Disappointing

What a let down! Just a very average film with some bad camerawork and some inexplicably useless CGI effects. None of that "can you guess the next bit before the characters do" that the book had to offer is realised here. Oh and the ending is slightly different too.

This was just not as involving or as much fun as "Spirited Away". The story was a lot weaker even though it did hold my attention for about three-quarters of the film before I started to get a bit bored.

Without an ounce of originality, pathos or interesting story, what are we left with? A couple of good axe deaths and a waste of a couple of hours. It has some appallingly overpowering and unneccesary background music as well.

The rollercoaster stuff as the start was great. The death scenes throughout the film were well worked out and can really only be described as "Lush!" - but the rest of the movie stank! This was just not as good as the first or second "Final Destination".

It wasn't a classic and it was doomed from the start by having that wrestler guy in it instead of a real actor but the monsters were good, the stabs at characterisation mainly worked, and, even though we could have done with a few more monster battling scenes, I liked the idea of tjhe whole thing and the way the CGI was used in a good way this time.

I really wanted this to be good. Lots of claustrophic action and pretty women potholers menaced by CHUDs but alas it was not to be. I didn't care about any of the characters and just wanted them to be eaten as soon as possible. There are one or two good scenes but the acting is appalling and the plot runs out of steam once you've seen the first CHUD.

The biggest problem with this film was that it was very dark. It wasn't overly scary or dark in subject matter considering it was set half in the world of Welsh mythology and ghosties but it was filmed very darkly so it was hard to make a lot of it out. A second problem is that it's more than a bit slow and turgid. Although a couple of attempts are made at scary scenes, they just don't amount to anything.

Milla looked good in "Ultraviolet" but that's all that can be said in its favour as the fight scenes (and most of the characterisation and plot) were straight out of "Equilibrium". The CGI was overused to such an extent that it was all just like watching a dodgy, poorly scripted, X-Box game.

William H. Macy may have acted his bloodhound-face off in "Edmond" but that didn't save it from being one of the most unrealistic, ludicrous pieces of slow-moving, pretentious, twaddle that I have ever had the misfortune to watch.

This wasn't horror, it was barely fantasy, it was poorly filmed, badly acted and it didn't make any sense. This was, at its most basic, just a reworking of "Batteries Not Included" but without the feel good factor or cute little aliens. No wonder even Disney turned down this script.

The plot is as throwaway as the others in the series but the stunts almost make up for it. The trouble is that all you are really interested in is the car and, once you've seen it in action, it's all a bit of a one-joke act. It wasn't exactly brilliant but did have some good action scenes and an amusing cameo by Sylvester Stallone at the start.

Predictable, yes. Exciting, no. However, Michelle Owens does get to look quite sexy when she dresses as a hooker and the psychotic blond male vampire is unintentionally the closest thing to Anne Rice's Lestat possible.

It isn't very scary or memorable compared to the first two parts of the Omen trilogy. Sam Neill does a really good job as a fully grown Damien but there's just too much talk and not enough action. The ending, although necessary, really does suck.

This has none of the puerile humour of Jackass just a load of hit and miss self-mutilations which make you think "Idiots!" rather than laugh either at them or with them. None of this was remotely funny. It's not even daring anymore, just ridiculous.

Dracula was played quite well but not very scarily by Gerald Butler. In fact none of it was very scary at all which is a major problem for a "horror" movie! Dracula just isn't frightening anymore. Vampires are so comic book now that I think the chances of there ever being a really scary vampire film ever again are quite slim ...so it wasn't all the director's fault.

In a nutshell, this is a lot like Dean Koontz's "Black River" from five years ago. But a few added homages to the infamous Twilight Zone story "The Lottery" (based on the short story by Shirley Jackson), plus bits from "The Wicker Man" and "The Stepford Wives", all make this more of a mish-mash of better ideas than the story can really cope with. The detrimental effect is that more questions arise out of a simple plot than there needs to be and it just leaves too many holes.

Yes the movie looked just like the game but how, I ask you, is that a good thing? The game wasn't scary. The movie isn't scary. There was an atmosphere of complete dullness to the game which also translated exactly to the big screen. If I could give this negative marks I would. No wonder western civilisation is collapsing if this rubbish is thought of as entertainment.

I wasn't expecting much from this remake and so I wasn't disappointed in what I got out of it. As usual, it wasn't as good as the original. Adrienne Barbeau was far sexier as Stevie Wayne than Selma Blair... although I think Selma wins hands down on the wearing of disturbingly tiny pants in the vicinity of the child actor playing her son. It just seemed very wrong to me for some reason.

This tried so hard to be a French version of "The Others" that I almost expected Eric Sykes to join the Hattie Jacques-lookalike Russian school matron. It's beautiful shot but it should have been dubbed or subtitled. Allowing the original actors to use their own 'Allo, 'Allo style accents made the dialogue incomprehensible at times, and at those times when it was the most important.
Aside from the laconic dialogue, there are also very few bits of plot development that make any sense. The lead character is at first terrified of the "Scary Children" and then seems hell bent on summoning them for no reason at all. Similarly to "Creep", there are lots of clues to explain why things are as they are but nothing is fully explained. The conclusion just leaves the audience wondering what the hell they just watched. What was the point? Were any moral purposes served? Did any characters get what they deserved? What the hell was it about? I'm sure the director could put all those answers on the back of a postage stamp.

I usually like ghostie films but this was terrible. I don't know quite why but it just kept making me fall asleep. Perhaps it was because it was a joint venture between England and Spain (or maybe it was setting it on the Isle of Wight!) but I think the most likely reason was the overly slow pacing and Asian-style storyline that just bored me. Calista Flockhart was dull as ditchwater too.

If you pay close attention to the plot you will spot lots of holes which will make you even more angry when everything is revealed. So many things are not explained that you should probably never go back and watch it again as it just isn't a film which will hold up to that kind of scrutiny at all. The gore scenes are quite impressive though with gallons of blood spurting everywhere.

It's not quite as disappointing as the first "White Noise" but, apart from Nathan Fillion's strong performance, there still isn't much more to this than it being just another "Final Destination" in all but name. It also homaged quite a few other films in the same genre and, by so doing, was ridiculously predictable. The ending was really unsatisfying too.

Terribly slow and formulaic "kiddy friendly" thrillers don't come any worse than this but, then again, they generally don't come any better either. This is what happens when you dumb things down too much just for mass audience appeal. It might entertain you if your IQ is the same number as your age though. And, yes, that is the Irish bloke out of "28 Days Later" pretending to be an American in it.

Although the plot was just a mixture of "Brainscan" and "Ghost Game", this was still entertaining for the first half an hour or so. There wasn't very much in the way of gore though as it was obviously made to appeal to kids. Characterisation was minimal and there were no real scares either but it was filmed quite well. Some of the cuts between the game and reality were clever anyway. Even though I was mostly disappointed by this as a horror film, I really want the computer game that they were playing now.

A lawsuit which claimed that this was just a ripoff of "The Exorcist" put this out of circulation for a while. While it is precisely that, it's still quite enjoyable. Carol Speed does a good job as the possessed Abby but she's not quite in Linda Blair's league.

I'm sure the only reason this film is stil in existence is because Meg Ryan has one of her early roles in it. It is even more mean-spirited than the previous instalments and the death scenes really stretch credibility too far. The 3D effects were good at the time but they make watching it on TV now a bit of a mess. You end up just sitting there thinking, "I bet that bit looked good in 3D!". The rest of the effects are very lacklustre though as is the story itself.

This has a slightly better story than the other Amityville films but it's ruined by being so slow and terrible editing. The acting is above average for this kind of thing but the characters themselves are people you won't actually care about all that much apart from David Naughton from "An American Werewolf in London". It's all looking very dated now too and the overall effect is one of blandness rather than scariness.

It may be that I just don't like Zelda Rubinstein all that much as, considering that it is basically just another low-budget slasher, this tries really hard to be an original and stylish film. The acting is more hit and miss than some people would have you believe though and the story itself is disjointed with a stupid ending.
It's also a little bit too arty in places even if there are a couple of nicely done gory moments.

Although this is one of the poorer Amicus horror anthologies, the framing story is actually much better than the three mediocre vignettes it surrounds.
A couple of the stories just feel far too long but, as they are all written by Robert Bloch who did "Psycho", they are still interesting in a way (even if only to Robert Bloch fans).
Nothing here is particularly memorable though and it's not scary either which is a shame especially as there are some fine genre actors involved.

This is just a remake of Hammer's "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" and is equally as slow and boring.
The only moment of any merit is how beautiful the transformed Stephanie Zimbalist looks near the end.

This tried hard to cash in on the success of "Nightmare on Elm Street 3", even involving many of the same cast members, but it just isn't anywhere near as good.
When I first watched it back in 1988, I didn't even know that there were such things as cults who made mass suicide pacts. If any film could have predicted the Waco thing this is it. Looking back on it now, it's quite eerie really even if it isn't much of a horror film.

Possibly the most disappointing Amicus film ever. For years, I blamed Hammer for this travesty mainly due to Peter Cushing's presence. He's made to look like a complete pillock here though with long diatribes about what makes someone a werewolf which will have you laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
The alternative title gives away the identity of the werewolf right from the beginning and for a film which relies on "Guess the identity of the werewolf" for the plot, that's a big mistake.

One of Peter Lorre's best horror roles but very, very dated now. It's easy to confuse this with "Mad Love" as both are about murderous hands. "Mad Love" is perhaps the better of the two movies though this one still has merits as you aren't quite sure if the disembodied hand is real or not. The ending spoils it all though.

Cheap looking but nicely gory in places. It's still a terrible movie with an incoherent plot and a transformation scene that takes far too long and ends up being on the wrong side of silly. I thought it was going to be a werewolf movie but it isn't even though it does borrow heavily from the genre.
The bladder effects used for the transformation are nicely done for the time but are really dated now.

It's not a bad film but it's not a horror movie at all. "Bedlam" is more of an atmospheric melodrama but having Boris Karloff in it means that it has been consigned to the wrong category for years. It's also not one of Val Lewton's best either but Boris Karloff fans will not be disappointed with his performance in it. If it's scares you are after though, it's best to look elsewhere.

John Schlesinger's career started not far from where I live so I've often found his films interesting. Unfortunately this isn't one of his better ones. To say it is slow would be an understatement and it's really just "Rosemary's Baby" all over again. There are a couple of gore scenes to keep reminding people that it is supposed to be a horror film but there is just too much talk and not enough action.

It's an ok thriller with Argento trying to copy Hitchcock as much as he possibly can but it doesn't really stand out nowadays since "Basic Instinct" and others of that ilk. If you like PG rated giallo then it's a must see but if you want something more exciting with less lag then this Argento is best avoided completely.
There is no gore, no nudity and nothing remotely scary in this whatsoever.

More overrated Bava artiness with no plot worth mentioning and very bad actors.
Some of the killings are quite good though but this is really all just about lensing some nice looking scenes with pretty women in them.

One of the most instanttly forgettable Hammer horrors. The slow pace and lack of a traditional scary, bandaged and lurching mummy will put you off right away.
If you stick with it you'll find that everything is based around three drab looking sets and there is no atmosphere or suspense whatsoever.
Acting and characterisation is minimal. Valerie Leon just isn't interesting enough (even as eyecandy) to make you want to sit through it to the end.

This is supposed to be one of Stephen King's favourite movies according to the sleeve but I really don't believe it. The Boogens are just some kind of turtle monsters with teeth and are about as scary as muppets. You don't get to see much of them until the end anyway.
There are a couple of good moments but the film takes ages to get going and there are no characters that you really care about anyway apart from Rebecca Balding.
I doubt that this would even scare very small children but there is a brief gratuitous shower scene which means that they shouldn't really be watching it in the first place.

This is a weird mix of "Halloween", "The Exorcist" and even "The Amityville Horror". It was one of the original banned "Video Nasties" in the UK (where it was called "The Bogey Man") but it's such a badly edited mess that it's now hard to see why.
It's still a bit creepy in places but certainly not scary and the low-budget makes it all look very cheap and even more badly done.
It's still better than the 2005 remake though.
Don't even bother with the sequels!

It's a disappointing sequel to the original "Re-animator" because it really copies the "Bride of Frankenstein" storyline too much and still has nothing to do with H.P. Lovecraft's tale.
It's still quite good though because you get to see lots of Fabiana Udenio. She isn't much of an actress but she's quite a babe.
With its larger budget, you can't fault the film for gore effects or humour either but it's just not as fresh...

This is far from being one of my favourite Hammer Dracula films simply because Christopher Lee isn't in it. Peter Cushing almost makes up for it on his own but it's like having Laurel without Hardy.
Baron Meinster played by David Peel just doesn't work for me though some people consider this to be one of the best Hammer films because of all the action.
The latest DVD versions all seem to have missing scenes which make it even more disappointing.

A terribly disappointing black comedy version of "House of Wax". A lot of people also liken it to "The Little Shop of Horrors" because it has a very similar plot.
The one thing it doesn't have though is a "bucket of blood". Yet again Roger Corman fooled everybody with a title that had absolutely nothing to do with the film itself.
It's only of interest to see Dick Miller from "Gremlins" in an early role. Other than that it's just awful.

Not at all as good as the TV series though Kristy Swanson is much better looking than the Slayer we all know.
Everything in this was an uneven mess and it's mainly because of a terrible script. I am tempted to say that it is also because all the actors were too old for their parts as well.
Rutger Hauer was completely miscast as the head vampire and probably gives the worst performance of his life as a result.
Paul Reubens is frankly just an embarassment anyway and just makes you want to cringe even if he has the only truly memorable role in the whole thing with his overexaggerated death scene.

Outstanding for the first 40 minutes or so with a great build-up and atmosphere but then it all got too messy and confusing.
I actually fell asleep about 15 minutes before the end and had to rewind and watch it again. The ending was a typical Stephen King let down though and nothing was really explained.
John Cusack did a great job but the effects were nothing more than you would see in "The Frighteners" or one of the older "Amityville" rip-offs. The camerawork ranged from average to awkward and some scenes were just too "busy" to enjoy. It reminded me a lot of "White Noise 2" in places which was also not a good thing.
There was nothing very scary here either other than wondering if John Cusack was going to fall out of the window at any point. He didn't and it was very disappointing especially with the obvious "homage" scene to the second best part of "Cat's Eye".
I didn't realise this was another of those crappy kiddie-friendly horrors until it was too late. If it had been made for adults, I'm sure that it could have been a much better film.

If I had watched this in the cinema, I would have walked out within 10 minutes nursing a migraine and vowing never to watch another movie by Stephen Hopkins again.
As it was, I watched it at home and so had nowhere else to go. I tried hard to fall asleep to escape the shaky handheld camera which refused to stay still for a moment but, alas, I failed and ended up watching the whole disgraceful, motion-sickness inducing, mess.
It was an hour and 10 minutes in before things picked up from being dull as ditchwater to mildly entertaining and then everything just started rushing by with all sorts of cliché-ridden twists.
The scene with the CGI locusts was quite exciting but the ending just made me angry. This turned out to be just another "Wicker Man" and "The Omen" ripoff with more than a few similarities to "Signs" as well.
I wanted to like it, I really did, but it was honestly one of the worst things I've seen this year.
It wasn't horror. There was nothing scary, no gore, and no real sexiness. I am not a fan of David Morrissey, the poor man's Liam Neeson, at all.
Who the hell is Hilary Swank anyway? I've never seen her in anything else and I don't think I ever want to see her again either.
This movie sucked.

This was much better than the previous "Resident Evil" films and was infinitely superior to playing any of the overly long console games that inspired it.
Now it may be that I just like watching Milla Jovovich even in films where she doesn't do anything much except look good. This time though she really gets into the action and more than makes up for the disappointment of "Ultraviolet". You also get to see quite a lot of her but, unfortunately, not nearly enough to really count as nudity.
The special effects in this were a mix of practical and CGI but they worked well together and the zombies were genuinely nasty to look at. These zombies are a lot quicker over the ground than Romero's lurchers but there are many obvious comparisons with "Day of the Dead" that can be made from the storyline.
Characterisation was also very good and there were moments of heroism along the way which really have you siding with the ragtag convoy of survivors.
The action sequences were few but they were all very well done. Some of them even reached the levels of genuine excitement that you would expect from a decent zombie film rather than just another computer game adaptation.
I enjoyed it but it hasn't converted me to liking the "Resident Evil" franchise. Ignore the "R" rating. Until these films start getting made for adults, rather than for little kids, they will still only ever rate as average.

When I had the choice recently to see this or "The Golden Compass" I chose the latter because I just knew this would suck with a PG-13 rating. I thought I might as well at least watch a real kids' film rather than another kiddified non-horror vampire/zombie movie.
Alas I finally did watch this pile of crap as well though. It wasn't just bad compared to the two previous versions of the same story but was particularly crap in its own right. Even "The Omega Man" is better than this tedious mess!
Will Smith was okay in it but everything was very below average. There were too many pointless flashbacks and not enough action to keep anyone with more than one brain cell entertained for very long. As a slightly zombified version of "Cast Away" it was equally as dull.
Mercifully it was all soon over even if the pacing of the movie was so slow that it felt like I'd been watching it for a week by the time it ended.
It's one to avoid. Watch "The Last Man on Earth" version instead.

I watched this mainly to get away from the overheated mall shops and waste a couple of hours.
I didn't completely hate it but I did manage to fall asleep in the middle and only woke up when the CGI polar bears were fighting.
The story was a bit all over the place but it was nice to hear some good old English accents again even if Nicole Kidman's is obviously fake.
I'm sure that the books are better than this so I might read them one day. I've seen all three in one paperback for $20 so I think I'll have that next time I go out.
As for the anti-Christian stuff that I have heard rumours about, where was it? I didn't notice anything religious in this apart from the "demons" and the fact that the heroine was supposed to be from unmarried parents and went to Jordan college. I'm probably missing out on some really clever subtext but I just enjoyed it as a story not as some kind of athiestic sermon.
It's all just fantasy anyway. It's no worse than Narnia but certainly isn't any better unfortunately.
Also because it has a "to be continued" ending, it will indeed suck even more if they don't make the next one.

After all the hype surrounding "30 Days of Night", I was expecting it to at least be scary. It wasn't. It was reasonably gory in places though so it wasn't a total waste as a horror film.
But it did lack suspense. The few moments where there could have been suspense were rushed and the "vampires" didn't really have any stealthiness about them that could have been used to rectify matters in the first place.
I really didn't like these animalistic vampires or their Kilingon language. They were just on the wrong side of pointless and exuded about as much menace as rabid gerbils. In fact, since most of them had severely rat like faces, they might well have actually been rabid gerbils.
The middle section of this film was also far too slow. I spent most of the film looking at Melissa George's odd little nose which seems far too small for her face anyway. Has she had some work done there? She needs more.
Josh Hartnett, on the other hand, seems to have blossomed as an actor. He was very watchable for once even though he also seems to share the same nose.
I liked the idea of the story though and it was, although very much like "The Thing" in atmosphere, an original film.
It just disappointed me by not being at all scary and having yet another "self sacrifice" message at the end. At least it was "R" rated.

I'm going to be lenient about "The Flock". It's the kind of thing that fans of C.S.I. will get a kick out of but horror fans will just shrug at.
Apart from jittery edits and the grainy look that far too many films have lately, it isn't filmed too badly. At least the camera stayed still enough for it to be watchable even if the shot framing itself sometimes also left a lot to be desired.
I'm not a fan of Richard Gere though so his performance was wasted on me. He is just all wrong for the part but is slightly more suited to it than Claire Danes who doesn't really have the experience to make her role credible at all.
The story is pretty lightweight too. It's more or less "Se7en" but with sex offenders instead of serial killers and social workers instead of cops.
There are a couple of good moments which are reminiscent of "Dirty Harry" but the gory scenes (which I was looking forward to) are quite weak. You don't really get to see anything too visceral which is a shame.
KaDee Strickland is quite good as the psychotic Viola though. She was surprisingly sexy later on too. Avril Lavigne also has a very small role which will please the kiddies but it was hardly all that memorable.
The weaknesses in the script and the ludicrousness of Richard Gere's character started to grate on me after a while so I really can't rate it any higher than I have.

Yet another rip-off of "The Bad Seed" which is supposed to make you think that children can get the better of adults. They can't. Just watch this movie and marvel at the stupidity of whoever thought it would be a good idea to even make it.
Some of the acting is good but everything is far too slow. It really couldn't have been much slower without stopping altogether.
This, of course, wasn't even a horror film. It looks like one to the casual observer but it's what they now call a "psychological thriller". Usually that means that you are supposed to think about it but there's nothing really to think about here. You already know that Joshua is a twisted little monster from the beginning and you know that one good spanking would cure him. It could have been made far more ambiguous as to whether or not he was doing anything.
The most ridiculous part of the whole story is that Joshua's motivation is just that he wants to live with his gay showtune composing uncle instead of his parents.
If you can stay awake long enough, you might find something to praise in this but I don't think it's going to end up on too many lists of favourites.

Horribly predictable and clichéd but still enjoyable if you try not to think too hard... and by "too hard", I mean "at all".
I'm very surprised that this was "R" rated. It has very little gore and the methods the psycho uses to kill his victims are more akin to something out of a "Batman" movie than "Saw".
To say that "Untraceable" is derivative is an understatement. There is nothing here that you haven't already seen done in another film and done a lot better too. Even the laughable techno-babble of "Hackers" is included. I'm just surprised that they didn't have big glowing screens with the words projected on the faces of the computer users as well.
Without giving too much away, there were some huge plot holes in this which unintentionally made it more of a comedy to me than a thriller. Why, for instance, didn't the police just shut the power down to the city for a few hours? That would certainly have screwed-up the evil genius' death machines and his internet connection especially if he was using a laptop. There's no way his battery life would have lasted longer than 30 minutes with all that nonsense hooked up to it.
Another thing was how come the clever FBI internet woman didn't have a firewall and virus checker on her home computer? More to the point, what the hell was she doing letting her 8 year old play games on it in the first place? It totally ruined the credibility of the character just to put in a pointless filler scene in of the psycho stalking the little girl with a webcam. Does nobody think these things through when they make a film? Obviously not.
Anyway, I really didn't see this as a real horror film at all. It reminded me a lot of "Copycat" for some reason especially as it uses one or two set pieces that all the other "cop v. serial killer" films have. As a thriller, I suppose it's entertaining but it's just not original enough to be memorable.

I had to think about "Disturbia" for quite a long time before writing this review. It's yet another one where I was fooled into liking it for its duration but, looking back on it now, it wasn't really all that satisfying.
I remember thinking half an hour into it that it wasn't very good. The opening fishing trip bored me rigid, then the accident was as contrived as possible, and then I sat perplexed as to what happened to Shia LaBoeuf's facial scarring which should have resulted from that accident. He's not the handsomest of young actors anyway so I suppose if he'd had the massive cheek scar that his character sustained earlier on, it would have made him even less appealing to look at. I also didn't care about his Spanish class, his lack of acting ability when he went "berserk" and punched the teacher, and I certainly didn't care about his house arrest or his lack of domestic skills. 30 minutes of all this characterisation was making me ready to switch the film off in disgust.
Then things started to pick up. No, I'm not talking just about the presence of Sarah Roemer who was probably the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. All of a sudden, I just got sucked into this rip-off of "Rear Window" and started to play along. I'm not sure if I was enjoying it or whether I was being duped by the director into thinking that I was watching something cleverer than it was. I started seeing parallels between this and "Brainscan" and then I started to wonder if Shia LeBoeuf would look like Russell Crowe when he was older... and that was it, I was well and truly being sucked into caring about the characters and whether they would manage to foil David Morse's evil plans to insulate his cavity walls with red-headed girls.
Amidst more product placement for Red Bull and Ipods than I've ever seen before, the plot wasn't too bad at all. It couldn't be, it's been done to death a million times before. Once all the finger pointing started, all of a sudden I was thinking of "Fright Night" and then images of Max with Sam's mother in "The Lost Boys" started to fill my mind. Could this film be any more derivative? Could it be any less original? The teenager who nobody believes who has a killer next door is a story as old as the hills.
David Morse was probably the least credible person to play the bad guy. I suppose that was why he cast because he just doesn't look as if he has it in him to do anybody any harm. I just didn't find his trying to be menacing very convincing.
I also still don't believe that Shia LeBoeuf would ever get a girl who looked like Sarah Roemer in real life nor did I totally understand what he did to the video camera to make it transmit a fuzzy signal back to his computer. I'll try breaking some of my expensive electronics later to see if I can replicate it. Maybe not. There were just too many things that didn't add up for me to shake this feeling that I was being fooled into believing what all reason was telling me to reject.
And so when the ever so exciting yet totally predictable finale occurred complete with music pumping away to stimulate what little grey matter was still active in my brain, I could no longer struggle against it any more and actually started to care if Carrie-Anne Moss got rescued or not.
Yup, it got me hook, line and sinker... a bit like the fish at the start of this 105 minute adventure into Stupidland. I'm not giving it more than 3 out of 10. In fact, I'm giving it 3 out of 10 just for Sarah Roemer. I might have given it 8 out of 10 if I hadn't thought about it. That makes me feel dirty inside.

Think of the most disappointing Stephen King adaptation that you have ever seen and then multiply it by ten to get an idea of just how bad this version of Scott Smith's novel actually is. Scott Smith even wrote the screenplay so, to be fair, he's only got himself to blame over the fans' reaction to this.
Judged on its own merits, rather than in comparison to the book, it just comes off as yet another "tourists going where they shouldn't" movie with predictable consequences. The only originality here was in what exactly is going to kill the tourists this time. I won't spoil it for you, the CGI will do that on its own, but just think of a certain Amicus film or "Little Shop of Horrors" and you'll be able to work it out.
Characterisation was superficial and the acting was average at best. You won't care about any of them all that much and therein lies the biggest flaw. To actually get involved in the horror there should at least be some kind of empathy with the protagonists. Unless you are a rich twenty-something college student who is thinking of taking a holiday in some out of the way part of Mexico then you probably won't identify very much with anybody in this.
Where the film does excel is in the gore scenes. There are some extremely nasty moments and everybody ends up extremely bloodied by the end of it all. Some of the more gruesome moments are ruined by such bad acting that you will probably end up laughing rather than being horrified though.
It isn't scary and, although it tries desperately to be exciting in places, it does tend to plod. I give it 3 out of 10. You can enjoy this film if you don't think too hard but it's certainly nothing to go out of your way for.

This is bound to be a big box office success but I wasn't all that impressed. It's the best Marvel adaptation so far other than Spider-man but they tried to pack far too much in.
As you can tell from the official Marvel biography at http://www.marvel.com/universe/Iron_Man_(Anthony_Stark), no wonder it was all so conflated.
Robert Downey, Jr., was amusing enough as Tony Stark and I expect the comic nerds will think he was perfect for the role. I never liked Iron Man as a superhero and have no real clue how much like the comic book character he is. I was much more into the X-men and Ghost Rider and I haven't been impressed by any of their big screen portrayals so far.
Anyway, as I said, it tries to pack too much in. I think it's over two hours long (or at least it felt like it) but because of the pacing it all feels very shallow. You don't really get to see Iron Man's famous heart being created and it strains all credibility that he can make the Iron Man suit in a week out of bits and pieces of his existing weapons.
It's not something to really think too hard about anyway though. Let's face it, we're talking about a flying robotic suit of armour here that gives the wearer superhuman powers. At this point anyone looking for realism should really go elsewhere.
The action sequences are what will sell this thing. It's a mix of CGI and practical effects but mainly CGI. It's on the same level as Transformers. Kids will love it but I found it all far too rushed.
Characterisation was two dimensional at best and there was no chemistry between anybody that made you care one iota about them. Most of the dialogue was cringeworthy especially any scenes involving Gwyneth Paltrow.
I'll give it 4 out of 10. It has no rewatchability factor whatsoever and was just on the wrong side of annoying for me to enjoy. If I want to see robots fighting robots then I'll watch Robocop again instead.

Like a lot of people, I have never been overly enthusiastic about Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" (1972). I have it in my collection for completeness but it's not exactly brilliant, is very mean-spirited and is really quite embarrassingly bad compared to other movies from the same year. The funny thing about "Last House on the Left" was that, despite its awfulness, it was banned during the UK's "Video Nasty" purge in the '80s and remained that way for over 20 years. Although a few slightly censored versions came out, it was only this time last year (March 2008) before it was even legally available as a fully uncut DVD and a lot of people were very disappointed that its notoriety couldn't match up to its content.
So it was obvious that something had to be done and Greek director Dennis Iliadis (previously known for directing "Hardcore" in 2004) obviously set out with good intentions to make a version of "Last House on the Left" which horror fans would actually like. With even more hype than the original ever received, everyone was onboard with this film and wanted it to be the most brutal, horrific thing that they had ever seen. But did Dennis Iliadis succeed where Wes Craven failed? Well, yes and no.
To begin with, "The Last House on the Left" (2009) is not a scene by scene remake but with added gore. That would have been the easy way out and probably wouldn't have been any improvement. It's not a total re-imagining either because, as we all know, the likelihood was that the whole project would have turned into something as hated as Rob Zombie's "Halloween". Instead there are subtle storyline changes, slightly more likeable characters and a lot more realism.
With quite a spiteful opening scene to highlight the nature of the villains, the rest of the characters are all introduced well and enough time is spent on them to get to know them but without creating a lot of empathy or overdoing it. There's room left for them to create their own exposition. While the Collingwood family still remain mostly two-dimensional, some subtext about a dead son, Ben, is brought in to flesh them out but it's never fully realised. It does provide a useful plot device later on and helps to explain a little bit of the motivation behind the way they interact with each other and the gang/family of criminals but I wanted to know more about their previous tragedy and it just wasn't there. This was a lot different to the beginning of the original "Last House on the Left" though and at least showed an attempt to subtley create a more credible flow to the story.
More important changes occur with the rape scene. It's one of the nastiest rapes that I've ever seen on screen and is definitely up there with "I Spit on Your Grave" (which is also due to be remade this year). Having said that, its realism is somehow marred by being a lot less graphic and it's all over a lot more quickly than you'd expect. It's probably the building tension and the absolutely inescapable certainty of what is going to happen that makes it all seem a lot worse than it is and Sara Paxton (as Mari Collingwood) is very convincing. What makes it different to Wes Craven's version though is the final outcome of the victim and how it effects the rest of the story. Without giving too much away, this obviously changes the motivation of her parents later from purely revenge to a need to protect and survive at all costs. That was a nice touch.
The parents are played by Monica Potter (as Emma) and Tony Goldwyn (as John). If they look familiar to you it's because, like the rest of the cast, they have both done a lot of TV work. The irony of the actor who played a modern day Jesus in the film "Joshua" (2002) now killing the bad guys was not wasted on me.
Similarly, Garret Dillahunt (as the psychotic Krug) is better known recently for playing the robotic Cromartie in "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". Once you start to identify any actor with a previous role it spoils the "willing suspension of disbelief" and no amount of make-up or beard-growing is going to change that even though I must admit that even I didn't immediately recognise any of them. Garret Dillahunt is a lot colder in the role than David Hess but unfortunately doesn't come across as at all scary when compared to his lecherous brother Francis (played by Aaron Paul). Spencer Treat Clark (as Krug's son Justin) was the one who gave the best performance in the film perhaps because he is the least recognisable and can be judged more on his own merits.
One fake recognition for me was with Riki Lindhome who played the evil Sadie and was the only one of the beautiful girls in the film to get her boobs out. From certain angles she looks just like Juliet Landau from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" but, amusingly for me once I'd found out my mistake, she played a completely different character in Joss Whedon's series. She's absolutely gorgeous though and has a great topless fight scene near the end which is almost worth buying the eventual DVD for just to keep repeating it.
The practical effects, camerawork, music and overall production values are very good. The only major problems with "The Last House on the Left" which stopped it from being a lot better than the original are the average dialogue and the lack of satisfying kills when it comes to the gang of criminals getting their cummuppance.
Here's where I spoil it all for you (although the trailer already does that quite well too). The first death is overlong, the second too short and the final one involving a broken microwave is simply ludicrous. The placement of this scene also leaves a lot to be desired.
Whereas the rest of the movie was nicely paced, the whole "revenge" section is rushed in comparison and the disjointed ending seems tacked on. I didn't get any satisfaction out of it and just felt absolutely nothing at all.
In fact, the ending of "The Last House on the Left" simply nullified the rest of the movie and the little bit of enjoyment that I was getting. The only reason that I can think of for it being that way is that the director first wanted a happy ending and then wanted it to end with a bang but couldn't think of how to put the two together.
Whatever Dennis Iliadis' choices were, he was doing well until he eventually made the wrong one and killed any chance of this film being memorable. It's a shame. "The Last House on the Left" is better than the original in many ways but just as bad in others.

I've just watched "Drag Me to Hell" and couldn't get into it at all. So much for Sam Raimi's triumphant return to the horror genre.
Some of it was like "Evil Dead 2" (camerawork, demons, makeup etc.) but it was all so boring that I kept falling asleep. Yeah, there were severe pacing problems. It's aptly named because it really does "drag".
In the moments when I did wake up it was only because of loud noises in the soundtrack and not because I cared about anything that was happening to the main character (whose name I can't even be bothered to type since you'll never hear of her again anyway). It all just felt cheap like "Army of Darkness" (for obvious reasons) but without a Bruce Campbell to carry it off.
I didn't like the actors (especially the blonde girl with her eyes too close together like a Wallace and Gromit character), didn't care about the story (such as it was), and, well, it was just bland. There's some really crappy CGI just to make me (and everyone else) even more disappointed too.
It's obviously also just a lame PG-13 so it isn't realistically gory or scary. As a fully grown man, I need my horror to be a lot more adult. The only thing I did like was that the cat in the film looked a lot like my own mackerel tabby - Willow.
This film just failed on all levels to entertain me. "Masterpiece of horror cinema", my arse! I'd rather watch "Thinner" or "Curse of the Demon" instead.
I've given it 2 out of 10 and that's being generous.

While not the biggest fan of The Grudge remakes or even the originals, after re-watching the first 2, I got quite interested in seeing how the story was going to end.
Unfortunately, with Takashi Shimizu no longer directing the third installment, things didn't so much progress as stagnate in the Chicago apartment building that was already seen in Grudge 2.
While not a totally awful movie, the atmosphere just wasn't the same and the characters were a lot more irritating. Everything looked a lot brighter too (presumably to show off all the pretty young faces) which meant that there just weren't enough shadows for the vengeful ghosts to jump out of.
Instead of jump scares, The Grudge 3 went for a lot more gore and is the first one in the franchise to be R-rated. I will admit that the gory bits were nicely done but there was nothing overly inventive about them.
The biggest problem I had, other than none of it being at all scary, was that this one brought in the Takeo character with a possession storyline that was far too reminiscent of The Shining. Gil McKinney is just not enough of a Jack Nicholson to make it work and it all seems not only forced but very incongruous.
I didn't actually find any of the acting performances all that credible though anyway but that has been the problem with all the Grudge films. They've all just relied on the gimmick of the little white boy who screeches like a cat and his long haired mother with bulging eyes. There have never really been any attempts at anything other than routine performances and the stories have been so all over the place that it's been hard to feel anything for any of the characters anyway,
To its credit, The Grudge 3 is more linear and not filled with dozens of flashbacks and changes of location. It's easier to follow and, despite Emi Ikehata's horrible almost French pronunciations of every "the" word as "ze", it's a lot easier to listen to without Sarah Michelle Gellar's whininess. As much as I liked how Sarah Michelle Gellar looked as Buffy, I've never liked her voice. But that's a moot point since she isn't in The Grudge 3 at all and Emi Ikehata is a lot better looking anyway.
Without giving too much away, The Grudge 3 doesn't make enough use of Toshio and Kayako. One scene with Toshio was so ludicrous that it threw me right out of the film but all the scenes with Kayako do that because I'm warped and think that she's hot!
As I said, this one is all about bringing Takeo into the story before setting things up for a whole new "Grudge" or "Curse" (I still don't know why they translated Ju-on as "Grudge" which seems a silly word to use in the context of what these movies are about). By the end of it all, you can almost feel the producers champing at the bit to make The Grudge 4.
Personally, I hope The Grudge movies stop here before they end up going the same way as the Saw franchise. There's only so much that you can wring out of the same characters (especially if the only interesting ones are already dead) before it ends up as silly as yet another parody by the Scary Movie gang. Oops, too late...
Anyway, to sum things up, The Grudge 3 was an entertaining film but was by far the weakest of the American versions. Fans of The Grudge will probably still enjoy it but it could have and should have been a lot better.
It wasn't boring but it was very miscast, had a lot of plot holes, and wasn't very effective as a horror movie at all. It went straight to DVD and that in itself says all you really need to know.