Sudor Frío (Cold Sweat) (2010)

February 13, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

That’s quite the titillating cover, isn’t it?! Hahaha, get it? Because you can basically see that woman’s tits? I remember seeing the poster for this movie and thinking it was going to be terrible and merely existed so that the girl on the cover had the opportunity to show off her knockers. A few weeks after seeing that poster, I was having lunch with my good pal JD and the old video store he used to frequent would watch fucked up movies on their TVs during open hours. Apparently they were watching a movie that was SO fucked up, they shut it off. That movie? Why, it was Cold Sweat, of course! Hopefully you saw that plot twist coming, otherwise it would have been a really boring story. Actually, that didn’t save it from being a boring story, but having heard about this movie twice in as many weeks and for different reasons was a good enough reason for me to watch it. Oh yeah, and as a warning, none of the actors have their pictures showing up on IMDb, so I was planning on using their names and character names, but I don’t really remember who was who or why. Oh well!

 

Is this what dentist’s see? Because this is disgusting. Now I know why they kill themselves so often.

After his girlfriend leaves him for some guy on the internet, our lead male character enlists one of his friends to set up the guy from the internet. These two go to the address of the internet guy, but when the girl goes in the house, she disappears. The guy goes in the house after her, only to find two old men keeping her and another woman captive. The woman who we haven’t met is forced to answer some crazy math equation, and when she fails, the two old men blow her head up with nitroglycerine. The woman we did meet is left alone with a bottle of acid on her head to keep her still. These two old men are using things like acid and nitroglycerine to try to encourage young people to get smarter? Or something? Anyways, the guy’s girlfriend is kept downstairs in the basement and is completely soaked with nitroglycerine. They need to get her out of there! For some reason they give her a haircut and take her clothes off so she doesn’t blow up, even after being chased by monster people who live in the basement. Uhhhh…okay. Eventually the trio of young folks are able to use acid and nitroglycerine to their advantage to escape these two old men, and we see then the boy rejects his girlfriend for the girl who helped him! Hoo-ray!

 

I know that Katy Perry wasn’t in this movie, but I did a double take with this picture. I’m talking about the one on the left, of course.

WHAT THE FUCK? This movie was all over the goddamned place. Every time you thought you had some sort of idea of what was going on, some new thing would pop up to confuse you and make you wonder what the fuck was happening. Who were these old guys? Why were they doing this? Who were those freaks in the basement? Why did they capture some blonde guy and force him to sit in front of a webcam to entice women? We’ll never know! But on the other hand, the only reason I was paying attention to the movie was to see if any of these questions were answered, or to see what crazy thing would happen next. There wasn’t anything all that good about the acting, directing, or writing, so at least the fact that was a clusterfuck was something to keep you engaged. Also, do any of you guys know much about nitroglycerine? If your body is covered in it, could you really blow up just from walking around? The “escape” sequence was so long and boring and not worth it. At least they determined one way to save her was to take her boobs out, and even that part was interrupted by freaks running around. Boobs and freaks, what more could you wish for!?

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Amazon DVD

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

Beware (2010)

February 11, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

I don’t quite remember why the fuck I ended up watching this movie, but I sure as hell did. most likely it was because I had found some list on underrated horror movies or some bullshit like that. Yeah, that sounds like something I would do. One problem with that is I get my hands on all these horror movies at once and I don’t remember what each one is about or which ones are supposed to be better than others or why on Earth I am watching it in the first place. The decision process eventually comes down to Rampaige, who asks me to tell her what the movies are about, and when I can’t do that, she relies on which title she likes the best. She chose this one because she said it “sounded most like it had something to do with dogs”, which I’d say is as good a reason as any. Sadly, there were no dogs involved. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

 

Oh please I hope all of these characters survive! They are oh so very charming and three-dimensional!

 

The movie starts with a couple at some sort of “makeout point” or “lover’s lane” type of place, and when they hear a strange noise, the guy gets out of the car and is killed by a psycho. THERE’S A SHOCKER. Jump to some measurement of time after this event, and a group of five people are going the direction of where these events took place so they can celebrate one of them moving to a different country. Sadly, their car breaks down, but a woman who lives nearby offers to help them so they wouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere. While all of these characters are at this woman’s house, they recount the story of the killer from the opening of the film. I guess a kid was chained up to a tree outside because his dad had returned home to see his wife cheating on him, so in addition to killing the wife, he chained the kid up outside. The kid grew up by eating nearby animals, and–HOLY SHIT THERE’S A LOT GOING ON IN THIS STORY. Totally not worth this much backstory. Anyways, it turns out that the killer’s sister was the girl who picked up the friends and she was setting them up to be killed. Don’t worry, one of the people who were going to the cabin was the sole survivor of the whole ordeal because everyone else was killed. Yeah, that gets the point across.

 

Image completely unrelated, but it was hard as shit finding any pictures from this movie, and this DVD cover is more entertaining than anything in the movie anyway.

 

Even though I got bored halfway through the summary of this movie, the only thing it had going for it was the story. Considering the woman who offered a ride to the strangers seemed normal, it was kind of a surprise that she was involved in the murders. I think some of the death scenes might have been pretty cool as far as special effects go, but other than that, there weren’t many redeeming qualities for it. I think that as I watch more and more horror movies and learn further the things I like about them, I am realizing how important it is to establish characters as people you want to watch. That’s something that was seriously lacking in this movie, that you either completely disliked the characters, or at best, tolerated them. Watching a movie where you merely tolerate a character is never going to be a movie worth watching, and this movie was no exception.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Amazon DVD

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

The Woman (2011)

February 3, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

I don’t know why I had it set it my head that I was this big Lucky McKee fan. The only movies of his that I had seen before this were May, his episode of Masters of Horror, and Roman. May holds a nostalgic place in my heart after having seen it a few years ago at the Music Box Massacre, I might have only liked his Masters of Horror installment because even if it was only average, it was still better than most of them, and it’s possible I enjoyed Roman because Veronica Mars is in it. Have you seen that video of Veronica Mars talking about SLOTHS? Yeah, me neither. Anyways, I had just kind of assumed I would like this, despite not having seen the movie that came before this. I know it might not have been a necessity to see that film, called “Offspring”, but it probably would have helped. I guess I have no one to blame but myself for setting my expectations so high, only to be disappointed. Frowny face.

 

Proof that you can live in the woods and still have silky smooth armpits.

 

In a pretty typical suburban family, we start getting the sense that the father, Chris (Sean Bridgers), is an asshole. Turns out we were right, because he thought it was totally normal to take the feral woman (played by Pollyanna McIntosh) he saw while hunting into his wine cellar so he could turn her into a normal lady. The whole family is brought in to take part in the cleaning and feeding of this woman, and no one really complains. We learn more and more about how fucked up this family is, with implications that either the dad and/or son had raped and/or impregnated the older daughter. This doesn’t seem all that strange, considering we see the dad raping the woman as well as seeing the son twisting her nipple with needlenose pliers as he touched his boner. The only character who shows any sort of rational thought is the oldest daughter’s teacher (Carlee Baker) stops by the house to see what the fuck is going on with this pregnant girl missing school. Sadly for her, Chris takes her out into some barn he has and she is attacked by dogs he owns, until she is eventually killed by a DIFFERENT feral person. How does this guy how such a problem with feral woodspeople going all crazy!? When she sees her teacher being attacked, the oldest daughter frees the woman from the basement who goes on to kill the mother, the father, and brother. She treats this new feral person as a pet, and then takes the rest of the surviving family into the woods to live as crazy, dirty idiots.

 

Bet you wish that apron protected you from getting your face ripped off and thrown around like you were a wrestler, huh?! Whoops, spoiler alert.

 

Doesn’t really sound all that bad, huh? I guess as far as the story goes, no, it wasn’t really all that bad. Something I think I forgot to mention is that there was a slow motion musical montage every five fucking minutes. I understand that music and score are just as important for setting the mood of a movie as much as cinematography is, but there were so many times where one musical sequence was just a segue to another musical sequence, then another, that there weren’t that many scenes without an accompanying song. Another reason why music can be useful is that if the viewer knows the song before watching the movie, they can bring that emotional attachment to that scene. Whether the scene matches the sentiments of the memories of that song, or if they are intentionally juxtaposed, it is a useful tool to enhance the experience for the viewer. That effect is completely lost when all the song used are shitty and feel like you stumbled onto some shitty modern rock radio station. In fact, I’m sure you could mute the movie and put on some goddamn Nickleback or something and get the same experience as watching it with the volume turned up.

 

I’m not sure if it was intentional to release this image as an homage to the ending of Sleepaway Camp, but either way, this face is fucking terrifying.

 

As far as the portrayal of a feral woman, I have to give “kudos” or “props” or “respect” or whatever the fuck you kids call it to Polyanna McIntosh in this movie. She really did a good job of acting the way an animal would in that situation, which of course involved lots of screaming. That doesn’t explain how she didn’t have hair in her armpits, considering she’s a wild woodswoman, but I digress. Sean Bridgers plays a character that you hate, and I certainly did hate him, which I never know whether to commend the actor for being so detesting or if the actor was doing a bad portrayal of a character that wasn’t intended to be so grimy. Angela Bettis played a weird character, as always, so again, it’s hard to tell if she was accurately portraying a character intended to be strange and detached from her situation, or if that character was intended to be something different. There were some interesting concepts and themes, as well as a couple good performances, but I didn’t really enjoy any of the stylistic choices that McKee made with this movie. Maybe I’m not too big a fan of his after all.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon Blu-ray

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

Hostel: Part III (2011)

January 16, 2012 4 Comments

 

Holy shit, they made a third Hostel?! What is Eli Roth THINKING?! Oh, he’s not directing this one, nor did he write it, nor did he get involved with it in any way, shape or form. Maybe he is involved in some minute way, but I’m going to pretend he wasn’t. I enjoyed the first two films to varying degrees, and didn’t even consider watching this one until I saw a review saying it was mildly entertaining. I believe that review claimed it would be fun to watch with a group of friends, so I watched it with Rampaige, who kept telling me it was stupid and to turn it off. I can’t just turn it off! I got it on Netflix! To turn it off would be like throwing money down the toilet! But, in retrospect, I probably should have never rented it in the first place.

 

Deth by computer-generated cockroaches?! NOOOOOO!!!!!!

 

An American walks into a room where he is confronted by an Eastern European couple who start getting frisky in front of him. We have learned from previous Hostel films that Eastern Europeans are bad, so we get nervous for the American. The tables are turned when we learn that the American is the dangerous one, drugging the couple and taking them to an underground las Vegas lair. We jump to a group of friends going to Las Vegas who are there for a bachelor party, and every single member of this group of friends is more irritating than the last. One friend is taken captive to be tortured by the Elite Hunting group and to give this movie its Las Vegas twist, we see this friend being tortured while people are making wagers on method of execution, how long he’ll take to die, and how he tries to barter for his life. While the rest of his friends to try track him down, they also end up part of the captives of Elite Hunting and we then learn the whole thing was set up by one of the friends who is actually a member. The member wants to sleep with the fiancé so he orchestrated everything and as apparently paid to kill this guy. The guy is let loose for the two “friends” to compete, but eventually it’s the member of Elite Hunting that escapes while the building explodes behind him. We see the dickhead friend at home with the now grieving fiancé, who asks if he’ll spend the night. He accepts, but then a horribly burned version of the friend he thought he killed pops up out of nowhere to torture and kill that tricky little asshole. VENGEANCE!

 

Poor, poor son from Nip/Tuck getting all arrowed to death. He had a self-proclaimed “gimp leg” in the movie, which I kept expecting to be some sort of plot point, but it wasn’t. A guy get hit in the face a few times with his crutch, but it was about as effective as a broom, so I don’t count that as a plot point. Sorry!

 

Unimaginative kills, unimaginative characters, and a big sense of redundancy are some of the flaws of this movie. I can’t quite give it my worst rating, however, because there were a few moments that did turn out differently than what I anticipated happening. This isn’t to say that those twists and turns weren’t cheesy, because they were, but they were still things I didn’t quite anticipate. I figured the opening scene, with its over-the-top portrayal of an Eastern European stereotype of attractive women and scary men was going to play out exactly the way it would in either of the previous movies, but clearly didn’t. When the shitty friend admitted to being a member of Elite Hunting, I expected to see him use his powers to get his other friends to buy their freedom by killing someone, similarly to how Hostel: Part II ended, and was wrong. And again, despite the cheese factor of the whole thing, the Las Vegas twist of incorporating wagers on the torture of the victims was enough to keep me interested. Other than that, this one was pretty awful and I don’t think it will be fun for anyone to watch, I don’t care how many of your friends you’re with.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

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

The Devil Inside (2012)

January 14, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

I’m going to break my routine and talk about the end of this movie before I go any further. This movie has been getting a LOT of shit over the way it ends and has caused everyone to walk out of it bitching and whining. Did people forget that this was intended to be a “found footage” movie? And that it was supposed to come across as a documentary? Well, have any of you seen documentaries before? Whether it’s a documentary about food or animals or abortions or whatever, the filmmakers will typically include something at the very end to give you advice on where to go to get more information on the subject. Would you believe that a movie who was trying to look like a documentary would end by doing the same exact thing? Lots of people are claiming this film ends abruptly and just tells you to go to a website. You’re right, it does end somewhat abruptly, but certainly doesn’t end any more abruptly than any other found footage movie. I can admit that it might be a little confusing (if you’re stupid) to not pick up on why that website popped up at the end, and maybe it was a weird bit of marketing, considering no one learned anything from the website, but people getting all up in arms about it need to calm the fuck down. Even ignoring the “abrupt” ending, the movie wasn’t that good anyway, so I’m not really trying to defend it as a masterpiece.

 

I prescribe you more fiber in your diet.

 

In Hartford, CT in 1989, a woman killed three members of the church in her home while they were performing an exorcism on her. Declared insane, she was sent to a mental institution that eventually shipped her out to a facility in Italy. Twenty years later, the woman’s daughter goes in search of her mother to find out if her mother is insane, or maybe if there’s more to the story. The daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), goes to an exorcism school to see people debating about the scientific vs. religious explanations for what’s going on. She gets involved with two priests, Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), who are going against the church and performing exorcisms on their own. They perform one on Isabella’s mother, which is when David’s behavior starts to change. After attempting to drown a baby during a baptism, the police show up and David kills himself. We learn that the demonic possession is jumping from person to person, including Isabella, and the film ends when the demon leaves here body but enters the body of the person driving, killing her, Ben, and the person making Isabella’s “film”.

 

Things got a lot sexier when a possessed girl decided to reinvent the Kama Sutra herself.

 

See what I’m saying? It doesn’t end any more abruptly than The Blair Witch Project or any of the movies in the Paranormal Activity series ends, it’s really just the website that people can’t comprehend. Does anyone else remember seeing this trailer a couple of months ago? It was pretty fucking terrifying, and it was only a trailer. Sadly, once it got to be time for the movie, it was just an expanded trailer. All of the more intense scenes or segments were chopped down and included into the trailer, so when you saw the same exact stuff during the whole movie, it wasn’t all that scary. I’m a sucker for stuff that argues science vs. religion and I think some of the exorcism scenes, had you not seen the trailer, were pretty well done, but it didn’t really leave much impact. Certainly not an awful movie, but it definitely suffered because of the success of its trailer and the poor word-of-mouth in regards to the ending.

Wolfman Moon Scale


The Website Shown at the End
IMDb

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

A Lonely Place to Die (2011)

January 9, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

Two reasons as to why I was interested in watching this movie. Firstly, it popped up on a few horror blogs “best of the year” lists for 2011. That’s not saying too much, considering everything else that came out last year. Secondly, the title of this movie reminded me of A Horrible Way to Die, which was a movie I enjoyed, and clearly having similar titles lets me know it would be just as good. I didn’t know much about it, but I saw Melissa George was in it and she is kind of sort of gaining a reputation for being involved in horror films. She was in 30 Days of Night, which I enjoyed, and the remake of The Amityville Horror, which I didn’t care for. There’s a handful of other ones under her belt, but I really don’t know how I feel about her. I think she just has one of those faces that I confuse for other actresses who have done things I did enjoy, so I guess I’m just being tricked. Damn you, Melissa George. DAAAAAMN YOUUUUUUU!

 

How can it be lonely if you got your pal right there with you!?

 

The movie starts off making you think it’s going to be some sort of inverted version of The Descent, where instead of cave adventuring there is a group of friends rock climbing. While these friends are rock climbing, they think they hear a noise, and when they pursue it, they discover a girl buried underground. She’s just a kid, and these people have no idea why she’s there, so three people take care of her while the two better climbers go off for help. One of the experienced climbers falls off a cliff, and the other experienced climber (Melissa George) notices his line didn’t snap, but has been cut. These people are being hunted! With guns! Someone wants the little girl! The friends are picked off, one by one, until two of the friends get her into town. Apparently this little girl was part of a giant kidnapping scheme, and the kidnappers need to have this girl to get their money. Eventually the girl is turned is rescued and one of the kidnappers killed and the other one captured by the girl’s father and Melissa George barely survives. Good job, Melissa!

 

I will admit that there was a pretty good misdirection as to the identity of the killers. We saw two guys hunting deer but kept jumping back to the hikers, making you think the deer hunters were the bad guys. Luckily, I’ve gone and spoiled that idea for you. You’re welcome!

 

I’m a big fan of The Descent and maybe it’s unfair to compare the two, but even Rampaige said, “Are there going to be monsters in this?” after the movie had been playing for about two minutes. The reason The Descent worked was because the took the fear of being trapped in a cave and made the viewer uncomfortable and claustrophobic, then completely changed the tone of the film by throwing monsters in there. With this film, there didn’t seem to be any cohesion between anything going on and couldn’t focus on any specific scary idea. The opening involved a guy almost falling to his death, which was kind of scary, but then he was saved and they moved on. The kidnapper plot wasn’t scary, not to mention an entire subplot that involved cutting to the guys responsible for trading the money for the girl that made the movie confuse the viewer as to what the fuck was happening. There was one scene where Melissa George runs out of line while climbing down a cliff and just sits there for a few minutes, which was actually pretty creepy to think about. It would have been more similar to a movie like “Frozen” or like “127 Hours”, but the idea of being stuck out on a cliff with no one to help you is way more intense than safely climbing down and having to run away from bad guys. It had its moments of tension, but those few moments don’t really compensate for not really caring about any of these people or the girl they’re trying to save. Oh yeah, and it was kind of weird how much Melissa George’s character fell in love with the little girl, for no apparent reason. At least The Descent had that whole “dead daughter” thing going for it, but in this movie, you just thought George’s character was a crazy cat lady trying to steal a daughter. Which reminds me that crazy cat ladies or anyone who likes cats more than dogs are awful and can go straight to hell.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


IMDb
Amazon Instant Rental

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

The Dark Half (1993)

November 27, 2011 2 Comments

 

If you’ve been paying any sort of attention to my blog at all, you’ll see that I’ve been thinking a lot about Stephen King lately, which is what led me to watch this movie. I vaguely remembered the trailer for it when it originally came out, but apparently I had replaced Timothy Hutton for Kyle Maclachlan. How the fuck am I supposed to keep the two of them straight, huh!? They both had dark hair and seemed like they were both fucking weirdos. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the fact that I was NINE years old when this came out. Jesus, I don’t mean to make anyone feel old by saying that’s how old I was, but it’s the truth. That’s what you get for making me feel like an asshole for confusing the two of them.

 

Uh oh, looks like Hutton has that crazy “I’ve got bandages on my head” look in his eyes.

 

Thad Beaumont (Hutton) is a college professor and writer who as yet to find success under his own name, yet has found a great deal of success under his pen name of George Stark. These books are pulpy crime novels, which clearly aren’t within the realm of Thad’s real life, so when someone discovers his secret and threatens to expose him, Thad embraces the opportunity and publicly “buries” George Stark. That’s when shit gets funky. A series of murders start happening where the victims are all people involved in “killing” George Stark. The clues point to Thad, but the audience can see he clearly isn’t anywhere near any of the crime scenes of victims when these murders occur. Trying to find answers about what’s going on, Thad recalls surgery he had as a child where he had a tumor removed from his brain. The tumor would cause hallucinations, mostly of sparrows, along with other visions and sounds. It turns out that the “tumor” that was removed was a twin that he shared a womb with, but Thad absorbed the other twin and physical evidence was left attached to his brain. This means Thad has some sort of psychic bond or mental powers or something, and the one committing the murders is a manifestation of his absorbed twin…or something? The murderer, who goes by George Stark, tries forcing Thad to write more books about him, thus keeping him alive, but they get into some sort of physical or mental power fight thing where sparrows come in and kill George. OR DO THEY?!

 

I really don’t remember the context of this image, but it’s pretty creepy, isn’t it?

 

Why did this movie need to be two fucking hours long? I think that’s one issue I have with so many movies that were based on Stephen King stories, and especially short stories. I know that this was a full-length novel, but I think you get what I’m saying. They clearly should have taken the “less is more” approach. The first 30-45 minutes had a pretty interesting concept being established, not knowing if it was actually Thad or maybe the guy who threatened to expose him, you didn’t know what was going on. When you see Timothy Hutton wearing some weird makeup, it gets a little wonky, and then it’s unclear the extent of this mental bond thing. Not saying I wanted more of an explanation, or that I needed more information, in fact, the less I knew the better, but when it takes you almost 90 minutes to learn that there was a twin that was absorbed, that means there’s a good 30 minute chunk where you don’t really give a shit about what’s going on or why. Even though this movie wasn’t received all that well, I read that everyone was commending Timothy Hutton and his performance, which I just found to be a little much when it came to the character of George Stark, and he was more like a cartoon. I understand that Stark’s character was supposed to be drastically different from how Thad really was, but I guess I just wasn’t too impressed. That probably comes from the direction of George Romero, and when he uses that type of character in other movies, typically works well, but it was too strong a juxtaposition to the point that it was silly. I don’t think this movie was all that bad, but there was too much wasted time for a movie that could have easily been an hour and fifteen minutes.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

Filed under 2 Stars Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Amityville Horror (2005)

October 30, 2011 2 Comments

 

Didn’t I see this shit in theaters? Why yes, yes I DID see this shit in theaters! I didn’t really remember anything about this version of the movie, other than Ryan Reynolds was in it and he had a beard and chopped a whole bunch of wood. Apparently I had rated it on Netflix, but while scrambling for haunted house movies to review in time for Halloween, I guess this somehow snuck into the mix. Seriously though, all I remembered was him chopping wood for the whole goddamned movie. Even when I watched it for my second time, I kept thinking, “When is going to chop some wood?”, as well as “Why did he stop chopping wood?”, because ladies love a guy chopping wood with a beard. Well, a beard can’t chop wood, but a guy with a beard can.

 

I’ll just leave this shirtless, bearded Ryan Reynolds right here to chop some wood. And who says I only post pictures of girls with big boobs?!

 

George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) are looking for a new home that will be big enough for their family. They stumble across a house that seems to be far too cheap for the size of it, and wonder why they’re getting such a good deal. They learn that a brutal murder had taken place there, and George says something about how houses aren’t evil, people are evil. Once the couple and three kids move into the house, things start getting wacky with some creepy dreams that George has. His financial frustrations, along with all of the maintenance the house needs, start getting to him as he starts lashing out verbally towards the kids and his wife. Curious about the stories involving the house, Kathy researches all of the strange events that have taken place there and learns that there was a cult preacher guy who used to torture and kill Native Americans, and this seems to be the cause of all the problems. As the evil spirits of the house drive George to madness and make him chase his family around with a shotgun, Kathy is able to knock him out and take him away, causing the evil craziness to stop happening. They never returned for their home, not even for their personal belongings, but the house kept finding residents to drive crazy.

 

The ghost even scared her eyebrows a different color!

 

I know I’m not too huge a fan of the original movie, but it’s still head and shoulders above this version. The concept of bad things happening somewhere and those events causing someone to go bonkers isn’t all that new, but can still be done well. The reason why the original worked, for me at least, was that it was a slow and subtle transition from James Brolin being a nice family guy to being out of his mind. Ryan Reynolds was believable as a nice family guy, and we has relatively believable as a psychopath, but the transition between the two wasn’t all that smooth. One second he’s boning his wife, the next he’s seeing ghosts and beardedly (is that a word?) yelling at one of the kids for going into the basement. Oh yeah, that’s another thing, which is that this version had the ghosts of people who were murdered appearing to the new residents. The original had weird apparitions and figures, but it was vague who they were and why they were appearing. But I guess that’s one of the problems I had with the original, in that it was vague as far as why the house was evil, whereas I kind of enjoyed the fact that there was an actual reason why this house was so evil. I’m sure there are some who will argue that adding in that backstory wasn’t necessary, and there were lots of things unnecessary about the movie, but I can at least appreciate the fact that they attempted some sort of explanation for why such terrible things were happening. This one only really needs to be seen if you have a big Ryan Reynolds/beard fetish.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


Official Site
IMDb
Netflix
Amazon Blu-ray

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

The Thing (2011)

October 17, 2011 2 Comments

 

So what the fuck is it, a prequel or a remake? Can someone please explain this shit to me? Fine, I’ll explain it to YOU, those that didn’t know what this was intended to be. The short answer is that it’s a prequel to the 1982 masterpiece by John Carpenter, “The Thing”. The long answer is that this is a prequel to the 1982 masterpiece by John Carpenter, “The Thing”, that rather than use a little bit of creativity to come up with a title that let people know that it wasn’t a remake had decided to just call it “The Thing” and not give a fuck. Do you know how many times Wolfgang questioned me about why there was a lady in this one? Goddammit. The John Carpenter film is one of my favorite horror movies of all time, if not also one of my favorite movies of any genre of all time. This wasn’t a movie that anyone expected or even wanted to be made, but that doesn’t stop Hollywood from thinking that it would make money, so here it is. I tried to go in with no expectations, other than expecting it to be bad, so I could try to highlight what I liked. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much to like, and you can bet your bottom dollar there are going to be “spoilers”, if you will, in this review.

 

Luckily they saved some money by using an old prop of one of those shitty Starship Troopers aliens.

 

A bunch of Euros, who we learn are Norwegian, fall into a hole while exploring Antarctica and find a spaceship. In order to explore the remains of a body found in the ice, Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character, Kate, is brought down to investigate. After the chunk of ice the alien was found in is brought up, things, surprisingly, get complicated. The alien breaks out of the thawing ice and starts killing things and despite killing this “thing”, they see that it was beginning to replicate a human victim at a cellular level. What does this mean? Well of course we learn that the alien can replicate any of the more than a dozen individuals at the camp, leading to a lot of paranoia and CGI. One thing Kate learns is that the alien thing might be able to replicate human bone and tissue, it can’t replicate things like titanium plates that might have helped a broken bone or fillings in one’s teeth. These causes Kate to check everyone’s mouths for fillings, but after separating fillings from non-fillings, there’s an alien attack that leads to Kate and another character pursuing someone back to the alien spaceship. Kate blows up the spaceship and is left alone in Antarctica, supposedly with no real way of returning to civilization. That’s when the music from the first film starts playing, and there’s a montage that fills in the events between the end of this movie and the start of Carpenter’s version. At least we got to hear Ennio Morricone’s score again!

 

Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn’t nearly as hot here as she is in that scene from Scott Pilgrim, am I right!?

 

To try to compare this movie, in any way shape or form, to being anywhere nearly as good as Carpenter’s version is should by now, obviously be completely out of the question. None of the characters, tone, plot, of special effects are at all similar to anything Carpenter was able to accomplish, so I won’t even try to compare. I was avoiding setting any sort of expectations whatsoever, but when the filmmakers stressed the idea of practical effects, I couldn’t help but be pissed off over how much CGI was used and how the filmmakers were clearly lying to just try to get people into the theaters. All of the actors were fine, and as a standalone movie wasn’t too terrible, but it just didn’t really do anything at all. If you like movies full of jump-scares and grotesque CGI creatures, then you might enjoy this movie, but that’s not what I enjoy, so it wasn’t really for me. It felt like more of a tense videogame, filled with weird and creepy monsters, but with no investment in anything or anyone, because if anything happened, you could just start over a few levels back.

 

Beard? Check. Hellicopter pilot? Check. Flamethrower? Check. Ooze the same amount of sex appeal as Kurt Russell? NO CHECK! YOU CAN’T FOOL ME, YOUNG OWEN LARS! RUB THAT BEARD ALL OVER BERU AND SEE IF I CARE!

 

Something that I initially enjoyed, but in retrospect am kind of pissed off because of, was the sequence that “tied together” the two films. Possibly because hearing the Morricone score got me excited, I enjoyed the tying together of the films, even down to mimicking some of the creature remains and using the same font as the credits from Carpenter’s version. Something that I didn’t realize was how easy this sequence could have been, but how difficult they made it. Remember when Kurt Russell found the body in the Norwegian camp that had its wrists cut and there was a blood icicle? We saw that body, only to realize I had no fucking clue who that character was or when that character had killed themselves. And remember how the opening of the Carpenter film we saw a stereotypical looking husky running through the snow? This film had a different furry dog jump out of the window to get chased, but considering that other dog has obviously been dead for decades, no big deal. You switch the dog, shoot some footage of that dog, and everyone moves on. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Exactly! But instead, we see one dog jump out of a window, and moments later we see the footage of the dog from the Carpenter version, so clearly they couldn’t even find the most generic looking husky to run through the snow, but figured no one would notice when jumping back and forth between scenes. Ultimately, there was too much of an attempt to mimic small details about the Carpenter film, but completely ignored the entire pace and tone of it, hoping for as much success. I probably would have enjoyed this movie had it not been called “The Thing”, and I just felt that this movie disrespected the legacy that Carpenter’s film has built.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale

Official Site
IMDb

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

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

October 11, 2011 Leave a Comment

 

Haven’t I seen this movie before? I must have seen this movie before. The only problem with trying to remember whether or not I had seen it was the fact that I couldn’t remember a goddamned thing about it. I saw the trailer for it within the past few months before seeing a different movie and really couldn’t recognize anything being shown onscreen. Now that I think about it a little bit more, I think that years ago a friend of mine said something to the extent of “Come on over, we’re watching The People Under the Stairs”, but I missed the beginning and got bored and left. Why I subjected myself to a movie that was so forgettable, I’m not too sure, other than I figured you guys might want me to review it. You’ve gotten your wish! Oh yeah, and because the description says it was “based on a classic fairy tale”, and I wanted to know which fairy tale involved Ving Rhames.

 

Hey Ving, looks like you lost some weight! HAHAHAHA!

 

A little boy who goes by the nickname of “Fool”, played by Brandon Adams, learns that his family is to be evicted from their shitty apartment. One way he can hopefully get money to pay the rent and stay in the apartment is if he assists Ving Rhames, playing a character that’s not named Ving Rhames but will only be referred to as Ving Rhames, in robbing a house od some precious coins. This isn’t your average house, that’s for damn sure, because the owners of this house are creepy freaks who keep their daughter locked in the house. Keeping a daughter inside is hard, so Ving Rhames and Fool have a little bit of difficulty getting in, and a much harder time ever getting out. When the owners of the house, only referred to as “Mommy” and “Daddy” get home, they seek to get the intruders out of their home. The resulting shenanigans causes Ving Rhames to get killed, while Fool discovers people locked in a basement and traveling through the walls. When Fool eventually manages to escape, he remembers a promise he made to the trapped daughter that he would help free her, so he goes back to the house, but this time he knows what he’s in for. We learn that the girl being trapped isn’t even the real daughter of the couple, and they have just been stealing babies and keeping them trapped in this house, which is the explanation for all of the people living in the basement. Luckily there is some dynamite readily available, so Fool blows the house up after escaping, which also causes money to blow up everywhere, and the movie ends with the entire neighborhood dancing in the street by the fire collecting money. Oh yes, how could I have forgotten THAT fairy tale.

 

Maybe if you hadn’t escaped the people under the stairs you wouldn’t have gotten so drunk on My So-Called Life and needed Claire Danes to rescue you! BITCH!

 

What the fuck was this? It was like Wes Craven had watched Home Alone and wanted to make an R-rated version of it. Apparently he based this on a real incident where it was uncovered that two parents had kept their children locked in their house, but where did the fairy tale aspect come into play? I think fans of this movie might fall into that “nostalgia” crowd that only likes it because they remember seeing it 20 years ago. Did I mention that most of the movie, the one responsible for the dirty work of chasing Fool was a dog? We have to get mad at a dog, only to have that dog accidentally killed by Daddy? Bullshit. Also, why did Daddy sometimes appear as just some normal dude, and other times was he wearing a leather gimp suit, zippers and all? I think I missed maybe five minutes of this movie to go to the bathroom, but did they ever explain that? It kept me entertained to see the wacky shenanigans of a little kid running through the house and comically injuring an adult, including running up to Daddy and punching him in the nuts when he was looking the other way, but that’s about it. I’m glad I saw it so I know that I never really have to see it again.

 

Wolfman Moon Scale


IMDb
Netflix
Amazon DVD

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

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 439 other followers