Runtime: 85 minutes
Release Date: March 20 2015
Rating: R
Director: Jordan Rubin
Two truck drivers (including one
played by John Mayer who I did not recognize until the very end) are
driving down the road and not paying attention, which causes them to
hit a deer and drop a barrel of toxic waste into the local water
supply where beavers live.
Cut to Mary, Zoe, and Jenn arriving
at a cabin owned by Mary's cousin for a girls' weekend getaway. Zoey
is the stereotypical slut who freaks out because she can't use her
phone and takes off her top within 10 minutes. Mary is the "smart"
girl, and you know she's smart because she wears glasses and talks
about school. Jenn is just upset because her boyfriend Sam was tagged
on Facebook getting down with another girl.
While hanging out by the lake, they
see a bear, but luckily, a random hunter named Smyth pops up and
fires his gun to scare it away. He then warns them about dressing
like whores before wandering off. Later that night, the guys show up.
Tommy is Mary's boyfriend, Buck is with Zoey, and Sam came to talk to
Jenn. After kissing him and kneeing him in the balls, Jenn settles
down a bit. Jenn goes crazy after finding a crazy beaver in the
bathroom. They attack and kill the beaver before leaving it outside,
but when they go to the water the next day, the beaver is gone. Once
crazy zombeavers attack Buck in the water, our group kind of/sort of
figures out what's going on.
Can I just say that I now have a
new favorite guilty pleasure movie? Zombeavers was so insane and over
the top that you can't help but like it. It made me feel the way
other people did the first time they saw Sharknado. I didn't get it
when I saw that movie, but I get it now. It was clearly done by
someone who loved bad and cheesy horror movies because everything
about Zombeavers seems like something I've seen in a bad 80s horror
flick.
Not only do we get the classic
stereotypical characters, but we get that moment where the main
character suddenly becomes a human-beaver-zombie hybrid and allows a
second character to take the lead. We even have that plot "twist"
that anyone can see coming. Hint: it turns out that the girl Sam had
the fling with isn't a random stranger.
And oh my god, the beavers! They
were so fucked up and crazy looking that I want like six of them for
Halloween to hang out in my front yard with a few zombie flamingos
and one I can leave sitting in my living room year round. My only one
minor complaint is how often the characters mention that they're in
Indiana given that the background looks absolutely nothing like
Indiana. I loved Zombeavers so much that I think I might go watch it
again, right now.
Oh, and if you're a fan of The
Office or a Parks and Recreation fan like me (save for the last
season), keep your eyes peeled. The actors who played JJ on Parks and
Recreation and Bill Vance from The Office are both in very
minor/almost cameo roles.
Runtime: 87 minutes
Release Date: September 14, 2014
Rating: R
Director: Leigh Janiak
Honeymoon starts out with footage
recorded at the wedding of Bea and Paul. Bea talks about how he
proposed to her after setting up a tent on top of their bed, and Paul
talks about how he got sick on their first date and spent the rest of
the night on her bedroom floor. It then cuts to the two of them
arriving at a cabin owned by Bea's family for their honeymoon. After
giving him a short tour, they spend time making love in every room
and on nearly every surface they can find.
When they take a boat out on the
lake, Bea contemplates jumping in before discovering that the water
is ice cold. She also takes him to the only restaurant in the rural
community, which turns out to be closed according to the man working
there. He reveals himself as Will, a friend of Bea's from her
childhood, and introduces them to his wife Annie. Annie almost
instantly tells them to get out and warns them about staying. When
Will attempts to calm her down, Paul grows worried because he thinks
the man is abusive.
One night, Paul wakes and discovers
that Bea is missing. He finds her outside in the middle of the woods
completely naked. She claims she has no idea how she got there or
what happened earlier that night. When Bea begins making excuses as
to why she doesn't want to sleep with her new husband and Paul finds
her bloody and ripped nightgown in the woods, he tries to find a
reason behind her new attitude. Once Bea begins bleeding from a spot
I won't mention, he realizes that there is something darker happening
to his new bride.
Honeymoon confused the hell out of
me. A few weeks ago, my roommate and I saw a trailer for it, I said
something about how we saw it before, and he looked super confused.
When I sat down to watch it, I realized we really never had seen it.
I know I saw a movie with a
similar premise. Husband and wife go on their honeymoon to a cabin in
the woods, wife disappears in the middle of the night and then starts
acting weird. I just can't remember the name or even the ending. If
anyone knows what the hell that movie was, please let me know.
I
personally thought Honeymoon was a lot better than most of the
reviews say. There is a great dynamic between the actors playing Bea
and Paul, and the director does a great job of setting up their
relationship before any of the odd stuff starts happening. There are
all these little nods that go back to the beginning of the film to
let you know something weird happened, like Bea not remembering where
they went on their first date or how she can barely remember how or
when he proposed.
It
also has that vibe that you expect from a movie like this and some
great music too. When Paul goes into the woods, the music intensifies
and the lights dim as he gets closer to the nightgown. I also want to
give some props to the writer for making Paul a completely believable
character. Instead of instantly thinking it's aliens or some creature
in the woods, he naturally assumes that Will attacked his wife and
that she's now in shock. Plus, don't get me started on her bleeding
scenes. It sent me back to the first time I watched Cabin Fever and
left one of my roommates briefly wondering if he would ever have sex
with a woman again. While I wasn't crazy about the reason for her
actions or the very end, Honeymoon was definitely one I'll watch
again.
Runtime: September 8. 2014
Release Date: 88 minutes
Rating: NR?
Director: Edward Boase
Have you ever sat down to watch a
movie and halfway through had this weird feeling that you already saw
it before? That's how I felt watching The Mirror. It's not that I
actually watched the movie before, but it played like something I've
seen many, many, many times before.
Matt, Nate, and Jemma are three
roommates who want to win this big prize. The only way they can
actually win is if they can show scientific proof of paranormal
activity. After browsing eBay prior to the start of the film, they
found and haunted mirror and decided to buy it. As one character kind
of puts it, they must have seen him coming. The movie picks up with
them recording the mirror and the things that happen to them.
The worst thing that happens for a
good portion of the film is when one character starts sleepwalking in
the middle of the night and doing random things. Now, I could tell
you which character it was but frankly I don't really remember who is
who except for Jemma. The weird stuff intensifies, which leads the
three to decide that it must really be haunted. Since it's a horror
movie though, there's really nothing they can do about it.
I heard that some people compared
The Mirror to Occulus and fans complained that it wasn't fair because
Occulus had a way bigger budget. I'm all for horror movies made on
cheap budgets and actually enjoy some of those movies. Hell, I have a
few reviews coming up for cheap movies I actually liked. This one
does not make the list.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm
getting older or what, but I just don't have patience anymore for
younger characters in horror movies who are so completely dumb and
annoying. Jemma spends a good portion of the film crying or laughing,
and the other characters spend most of the movie laughing about all
the random things that keep happening and/or talking about the big
prize they might win.
It's also ridiculous the way in
which the director expects us to suspend disbelief. I've seen teenage
girls/college girls moping and whining on Facebook after getting a
cut, and the characters in this movie constantly hurt themselves and
do other crazy stuff without once even thinking about possibly seeing
a doctor. Not to mention the fact that one of the characters goes
crazy and the other two just ignore it. Never once do they even
consider or bring up the idea of calling the police. I would buy that
they don't want to involve the cops because they don't want to get
their friend in trouble, but since they never mention it, I guess
that never crossed their minds.
And let's just consider the premise
for the entire movie, shall we? It's a movie called The Mirror about
a haunted Mirror. You might think that the mirror would do something
at some point, wouldn't you? Instead, we get 80+ minutes of younger
people acting crazy for no apparent reason. It could have literally
been anything: a doll, a chair, hell even a plate. I'm really getting
tired of horror movies where nothing seems to happen and horror films
that offer nothing new, just like this one.
