Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) [REVIEW]

July 31, 2010 Leave a comment

 

I’m guessing you have one of two reactions right now. One, you are confused at the fact that I have categorized this film as not only a horror film, but also as a non-horror film. Two, you couldn’t really give a shit what category it falls under, and are surprised to know that there are categories. Netflix categorized this film as a drama, a thriller, and a psychological thriller. All of these genres are correct, but I knew there was something about the movie that originally made me think it was horror when I first heard about it. Before I go any further and explain why it falls under both categories, let me warn you that I can’t do so without providing lots of spoilers. If you’ve heard of this movie and were wondering if you should check it out, I recommend it, and you can find it on Netflix Instant Watch, where you will also find a description. If you don’t really care whether or not you know the ending, continue reading.

 

Yip, you guessed it…this guy farts everyone to death.

Richard, played by Paddy Considine, returns from war a little, well, edgy. His brother Anthony, played by Toby Kebbell, is mentally handicapped, which is something exploited by the local thugs and lowlifes. Anthony is forced to do drugs, sleep with women while being cheered on, beaten, and abused by these jerks, but his slightly on edge war vet brother doesn’t plan to let it slide. Upon returning from the war, Anthony points out who the lowlifes are, as Richard one-by-one harasses them, torments them, humiliates them, and ultimately kills some of them, over the course of four days. By the end of the film, we realize that all the harassment endured by Anthony forces him to hang himself, and we realize it was his ghost that was pointing out the individuals who drove him to this point, or possibly it was Richard’s shattered psyche that imagined Anthony instructing him. The film ends with Richard taking the final tormentor to the spot where his brother killed himself, and forcing the tormentor to stab him, realizing that his destruction knows no limit, and all he wants is to be with his brother. The tormentor honors his request, killing him, and the movie is over. What a happy ending!

 

One Down? Looks more like a number TWO that didn’t go down! GET IT?!

My guess is that I read a review for this film and it was described as “A war veteran carries out the wishes of his brother, who is a ghost” or something like that, but completely forgot. That’s why I had to categorize it in two different areas, but I feel that it’s justified. There is never really any mention of Anthony being a supernatural character, so it is somewhat of a surprise at the end when you realize he is dead. And Considine did a great job of portraying someone who clearly has some issues and it comes as no surprise when he starts terrorizing people, but does this in a more subtle way, and isn’t just some over-the-top psycho. He clearly has no fear of death, but is driven by purpose. Sure, there are some parts of the movie that go by a little slowly, and some of the dialogue is hard to make out through some of the actors’ accents, but it’s a small price to pay for a subtle, yet effective revenge movie.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 4 Stars, Horror Film, Non-Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scott Pilgrim [REVIEW]

July 29, 2010 1 Comment

 

Some people might call me a poseur, and fuck you if you do, but I only really knew about Scott Pilgrim when I saw the trailer for the film that’s coming out. I knew that Edgar Wright from Shaun of the Dead fame was involved, so I was excited to see the trailer…up until I saw it. I was mostly confused, and wondering when something funny would happen, and was overall just underwhelmed. A few weeks went by, and all over the Twitters I see people talking about the release of Book 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. Not only was I surprised that there were six books, but that people were having midnight release parties in comic book stores across the country, with hundreds of people attending. Taken completely by surprise, I decided to take on the task of reading the entire series to see what the kids were so excited about.

 

Who says shit like this? Oh, that’s right, pseudo-hipsters that like videogames.

Since I already mentioned that there are six books, I’m just going to kind of describe the plot of the whole thing, rather than taking it book by book. Scott Pilgrim is a character that I would describe as “hipster lite”, as in he is aware of the social movement of hipsters, yet keeps his distance from them, while still actually having common interests with them. He is a 24-year-old who is unemployed and is in a band named after a Super Mario Brothers reference. He sees a girl at a party with asymmetrical  hair, who he instantly becomes infatuated with and attempts to woo. After getting her to deliver a CD to his house, he is actually relatively successful in convincing Ramona, his new-found love, in going on a few dates with him. Early on in their relationship, she lets it be known that she has Seven Evil Exes that must be defeated if he wants to be with her, a challenge that Scott both fears, and accepts.

 

Breaking the fourth wall? Aren’t there enough Deadpool comics out there? Unless this is a nod to Ferris Bueller, in which case, far more acceptable.

These events all take place in the first book, and the next books show a variety of things happen, which are actually all relatively the same. Scott meets one of the Exes, they get into a fight, there is some videogame reference thrown in, and then Scott plays a show with his band. We also learn that Scott’s ex-girlfriend is in a popular band, which causes some strife with Ramona, which is eventually smoothed over. There are ups and downs for the next few books, but in Book 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe, shit gets real, as Ramona mysteriously disappears, and Scott is left alone and depressed. Luckily, in Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, she returns, letting Scott know she needed to “find herself”, and with her help, Scott is able to defeat the leader of the Evil Exes, Gideon. Scott and Ramona then get some semblance of a relationship, both claiming they have issues to work out, and our hero appears to have finally gotten what he wanted all along, a hip girlfriend with interesting hair.

 

Scenes like this remind me that the book takes place in Canada, and completely fucks with your mind.

The first four books of this series didn’t really do much for me. Obviously it was entertaining enough, since I kept reading, but I still don’t really get it. At least in Book 5, things got a little more interesting with the disappearance of the love interest, which upped the stakes a little more. The first four books were cute and quirky, but I’ve seen that story told before. It just reminded me of books like Blankets, Perks of Being a Wallflower, or maybe something that Jeffrey Brown wrote. And come to think of it, it’s even more similar to (500) Days of Summer, which is about two hipsters thinking they aren’t hipsters being all lovey dovey and going to Ikea and being ironic, all the while being punctuated with surreal delves into a fantasy world. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to say. I’m hoping there’s something I just don’t get about the book, and to each their own I guess, but I can’t help but think there are one too many passengers riding the hype train on this one. But before getting too bent out of shape, look at the rating I gave it, and know I am not a heartless asshole.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
Official Movie Site
Wikipedia

Filed under 4 Stars, Comics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Last House on the Left (2009) [REVIEW]

July 28, 2010 1 Comment

 

Who wants to talk about rape? No one? Too bad! The original came out almost 40 years ago, which was a realization I came to yesterday. I’m willing to be that 40 years ago, the rape scenes were far more disturbing than most of what is out there now. To be honest, I didn’t even like the original Last House all that much, but there’s no way I can watch it now the same way people did 40 years ago. I also feel as though, in some ways, older films that are more lo-fi will have far more disturbing rape scenes, because there is less of a polished look to them. Nowadays, most films try to make rape stylized, which tends to take the brutality out of it.

 

They’re practically asking for it! I mean, those clothes are so shitty, I would want to rip them off, too.

This really is a tale as old as time, where boy meets girl. Except change boy meets girl to girls meet boy, who he then tries to sell weed to. This is during a vacation where blonde girl is staying with her parents at their lake house. During the weed selling, more bad guys show up, and those bad guys are on the run from the law. When they see these ladies, they decide they can’t let them get away, and throw them in the truck and take them to the woods. While in the woods, one of them gets stabbed to death, whereas the other one, blondie, is raped. She manages to escape to the safety of a river, where she sadly gets shot in the back.

 

You know they’re bad guys because of their hoods and facial hair.

Meanwhile, her parents are having a grand old time drinking wine, making dinner, standard partying stuff. The are interrupted by a knock on the door, and guess who it is. The bad guys! They need a place to stay, and get proper medical treatment from the Dad, who is a doctor. Once the bad guys are safely tucked in, there is more knocking coming from the porch, where they find their daughter, all sorts of fucked up. After inspecting her and finding the gunshot and the rape trauma, the Mom also finds evidence that these crimes were carried out by the bad guys! Fuck that! Stupid bad guy assholes, always up to no good. The parents start taking out the bad guys one by one, until they are all gone, and they end up taking their daughter away on a boat. See? Tale as old as time.

 

I need 10CCs of a shower, stat!

This movie could have been much worse. Not saying it was good or anything, but it could have been horrible. It’s tough, because there isn’t too much plot in the original to base a remake on, so they started off on the wrong foot. There were some slight changes, in an attempt to update the movie, but I didn’t enjoy them all that much. Firstly, the daughter survives. This is not the case in the original, but I suppose it could be argued which is more disturbing, your daughter living through this horrible experience or being put out of her misery with death. Second change is that in this film, the parents are still somewhat reacting in self-defense, whereas in the original, the parents clearly take the offensive. I suppose that ties into the fact that with the daughter dying in the original, the parents clearly had nothing to live for, but when she lives, their priority is her safety, rather than vengeance. Considering the fact that it could pass as self-defense, if they were prosecuted for the murders, they might be able to get a lesser sentence than were they clearly on the offensive.

 

Don’t forget to check the last door…on the left…of the last house…on the left.

Rampaige was terrified to watch this movie because of the rapes, which I can understand. Knowing there are rapings in a movie generally makes you a little hesitant to watch, unless you are a psychopath like me and have seen your fair share of film rapings. It’s hard to judge what makes it more intense or less severe, but I certainly planned on viewing the violence in this film a little more critically than with other films, knowing how brutal the violence in the original was. As far as the rape, I would say it lasted longer than in a typical movie, which made you a little uncomfortable, but the way it was shot was still considered “stylish” to me, and I didn’t really see anything too over the line. One murder involved shoving a hands guy down a garbage disposal, which was pretty awful, then he got hit in the head with the sharp end of a hammer. The garbage disposal I felt was pretty disturbing because he was mostly screaming, then he pulled his hand out and it was severely lacerated. Most films would just show a bloody stump, but knowing just how painful it would be, and wouldn’t destroy your hand, stuck with me a little more. The “leader” of the bad guys was paralyzed by the doctor, because he “didn’t have any rope”. I thought that was pretty terrifying, until you saw the reason for subduing him. The Dad put the bad guy’s head into an open microwave. Uhhh, what the fuck? How is that possible? Why would you choose THAT method of execution? Sure, it was funny to see his head explode, but seriously? I know how long the popcorn smell stays in a microwave, so I can only imagine how long it would take to get the brain smell out, and no rational person would subject themselves to that torture.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 2 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

San Diego Comic Con 2010 Video Highlights

July 27, 2010 Leave a comment

I hate to get your hopes up, but no, I did not attend SDCC this year. Nor did I ever attend, for that matter. Unfortunately, any time I tried to book a flight to San Diego, they demanded I order two seats. One for me, and one for…MY DICK! OH SHIT, THAT JUST HAPPENED! Okay, that’s not entirely true. Actually, that’s not at all true. The second seat would have been for Rampaige, but she hates flying. Even though I wasn’t actually at the Con, I spent a fair amount of time this past weekend lurking all the rumor-mill websites as well as Twitters to see what I was missing. I would say out of all the things happening, I was able to narrow it down to my three favorite leaked videos of what was missed, and what we have to look forward to.

 

1) Complete Avengers Lineup On Stage

Obviously, we knew about most of these choices, as they have already either appeared in films, or had been announced prior to SDCC. There were really only two “surprises”, one of which, pretty much everyone knew. Mark Ruffalo had officially been cast as Bruce Banner, as the internet had been reporting, and they also confirmed Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. This was something alluded to, but never really further progressed. Is it any surprise that the lineup that will be this Avengers team is pretty much what I had already predicted in prior blog posts? Nope, I’m a genius, so it’s no surprise. I think Mark Ruffalo is a decent enough choice, but I think he will be used quite sparingly, especially compared to his larger, greener personality. I don’t know much about Jeremy Renner, other than he was in The Hurt Locker, which apparently everyone but myself has seen. It was mostly just cool to see how many people were going to be in this movie, it was funny to see ScarJo get really confused by Joss Whedon claiming he would “blow it”, and disappointing to see Robert Downey Jr. continue to be bitter towards Christopher Nolan.

 

2) The Walking Dead Television Series Trailer

I apologize for the shitty quality of this video, but I really had nothing to do with that. It’s easy to be doubtful of how well a story like The Walking Dead will translate to a television series, and it’s still a mystery on how close to the book the show will follow. Most people assume it will be bad, and this trailer proves…that it doesn’t look bad. Whether or not this will be good is still anybody’s guess, but this is at least showing us that it’s a good thing Zack Snyder is staying far away from the project, and Frank Darabont has a much better idea of the genre. I will wait until the series actually debuts before casting judgment, but this trailer doesn’t look too bad.

 

3) Ryan Reynolds Reciting Green Lantern Oath

Obviously, this isn’t official footage by any means. The closest thing to “official” is that he is saying the oath correctly. It’s mostly just funny to see the little kid ask him about reciting it, and when he does recite it, the kid’s eyes get huge and his mouth drops. I would consider myself a fan of Ryan Reynolds, and I support the decision of him getting cast, but he has his work cut out for him. I always found Hal Jordan to be more arrogant than a wise-ass, and clearly Reynolds is a great wise-ass. We’ll see whether or not he can be a little less witty and a little more full of himself, which shouldn’t be hard, because he gets to bone Scarlett Johansson whenever he wants.

 

Just a quick update this time around guys, but if you want to donate money to get me to go to New York Comic Con, then you can email me lots of dollars, and I promise to get a more thorough report. I might even take pictures or something! But, until next time, here’s a slutty Boba Fett.

Filed under Comics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Inception (2010) [REVIEW]

July 25, 2010 3 Comments

 

At my last count, I had seen Memento in theaters at least four times. Possibly five, who knows, that movie came out eight years ago and we had nothing better to do. To say I liked it would be an understatement. Fucking obsessed with it would be far more appropriate of a description. I tried to get all of my friends to see it, I bought a similar Polaroid camera as the one used in the film, and I wanted to talk about it all the time. So you could say I was a bit of a Chris Nolan Superfan since early in his career, but I’m not trying to impress anyone. Yes, okay, I am. Still, when I saw Insomnia and then Following, I was a little underwhelmed. Luckily, Batman Begins was fucking awesome. The Prestige, starring Batman and Wolverine as dueling magicians, with added bonus of Scarlett Johansson, and fucking David Bowie as Tesla?! FUCK YES. Then, The Dark Knight, which blew everyone’s minds. I went into Inception teetering on the fence on how excited I was, and not wanting to get my hopes up, and those hopes I had? FUCKING BLEW THEM TO KINGDOM COME AND LEFT THEM SPLATTERED ON THE MOVIE THEATER SEAT LIKE I WAS BEING ANNIHILATED WITH AN UZI BY JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT. In a good way, of course.

 

Don’t hurt those weird paintings Leo! Please don’t!

But, what is it about? Most people want to know this about Inception, because the marketing has been so cryptic. It seems more fantastical than anything based in the real world, but not physics-defying enough to be The Matrix. So what exactly is going on? Well, somehow there was a system developed that allowed individuals to enter the dreams of other individuals, and act through their own accord. By being able to get into someone’s head, they would then be paid to try and extract information that someone might not consciously share. This raised the question of whether or not  information possibly be implanted. Leonardo DiCaprio seems to think so, and then we see the results for the rest of the film. I won’t give away too much more, because the less you know about the details, the better.

 

This is how I feel when I eat too much ice cream.

So what was with all that Matrix type shit? Well, because it’s a dream, obviously there are rules that can be bended, stretched, but rarely broken. The concept is that the more you alter reality, the more you will stand out as an “intruder” of the mind, and your subconscious will attempt to remove the invader. This explains all the gunfire and the physics manipulation, but it really isn’t used as often as you might think. Also, if characters are inside someone’s dream, and maybe that person falls over, that will also change the way gravity works. Then there’s all sorts of “if you die in a dream, you wake up” type of situations, but since they are related to the plot, I won’t elaborate much further.

 

Can’t you see Leo trying to take a bath back there? Give the guy a break!

Christopher Nolan has done it again. He has taken a somewhat original idea, and did it his own way, with his own rules. I’ve recently been having discussions with some people who disliked the film, and they brought up some valid points, but none of the points brought up made this film any less enjoyable. Sure, when you create a universe with concepts about getting into other people’s minds, you might look back and notice a few holes, but I find that this in no way detracts you from the film as a whole. Remember in Fight Club when “Jack” was waiting for his luggage, then looked outside to see Tyler Durden steal a car and some guy chases after him? HOW COULD THAT HAPPEN IF JACK WAS INSIDE TALKING TO THE LUGGAGE DUDE?! Doesn’t matter, it’s a small detail that doesn’t really change whether or not you enjoy the film, unless you choose to let it bother you. See this movie and enjoy everything that comes along with it.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale



Official Site
IMDb

Filed under 5 Stars, Non-Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Troll 2 (1990) [REVIEW]

July 21, 2010 2 Comments

 

The time has finally come. This review is multiple days in the making. I mentioned I was going to review it a few reviews back, and it’s finally here. It’s time to review, the unofficial “Best Worst Movie“, so I want you to prepare yourselves for something truly monumental. Wait, actually, don’t, because this movie was a let down. We’ve all seen the clip on YouTube of this kid saying “They’re eating her! And then they’re going to eat me! Oh my gaaaaaawwwwwddddd!”, which was the highlight of this film. You can save yourself the trouble and just watch the scene over and over again, because sadly, Troll 2 isn’t really worth the time or effort.

 

I couldn’t figure out if they couldn’t afford the red stuff or if the green stuff was on sale.

The film opens with a grandfather telling a story to his grandson about goblins chasing someone through the woods. Then we get to see this chase, and we immediately realize this movie has a MUCH lower budget than Troll had. Clearly these goblins are just little people wearing shitty, shitty masks, running through the woods. They might not even have known they were filming, they might have just been doing this in their spare time for fun, who knows. We then realize that Grandpa is actually dead, and the storytime was just imaginary. Our family, which Grandpa is no longer apart of (due to being dead), is preparing to travel to the town of Nilgob, which is far less populated. When they arrive, they switch houses with a family, and this family has left out food that has green shit all over it. The ghost of Grandpa tells the little boy to piss all over everything, and he does, and the family gets pissed off.

 

Okay, fine, I will admit, it’s kind of funny that the little boy thought “Fuck it, I’ll piss on everything, who gives a fuck?! I’m 10!”

Sadly for our family, it is revealed that the town’s occupants are shape-shifting goblins who need to convince people to eat green shit, so they in turn can be eaten. Weird how the town of NILBOG is inhabited by…wait a second, NILBOG backwards is GOBLIN! OH FUCK! So yeah, there’s that. Then we have scene after scene of people trying to get the family to eat green shit, then they almost eat it and the little boy stops them. Here and there the ghost of Grandpa intervenes and physically does things, whereas other times he just suggests to the little boy what to do. All of the shape-shifting goblins have four leaf clover marks on their faces, and then everything gets really boring and the movie ends. I really didn’t care enough to pay attention to where it all went, sorry! Oh, except for the part where the kid eats a bologna sandwich instead of green shit, and then his mom gets eaten by goblins at the end.

 

It’s like they purposely tried to make the goblins as non-threatening as possible. Unless you hate masks.

Considering all the hype of this being one of the “best worst movies”, it should really just be classified as one of the worst movies. Period. End of sentence. Did you notice in my review, I not once referred to the creatures as trolls? THAT’S BECAUSE THIS MOVIE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIRST FILM. They just named it “Troll 2″ in hopes of tricking people into watching it, and it worked. It reminds me of Zombie 3, Zombie 4, and Zombie 5:The Killing Birds. All different kinds of zombies, no continuity, just decided to put a number after the word “Zombie” in hopes of selling a few more tickets. If you recall, Troll was awful, but it at least had enough stuff going on to keep you entertained. Troll 2, however, had so many long and boring periods, that even when something insanely weird or dumb happened, it didn’t make up for how long it had been where nothing was going on. From here on out, I am officially stripping this film of the title “Best Worst Movie”, and placing that title on my mantle until something better/worse-er is brought to my attention, because this film gives bad/good movies a bad/not good name.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale



IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 1 Star, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pontypool (2008) [REVIEW]

July 19, 2010 Leave a comment

 

I have kind of sort of been interested in watching this movie for almost 9 months now, with no real justification of why I want to see it. It was a film shown at the Music Box Massacre, a 24 hour horror movie marathon at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre. Having never seen it, or even heard of it before, I immediately added it to my Netflix queue. Mysteriously, it never actually shows up in my queue, just the “Saved” section. I know this movie exists, so what the fuck is the problem? It was made in Canada, do they not believe in DVDs? Are they not the proper region? Do DVDs made of maple syrup not hold up so well? And then, one fateful afternoon, I was in Blockbuster, and the mystery was solved. Right there, for sale, was a copy of Pontypool, and in big letters at the top it said “Blockbuster Exclusive!”. So I immediately turn to Rampaige and say, “Hey, I think I wanted to see this at one point”, and history was made.

 

Even just looking at this guy, you can tell how awesome he sounds.

Stephen McHattie plays Grant Mazzy, a washed up disk jockey stuck in a small Canadian town named Pontypool, where he is announcing school closures rather than engaging in political discourse. A call comes over the police scanner about a “hostage situation” and is somewhat made light of, then more and more details come in. The weatherman, who is supposedly in a helicopter but the town is so small he actually just parks his car on a hill, starts seeing riots, explosions, and violence, and reports everything to Mazzy. This is when “shit gets real”, as the kids say.

 

Yawning or yelling? You be the judge! Hint – he’s not yawning.

At this point, Mazzy is being contacted by people from the BBC, because the story is escalating out of control, and it’s hard to figure out what is actually going on in the town of Pontypool. Eventually, a doctor breaks into the radio station where all of this movie is taking place, and he starts shedding light on the situation. Turns out that there is a virus going around centered around the English language. It’s hard to explain, both in the movie and in this review, so I will spare you the details. Either way, the only way to avoid becoming “infected” is by remaining quiet, or speaking a foreign language. Mazzy’s producer even becomes infected, and they seek refuge in the recording booth. Rather than chronicle the last events of the film, I’m going to, well, not, because I don’t want to spoil anything.

 

Is it just me, or do most women look better with blood dripping from their mouths?

I guess maybe it was a good thing I had never really heard of this movie or spent too much time looking into it, because I went in with low expectations, and left quite pleased. The fact that the filmmakers so successfully conveyed the paranoid delusions of what could be happening, while having every scene take place in one building, was quite impressive. I know that even I was having doubts about whether or not the supposed events were actually happening, or if it was a similar reaction to the first time War of the Worlds was broadcast on the radio and everyone started losing their minds. Also, the concept of a virus that spreads audibly rather than physically is also pretty interesting. It was similar to the film “The Signal“, which I thought had its moments but overall fell a little flat. I feel Pontypool stuck a little more closely to the concept and was just that much more successful. Granted, this movie kind of falls apart towards the end when it tries to explain a little too precisely what’s happening, because it’s not really possible, but up until then you can completely buy what they’re selling.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 4 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

White Noise (2005) [REVIEW]

July 16, 2010 Leave a comment

 

You win again, Blockbuster! You have managed to get money from me, and get to have one less crappy DVD in your inventory. I never actually saw this movie during its theatrical release, but I remember the trailer. Do you remember the trailer? Because I fucking remember the trailer, it scared the shit out of me. It had a few EVP recordings, which were terrifying, and then you saw Michael Keaton, which was slightly less terrifying. For those of you who don’t know (idiots), EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena. Presumably, dead people hang out, and although there have been rumors of ghosts appearing on video and in photographs, the idea behind EVPs is that if the ghosts have energy to appear on film, they have the ability to be heard. So people will hang out with tape recorders, recording background noise or static, a.k.a. white noise, and when the tape is listened to later, you might be able to hear ghosts talking. Also, one stipulation with EVPs is that Michael Keaton must always be nearby, otherwise it won’t work.

 

Listening ever so intently…TO THE WHITE NOISE!!!

Our film shows a loving couple, Michael Keaton being half of that couple, while his female counterpart confesses she is pregnant. Sadly, she is found dead shortly thereafter. Her wounds supposedly due to slipping and falling off of a cliff. Michael is then visited by someone who claims his wife has been talking through video/audio recordings, so Michael Keaton goes to his house. He hears and sees enough to believe the guy, and he gets obsessed with EVPs and attempting to contact his wife. He starts following clues he appears to be seeing and hearing in the “white noise”, which first result in him saving a baby from a car accident. After further clues and supposed messages from ghosts, he ends up rescuing a woman who has been kidnapped. We then realize the woman was being held captive by the same people who killed Michael Keaton’s wife! And that person was apparently following the orders of shadow people? Whatever. Either way, Michael Keaton manages to interfere and save the woman, but he ends up dying in the process. But it’s cool, because we get a final message at the end that shows him with his wife! Yay!

 

It’s hard finding pictures of a movie based on scary noises, so I posted this instead. Remember how funny Multiplicity was!?

First of all, hearing EVPs is terrifying, have I mentioned that? With all the Ghost Hunters I watch, it’s never any less creepy. Unfortunately, the reason they are so scary is the fact that you can never quite make them out clearly, and you never know if you’re hearing what you think you’re hearing. So the fact that this is a bigger budget production, you already know that the thing that’s supposed to scare you, and the thing the movie is named after, is going to be the least scary thing. This was made after The Blair Witch Project, yet if it was filmed in a similar style, it might have worked. Sadly, this film did not. There were a few jump scares, but that’s about it. I guess the shadow people were kind of creepy? But still, the scariest part is the fact that we don’t get to see Michael Keaton in as many movies as we used to. And that wasn’t sarcastic, because Michael Keaton is awesome.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale



Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 2 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Troll (1986) [REVIEW]

July 14, 2010 Leave a comment

 

It’s pretty difficult explaining to someone why people purposely pay to see awful movies. Being a huge fan of them, I often find myself having to explain it, and I generally fail. The conversation is generally something like this:

“Ya see, it’s so bad, that it’s GOOD!” – Me

“So it’s actually good?” – Them

“No, it’s terrible.” – Me

“So if it’s terrible, why are you going to see it?” – Them

“Because it’s so INCREDIBLY terrible!” – Me

“You’re an idiot. Get out of my house.” – Them

Lately, films such as The Room and Birdemic: Shock and Terror have gained a huge cult following for playing at midnight, and having hundreds of people show up to laugh and shout at the screen, far more than the amount of people who would go see “Leap Year” every week. It’s a weird phenomenon, and if you were to ask someone what would be a prime example of the “So bad it becomes good again” genre, they would point you in the direction of Troll 2. Having never seen Troll 2, I wanted to watch Troll, so I wasn’t as confused. Turns out, doesn’t really matter whether you saw the first one or not, but Netflix sends you one DVD with both movies on it. Also, I’d like to include a “shout out” to Lazer, who showed me a movie called “Undefeatable” which is another prime example of the awful turned good film.

 

Creepy enough to be scary, old man-ish enough to not be terrifying.

The first five minutes of this movie is fucking insane. Correction, the first ten minutes, because technically, the first five minutes is all opening credits. That’s it, just credits for five minutes. That’s when we see a little girl trying to find her ball that she lost in a basement. Sadly for her, there is a troll living down there, who takes over her body and leaves her prisoner somewhere. We know this, because the little girl is now acting a fool while wearing a green ring that we had just seen the troll wearing. She joins her family for supper, and is given a burger with “the works”, and apparently “the works”  means green mayonnaise looking shit. Once she gets a taste of “the works” she goes on a psycho freakout destroying everything in her path. Her parents’ reaction? To try to slow her down, without actually yelling at her. The psycho rage continues out of the apartment, where she assaults multiple neighbors, including Sonny Bono, who talks about getting his freak on, before being interrupted by the girl screaming “HAAAMBUUURGEERRRSSSS RAARGH!!!!” and continuing through the hallway. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss then appears, as well as some guy that used to be in the army wearing a sweat suit and running in place. The father of the little girl introduces himself, and his name is Harry Potter. HARRY FUCKING POTTER…LIKE THE BOOKS. But the books didn’t exist yet, so J.K. Rowling was obviously ripping this movie off. The little girl finally calms down, and starts laughing, and everybody hugs. THIS WAS ALL IN THE FIRST FIVE FUCKING MINUTES OF THE MOVIE! WHERE CAN IT POSSIBLY GO FROM HERE?!

 

George Costanza‘s wet dream.

We then find out that an old woman who lives upstairs knows about the troll and is there to protect everyone. The troll, now in the little girl’s body, goes from apartment to apartment, turning each resident into creatures he used to know as well as turning their apartments into forests for the creatures to live in. Apparently, if the troll creates all the right forests and all the right creatures, the troll will take over the universe. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS INSANITY? Anyways, the little girl’s brother and the old woman are the only thing standing in the troll’s way. We have some showdowns, some death scenes, some musical montages where all the creatures start singing as a dwarf (a politically correct dwarf, not a mythical dwarf…even though they might be one and the same) recites a poem about some magical land. So much crazy shit happens, but all that really matters is the brother defeats some monster and his sister escapes, only to have the cops show up at the end and one cop leaves wearing the ring. CLIFFHANGER!

 

Oh yeah, and there’s this weird talking mushroom penis looking thing.

Wow. I am impressed. I had heard so much about Troll 2, that I had no idea the insanity of the first film, which is criminally underrated. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing when the creatures, who were puppets, were all singing and moving their heads, which seemed to last quite some time longer than it needed to. Rampaige didn’t quite get frightened as much as I had, but it was still terrifying. The only reason this movie could have existed was because it was the 80′s. Back then, you really just needed to name your movie after anything that sounded scary, whether it be Troll or Leprechaun or The Howling, and you already knew a producer would make the movie. In most of the 80′s monster movies, once you have the name, the plot writes itself. Creature shows up, people get scared, people try to find the weakness, creature is defeated. The fact that Troll went above and beyond a plot as simple as the rest of those films is commendable, despite the fact that it makes no goddamned sense. Oh, also, you see Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s butt.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale



IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 2 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bitch Slap (2009) [REVIEW]

July 12, 2010 4 Comments


I was trying to find some new movies to review, so I decided to check out how much a subscription to Rue Morgue was on their website. It was too expensive, so I am going to stick with reading it on my lunch break at the Borders across the street. Visiting the website wasn’t a total loss, because I saw an ad for a movie called “Bitch Slap“. Since Rampaige hates watching movies made before 2005, I have been making an effort to bump more contemporary movies to the top of my queue, so before I even had time to figure out what this movie was about, it had arrived at my house. Turns out, not at all a horror movie. I knew “Bitch Slap” wasn’t that scary of a title, but neither is “The Shining“, or “Rosemary’s Baby“, which could either be about figure skating or a romantic comedy starring Jim from The Office and Mandy Moore.

 

Sometimes playing “Guess the Stripper” is more difficult than you imagine. However, it’s always entertaining.

So here is my attempt at explaining the plot of this movie. Keep in mind, there were multiple flashbacks of varying length, so keeping it all straight was difficult, especially with the amount of boobs bouncing around. Three women, who all look like strippers, are attempting to find something that apparently some guy has at a trailer park. Only one of these women is actually a stripper, however. Apparently they are trying to find this before someone named Pinky does, because Pinky wields a sword and kills everyone. They are temporarily thwarted by a cop, and they attempt to hide the fact that they just killed someone. They search more for the treasure, but are interrupted by two people looking for the treasure as well. You think someone will die, but then the Cop shows up and kills those jerks. One girl turns on the other two, tries to escape, but gets blown up. The other two fall in “love”, but before the film ends, we find out the supposed former stripper is actually the character known as “Pinky”, and she set up the entire thing just so she could kill people and jump around.

 

There’s even shit in this movie for chicks! Check out this guy’s dick!

So as it turns out, not a horror movie! That’s my fault for not paying attention. It was more of an exploitation film, or at least was a tribute to the films of that genre.  I’m not too familiar with that genre, so it’s hard to say how it holds up as a tribute to those films, so please go easy on me. First of all, this movie starred three huge breasted women, and none of which got naked. Once you get past the initial shock of the statement I just typed, it was actually kind of good to see. Were this any other style of film, at least one of them would be topless 30 minutes in, but the fact that they kept their tops on the entire time seems like it would have been more of a challenge to do, finding reasons that they don’t get naked. This isn’t to say there isn’t a scene where they are throwing water all over each other in slow motion, but still. There was even a scene where two of them scissor each other in a trailer, but they do this with clothes on. I clearly have a LOT to learn about women. All the women in this film actually did a good job, which might be a credit to the fact that they didn’t take their shirts off. Rather than being hired JUST for their boobs, their acting chops had to make up for the disappointment people (not me, of course) had over not seeing them naked. Especially considering how many euphemisms their were for vagina, which I didn’t know there were more than two of.

 

So much awesome stuff is happening right above me, anything I said might taint it. Nope, nevermind, I said taint, so that helps.

This movie was fun, and all the character flip-flops and reappearances were somewhat surprising and over-the-top, but I will say it was a little too confusing. It had about as many twists as The Usual Suspects, and that movie was hard enough to follow. Now imagine if you were jumping back and forth between the present and multiple increments of time backwards, sometimes a couple of days, sometimes a couple of years, and were expected to keep it all straight. It’s hard to tell if this was a defining characteristic of the genre it was attempting to emulate, or if it was just something that this film was going for. I can understand having twists and turns like that so it’s more fun and surprising, but I couldn’t really keep track of who was who or what or why. The style of the film was kind of neat, where you could tell a lot of scenes involved green screen so they could have anything in the background they wanted. Obviously there were budgetary constraints, but shooting scenes in front of lavish computer generated backdrops seemed self-aware of those constraints and I didn’t really get sick of the novelty of it. Also, even though it definitely had a nu-metal vibe at moments, I thought the soundtrack was entertaining. If you’re looking for a fun movie with three pairs of breasts as the star, strung together by time travel and guns, check it out, but don’t be pissed at me if this movie was a smack in the face for the exploitation genre.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 3 Stars, Non-Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 653 other followers