Runtime: 78 minutes
Release Date: November 22, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Eric England
Samantha is a young girl with some
serious problems. After a fight with her on-again/off-again
girlfriend Nikki, she heads to a party thrown by her close friend
Alice. She meets Riley, one of the customers from the restaurant
where she works, and lets Alice talk her into having a few drinks.
She begins feeling a little rough around the edges and eventually
winds up having sex with a random stranger from the party in her car.
When she wakes the next day, she
discovers that she suffers from some unique symptoms. It doesn't take
long before those symptoms completely take over her life. Her eyes
turn an alarming shade of red, her fingernails begin falling off, and
she develops an odd "rash" that looks like something taking
over the veins in her stomach.
Samantha finally makes the decision
to see a doctor, who confirms that she has some strange type of
sexually transmitted disease. She then learns from Alice that the
police came to her home looking for the man she slept with during the
party. As Samantha tries to determine what to do next, we learn more
about her past, including her battles with drug addiction, her
relationship with her mother, and her relationship with Nikki, which
led to the other woman throwing her out of their shared apartment.
I don't throw around terms like
"best" very often, but damn if Contracted isn't the best
horror film of the year. The first time I saw a trailer for the film,
I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it. Luckily, my roommate
saved it in an app on his phone and reminded me when it came out on
DVD. There was something so grotesque about the trailer that
fascinated me and made me want to sit down and watch the film as soon
as possible.
Contracted isn't your typical
horror movie. It combines elements of nearly every type of genre
flick out there. You have the relationship moments between Nikki and
Samantha and later Samantha and Alice and then Samantha and Riley,
you have the action scenes, and there is even a little comedy thrown
in there too. Those few lighthearted scenes really break up the
intensity of the film.
I have seen a number of horror
films throughout my life, but Contracted got to me in a way that none
of those other films had. It didn't seem like five minutes could pass
without me wanting to look away from the screen or shriek, and I know
it wasn't just me because my roommate felt the same way. There's a
scene where Samantha's boss forces her to come into the restaurant
despite her claims of being sick and despite seeing her in person.
When she notices her fingernails coming off right after making salad
for a customer, you know what's going to happen but you can't look
away from it either.
The one thing I wasn't crazy about
is the character of Nikki. When the film opens, their relationship is
over, but the two still remain in contact. Nikki tells her
ex-girlfriend that she'll try to make it to the party, but the first
time we see her, she comes across as cold and unfeeling. She treats
Samantha as more of a former friend than a lover, which was difficult
to watch as someone recently coming out of a bad relationship. It
also made me wonder if writer/director England wanted to draw a
comparison between love and drugs. It almost seems as if Samantha
uses Nikki as a substitute for her addiction. Instead of using drugs,
she constantly turns to someone who clearly doesn't care about her or
want to be with her. Once again, it wasn't easy to watch their shared
scenes, and I imagine that the relationship will be hard for others
recent breakup survivors to handle too.
The mixed reviews surrounding
Contracted definitely surprised me. As soon as the movie ended, my
roomie asked me what I thought and my response was, "that was
the best horror movie I've seen all year." It had everything
that I wanted out of a horror film, complete with some truly
disgusting moments that made me uncomfortable. If you're looking for
a movie that will make you think twice before you jump into bed with
someone or accept a drink from someone at a party, Contracted is the
movie for you.
Runtime: 80 minutes
Release Date: July 3, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Britt Napier
Michelle is a woman desperately in
need of some help. After a drinking and driving accident took the
life of her boyfriend, she found herself in rehab and working closely
with Rachel (Elizabeth Rohm, Angel). After she leaves rehab, Rachel
offers to set her up working for a photographer named Larry. When
Michelle arrives at his palatial home, she learns that he really
needs her to work as a model because his flaked for the day.
Though Michelle isn't comfortable
with the idea, she agrees to model for him. His assistant helps her
pick out an outfit and do her hair and makeup. Michelle then finds
herself trapped in a room and watching another woman in the same
outfit on a live video feed on her television. When she eventually
escapes from her room, she learns that Larry has a close relationship
with Rachel and that both want her to repent for her sins. Until she
admits the truth, they won't let her escape, but she somehow knows
that even if she does give into their demands, there is still no
escape for her...
I saw a trailer for Darkroom a few
weeks ago and didn't think much of it until I realized that it was
actually in my Nextflix queue. (BTW, I refuse to call it "My
List;" it's still my queue.) It had an interesting premise, but
sadly, it didn't really deliver on the premise. The trailer made it
seem like a tight little thriller about a woman trapped in a big home
and trying to escape a serial killer. It's really a slow and prodding
movie about a woman trying to escape a handful of religious nut jobs
that refuse to believe that she is free of sin.
Of course, we learn that she really
isn't free of sin. Every time that she talks about her boyfriend's
death, she flashes back to the moment when they all climbed in the
car. They show that scene so many times that you just know it isn't
the whole story. By the time she admits that she was the one driving
drunk, you really don't care anymore.
It doesn't help that the movie
introduces characters and expects us to care about them for no
reason. Oh, that one woman tied up in a room is a girl that we saw
for five seconds in the beginning? Well of course Michelle should
risk her life to save her then. The characters that we do like and
care about end up being just as crazy as the killers. As soon as
Darkroom finished, I deleted it from my queue and started forgetting
about it.
Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: June 3, 2011
Rating: NR
Director: Kenneth Cran
Recently married Byron Haskin makes
the mistake of taking his teenage daughter Clarissa with him on his
honeymoon with his new wife Joany. Byron talks about the millennium
and how he's so glad that his family can escape all those troubles.
He also lets us know that he's taking them to an abandoned town where
no one has lived for years.
Just in case we wondered if the
town really is empty, we get a scene involving a ground of inbred
hicks living not too far away. After a blond woman gives birth, the
papa of the clan realizes that the baby is another mutant and orders
his son/nephew/cousin/brother to take it outside and kill it. As we
hear a shotgun, the mama of the clan points out that they need some
fresh blood if they want to stop having mutant babies.
Cue the Haskin family arriving and
setting up camp for the night. The mutants kidnap Clarissa and Joany
and take them back to their cabin in the woods. At the same time, a
crazy looking guy appears and starts rambling about a giant
millennium bug living in the woods. It turns out that it's a random
bug that only appears once every millennium. Just as the rednecks
start taking control over their new women, the bug decides to finally
make its appearance.
The Millennium Bug is an awesomely
bad movie. It's the kind of movie that you watch with your friends
and have a good time just laughing at all the characters and people.
The "inbred rednecks" are pretty much just normal looking
people in dirty clothes. If the movie didn't make a point of
constantly pointing out that they were hicks or inbred, I probably
would think they were just a family living in the woods.
When we first started watching it,
we were wondering what was up with the plotline. Despite coming out
in 2011, the movie is set in 1999/2000, and it almost seems like the
screenwriters and director decided to just sit on the script for
awhile. That actually makes sense because we're far enough away now
that we can laugh about how scared everyone was at the time. You
can't help but laugh when the characters mention things like the
computers all going haywire and people rioting in the streets.
The movie made a splash because it
uses real and practical effects in lieu of CGI and computer effects.
A lot of people apparently hated that, but I have to be honest, I
didn't even notice when I was watching it. There is so much bad CGI
out there that I just assumed this was another one.
The Millennium Bug is far from
everyone's cup of tea, but I found it pretty funny and entertaining.
Not funny and entertaining enough to make me sit down and watch it
again, but good enough that I didn't mind wasting a few hours on a
winter night.
Runtime: 100 minutes
Release Date: October 14, 2005
Rating: PG-13
Director: Rupert Wainwright
In 1871, William Blake desperately
needed a new home for his people, all of whom were lepers, including
his beautiful and much younger wife Elizabeth. After meeting some
people living on an island off the coast of Oregon, he agreed to buy
half their land and move his people there. The people then showed up,
stole all of his money, and set his boat on fire, leaving him and his
family and friends to die. Blake then cursed the people who killed
him.
Nearly one hundred years later, the
residents of the island prepare for the upcoming anniversary with a
new statue devoted to its founders, the same people who killed the
boat. Nick and his friends accidentally disrupt some artifacts while
on their boat, which leads the ghosts of the murdered to come back to
life.
This problem doesn't phase him
given that his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth recently arrived back in town.
Elizabeth receives a pocket watch from a creepy guy not long after
arriving, and when she looks at the watch, she notices that weird
things start happening. Nick also has to deal with Stevie, the radio
show host he recently had a fling with, even though he supposedly
remains devoted to his ex. After a mysterious fog descends over the
town, everyone needs to come together to survive the night.
Pro tip: Do not watch The Fog
remake with someone who is a big fan of the original. Not only do I
think this movie is okay, but I actually own a copy. Unfortunately,
that copy is somehow lost, so I decided to give it a go on Netflix
one night. That led to my roommate sitting down next to me and
constantly pointing out how things happened in the original while
making it clear that the original is much better.
Confession time: I have only seen
the original version of The Fog once and I pretty much don't remember
anything about it. Ask me about this movie, and I can tell you
character names, plot points, and other random facts.
The best and worst thing about this
movie is the acting. Selma Blair is perfect as Stevie, and I actually
just read that she was the original choice for the role but almost
lost out on it. She does a good job of portraying a single mother and
strong woman, though I do have a hard time believing that she would
have a one night stand with someone like Tom Welling.
Speaking of Welling, did he even
bother acting in this flick? It plays like some random universe where
Clark Kent accidentally landed on a random island instead of
Smallville. It probably doesn't help that he has absolutely no
chemistry with Maggie Grace. Grace plays Elizabeth just like she does
every role in her career, from the vapid and annoying chick on Lost
to the vapid and annoying daughter in the Taken films. It's hard to
believe that one man would fall in love with the character let alone
two.
Though I liked The Fog the first
few times I saw it, the last time was not the charm. I finally saw
why the movie got such bad reviews when it first came out and why so
many people still like it today. It's just a fairly forgettable
horror flick that came out during the mass produced PG-13 horror
movie days.
Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: October 18, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Swammy M. Kandan
Rachel is a journalist interested
in studying ergot poisoning in a small Massachusetts town. Having
grown up in a similar town, she often studied the Salem Witch Trials
and knows that historians think it was caused by ergot poisoning.
After doing some research, she learns that another town suffers from
a similar outbreak every few years.
Not long after arriving, she finds
that the woman she rented the house from also rented it to a young
writer. Greg wants to write a new play, but he doesn't know what
topic to choose. Rachel meets a local man named Paul, who agrees to
help her with her research. After gathering some documents for her,
she stops by his house and finds him dead. The more she delves into
the story of the town, the more the locals make it clear that they
don't want her there.
I really don't know what to say
about The Secret Village. My roommate and I actually rented it a few
weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to watch it before it was due
back. He pointed it out the other night when we were in the store,
and we decided to go ahead and grab it. I made the mistake of
checking the IMDB page for something and saw its low rating, but I
thought there was no way it was actually that bad. Guess what? It
was.
It was actually so bad that he and
I were both struggling to keep our eyes open. We thought it was
almost over, check the time, and it still had 45 minutes left. I
started watching the rest of the movie the next day, and he actually
decided to go up to his room and watch Netflix instead. I made it all
the way through the movie but just barely.
The Secret Village is one of those
movies that's actually a little hard to follow. Let's use one scene
with Rachel as an example. She's walking into a restaurant, sees a
creepy man following her, and runs inside. When she turns around,
Greg is in front of her and the creepy guy is in the lobby. A few
scenes later, she recalls the same event again, only this time, the
creepy guy is in front of her and Greg is the one in the lobby. The
director also does this thing where he uses the same scene but with
different angles. Oh look, they're kissing...Now they're kissing
again from a different angle...now they're kissing again...oh look,
they're kissing again from yet another angle. Had he cut those
moments out, the movie would have been a lot shorter.
I'm all for giving smaller films a
chance, and I actually love some of the more independent movies. The
Secret Village? It just made me sad that I watched Haunter last so I
would have good memories of the night.
Runtime: 105 minutes
Release Date: August 23, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Scott Walker
Jack Halcombe (Nicholas Cage) is a
police detective tasked with bringing down a violent serial killer
preying on women in Anchorage, Alaska. Robert Hansen (John Cusack,
Identity) is that serial killer he wants to find. After abducting a
teenage girl, Cindy, who works as a stripper and prostitute, Hansen
makes the mistake of not fighting hard enough when she escapes. Cindy
goes directly to the police and agrees to help Halcombe find the man
who took her captive.
I am a true crime junky. I've seen
hundreds of movies about serial killers, I own every book Ann Rule
ever wrote, my tablet is full of true crime books from other authors
I bought with my Christmas gift cards, and I considered going to
graduate school to study forensic psychology. That said, The Frozen
Ground is one of those films that, to quote Peter Griffin, really
grinds my gears.
The film attempts to follow the
true story, but for some reason, decided to rename Glenn Flothe to
Jack Halcombe. Given the stories about Cage, maybe he just didn't
like the name because it didn't sound like a superhero. Who knows? It
also does a poor job of delving into the actual story. Yes, we hear
about Cindy, but we don't really hear about anything else. It almost
seems like they just want us to care about one person and not all of
his other victims.
And, caring about that one victim
is almost impossible when they decided to cast Vanessa Hudgens in the
role. Hudgens, who I most recently saw in that awful Spring Breakers
movie, is hard to root for. She works as a stripper, does large
amounts of drugs, and is just generally not a nice character. I don't
want anyone to think that I don't give a crap about some people, but
I don't give a crap about Hudgens. She's so unlikeable that I found
myself wishing her scenes were shorter.
No one really does a solid job in
this flick. I like Nicholas Cage, but this seems like yet another one
of those movies that he only took because the script landed on his
desk. I don't know how anyone could believe him as a police officer,
let alone a detective who cares so much about bringing down a serial
killer that he will do anything it takes to stop him.
That brings us to John Cusack. As a
woman, I have a crush on Cusack. It started with Say Anything, but
flicks like Identity, Grosse Pointe Blank, High Fidelity, and 1408
only helped sustain my crush. Seeing him in The Frozen Ground made me
wonder what the heck he was thinking. Though he could portray a
serial killer with one arm tied behind his back, he did a poor job in
this one. Putting a pair of glasses on a guy won't make him look like
a killer.
All in all, I wish that I had
skipped The Frozen Ground. I grabbed it one night from the video
store and only paid a buck something to rent it, but I wish I had
just skipped it and watched Say Anything instead.
