thing,
that made that movie so great was Ted Levine. His voice has that deep
and throaty quality that makes you want to look under your bed and
check your closets before going to sleep at night. Instead of letting
us actually see the psychopathic Rusty, we only saw him in profile
and heard his voice. Our imaginations let us figure out what he
looked like.
Joy Ride 3 apparently decided that
we need to see the killer. Just as I finished telling my roommate
that we never saw Rusty's face, the film cut to a scene of his face
as he stared down at a victim, and trust me, he's nothing to make you
check under the bed. He looks like some random guy off the street,
and seeing his face really takes away from the horror. They show
Rusty full on so many times that it seems like just another generic
slasher movie. I'd skip this one and reach for the original instead.
Runtime: 86 minutes
Release Date: December 13, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Riccardo Paoletti
On the same night that we rented
Afflicated (look for that review soon!), we also snagged Neverlake
from Redbox. The roommate decided to head up to bed and leave me
alone to watch this one, and I have to say that he missed out. As
excited as I was to finally see Afflicted, this was the movie that
made me go, "now that's fucked up!"
Jenny is a young woman born in
Italy but sent to her grandmother at an early age after her mother
died. Her father is some type of doctor, but he also spends a lot of
time holed up in his "studio" and working on a project.
After introducing her to his maid/housekeeper/cook Olga, he promises
to take her to the lake the next morning but then disappears before
she gets up.
Though Olga asks her to stop and
eat breakfast or stick close to home, she decides to take a walk by
herself instead. While down by the lake, she meets a younger girl
with bandages covering her eyes. The little girl asks for help
getting home and later introduces Jenny to the other kids living in
the same run down hospital type place with her. One of them
cryptically warns her to watch out for adults because they're bad
before she goes home.
Dr. Brook, AKA Jenny's dad,
suggests they take a trip into the city the following day. Though he
promises to take her to a great cafe, he leaves her on the street and
makes a trip to a local store. There, he hands over a drawing to a
man and asks him to make him "another one." The man
confirms that he wants one just like the others before sending him on
his way. Meanwhile, Jenny wanders into an antique toy store, sees a
doll that looks familiar to her, and picks it up. That causes her to
have a flashback, and she watches in horror as the doll's limbs all
fall off.
The more Jenny spends at her
father's house, the more weird things start happening. Paul, the
oldest of the children she met before, reveals that he has a special
connection to the people of the lake when he touches the water and
brings up the silhouettes of people on the opposite side. The kids
tell her that they want their statues back, which her father stole.
When the kids reveal an odd knowledge of her father's home, Jenny
realizes that there's something darker and sinister going on.
Neverlake might be one of those
films that I watch once and completely forget, but I highly doubt it
because this movie was really good and much better than I thought it
would be. I complain a lot about movies that have multiple stories
going on, but this one actually manages to tie everything together.
It starts out with a young girl
moving to a huge country estate right on the water in Italy. You see
those scenes and immediately think that it's just another classic
ghost story. Then it throws in some historic mythology with the
statues and people in the water, which makes you wonder where it's
going next. You then hear several stories about Jenny's mother and
see scenes of a woman dying next to the water and think it's a ghost
story again. Throw in some scenes of Olga lurking in the background,
her father outright lying to her, and what might just be someone
locked in a hidden room, and you might feel like your head is
spinning.
This is one of the few times when I
actually want to reveal how the movie ends because I thought it was
pretty surprising. I'm sure that people will say that they figured
out the ending ahead of time, but Neverlake had one of those endings
that literally made me say, "that's fucked up." Granted
there was no one else in the room or around at the time, but I'm sure
that I'll make my roommate watch this later.
Neverlake is available at most
Redbox machines. Watch it without reading a lot about the movie and
see what you think. Hopefully you'll like it as much as I did!
