JeruZalem Movie Review – Better Than You Might Think

Runtime: 94 minutes

Release Date: July 7, 2016

Rating: R

Director: The PAZ Brothers

Who doesn't love a good apocalypse flick? If you always wanted to see how the world ends through found footage shot with a pair of glasses, now is your chance.

JeruZalem started out with a few scenes that made me wonder if I was actually watching the movie I thought I put on. We see footage shot in the early 1970s by three priests from different denominations called in to exorcise a woman. Her son claims that she died several days ago and went from being calm and sweet to crazed and psycho. Before they can do much, she shrieks at the camera as wings sprout from her back before flying off.

We then meet Rachel and Sarah. Srah lost her brother about a year ago, and Rachel convinced her that they should take a trip to Tel Aviv to have some fun together. Sarah's dad gives her a pair of glasses that function like a tablet/computer. She can remain in contact with him, get directions, take photos or videos, and even post on Facebook with her glasses. On the trip over, they meet a student named Kevin who convinces them that they should go to Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv. Though she thinks he's hot, it takes Rachel some work to convince her to change their plans.

Things go okay at first. Rachel hooks up with a local named Omar who shows them a side of the city they never expected to see. Sarah attempts to hook up with Kevin, but it ends when he puts on her glasses and sees her posts with her brother. Thinking it was an ex, he makes fun of the guy, which leads her to ditching him pre-blow job. No worries though, they later hook up after he apologizes.

Sarah and Rachel head off alone to the Western Wall and make their own wishes. Sarah naturally wishes that her brother would come back. After seeing a swarm of bugs and some other strange things, Kevin tries to convince them to leave town. It turns out that he's a student of the apocalypse and obsessed with all things creepy. He basically sees the signs before anyone else. By the time they realize the apocalypse really is upon them, it's too late. They need to find a way out of Jerusalem or die there.

JeruZalem is a really fantastic little flick. The directors actually add in a scene of a kid stealing Sarah's bag with her only other set of glasses in it to explain why she keeps wearing the pair she shoots with. They also added in scenes of the glasses not working because of no internet signal or because she falls down and damages the glasses. A lot of flicks would have us just believing that the glasses worked perfectly the whole time. There are even a few heartbreaking scenes of her dad trying to contact her to make sure she's okay after seeing the footage on television.

It's hard to explain what I liked about this film, but I think it's because most of the apocalypse flicks out there are so bad. We either get way over budgeted films like 2012 or incredibly cheap flicks from The Asylum. JeruZalem shows that you can make a great apocalypse flick on a limited budget that is still entertaining and just plain interesting.

Way of the Wicked Movie Review – Not Enough Christian Slater

Runtime: 92 minutes
Release Date: April 30, 2014
Rating: NR
Director: Kevin Carraway


Robbie and Heather were best friends as kids, but a lot of the other children picked on Heather and teased her. While defending Heather, one of the kids teasing her accidentally died. The film then jumps to the present day, with Robbie moving back to town and hoping to reconnect with Heather. The only problem is that several people start dying after having run ins with Robbie. Enter Christian Slater as a former priest convinced that Robbie is the Anti-Christ and will bring about the end of the world.


If there is one thing you should know about me, it's that I love Christian Slater. I can't even tell you how many bad straight to DVD movies I watched with him over the years. If he's in it, I've probably seen it. I was so infatuated with him as a kid that I even wrote him a fan letter. If you're reading this Slater, I'm still waiting for a response!


I also happen to be a fan of Vinne Jones ever since I watched this movie The Condemned. A bad movie starring a former professional wrestler stuck on an island where only one person can survive and the whole thing is a reality show? I am so there. When you put Christian Slater and Vinnie Jones in the same movie, I should be a happy camper. Instead, I was a bored camper.


Way of the Wicked is one of the films that I stumbled across in the middle of Family Video. I swear, I am like a studio's wet dream. I rent from Family Video and Redbox, have a Hulu account, and can't live without Netflix. That's probably why I keep finding all these random horror movies. The cover caught my attention, as did Slater's name across the top. Unfortunately, the movie just seemed long and couldn't hold my attention.


Part of the reason might be because Jones plays against type. He was so perfectly cast in Midnight Meat Train that I now have a hard time seeing him as anything but a menacing guy. It doesn't hurt that he's so tall and has those intense eyes that make him the perfect bad guy. In Way of the Wicked, he plays the father of Robbie and is the one guy who probably believes that his son is innocent. It almost seems like it would make more sense to have him play the priest role and Slater play the father.


I read that the original script was a lot darker and more complex. Rutger Hauer was originally in the film as a priest trying to help Peter Facinelli locate a killer, and Facinelli played a cop. Oddly enough, that sounds more like the film he just did. That movie also sounds a lot more interesting than the movie we got.


I would normally claim that Slater was the stand out of the film, but even he seemed to just go through the motions. This is yet another of those films that I watch and almost immediately forget about. Though Way of the Wicked did get some positive reviews online, it just seemed like a typical straight to DVD horror film to me.

Dead Weight Movie Review – Love in the Time of Infections...

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.