Movies I've watched in 2009

"I'm not a monster... I'm just ahead of the curve." - The Joker.


From Cesar Romero's playful lunacy to Jack Nicholson's malicious glee, and now Heath Ledger's terrifying insanity, The Joker is the yardstick which the Dark Knight just keeps getting darker.



The late Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker is every bit as disturbing as the hype suggests. Whether he's impaling a gangster's face on a pencil, forcing thugs to fight to the death with a broken pool cue, blowing up people and places or just playing mind games ("Tonight you are all going to be part of a 'social experiment'."), this clown prince is cruel anarchy personified. Hiding his scarred face under sickly war paint, he's chaos in a suit, an almost supernatural force using his gang of former asylum inmates to orchestrate grand acts of slaughter and destruction.




Where as Batman himself, portrayed by Christian Bale, is a force of nature. He's been keeping Gotham clean for a while now. People fear him. Until he meets a formidable foe with The Joker. To put it in his words:

"It's like when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object."



This is a bleak, vicious vision set in a realistic world where sewing explosives Saw-style is good for a laugh. As the superhero film evolves, expect it to continue to seek dramatic weight in the horrific. As the complex, gorgeously rendered Dark Knight proves, it makes for some of the heaviest superhero drama to date.



Why so serious? Because even our greatest heroes live in the heart of darkness these days.

I would have lost complete interest in this movie if not for the rather awesome looking killer in it. Other than that, this movie is not in the least bit entertaining, and compared to other half decent slasher films that are out there, not much worth your time.


The setting is that of an old movie theater, and the plot is something about a supernatural serial killer who, after slicing up his victim's with a cool looking screw thing, pulls their bodies onto the big screen to be a part of the movie. The dim witted audience who are watching eventually realize what's going on and it only gets worse from there on.


Cheap gore effects and bad acting are expected from a low budget direct to dvd slasher movie, but it's taken to a whole new level of cheap here. The people don't even go down in interesting ways. The gore effects on display here are mediocre. The plot could have been cool - a serial killer on the loose in a grindhouse movie theater - but they screwed it up by adding a supernatural element to it, something that has been ruining slasher pictures for decades (Jason and Michael know how it feels). Midnight Movie is just your run of the mill lame 21st century slasher flick.

Mirrors has some cool imagery, but it's nothing close to frighting. Some great gore, but that's expected from Alexandre Aja (whom also directed the great Hills Have Eyes remake & High Tension).

Review

Tokyo Gore Police posits a near future Japan where the Tokyo Police Force (TPF) has been privatized to better combat the recent threat of a new species of super-criminal called ?engineers". Engineers are possess the ability to grow fleshy, Cronenberg-esque weaponry out of any wound inflicted on them. Due to this advantage, a special breed of super-cop has emerged called ?engineer hunters? who are particularly adept at filleting the psychopaths into the few dozen chunks required to bring them down for good.


As if that explanation didn't sound totally awesome. Unfortunately, it's not, and I knew how this film would turn out. But, ignoring my bad expectations, I decided to watch this mish-mashed Japanese horror import anyway. I've previously heard nothing but good things from other Japanese horror films such as Audition, The Host, and Oldboy, so I figured when I got my hands on this one I'd at least be satisfied by the amount of bloodletting and repulsive monstrosities that were shown graphically mutilated by a young woman (Audition's Eihi Shiina) dressed as a school girl. Now I know how wrong I was.


In reality, Tokyo Gore Police is fairly exhausting. Clocking in at 110 minutes, it rapidly becomes an exercise in waiting for the next cool mutation or gore effect. The setup for the simplistic story consumes one third of the running time, and there are too many shots that take too long to get started and linger too long before moving on. This adds up to another thirty minutes or so of watching the same arterial spray shower and other repeated elements.


The gore affects here are of the up-most cheapest I've seen. It's affective, however, in that it manages to spray all over - the red stuff literally shoots out of open wounds like a geyser - but at some points you just want it to stop. Not because it's sickening (although to some it may be), but because it gets way out of hand. The monster's are laughable, even though I don't think some of them are supposed to be. The fighting is way over the top, to a point where you don't get any enjoyment out of watching it. Although all these things would sum up your average B-movie or exploitation flick, it's no where near as entertaining or enjoyable.

It's one joke, already predictable, and it gets old fast. Don't even waste your time.

Once everything starts falling into place, it's as if this uncommonly original film was fated to work from the very start.

One of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. Pineapple Express is a highly entertaining, offbeat comedy-thriller that has Future Cult Movie written all over it. James Franco as a pot head is hilarious, and Seth Rogen is great too. Recommended.

Once again the master of the independent genre film manages to bring something fresh and worthy to the table.

Diary of the Dead fits quite nicely into the modern zombie film renaissance that's been rocking the horror world for the past few years. And, unlike Cloverfeild, it makes the whole first person camera type of shooting look good.

Overall, a welcome addition to the living dead cycle.

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Old-school gore, complete with people getting slaughtered while they're nude, gooey viscera as far as the eye can see and the planting of seeds for a sequel. Or, in other terms your (above) average 80's B-movie slasher flick.

See it in 3D. Body parts are lopped off. Pick axes are stabbed at the camera.
It is one of the best times I've had at a horror movie in years.

It doesn't try and take itself serious. Every other scene shows the killer (who looks awesome) brutally slaughtering somebody. And Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) should be in more movie like this. It works like a blood-spattered charm. I'm actually surprised the MPAA let them go with this.

3.5 stars for the movie, slashed up to 4 because it was a fun experience in 3D and just a fun horror movie.

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Synopsis: Despite repeated warnings to stay away, a group of fun-loving but none-too-bright teenagers set out to reopen the eerie Camp Crystal Lake, which closed 20 years earlier after a series of bizarre and unexplained deaths. Now someone is lurking in the woods, spying on the happy campers, and plotting a gory, grisly revenge on those who would disturb the camp's slumber. A horror classic that set the standard for slasher flicks of the 1980s.
"Kill her, Mommy! Kill her! Don't let her get away, Mommy! Don't let her live!"
Review:After Halloween, this is the definitive slasher flick. It takes the killer from your hometown and puts him in your backyard. With a thin plot leading you to believe Jason is back and behind the massacre, a spectacular twist ending reveals Pamela Voorhees is seeking revenge for her son's death. Now, of course everybody knows she is the killer, but back then it must have been some kind of shock.
Does to camping in the woods what Jaws did to swimming.

Synopsis: Sylvester Stallone stars as ex-Green Beret John Rambo, a shell-shocked Vietnam vet adrift in the Pacific Northwest. Harassment by an unsympathetic small-town sheriff brings on nasty flashbacks of torture at the hands of the Viet Cong; after busting out of the jail where he has been unjustly imprisoned, our psychically-scarred hero vows to get revenge on the ungrateful sheriff. Before blowing the sheriff and his town away, however, Rambo must use his jungle smarts to elude the relentless posse of state troopers and National Guardsmen who pursue him through the forest.



Teasle: Are you telling me that 200 of our men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?

Trautman: You send that many, don't forget one thing.

Teasle: What?

Trautman: A good supply of body bags.



Review: An action film that hangs on an interesting reversal, taking the crazed-killer-in-the-woods theme from Friday the 13th and turning it inside out-- the psychopath is now our hero, a maladjusted ex-Green Beret played by Sylvester Stallone. The action movie of the 80's.

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Synopsis: A fresh batch of teenage camp counselors return to the ill-fated Camp Crystal Lake five years after its most recent atrocities. Since the apparent perpetrator of those crimes was decapitated by the only survivor, the plucky teens ignorantly go about the business of reviving the camp, unaware that they are being stalked by an unseen figure who lives in the woods, waiting for the right opportunity to take bloody revenge.
"Things have been quiet for five years and that's the way we want to keep it."
Review: Jason Voorhees. When you hear the name you think of the nearly unstoppable serial killer in the old hockey mask who slaughters teens in the woods. Well, that all started in this movie. But he doesn't done the infamous mask, but a sack with one eye hole.
Now, I personally prefer the hockey mask, but I do like Jason's appearance here. This sequel has nothing on the original, but is a good addition to the series and a great slasher flick.

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Synopsis: Jason Voorhees returns again to Camp Crystal Lake, where he drowned nearly three decades before while some negligent camp counselors made out on the beach. Understandably upset by this turn of events, Jason continues to haunt his old stomping grounds, dealing death to those thrill-seeking teens who venture into the woods. This time around, Jason faces tougher victims in the form of a motorcycle gang and dons what is to become his trademark hockey mask. The original theatrical release featured 3-D effects.



"No! You CAN'T be alive!"



Review: Jason Voorhees first of many triumphant returns, this time taking place at a ranch (complete with weapon filed barns and spooky sheds, and it's even close to the lake! yay!) just outside the town of Crystal Lake. At least they try and make the location a little different each movie: first they they try and reopen the camp, second they bring some counselors in training, and now it's just a bunch of friends entering the slaughter. A few pretty cool deaths (including Jason's) and a hot survivor girl make this a decent addition to the series. All this, and it was originally released in 3D.

Synopsis: Crispin Glover and Corey Feldman star in this, the fourth movie in the venerable FRIDAY THE 13TH series. Though most had written off the series by this installment, in retrospect this looks like it was the best of the series. First, Glover injects some much needed personality into the film as Jimmy, one of the many doomed teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake, and he seems to somehow make the other teens a little more entertaining, including Corey Feldman's Tommy, ostensibly the hero of the picture. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the gore effects her are done by the legendary Tom Savini (DAWN OF THE DEAD), who adds a level of inventiveness to the endless killings that the series hadn't yet experienced. Five more sequels followed.




"Under extreme duress, people are capable of extraordinary behavior. That's what happened when your brother violently attacked the killer. At that moment, it was perfectly normal for him to act to protect himself. "



Review: Jason is taken to the morgue after a deadly head wound delivered from the sharp side of an axe, and yet lives to tell the tale. It leaves a cool blood mark there, too. The Friday series supposedly goes downhill after the first, but in my opinion this is one of the better ones. I like Jason himself here. The mask, the whole presence is good. The characters are grade A, for a slasher anyways. And the kills are sort of inventive. Oh yeah, and Jason is finally killed off at the end, right? Right?








(how the hell this get 4 stars? well, for novelty purposes of course)

Synopsis: A team-building weekend in the mountains of Eastern Europe goes horribly wrong for the sales division of the multi-national weapons company Palisade Defence when they become the victims of a group of crazed killers who will stop at nothing to see them dead.



Review: So there's still a smart office-horror movie left to be made. In the meantime, Severance is just another paycheck. Splatter comedy meets comic splatter in this brash crossover film that puts seven white-collar workers in the scary wilds of Hungary where psycho killer Russian ex-military lurk.

Synopsis: Tommy, the young boy who finally killed hockey-masked murderer Jason Voorhees in Part 4, has grown up and is now spending time in a home for the mentally fragile. Not long after Tommy checks in though, someone starts killing the patients one-by-one. Has Tommy picked up where the legendary serial killer left off or has Jason come back from beyond the grave to kill again?



Mayor Cobb: Jason Voorhees? You're outta your fucking mind. You've been out in the sun too long. Jason Voorhees is dead! His body was cremated. He's nothing but a handful of ash.

Sheriff Cal Tucker: You know that for sure, Mayor? Were you there? Did you see him cremated?



Review: Since Jason "died" at the hands of a young Tommy Jarvis at the end of the "Final Chapter", then I guess you can say this is a sort of new beginning for the ill-fated franchise. Taking a mediocre, yet decent story revolving around a boarding house located just outside Crystal Lake and a 20-something Tommy returning as a delusional nut-case. As soon as Tommy arrives, a sting of murders appear around the grounds. Is Tommy the murderer? Did the episode about killing Jason tweak something in his mind, making him a psychopath? Or is Jason really back from the dead? NO! It's the ambulance driver, who's son was hacked to death earlier in the film. Now, how'd you like that? But it's still a good old fashioned slasher film.

Synopsis: Tommy returns to the grave to make sure Jason is dead and accidently brings him back to life. Now it's up to Tommy to stop Jason's mindless killing and put him back where he belongs.



"I've seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly. "



Review: After supposedly dieing at the end of Final Chapter, Jason is back from beyond the grave. Tommy Jarvis is back, too, but has nothing really to do with what happened int he last installment. In fact, he's almost a completely different character. Jason looks great as a zombie,almost as if he walked right out of 'Return of the Living Dead'. It gives us a couple of good, self-referential laughs ... the film is probably the most enjoyable of the series, but it isn't the best.



Martin: Why'd they have to go and dig up Jason?
[looks at the camera]
Martin: Some folks sure got a strange idea of entertainment.

"If you were the only suspect in a senseless bloodbath - would you be standing in the horror section?"


Retrospective: The first film of the Scream trilogy, also know as the film that catapulted the teen-scream horror craze around the time of it's release. Directed by heavyweight horror veteran Wes Craven (director of A Nightmare on Elm St, Hills have eyes, Last House on the Left), the sole purpose of Scream was to deconstruct the slasher sub-genre, something directors like Craven and John Carpenter popularized back in the 80's. At the time of it's release, Scream had a big impact on the horror genre. Hitting cinema's in at a time where horror films were of an appsense, Scream was a huge hit not just among gorehounds and horror fans, but mostly of the general public. Casting popular television actors such as Courteney Cox and Neve Cambell, the audience grew and attracted newer viewers.


Scream focuses on Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who's still traumatized from the loss of her mother to the hands of alleged murder/rapist Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). A string of homicides occur in Sidney's town, leading her to believe her mother's killer is striking her friends to get to her. The killer, donning the ever-popular 'screaming ghost' halloween mask and robe, calls and torments his victims before killing them. Questioning them about popular horror movies, if they get the right answer he just might spare them.


Don't be surprised, Scream uses all the popular slasher movie cliches in the book (running up the stairs to escape the killer, all the typical stereotypes, and the ever popular 'I'll be right back' line), but it's displayed here on purpose. Craven breaks down the context of these films, gathering all their biggest and baddest happenings and throws them at the characters. They watch the films and know whats what, yet they still can't seem to survive.


"Now Sid, don't you blame the movies, movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative!"


One of my favorite things about Scream is it's killer(s). Just like you and I, the ghostface killer is just two friends who love horror movies. They know all the rules and imply them and make their own movie, or so to speak.
Scream is a smart, well executed horror film. Perhaps one of the finest of the rather stale 90's decade. Followed by two sequels, and several rip offs, Scream still remains one of the better, most thought out, slasher movies since the 80's.


"What's the point they're all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door, it's insulting."

Synopsis: A young girl named Tina uses her telekinesis to drown her dad in Crystal Lake. 10 years later, she returns with her evil psychiatrist, who is trying to exploit her powers. Meanwhile, a birthday party for a guy who never shows up rages on for three days in the house next door. Jason thankfully kills just about everyone before getting Carrie-d back into the lake where he began the film, thus rendering the entire movie pointless.




Review: The start of the bad sequels. To cut the film some slack, a lot of its impact was lessened by meddling producers, a rushed schedule, and the most severe MPAA cuts in the entire series. But even taking that into consideration, this one just doesn't deliver. The kids are the dullest in the entire series, and the telekinesis stuff seems lifted from Dream Warriors. However - Kane Hodder?s first and best appearance as Jason (with the all time best makeup/costume to boot) make it worth a look, and it was the last traditional "Crystal Lake" entry, which gives it some nostalgic value.

Synopsis: Dennis Allan is an scientist who visits Haiti on the strength of a rumour of a drug which renders the recipient totally paralyzed but conscious. The drug's effects often fool doctors, who declare the victims dead. Could this be the origin of the "zombie" legend? Alan embarks on a surprising and often surreal investigation of the turbulent social chaos that is Haiti during the revolution which ousted hated dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Often a pawn in a greater game, Alan must decide what is science, what is superstition, and what is the unknown in a anarchistic society where police corruption and witch-doctory are commonplace.



"When you wake up scream, Doctor Allen. Scream all you want. There is no escape from the grave."



Review: Mildly effective "fact" based horror from Wes Craven, who directed cult classics such as 1984's Nightmare on Elm St. and 1996's Scream. It makes you wonder, where did this - A lame documentary-flavored horror story come from. When you read it out, it has some potential: A movie directed by Wes Craven, horror master, about the cult and voodoo happenings in Haiti. But the end result is just mediocre at best.

Synopsis: After being resurrected in the least coherent manner ever (something involving an anchor and a power line running through the lake), Jason hops on a houseboat and takes it from Crystal Lake to the Atlantic Ocean, where he transfers to a cruise line and does his thing for an hour. Then the survivors make it to New York?s Vancouver borough, where they are pursued by Jason until he is done in by NY?s nightly toxic waste flood.





Review: If nothing else, it?s a step up from part VII, in my opinion. And the addition of a new location (or locations, because he's on a boat half the film). Kane?s performance is terrific as Jason, he's easily the best. Too bad he wasn't up for the job sooner, because he's in the four worst movies in the series.

Synopsis: A bunch of hippies descend on a small woodsy town for a concert, little realizing the terror that awaits them: an axe-wielding Ronald Reagan running amok in a one-man war against drugs. The sheriff (Thomas Jane) tries to control the madness but a corrupt mayor and a greedy promoter (Paul Reubens) insist the free-love festival must go on no matter how high the body count. It's a scrappy little low-budget horror indie given some star clout thanks to David Arquette (the sheriff in the SCREAM films) in his directorial debut.


Review: The rambling story attempts to turn the genre on its head, but it ends up giving in to every slasher movie cliché (Arquette himself plays a backwoods redneck).

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Synopsis: Rogue is the story of an American journalist who encounters a man-eating crocodile while on assignment in Australia. Although, it's somewhat different than your average giant croc film.

Review: A film predicated on ideas of suspense and pace rather than blasting violence and idiocy, Rogue is a satisfying, skilled entry in the water-based terror genre. Although, as everything is all well and done in the first half, the second seems to fall apart a bit. Once you meet the crocodile it falls more to your average crocodile movie (and I'm not talking about the cgi, which is actually decent)>

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Synopsis: The monsters have made it into a small neighboring town in the middle of nowhere and the locals have to band with the survivors of the bar' slaughter to figure out how to survive.

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Review: That's just what Feast 2 is, sloppy seconds. Compared to the first (a good little horror pic in my opinion), Feast 2 is just what it is ment to be: just a plain terrible B-monster movie.

Synopsis: After completely ignoring the (totally crappy) death is part 8, Jason is back in Crystal Lake; only to be blown up by a bunch of SWAT guys. Nonsense ensues. Some doctor eats his heart (just go with it) and becomes possessed by Jason?s soul. The movie gets even stranger for a while before Jason is finally reborn (complete with all of his wounds, wardrobe, and half-mangled hockey mask), only to be killed a few minutes later by a magic dagger and some giant puppet arms. An in-joke then frustrates fans for a decade.



"I'll have a Voorhees burger and a side of Jason fingers."



Review:Come on, guys! What were they thinking? Sending Jason to Manhattan - sure, everyone goes there eventually, but having him turn into small creatures and posses people's bodies while a character who suggests that he knows Jason for so long hunts him?
At least his makeup is pretty great when you see it. Not as-over-the top as pt.7 and bland as pt.8. And Kane Hodder is back! Unfortunately only for like 10 min...

Synopsis:Jason is captured by scientists and then frozen in a cryogenic chamber. In the year 2455 he is discovered and brought on board a spaceship that is conveniently populated with teenagers. After the stench of sex in the air wakes him up, he commits one good kill then several dull ones, only to be killed by a robot and then rebuilt by nanobots. Then some other stuff happens before ending as predictably as possible.



"Kids and their godd@mn field trips. Let's bring the psycho on board. Yeah, sure. I just know I'm gonna get blamed for this sh!t."



Review: The whole movie felt like a Sci/Fi original movie, not an addition to a slasher series. The MPAA barely had anything to edit since so many of the kills were tame to begin with, and the space setting is hardly used. It had been over a decade since the last true Jason adventure, but director James Isaac treats it like it had only been a few hours. Also, while Kane delivers a good performance (which would unfairly be his swan song), he does it with the absolute worst Jason design in the entire series. Uber Jason was an ill-conceived, crappy choice for costume design. Easily worst in the series.

Synopsis: Originally hinted at in the last scene of "Jason Goes to Hell", Freddy and Jason finally meet. Freddy is somehow strong enough to resurrect Jason from Hell (just not strong enough to resurrect himself I guess). So he has Jason kill people in Springwood, which would dig up memories of Freddy and thus allow him to be reborn. Freddy then gets mad that Jason is killing everyone, so they fight. Amazingly, it?s even stupider than it sounds but still quite entertaining.



"Oh that's right, everyone forgot. That's why they weren't afraid anymore. That's why I had to get Jason to kill for me to get them to remember. But now he just won't stop..."



Review: The fight?s awesome. No one?s going to argue that (well, maybe Kane Hodder, the real Jason Voorhees whom they so stupidly replaced). Unfortunately, there?s about 80 minutes before it that don?t really feel like a Friday movie at all, but rather a Freddy movie with Jason doing most of the killing as a consolation prize. There's way to many things wrong with this movie, but it could have been worse. You would think that after 10 years, they would come up with something better than ?Freddy died by fire, Jason by water: how can we use that here??

Friday the 13th (2009)
I liked the cast, I liked Jason's look, and I liked that they seemingly were trying really hard to make an F13 film that would sit comfortably with parts 1-4 (swap out 3 for 6, and that's the best of the franchise). And while the end product is satisfying and occasionally great, there are some blunders that keep it from being the "ultimate Jason" movie that it could have easily been with another pass or two at the script.


Ok, so this is what works. The opening scene, which quickly explains the events of the original Friday, is in my opinion a great idea. You can't ignore the mother, but you don't want to take to much time on it either, so they blend it with the opening credits and get it out of the way. Also, Derek Mears is a great Jason - he's got the physicality and presence to match up with the best Jason's yet. Great job with the makeup, too. Making him look human, but not just a hillbilly in a mask, like he often appeared in the earlier films. You really feel that he's a guy who's lived in the woods for his whole life. As far as the 'unique' kills featured in the ladder of the franchise, Jason sticks to the basics (machete, axe, his bare hands) for the most part. He even uses an arrow for the first time since the original, showing he's smarter than you'd expect. As I've said before, it's the films without gimmicks (Jason goes to Manhattan, Jason goes to Hell and ever Space for instance), with Jason just being Jason, that turn out the best.


For every plus, there's a minus. The biggest is the rather awkward setup. After the "Mrs. Voorhees" prologue, we are introduced to a group of kids. But Jared Padalecki and the other main actors are not among them, so you know they aren't living long - they are ultimately just there to provide a body count (this film has 13 corpses to be exact) and introduce Amanda Righetti's character, who Padalecki will spend the entire film looking for once he is finally introduced. Weird enough, this throwaway group of kids is actually more fun and "Friday" style than the real group that comes along later. So while you are enjoying their antics and interactions
(some funny, some rather brutal), you know they're all goners. It's basically a second prologue, one that lasts about 15-20 minutes. With the happenings here, most horror movies would be over, but this is only the beginning.


Jared Padalecki (Supernatural) is playing a variant of the Rob character from part 4, venturing to Crystal Lake six weeks later to find his sister. The other kids are natural and fun and function as they are supposed to, no complaints there. Usually in every Friday movie (and most slasher films) there's one last survivor, usually a girl, who finds all her friends bodies and eventually confronts the killer. The search for missing sister setup allows for the film to have essentially two Final Girls. Righetti is one, the other is Danielle Panabaker. You know the fates of every other character, so it was nice to have a little bit of suspense whenever one of the two girls were in danger, because you suspect that one of them will die, you're just not sure which. It's one of the best ways around an inherent flaw in the slasher formula I've ever seen.


Jason using bear traps and setting trip wires to alert him is a good addition to the character. I prefer the 'human' Jason, and here's the best one yet. The movie is the best since Jason Lives (part 6, this was part 12) by far, which in itself is a huge accomplishment, as I was starting to suspect that it was just not possible to make a good Jason film anymore. The Dunes have done that; I just hope next time they make a great one.

Synopsis: Bruce Campbell is Elvis Presley, who is in fact not dead but living in a retirement home in Texas. He befriends a black president Kennedy to combat an evil soul-sucking mummy from killing everyone in the home.



"I'll be damned if I let some foreign graffiti-writing soul-sucking sonuvabitch in an oversized cowboy hat and boots take my friends' souls and shit 'em down the visitor's toilet."



Review: It's as corny as it sounds. But Bruce Campbell is the no. #1 B-movie actor (it even says so in his book) and he pulls this off. After the Evil Dead trilogy, this is probably his best role, and it's a fairly entertaining film.

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Review:

INSIDE is a near perfect horror movie. The first time in a while a movie had me on the edge of my seat. From start to finish, your head will be on a swivel from side to side, checking over your shoulders. It had my heart racing - not only with fear but with excitement. American filmmakers should start taking notes from these foreign features. This is a well made horror film, one of the best in the last decade.


The story is centered around a young pregnant woman who is expecting to give birth in less than a day. Her husband died in a terrible car accident months before, and she lives alone in a dangerous neighborhood. A neighborhood where riots and murders occur right down the street. She's lonely and down on herself. She's a very vulnerable woman now. But for every protagonist, there's an antagonist: that's where the mysterious dark haired woman comes in. Who is she? What does she want of this soon-to-be mother? Just some of the things that make her more interesting of a character. She begins to stalk the young woman, looking through windows and doors at her. It gets intense once she gets inside the house.


Never have I seen the old 'face disappears into complete darkness' technique worked so well since the second Halloween movie over 25 years ago. Movies have tried the home invasion/creepy stalker show several times over the years (most recently last years The Strangers), but it really works here. The killer moves through the shadows unseen until just the right moment. But, not only is Inside very suspenseful, but equally disturbing. Blood flows by the gallons through out the course of the film. Guns, knifes, scissors, shards of glass, everything is reduced to a weapon here.


But, for every good thing there's always a bad thing. Some of the things here are a bit over the top. I'm not spoiling nothing by saying the killer is just a woman, yet the body count is pretty high. It all happens in one night yet, in one house and police officers and everybody who steps foot into the house is slaughtered. The amount of blood sprayed through the house on all over the walls is gruesome yet unbelievable. But, when all is said and done, it's still a horror movie we're talking about.


In the long run, INSIDE is one of the most disturbing movies you'll see in a long time. It's not the most well-made horror flick ever, but it's better than what we've been shown over here in American theaters lately. By the end of the movie, you'll know how the viewers of the original Halloween felt 30 years ago after stepping out of the theaters.

Synopsis: Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.



Oskar: I don't kill people.

Eli: No, but you'd like to. If you could... To get revenge. Right?

Eli: Oskar, I do it because I have to.



Review: The torments of childhood, in Let the Right One in, are as disturbing in their own way as anything that the supernatural has to offer. Let the Right One In is an original and new take on the vampire mythos, with enough regard for legend and folklore to make it a true vampire movie, but still completely removed from the legions of ridiculously uninspired turds that cram up the vampire sections of modern day video stores. It's also one of the better horror movies that I've seen in a while.


This is a movie that not only delivers the goods, but packs it's blood and mayhem in an original and highly engaging story. Gorehounds will delight in scenes of the kid vampire jumping prey, acid-mutilation and the buckets of blood clumsily filled by Eli's father, who drugs and bleeds teenage boys. Modern movie goers should be satisfied by the impressive technical aspects of the picture, the unforgettable, tragic character of Eli and the subtleties in storytelling. The grotesquery is delivered as if the most everyday of events, bloody murder and homely intrigue weighing equal, and that's what really sets the film apart. Let The Right One In has no flying CGI-vampires, no close-ups of fangs erecting in the mouth of the undead, no stakes through the heart, but unlike most vampire-flicks it does have heart, it does have a story and it does have character.


Rating: A-

"In the Last Great Invasion of the Last Great War, The Greatest Danger for Eight Men was Saving... One."




Synopsis: Director Steven Spielberg's World War II epic recounts the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (wonderfully played by Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the unimaginable loss of her three other sons to the war.


''That boy is alive. We are gonna send somebody to find him. And we are gonna get him the Hell outta there.''




Review: Director Stephen Spielberg magnificently depicts the grim and brutal realism of war. With a clever cast, great set designs, and a gripping story, Saving Private Ryan is one of the best and most memorable war movies ever.




As compelling, intimate and brutally realistic an account of men at war as you?ve ever seen.

''Yea? I blow a hole in your face and then I go in the house... and I sleep like a baby. You can count on that. We used to stack f@cks like you five feet high in Korea... use you for sandbags.''



Review: Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino tells the story of Walt Kowalski (Clint himself), an elderly man who's wife just passed away,has two son's who want nothing to do with him, and grand kids who want nothing more than his possessions. Walt refuses to abandon the neighborhood he's lived in for decades despite its changing demographics as he clings desperately to a mindset long since out of step with the times.



This wise, likeable and extremely entertaining picture is a must-see. The film itself deals with ageing and mortality, racism and redemption, is one of Eastwood?s finest. Torino was actually written by Eastwood during production on his other 2008 feature Changling, this film ultimately being the superior.



"Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn't have f#cked with? That's me."

In my opinion, Eastwood's character is great. His characteristics may not be the most likable, but this is what sets him apart from the rest. How didn't he get an Oscar nod for this performance?



"What the hell does everybody want with my Gran Torino?"

Synopsis: It's three years after the action of RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE, and the world has turned to a desert wasteland. Survivors of the zombie-making T-virus are few and far between, but Alice (Milla Jovovich) treks her way across the desolate landscape, fending off zombies and fighting the Umbrella Corporation. Not only is the company responsible for the virus and the state of the world, but their experiments also turned Alice into a super-human fighting machine.











Review: Cool looking zombies, an elaborate military compound located underground, and mad scientists experimenting on and intending to domesticate the carnivorous cannibals. Nice idea, too bad George A. Romero used it over 20 years ago for Day of the Dead, a near perfect zombie film. Now, Extinction can said to be the exact opposite.











Other than being a modern remake of Day, Extinction is loosely (very loosely) related to the Resident Evil video games. Almost having nothing to do with them, other than a few of the same character names. On the plus side, the zombies do look great. As does the Tyrant monster.










The plot, acting, and the special effects are 2nd rate. This one takes a step into sci-fi territory. Like I say, what works in the games don't work on the screen.

Review: Seen in its original Japanese version, Gojira is a stark, terrifying vision, a horror film in the truest sense of the word.


There are no cities conveniently evacuated so the creature can safely go on a crowd-pleasing tear. The human element is never forgotten, and the scenes in which the monster emerges are filled with as much raw, grim horror as any fright film you'll ever see. Destroying towns, setting fire to houses, there is a terrible inevitability to the creature's actions--he is a force of nature bringing death to mankind.





Made as it was less than a decade after the very real horrors of atomic warfare had wreaked havoc upon Japan, Gojira is a painful allegory that must've been quite difficult for native audiences of the time to get through. Scenes of decimated Tokyo, of victims bursting into flame, and hospitals overflowing with the maimed and their grieving families strike an all-too-familiar chord. No later Godzilla film would show the impact of the monster's attacks in such a personalized way.





This is not only a atomic age B-movie, this is true cinema.

In a gritty and alternate 1985 the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown, but after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so discover a deeper and far more diabolical plot.





"This city is afraid of me. I've seen its true face."


Review: Who watches the Watchmen? If you've read the comic, you should be. But for those of you who haven't, you may have a little trouble understanding the complex storyline of Watchmen.





The story here differs from the comic greatly in some places, and yet follows it well. The characters are dead on. Jackie Haley as the masked Rorschach being my personal favorite. Like the comic, he's a homicidal assailant. The Comedian is a anti-hero. And Dr.Manhattan (whom I don't care all to much for) is the representation of God. My only complaint was Ozymandaious, who looks and seems nothing like the stone jawed muscle bound comic version.





Overall, Watchmen is no where near as good as the comic. It could have been better, but of course it could have been worse.

Monsters vs Aliens

When a meteorite from outer space hits a young girl and turns her into a giant monster, she is taken to a secret government compound where she meets a ragtag group of monsters also rounded up over the years.





The new wave of 3-D has so far worked best with animation, and Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens is no exception. In Imax 3D, the picture looks great. Monsters revolves round a rag-tag coalition of washed up B-movie monsters - drawing ideas from movies such as the 50-ft woman, the blob, the creature from the black lagoon, the fly (in this case a cockroach) and mothra - sent by the government to destroy a giant alien machine. This is a homage to the atomic age of science fiction that debuted in the 1950's, a period of movies I highly enjoy. One of the reasons I highly enjoyed this movie.

The characters are well done and well voiced. Seth Rogen as B.O.B. sticks out as a well choice. Monsters vs Aliens may not be as good as other, more well conceived animated films such as Shrek, but it's still enjoyable never the less.

"If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead!"




SYNOPSIS


PHANTASM is the story of a boy - Mike Pearson (A. Michael Baldwin). Mike has already lost his parents and now he's obsessed with losing his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury). For Jody's part, he?s having a difficult time being tied down as a surrogate father to Mike. When the film begins, Jody and his best friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) try to shield Mike from another death as they forbid him attending the funeral of a friend. Mike sneaks to the cemetery anyway and soon discovers strange goings on amongst the tombstones. As Mike begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the Morningside Funeral Parlor he uncovers a bizarre realm presided over by a menacing Tall Man and his midget minions.



REVIEW

Interestingly enough, this film can be viewed as a dream coming from the mind of young Jody. It has a very dream like feel to it (similar to the first Nightmare on Elm St.). Graveyards and motorcycles, big brothers coming to save the day wielding shotguns to combat the unknown enemy - you'd believe it came from the mind of a 13-yr old. It leaves you with many questions. Whats the history of The Tall Man, his motivations behind stealing the dead and the truth about what really happens behind the walls of the Morningside Funeral Home.



Phantasm is a true horror movie, and a very enjoyable one at that.

Wait, wasn't there already a Fast and Furious movie that came out a few years ago? Oh, nevermind - That one was The Fast and the Furious.

I guess it's the same thing never the less, just your average mediocre action movie - replacing bullets with cars - and staring Vin Diessel. Stupid plot and weak characters, but what do you expect? It's well aware of this. The film makers aimed this film at an audience looking for nothing more than a few cool car chases to take your mind off everything else while gulping down your $10 bucket of popcorn. Proves it's never to early to release a summer blockbuster.

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Eternal Sunshine is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. It's also one of the most original, I guess. Before watching, I had an open mind. I really didn't know what to expect. I was somewhat confused when it began. It seemed like an independent film - not that I'm against low-budget films - throwing me off at first. The tone of it was strange, too. Jim Carrey's performance was great, but a bit different than your usual Jim Carrey. Kate Winslet just seemed weird and even annoying at times. Through the course of the movie the plot just lost me, I felt I couldn't keep up with it. It just twisted and turned, you really have to pay attention - or care to - to truly understand whats going on.

Eternal Sunshine has gotten great reviews, so I guess I expected a little bit more from it. But was there something I missed when I watched this movie? I guess I just didn't appreciate it like everybody else does.

Transforming into a werewolf is, in a way, a metaphor for showing your inner animal, your inner rage. Symbolically, this is what it is. But in movies it's often portrayed as physically transforming into a wolf (or a wolf-like creature). The beast in Wolf is different in that it's symbolizing a man unleashing his inner demons. You'll see a high class business man transform into a wild man over time. So, in this way Wolf is a bit different than your regular lycanthorpe creature-feature.

Jack Nicholson is a mild mannered middle aged business man who lives a somewhat normal life. Until he finds his wife is cheating on him, his boss is going to fire him, and a so called friend is picking at the job (and his wife). Then by night he turns into a wolf (not much of a wolf, but more of a wolverine look-a-like) and roams the streets, hunting like an animal.

Wolf isn't the greatest werewolf movies. If you wanna see a good one go watch "American Werewolf in London". And if your looking for a good horror film with a monstrous creature see "The Howling". But, if your a werewolf fan and just wanna see something a bit different, check this one out.

Finally, an enjoyable slasher flick - yet one that uses all the lovably bad cliches in the book - that's actually good. Replacing your average dim witted teens with genuinely likable characters and cheap scares with real ones, Cold Prey is genuine pleasure to watch.

Cold Prey starts off introducing the main players - we got your hormonal teen couple; the bickering odd couple; and the fifth wheel - who's the awkward comedic guy that's actually kind of funny. After a snowboarding accident, the group is stranded in an isolated area, and taking refuge in an old run down hotel. Investigating the signs of violence scattered throughout the hotel allows the characters to theorize about what pernicious acts may have taken place before the hotel's abandonment. This may seem like basic slasher fair, you'd even expect a few cheap jump scenes here and there, but it just helps build the tension. These people are isolated and have a problem at hand. They they feel their not alone.

It's quite the interesting concept, I suppose. Taking Friday the 13th and placing it in a snow capped mountainous area - which is beautifully shot and looks amazing. Something you don't see in these kinds of movies. At first, it's builds up as if it's a psychological thriller - then unwinds as a pretty decent slasher film. The antagonist here isn't just your average Jason clone, either. Yes, were started off by seeing he's had a troubled past, we can see he's the mysterious stalker type, and he's as big as a gorilla - but he's a different type of slasher you've never seen before. His presence, unlike the mountain Michael Myers was in the remake, is some how believable to see. His weapon of choice, accordingly, is a pick axe (the type people use to scale mountains with) and he stacks the bodies high in an impressive fashion.


Intelligent & interesting characters, unique setting, unfortunate predicament, suspenseful sequences, and a pretty killer villain. What more can you ask for in a modern slasher (not to mention one of the best I've seen post 1980's)?

Rating:B-

Burn after Reading - Brad Pitt, George Clooney


Despite the fact that I was expecting nothing more from Burn After Reading in terms of pace, dialogues and awkwardness, it is definitely an enjoyable way to spend a hour and a half of your life. A huge complicated government conspiracy wrapped around a comedy about people in a gym and internet dating. It?s a high old tale about unintelligent intelligence. That?s the Coens for you.


A-

Splinter - Jill Wagner, Paulo Costanzo


If your the kind of person who's constantly on the lookout for movie monsters that slaughter folks in clever, gory new ways, your in for quite an interesting ride. Director Toby Wilkin's tense creature feature sets it's sights low and aces those modest ambitions. The film follows a young couple on a romantic trip who get car jacked by a gun wielding psycho they find on the side of the highway.They find themselves trapped in a rural gas station-mini mart by a prickly parasitic beast with a sweet tooth for human blood. Grade A horror, but a B Movie never the less.

An excellent thriller with a very disturbing, yet a very comedic & interesting character Christian Bale portrays. This film was a sort of black comedy, and is very weird. I liked Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, he was a strange and cool character. This movie was probably the reason Bale was cast as Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, two similar people wit almost the same characteristics.

This movie is somewhat disturbing. It's more of a more layered slasher film, with more interesting plot & senerio than your average 80's slasher picture. Oh, and how can we forget the axe murder, with "Huey Luis and the News"? - classic.
Now please excuse me, I have to return some video tapes.

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They Live, it seemed like a long episode of the Twilight Zone with some social satire and action fight scenes thrown in for good measure. They live sort of plays out like a 50's B-movie, where aliens already have taken over.

"I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum."

An economic crisis brings unemployed Nada (Roddy Piper) to L.A. in search of work. What he finds instead is that the ruling elite of the world are aliens in disguise, their aim being to keep humans in a state of mindless consumerism. His discovery comes when he dons a pair of special sunglasses made by a resistance group and sees for the first time reality unadorned. Billboards, store signs, magazine covers--all bear subliminal messages to OBEY, to CONSUME, to have NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT. Money itself says THIS IS YOUR GOD. But worst of all, with these glasses you see which of us are really hideous, bug-eyed aliens.

The conceptual breakthrough is hilarious while keeping its roots in darker matters. Although some fault the film for settling into its action plot, the ending has a great payoff. And the direction by John Carpenter is truly superb, proving he's a cult icon in cinema.

Anything from John Carpenter is gold. Be it a slasher icon, or an alien monstrosity - or just another Kurt Russel action vehicle - his films are top notch, making this fun 80's fright flick a watch.

There's something about the story of Jack the Ripper that really interests me. I can't say I have read Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name, so I don't know much of the translation from page to screen there is here, but I must say From Hell just didn't keep my attention. It was visually surreal, but it wasn't greatly stunning or there was nothing really eye catching or special about it. I guess I just didn't care for the colors they used, or the lighting or whatever. But if you were to compare it to a Tim Burton movie, it crumbles in comparison.


The acting was above average for this type of movie. Johnny Depp is great for these types of roles. And yet, his character was a bit - how should I say this - just plain 'bad' at times. Nothing with the acting, just the character himself. And I guess I just envisioned Jack the Ripper a bit differently than here because I didn't care for this interpretation at all. The way they handled the character - one so vile and despicable - they just didn't treat it right at some points here.


The story and overall theme here was expressed well, I guess. It makes me want to delve deeper into the Ripper case files, because this seems like a great concept for a stylized period horror film - but it just wasn't express well here.


Now, I'm going to go check out the novel to see how that turned out.

Let me say up front that I won't be held responsible if this review encourages you to watch Planet Terror and you absolutely despise it. The film is very much a cinematic curiosity destined for cult status. In other words it?s likely to be an acquired taste.


In terms of Robert Rodriguez's previous work, Planet Terror is more in line with Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn than Sin City. It's very gory, very over-the-top and very silly. But all deliberately so.


Planet Terror is essentially a zombie movie. The plot, what little there is, is pretty standard stuff: a disparate group of survivors in a small Texas town has to fight for their lives after a mysterious gas is released at a nearby military base, transforming the locals into bloodthirsty, gangrenous psychopaths.


Cue nonsensical, bloody chaos: cars blow up for no reason, every second female character is a lesbian, there's an attempted rape scene involving melting monster testicles, and, of course, if you've seen any marketing material for Planet Terror, you'll know the heroine, a go-go dancer called Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), has an assault rifle for a prosthetic leg.


A lot of fun also stems from the way Rodriguez plays with trash cinema conventions. The film stock has been deliberately distorted to look low quality, with lots of scratches, colour flares and jumpiness. At one point it even blisters and melts completely. The film restarts, apologies for a missing reel, and carries on oblivious of the massive hole in the storyline.


In the end Planet Terror is a helluva lot of fun, and crammed with cheap thrills, but it's such a good homage to exploitation movies that it's actually ultimately as forgettable as its source material.


Oh, and as an added bonus, 'Machete' - the fake movie trailer aired before this film is also directed by Robert Rodriguez and is totally awesome, here's high hopes to a full length film version.

This movie really only takes it self seriously for the first half. But as for the second half, it's as if your watching a violent cartoon or video game come to life, and it's all in great fun. The acting is actually really good here - George Clooney, Quentin Tarentino, Danny Trejo, and even special effects legend Tom Savini makes an appearance as 'Sex Machine'.


The story starts us off following the notorious Gecho brother as they embark on a cross country killing spree. It's quite disturbing how they go about and murder and kill hostages and all, it builds up to be somewhat realistic and frighting. If they would have kept this feeling of dread through out the movie it would really turn out to be a truly disturbing flick. But then it all goes down hill from there (in a good way). The name of the bar is The Titty Twister. nuff said.


The cast of characters is great - the two psychopaths, an ex-minister and his two kids - an odd yet interesting choice of survivors to combat a bar full of blood thirsty vampires. The monsters in this are a bit laffable, but they do look awesome. The film turns comedic towards the end, as holy water balloons, wooden stake jack hammers, and table legs are used to exterminate the blood suckers. But it's all good and fun to watch.


From Dusk Till Dawn is a great action/horror/comedy movie and worth watching if your like me and are interested in things like this.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett

Not so much a satisfying drama as a two-and-a-half-hour fairy tale. A visually enchanting film following Brad Pitt as he ages backward. Pitt briefly meets up with the love of his life (Blanchett) about halfway through. Although this romance seems to be the weakest part of the film. It's the FX that truly dazzle here.


Not a big fan of Pitt myself, but there was something oddly satisfying seeing him living his early years as an old man. Not so much a perfect film, but rather a modern day fantasy.

B-

Amusement - Keir O'Donnell, Katheryn Winnick


Sure, we've seen this all before. But there is still something original about this movie that makes it quite the guilty pleasure. I hadn't expected anything good out of this film before watching it, but was a bit surprised afterwords.


It conveys all your average horror movie cliches - by exploiting urban legends and wondering down the classic slasher movie road. But it's all in good entertainment here, it all fits together pretty well. For a strait-to-DvD-film, it's at least worth a watch. And for once, the crazy clown is actually creepy looking.

C+

Star Trek - Chris Pine, Zach Quinto


I think it's safe to say that summer has officially started. And what better way to start the season of blockbuster movies than with Star Trek? Just as Iron Man soared into theaters last year and was a huge success (and actually really good), Trek takes the same note.


I can't say I'm a huge Trekkie, so I'm not really big on all things Trek. But This was certainly a roller coaster ride of a movie. A great cast - Chris Pine was excellent as James Tiberius Kirk, Zach Quinto was spectacular as Mr. Spock - the crew of the enterprise is done over well with fresh new faces. Eric Bana is nearly un-recognizable as the a villainous Romulan.


To say the least, this movie was way better than I had expected, and after seeing the first trailer I was expecting quite a bit. The whole story is an epic sci-fi action romp about a planet destroying alien warrior (Eric Bana) who, like an intergalactic biker gang, travels around doing bad things and looking cool doing it. It also sees the rise of the crew and the enterprise on their first mission together. This Star Trek is boldly going where no other sci-fi has gone before, and is entertaining all the way.

A-

Bradley Cooper is Leon, a photographer living with his supportive girlfriend, Maya (Bibb), a waitress at a nearby diner. Leon gets his big chance to woo a local art gallery owner, Susan Hoff (Shields), but when she delivers him some harsh truths about his work, he's forced to go deeper and get grittier before his photos can be deemed worthy to line Hoff's gallery. So, off Leon goes, into the bowels of the city, at first drawn to the subway by following a group of thugs who ultimately harass a young woman Leon saves. The next day, however, said woman is on the front page of the paper, reported "missing." His second jaunt to the subway introduces him to a tall man named Mahogany (Jones in a non-speaking role) which sets off an obsession in Leon and an eventual suspicion that Mahogany could be responsible for a rash of disappearances throughout the city. This naturally upsets his loving relationship with Maya and propels Leon down a blood-soaked path.


Midnight Meat Train starts off strong and wastes little time plumbing the depths of Leon's dedication to his craft. There's a sense of sympathy for Mahogany, evident in the Barker story, that's lost in translation. Still, Jones is a force to be reckoned with and his performance recalls the old days of cinema where so much expression needs to be read in the eyes and face.


There are some memorable kills on display and director Kitamura doesn't skimp on the blood. He also obviously doesn't mind the ambiguity Buhler's script offers in the end (a faithful conclusion) which is so goddamn refreshing in this day and age of exposition.


Questionable pacing issues aside, Midnight Meat Train is a welcome, adult R-rated horror film. A sobering reminder - hitting you like a slap to the face - that there are still plenty of Barker stories, however bizarre, ripe for adaptation. Midnight Meat Train was one and it may have taken some time to reach its final destination, but the wait was worth it. It's seedy, strange, creepy as hell and it relishes an exploitive gross-out gag here and there. That's a a ride I'll take anyday.


B+

Sometimes I worry that I blindly accept any slasher movie that comes along as being worthwhile, regardless of the film's actual quality. Admittedly that's not a great deal to worry about but I as I eagerly embrace one slasher film after another as other fans and critics jump to pick them apart, I do have to wonder if my misspent adolescence being a huge fan of the '80s horror flicks made me too fond of the slasher sub-genre for my own good. But thankfully, Laid To Rest is the exception that proves the rule. I really disliked this movie, which leaves me relieved to know my objectivity is intact.



The plot is quite simple: an amnesiac woman (Bobbi Sue Luther) wakes up inside of a casket in a funeral home. Upon escaping from the casket, she immediately finds herself pursued by the diabolical killer known as Chrome Skull (Nick Principe) and is forced to run for her life. With no memory of who she is or why this killer is targeting her, she has no choice but to stay ahead of Chrome Skull at all costs ? seeking help wherever she can find it.



Although I don't find the cinematography to be anything special, the elaborate splatter effects (courtesy of Hall's FX company Almost Human) are down right amazing. And slasher fans like myself will take enthusiastic notice of Laid To Rest's villainous Chrome Skull. With his gleaming skull mask, it's as though he stepped off the cover of an early '80s heavy metal album. As soon as you see him, you want to see him in action. But while he does get in some amazing kills, sadly Laid to Rest is a terrible debut for old Chrome Skull.



Every half decent slasher needs a good survivor girl, who thwarts the villain and against all odds comes out on top in the end. Luther's character really does come across as someone who doesn't have the skills she needs to live through this ordeal. Rather than evincing the kind of resourcefulness and self-sufficiency that one wants to see in a slasher heroine, Luther brings a lot of whimpering and crying to it.



The amount of blood shed on display here might be enough to warrant a cursory glance from slasher fans but while Chrome Skull's metallic mask is an undeniably cool sight; Laid To Rest's characters and plotting could have been better.

To be honest, after seeing this, I'd say the bloodsuckers had it coming. The first two films the lycans were the baddies, and you were all for the vampires. This time it's different. When Lycans picks up, the vampires are living in a big mountainside fortress under the reign of Viktor (Billy Nighy). Viktor fathers the upbringing of Lucian the first Lycan, a man/beast hybrid who can transform at will. He enslaves the dutiful Lucian (Michael Sheen) and forces the young man to create more like him (a simple process of capture, bite, and repeat). With an army of Lycans, the vampires can now use these creatures to do the grunt work and serve as guard dogs from the true werewolves that live in the surrounding woods. But,Viktor's runaway creation will ultimately turn on him.


Unbeknownst to Viktor, his daughter, Sonja (Rhona Mitra), is in love with Lucian. This forbidden "Romeo & Juliet" affair, thankfully, isn't seen blossoming in Lycans - it's already happening. When we first find Lucian sneaking beyond the confines of the castle walls, it's because he's off with Sonja on a mountaintop. There's always bound to be eyes watching somewhere, however, and it isn't long before this relationship creates conflict between Sonja and Viktor, then Viktor and Lucian...then Lucian's army and anyone who happens to sport a pair of fangs and wear a cool scary armor.


Tatopoulos and screenwriters Danny McBride, Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain present what they've teased since the first film: A crowd of vampires and werewolves tearing each other apart. Of course that's the pay-off as Tatopoulos devises a number of brutal action set-pieces throughout the film to get you warmed up, from a werewolf sneak attack to a Lycan prison break during which the vampire Death Dealers turn their massive crossbows into the castle for a slaughter that finds prisoners being harpooned through the chest and face. When the big brawl comes, it is admittedly pretty cool to witness hundreds of werewolves charging into battle.


Without some advancement in the special effects, none of this would have worked and thankfully Tatopoulos and his team, on both the practical and CG front, pull it off. Ross Emery's photography captures the gloomy visual aesthetic of the series which, in fact, helps ease the digital-looking nature of the loping lycanthropes who, here, bound through the trees, burrow in the ground and scale rock walls. (Although I find it funny that during their "down time" they're just lounging around in a cave somewhere.)


The production design is eye-catching and the attention to detail is to be commended. Tatopoulos succeeds in making Lycans look big. The castles, caves, and forests are amazing. Even the costumes worn look great. Without a doubt the team behind this latest entry knows the world inside and out and they've crafted an enjoyable living, breathing gothic fairytale. It still takes itself pretty seriously, but unlike the previous entries, you're not sitting through the action sequences preoccupied with trying to sort out the labyrinthine connections between all of the characters (a big flaw of Underworld: Evolution). Lycans wets the appetite for not more adventures of Selene and Michael Corvin (Beckinsale and Scott Speedman, respectively) but exploration of Lucian's journey. Furthermore, it launches what is hopefully a long directing career for Tatopoulos. This is an auspicious debut for the FX and production design vet.

Rating:B

Ok, we've spent three movies and a television show explaining the importance of the character of John Conner and the horrors of when Judgment Day finally arrives. Now we are finally shown just that, but was it really worth the wait? Salvation takes place in the post apocalyptic future only hinted at and previewed of through flash backs in the previous films. In said previews, the future is war torn and destroyed. Terminators stand tall and menacing and patrol, killing all human survivors. In just a glance, John Conner is the leader on the resistance, and he looks it. This is Judgment Day.


Here, the future is bleak. All civilization has been wiped out, leaving only deserts - road warrior style. It's a great way of showing the world as a depressed lifeless plain, but not remotely close to the one hinted at before. John Conner is no leader. Sure, Bale looks cool as Conner, but he's not the guy the world needs. He just ain't the savior he's been build up to be.



Bale is one of this generation?s best actors, but his performance as Connor is the most one-note of his career. He has absolutely nothing to do other than scream bad one-liners at the top of his lungs (no wonder he blew up on set) while Worthington and the rest of the cast try hard to look macho for the camera. It sounded as if he was still trying to be like Batman, always talking with a dull raspy mumble. You can?t blame the cast, though, since they?re coming from a director like McG and an absolutely terrible screenplay (that was written and re-written by over a dozen names). Despite a few nods and inventive cameos, you?ll have to keep reminding yourself that you?re actually watching a Terminator film.


And since when did Terminators stop terminating? True to its PG-13 rating, Salvation feels neutered and marketed for teens, ditching the dark survivalist feel of Cameron?s future for a more family-friendly apocalypse. This time the machines rarely kill anyone and seem more concerned with capturing humans, putting them in cages, and shuffling them through long lines in endless warehouses. When their master plan involves kidnapping Kyle Reese to lure out John Connor, instead of simply killing him to prevent all that time travel stuff from happening, you can?t help but wonder why the machines were smart enough to become self-aware.


Oh, and Arnold does show up. Well, kinda. By using some kind of face recognition cg, it makes it seem Arnie is back and battling Bale. But it just ain't the same...

Rating: C+

Synopsis: A sequel/remake of the film The Evil Dead. A young man named Ash takes his girlfriend Linda to a secluded cabin, and plays back a professor's tape recorded recitation of passages from the Book of the Dead. The spell calls up an evil force from the woods which turns Linda into a monstrous Deadite, and threatens to do the same to Ash. When the professor's daughter and her entourage show up at the cabin, the night turns into a non-stop, grotesquely comic battle with chainsaw and shotgun on one side, demon horde and flying eyeball on the other.




Ash: [talking to mirror] I'm fine... I'm fine...

[Mirror Ash jumps out of the mirror and grabs Ash]

Mirror Ash: I don't think so. We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound "fine"?




Review:Evil Dead 2 is a grade-A masterpiece of morbid mayhem. Find me a horror geek who doesn't agree and I'll take a chainsaw to a body part of your choice. The kegs of jet-propelled blood alone make this an absolute must-see for any fan of the genre... not to mention any self-respecting moviegoer. With a flurry of dismembered body parts, the film spells its intentions in bloody intestines. And Bruce Campbell replaces his hand with a chainsaw. "Groovy"

Plot: A loan officer ordered to evict an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.


"I desire the SOUL of Christine Brown. We will FEAST upon it while she festers in the grave!"



Review: The title pretty much speaks for itself. Drag Me to Hell is horror-movie heaven. Director Sam Raimi, breaking the shackles of mainstream success with his impressive Spider-Man trilogy, returns to the down-and-dirty that spawned him with The Evil Dead in 1983. The result, again co-written with his brother Ivan Raimi, plays like a gross-out competition put on by very talented fan boys. The laughs are as explosive as the screams. The loudest shriek comes from the PG-13 rating being squeezed of its last link to good taste. There's less blood and less violence, but the movie never stops spewing scares at you.


Since Army of Darkness came and went, the fans eagerly awaited the next adventure of Ashley J. Williams in another Evil Dead film. Although over a decade has passed since, and we still haven't gotten the movie we wanted, Raimi choose to make his come back to the genre that he shaped to put out Drag me to Hell. Much like the Evil Dead films, this film had character atmosphere and slapstick humor oozing from it.


It's like a comic book come to life that is full of color characters, crazy imagery and cheap gags that work every time. Raimi plays around with the audience by using the gross-out factor to the max. For example, in one scene Alison Lohman starts bleeding from her mouth, and when she goes to cover it, blood shoots from her nose all over the place. Another great gag is the gypsy is constantly is losing her dentures and pushing her disgusting old mouth on things (like Alison's face). Raimi fills the movie with these gross-out moments that keep the momentum burning from start to finish.


"Here kitty, kitty..."


And for every bloody, gooey and disgusting scene, Raimi gives us an equally good scare. I'm not much of a person to jump in a theater, but I'll admit some scenes do take you by suprise. Typically a director will have a cat jump on screen or have a character slam a door shut - something cheap to get you to jolt. Raimi hits us with a barrage of punches as I jumped ten feet out of my seat on two separate occasions. He proves that he is a master of horror and suspense. All those horror director wannabes should watch this, they could learn something from it.


Quite simply put, DRAG ME TO HELL was a blast and moved quickly from start to finish. From what I saw, it's like a spookshow of a movie. Don't expect anything but a thrill ride out of it. The only question I was left with was, "Why isn't this Evil Dead 4?"

Plague Town appears outwardly to be a very traditionalist survivalist horror film, along the same road as The Hills Have Eyes. It?s a tale about a dysfunctional family?s road trip through the English countryside that turns horribly wrong. The cast of characters lend instant dynamic drama to the situation based on their own internal conflicts. The father (David Lombard) has brought along his two daughters, Molly (Josslyn DeCrosta), who has emotional problems, and Jessica (Erica Rhodes), the self-centered one. Jessica's boyfriend tags along. A British boy by the name of Robin, who?s only goal it would seem is to get laid. Then their's Dad?s girlfriend Annette (Lindsey Goranson). When the family misses the last bus home from an afternoon picnic, they eventually find out that their British holiday has just turned into a nightmare.




As I was watching, I realized this movie isn't half bad for what it is - just a very low budget horror film. I thought they made best with what limited resources they were given, and made a half decent little film. Something I could respect. Then, after finding out the budget was somewhere over $1-million (still pretty low). Sure, Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson made it work well with far less than that - inflation included - and look where that got them. Sure, not everybody can be like Raimi or Jackson. The point is that limitations don't have to enable laziness ? they can force creativity and ingenuity.




Movies about killer kids are hardly a new idea, but fortunately Plague is somewhat a breath of fresh air, despite the glittering generalities of the plot points. As with Hills, the threat turns out to be mutants ? mutant children in this case. The girl ghoul on display in the movie's print advertising has jawbreaker-sized doll eyes strapped over her empty eye sockets. This is one of many attempts at surreal imagery. Sure, she looks pretty frighting for a little while, but loses it after awhile. Precious few of these surreal images work, mainly because director David Gregory keeps them in view for far too long.


Rating: C

mar-tyr - noun 1 a person who undergoes severe or constant suffering; 2 a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause.




Well, I don't really know what to say about this film that hasn't been expressed in a previous review. Ok, I'll start by saying the one thing that makes being a horror fan so awesome is the hunt for the holy grail of gore. The one to top the last, to be truly worthy of being called terrifying. Every producer in Hollywood promises it, every director thinks they have achieved it and the fact of the matter is that there is only one - maybe two horror movies every year that transcend greatness and earns the right to use the word "horrific" in the same sentence as its title.




I think it's safe to say MARTYRS is this year's INSIDE, both films which are legendary and horrific in their own right. Although both films are insanely violent, both films will give you nightmares and both films are insanely brutal, it must be known that there is a major difference between the two films. Inside has it's scares, and is a film much like Halloween - fun to watch (through squinting eyes). But, Martyrs is plain and simple: it's brutal, disturbing, and very unsettling.




French directer (it seems all the good genre films are foreign these days) Pascal Laugier, who also wrote the screenplay, is heavily influenced by the works of Clive Barker (especially that of the Hellraiser series). This film is also very reminiscent of Eli Roth's Hostel films. But here you do not sit and await for the next punch to be thrown, you know it's coming and cringe when it does. The images shown here are terrible acts of torture taken out on women is not for the faint of heart.




This movie is horror. It's horrific, it's horrible, it's the definition of the term horror. If you don't understand what it stands for, this movie is not for you.

You've been warned.

Rating: B-

The premise for the Burrowers is really quite simple:

A small western community is attacked early on in the film, several residence are believed to be taken captive by a tribe of marauding indians. So, a search party is sent out to find said hostages. But, little do they know it's not the indians who they have to worry about, but their troubles are that of bloodthirsty predators who dwell under ground.



In terms of prescience and atmosphere this film prevails, but when it comes to the pace it fails. Not that a slow film is a bad thing, but the concept is pretty awesome (underground monsters that paralyze and bury humans alive, returning to eat them once the body has reached a certain stage of decomposition). Here, the cinematography is amazing. The lush New Mexico landscapes look beautiful. Not often do westerns look this good. And another thing, the western background is a pretty interesting idea. This is like The Searchers with monsters.




And of course the monsters, for what we see of them on-screen, are pretty unique. The creatures here, courtesy of Almost Human studios, are the most interesting monsters to crawl onto the screen in awhile. Like in alien, they have a cool lifestyle to them: they paralyze and poison their victims, then they bury them alive until their intestines are soft and their blood is thick. After this, they return to devour them. Pretty cool. I'll take a puppet or a guy in a latex suite (both means which are used here) before a cheap cg monster any day.

Rating:B-

I'm sure you've all heard this before, but it seems like horror movies are getting worse and worse as the years go by anymore. It's as if Hollywood has something against releasing anything worth watching or original in any way. In my opinion, all these american remakes of a foreign horror films are complete unwatchable trash (I didn't really care so much for The Ring neither). This one is no different. Hell, this one may be one of the worst of the bunch. Too much cheap attempts as scares here, you wont budge from your seat and your box of popcorn will safely stay in tact.


As for the original film, I can't say that I've seen it. I don't know how these two films compare. I have heard in the original's favor, but I don't think I'll be checking it out. I suppose if they would have handled it wright, the big reveal at the end would have made a bigger impact to the film. Think Brad Pitt and Edward Nortan's characters at the end of Fight Club. This movie had no lasting appeal to me. This is one of the times where I can say I wasted an hour and a half on a stupid movie.

Rating: D

The premise of this movie is simple: A group of medical students are spending Easter Break by planning a ski trip in the desolate Scandinavian wilderness. Just like any good horror flick, the gang is greeted by a crazy local who stumbles into their cabin one night and explains the evils that haunt the area. And, of course they ignore the warnings until it's to late. Sure, it may appear this is one of those movies you've seen 1,000 before, but it gets better from there.


The antagonists here are evil undead Nazi bastards. When you have a horror film, you want the scariest, most vile and gruesome villain possible - what could be more frightening than the zombified spawn of Hitler, possibly the most evil man on earth? An army of them, no doubt.


The first half of the film seems to be aiming to terrify you, wheres the Nazi zombies stay at a distance in the dark, but at about halfway point (when the sun is at it's highest, and the zombies come out) it's a pure gorefest. It's like your watching a video game on screen (the game Dead Rising comes to mind). The zombies, even wile out in sunlight, are among the best of them - the make up fx look menacing and stylish. And the gore, and there's plenty of it, is at it's finest.


The fact that director Tom Wirkola has an eye for parody and paying homage is also very apparent in Dead Snow, as most of the movie seems to pay its respects to the Eighties slasher genre. However, it's Wirkola?s ability to keep things moving with an approach that still feels fresh that keeps Dead Snow from feeling like just another retread of movies that have already been created.


Above all, Dead Snow is along the lines of films like Brain Dead and Evil Dead, where the gore factor is as fun as it is excessive, or if you just enjoy watching Nazi zombies getting splattered, then Dead Snow is definitely the flick for you.

I don't know what it is that attracts me to these cheap horror movies. Each one is terrible in their own right. In this case, The Devil's Tomb is just terrible. Believe it or not, this was directed by none other than Sean Connery's son, Jason, who recently appeared in The Asylum's Dragonquest, adding a useless credit to his unimpressive, low-budget b-grade acting career. So I was very surprised to see that he was actually behind the camera on this seemingly big budget horror thriller with an impressive cast. Okay, so maybe Cuba Gooding Jr., Ron Perlman, Ray Winstone, and Henry Rollins don't impress you, but it's a massive step up for Connery and for the world of b-grade direct-to-dvd. Usually, all those guys would appear alone, amid a sea of new, unknown faces. Here, James Bond Jr. has brought them all together to unearth the devil himself. Did I mention they also have Taryn Manning, Bill Mosely, Zack Ward, and Jason London? Well, they do.


Mack (Cuba) and his team, who are of course comprised of people with names like Hicks, Click, Hammer, and Nickels (Manning plays the medic and she wants people to call her "Doc"), have been chosen to lead Dr. Elissa Cardell into an archeological dig that has been appropriated by the army when they found something in there that is currently top secret. All communication has been lost with the underground base in the desert of Somalia or wherever and their mission is simply to go in and find Dr. Wesley (Perlman), who's been maintaining the base with 19 other scientists and security personnel. When they get there, they meet a dying priest with pustules all over his face and body and Moseley in a some freaky makeup, so they quickly realize that whatever happened in this base is more complex than they first imagined.


All through out the film, we are treated to pointless flashbacks Mack has regarding a military shootout. I believe these scenes were pointless because I found they had nothing to contribute to the film whatsoever (then again, I was falling asleep during the last half). The usual happens - the members of the team begin to separate from one another and things happen to each of them, you know the kind of stuff that always happens when people split up in movies like this. Bill Mosely (remember him as Chop Top from TCM 2 and Otis from Devil's Rejects?) appears and once again acts goofy and looks creepy. And, after taking a head shot, like all good ghouls refuses to go down. Oh, and Henry Rollins is a paranoid priest. I don't know either.


I don't even know what the total outcome of the film was, I dozed off a few times through out the end, but from what I understand Ron Perlman is possessed by the devil or a demon of some sort. The whole story wasn't complete trash, and I guess this wasn't a complete waste of 1 and 1/2 hours, but I guess I could have spent that time watching a good movie. Because The Devil's Tomb is far from that.

Rating: terrible direct-to-dvd trash, but did you expect anything else?

I realize this movie is called Transformers, but by god there's a lot of transforming going on. Michael Bay certainly delivers the action, but he brings you considerably more than you've ordered. Shia LeBeouf is back as Sam and this times he's a little more grown up and heading off for college. Also back to the certain delight of teenage boys who will make or break this film is Megan Fox, who's as striking on screen as she has been on the 164 magazine covers she's so beautifully graced. Also returning are the evil Deceptions, and once again there up to something evil, with evil plans to do something really evil.


I was a fan of the first film because part of the reason everybody wanted to see it was because people wanted to see these robots for the first time. Michael Bay and the team behind the special effects really delivered in the first movie. But here, it's just overkill. It's mind numbing and excessive. Everything in sight transforms and turns into different robots. Vacuums, clocks, even people transformations are shown here. Also, on the same note everything in sight explodes, implodes, or is destroyed in some way.


It's one explosion after another. Not that that's a bad thing in particular, but here it's just mind numbing. It's as if Michael Bay said ''You've seen me blow stuff up in the past, well wait till you've seen this." Sexual themes, language, and drug references provide some of the limited humor through out the film. The 14 year old boys love the action and seeing Megan Fox, but the filmmakers were a little irresponsible and ignore the younger viewers and fans of the franchise by throwing in these unneeded themes.


It's just eye candy, giant rock-em-sock-em robot battles, Megan Fox running around in slow motion, and out of this world action set pieces. And at two and a half hours, this film just seems to drag on and on. Take out all the explosions and fight scenes, and you'll have about a half hour or so spent boringly on the main cast. New central characters are added, but we don;t seem to care since there not on screen for more than a few minuets. Also, we're only shown Optimus Prime, the main Autobot, and the Fallen, the main baddie, for a few scenes. Instead, the main transformers shown are two dim-witted guys palling around with Bumblebee and a small Decepticon turned good guy. And Bumblebee is shown, but hardly has anything to contribute to either. At least Megatron and Starscream, my two favorites are depicted chatting amongst one another about Optimus' ultimate downfall.
Verdict
It's as if Michael Bay made this up as the movie went on. With a hard to follow plot, weak characters, and mind-numbing action sequences, Transformers 2 missed what made the first film worth while, and I say skip it.

"I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the Exorcist about a hundred and sixty-seven times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it... not to mention the fact that your talking to a dead guy... now what do you think, you think I'm qualified?"


Plot: A recently deceased couple find their beloved New England home taken over by particularly revolting yuppies. In an effort to get rid of them they hire a "freelance bio-exorcist" named Beetlejuice. But things start getting a little out of hand as the paranormal mishaps turn dangerous.


Review: Tim Burton's outlandish horror comedy has newlydeads Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis hiring trouble-making zombie Michael Keaton to keep their home from human habitation. At first this seems to offer a solution to their problems - the new inhabitants do indeed seem to be more scary than the ghosts - but rapidly Beetlejuice's manic 'solutions' descend into chaos.


Although early in his career, Beetlejuice can easily be recognized as being the work of Tim Burton. With gruesome over-the-top visuals on display, the dead never looked so strange. Burton takes a simple concept and twists it into his image, alining haunting ghouls and cartoonish backdrops and bending reality, making you question if your watching a animated film at times or not.


Despite the delightfully demented visuals to offer, after all these years Beetlejuice still seems fresh and stylish. A young Winona Ryder amusingly plays the estranged daughter of the new family, who decides death is better than to keep on living. A nearly unrecognizable Michael Keaton as the ghoulish bio-exorcist (he's the guy who played batman, remember) who is devilishly humorous, and Adam (Alec Baldwin) and wife Barbara (Geena Davis) as the delightful ghost couple. For a movie like this, it works, despite the annoyances of step-mother Catherine O'Hara and the rest of the supporting cast.


Verdict: At the time, Beetlejuice seemed like a one-off oddity; now it seems like a Burton blueprint: surreal sensibility (check), nutty energy (check) and an acute feel for the outsider (check). Amazingly, it all still feels fresh, even though Burton has since become something of his own franchise since.
Rating: B-

"Open this door, you dead people, or we'll bust it down and we'll drag you out by the ropes you hang yourselves with!"

Retrospective: Silence of the Lambs perhaps benefits the most from stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror. Clarice Starling, played with heartfelt tenacity by Jodie Foster, is an FBI trainee on the trail of a serial killer. Her search ends in the suburban home of dressmaker Jame Gumb (Ted Levine). It is Gumb's cellar workshop (the place where he shoots and skins his tall, fleshy female victims) that Demme transforms into a harrowing vision of hell.



The confrontation scenes between Lecter and Starling are the heart of the picture, and Hopkins and Foster - who is flawless in a performance - play off each other with enormous skill. They are subjects to long, searching close-ups. With lesser actors, such scrutiny could wreck the film by exposing theatricality and cant. But Foster and Hopkins don't make a false move. Starling knows Lecter is testing her, trying to wear down her self-confidence.



Hannibal Lector: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."



Demme and Ted Tally, the playwright (Terra Nova) turned screenwriter (White Palace), have set out to turn the exploitation genre on its empty head and fill it with ideas and purpose. There's none of the all-in-fun disfigurement and dismemberment that you get in the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th gorefests. The brutality in Silence leaves you shaken because it's meant to seem painful instead of playful, terrifying instead of titillating. Foster's Clarice Starling and Smith's Catherine Martin represent something unique in slasher movies: women who won't play victim. Gruesome subject mater such as women being kidnapped, starved, left for dead then skinned alive is what courses through Silence's context.



But, taken out of context, these scenes could provoke protest from such forums as the National Organization for Women, whose L.A. chapter recently threatened a boycott of the publisher of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho because of the novel's graphic depictions of women being tortured. Few could question the rise in crimes against women or the rise of misogyny in movies. In the Hollywood of the Nineties, the next best thing to making a movie about Jack the Ripper is hiring someone like him to write or direct. But Silence of the Lambs does not merit censoring (free expression is still a constitutional right) or even censuring.



Starling is assigned to do a behavioral profile on Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a former psychiatrist imprisoned in a Baltimore asylum for carving up nine people and cooking his favorite bits. Dr. Lecter, known as Hannibal the Cannibal, prides himself on having once eaten the liver of a census taker with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. A brilliant stage actor (Equus, Antony and Cleopatra), Hopkins can sometimes be too much on film - check out his shameless hamboning in Audrey Rose. But this time he calibrates every nuance for maximum effect. Lecter was figured in an earlier Thomas Harris novel, Red Dragon, filmed as Manhunter in 1986 with Brian Cox as the mad doctor. As chilling as Cox was, his role was merely a cameo. Hopkins goes deeper. The polished, elegant evil of his Lecter surpasses anything he's ever done on the screen. He's a fiend for the ages.



Hannibal Lecter: Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?

Hannibal Lecter: Enthrall me with your acumen.

Clarice Starling: It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.

Hannibal Lecter: I didn't.

Clarice Starling: No. No, you ate yours.



Ted Levine is truly scary.You believe that he is truly twisted and perverse.
Buffalo Bill is the combination of three real life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims; Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement; and Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to lour unsuspecting women into his van. Gein, whom other recognizable horror icons Leatherface and Norman Bates from Psycho are also loosely based, was only positively linked to two murders and suspected of two hers. He gathered most of his materials not through murder, but grave-robbing. In the popular imagination, however, he remains a serial killer with uncounted victims.



Attention to this kind of detail is a Demme trademark. At his peak (Citizens Band, Melvin and Howard, Something Wild), Demme can intermingle comedy and drama because he builds on a solid foundation of character. Silence is a powerhouse that shows Demme at his best and boldest. Even the tacky flashbacks and a sequence lifted from Wait Until Dark can't blunt the film's wallop. Demme celebrates his female warriors. You can feel his pride in Starling for rallying against her male demons. For all the unbridled savagery on display, what is shrewd, significant and finally hopeful about Silence of the Lambs is the way it proves that a movie can be mercilessly scary and mercifully humane at the same time.



Hannibal Lector: "I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye"

Mr. White: "So, what do you suggest, we go to a hotel? We got a guy who's shot in the belly, he can't walk, he bleeds like a stuck pig, and when he's awake he screams in pain."



Retrospective: Residents of present-day Los Angeles, the "Dogs" are a band of hardened professionals recruited for a diamond heist - ultimately bungled - with the action picking up as the gang return individually to an empty warehouse, their pre-arranged getaway rendezvous. And it is here that Tarantino immediately sets out his agenda, ripping the guts out of the conventions of the heist movie by ignoring the stick-up altogether.




Choosing to concentrate on the aftermath, he veers off instead - within the claustrophobic confines of the hideaway and in the context of Real Time - into psychological drama, with the paranoid hoods recounting their own version of events in a bid to determine just who might be the rat in the house responsible for tipping off the cops. A strong ensemble cast, for reasons of security known to each other by their colour-coded names - principally Mr. White (Keitel), Mr. Pink (Buscemi), Mr. Blonde (Madsen) and Mr. Orange (Roth) - each has his own story, prefaced by the character's name, which flash up on the screen in a chapter-like fashion.




Nasty, brutish and yet relatively short, this ultimately succeeds through its top-notch performances, most notably from Keitel's seasoned criminal suddenly seized by a sense of morality, Roth's floundering Mr. Orange and Steve Buscemi's brilliantly antagonistic Mr. Pink. Reservoir Dogs is the movie that put Quentin Tarantino on the map, and has all the hallmarks of a modern classic.




Verdict: Under Tarantino's excellent direction, plays out wonderfully from start to finish. It's seminal, in terms of its discursive dialogue, bursts of ultra-violence and unsettling machismo. You might not like the terms set here, but you do have to admit that he succeeds on them.




Mr. Orange: "All right, now you heard them, we'll make the move when they get back, so don't pussy out on me now, Marvin. We're just gonna sit here and bleed until Joe Cabot sticks his fucking head through that door!"

Review: hopes to be a haunted house thriller that intelligently delves into supernatural territory, but is instead usurped by an abundance of cheap scares and a plot derivative of far superior predecessors. It begins with Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner as mother and son, driving through the New England countryside, the boy in the back seat in a sweat. We learn early on that Matt is suffering from some form of cancer and rather than driving to and from Connecticut a few times a week for special treatment, the family decides to get a house closer to the clinic. As soon as they move in, Matt starts seeing things and behaving oddly, which everyone owes it to his medication and treatment, but he soon learns that the house has a dark history that's remained behind for all those years.


While breaking away from sequels and slasher remakes, this so called 'original' horror movie that claims to be based on true events is not so original after all. But, in reality if you know the slightest about the supernatural and researched the true story, you'll know this is pure dramatization. Otherwise, it aims to capitalize on the younger audience who missed out on their homework and are looking for something new and different. Instead of playing off of a 'sixth-sense' people have, it shows that people who are closest to death (in this case, cancer) are able to see the dead, yet those who are strong and healthy cannot see them. It's a clever idea to have a cancer-stricken teen be the catalyst of such events.


When the film starts getting into necromancy and séances, one can certainly hope that this is a smarter horror movie based in facts. Like David Goyer's "The Unborn," the movie ends up being far too smart for its own good, as it piles on so many ideas that the combination of all f them starts to make even the most plausible idea sound dumb. Those watching this might wonder what about it was taken from the "true story" and the only thing that seems plausible is that the producers heard about a funeral home in Connecticut that burned down and maybe they discovered séances took place there, because all the rest of it just seems like typical horror movie cliches.


The horrors in this case revolve around the past wrongdoings of the owner of the funeral home who cut mystical symbols and words into the dead bodies and snipped off their eyelids, and we continually see these engraved ghosts wandering around, haunting the inhabitants of the house. There's also a burned ghost popping up for scares?doesn't take a genius that this is the ghost of someone who died in a fire. Infinitely more interesting than watching the family being terrorized are the flashbacks to séances being held in the house, in which a young psychic boy named Jonah is contacted by the dead, not particularly scary in itself but sillier when he starts spewing ectoplasm from his mouth?that's what the poster shows in case you wondered what that was. It's a fine example of the film's weak CG, which really ruins any sense of danger or dread in those scenes.


In the long run, Haunting is never really scary. It tries to make you jump in the cheapest of scares - anything from reflections in mirrors & tvs or unnecessary loud noises - anything to get a reaction. A big deal is made of a sealed off room in the basement. Characters often try to open it and wonder what lies on the other side. At some point you'd think they'd realize it's the center of all the paranormal activities.


The writing is pretty awful and no amount of scares can save that. Nor can the mediocre cast, led by Virginia Madsen, who squanders what's left of the good will she received after her Oscar nomination with an overwrought performance that does little to elevate the material. Kyle Gallner isn't much better, giving the same brooding gloomy performance that one could have easily seen from any number of other young actors. Lets hope he's better in the Nightmare on Elm St. remake. As much as one hopes for a scary addition to the haunted house genre, the amount of liberal stealing from far better classics such as "The Amityville Horror", "The Shining" and "Poltergeist"?other horror movies also supposedly based on real events--makes it very hard to take this "true story" very seriously.

Review:

Imagine you had the power to kill whoever you wanted to, and all you had to do was write their name in a notebook. Who would you kill? Would you even do such a thing? Where would you draw the line?

That's the premise of Death Note, a live action movie adaptation of the popular Japapses manga title. It revolves around a young law student, ironically named Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara) who spends most of his free time studying to become an FBI agent like his father, Sichiro Yagami (Takenshi Kaga). Light has become disenchanted with Japan's lenient, un-punishing justice system and realizes it isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be. As if in an answer to his prayers, one night he finds a notebook entitled 'Deathnote' and discovers that 40 seconds after writing a persons name in it's supernatural pages, they will die of a heart attack minuets later (among other rules of course).


Working under the alias Kira, Light uses the book to become executioner by killing hundreds of criminals all over the world. Under the supervision of the bemused Death, a cheesy CG goth monster that only he could see. Kira is considered a criminal among the police, and a hero amongst a nation of followers who believe what he's doing is nothing short of helping the economy.


Besides cheap looking monsters and a cheesy script, Death Note is expertly directed by Shusuke Kaneko, who exploded onto the Kaiju scene in the 1990's with his revision of the Gamera series. This film depicts how easily an anti-hero can become the very thing he fights against when taking a simplistic schoolyard approach to revenge.


Fun Fact: Since it's release, Death note has birthed two sequels and generated controversy throughout the world, despite the fact that it's more of a detective story for teens rather than a full-fledge horror flick. Students in parts of the US who have used it as a form of passive empowerment by listing the names of bullies in their own notebooks have been suspended or even arrested, given this rather harmless and horror-lite tale a subversive edge.

So, who's on your list?

Review:
[?REC] effectively mires scares from a Blair Witch Project style first person POV. But, unlike the recent trend of movies made in a similar fashion, [?REC] has straight forward in-your-face scares that are as effective as they are jump educing. Even though it's full of Romero-style horrors, it's also very different from your average zombie fair. It works great by using dark, claustrophobic atmosphere that sets the overall tone and amps the tension.


Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) is a rookie Tv reporter for a late-night show which is featuring a look inside a fire-department. After a distress call, she finds herself (and her cameraman, Pablo) riding along with the firefighters. The emergency call turns out to be for an old woman who's contracted what can be described as Romero Rabies. As some of the rescue workers are attacked, the contagion is spread. Before anybody can escape, the health department seals up the place.


Besides Blair Witch, [?REC] is one of the only truly effective handy cam films. It seems to place your right in there with the characters, be it heading face-first down a dark corridor to investigate a strange noise, or to escape the plague ridden residence by entering a completely dark room. It's a simple, solid set up the filmmakers make the most of by adding loads of creepy atmosphere and some real heart-gulping scares.


Like any good zombie movie, the cause of this relatively small outbreak is for the most part left unexplained. But, it leads your to guess what it is by dropping all sorts of clues at you such as sick dogs, experiments, and even spiritual possession. But whatever it is that's causing it, it works very well here, making this one of the best genre outings of 2007. Skip the shot-for-shot US remake and check this version out.

Review:
A little Russian girl comes to live with a well rounded family that is reeling from a personal tragedy. While that is the simple premise, it doesn't indicate what a first-rate horror movie Orphan is. It's is scary and fun, with a truly nasty sense of humor. Like last summer's The Strangers, it shows how many nervous laughs and creepy scares can be wrung out of a well-traveled premise if a new spin is added.


The movie announces its intention to avoid any concessions to good taste right away, with a hospital nightmare in which Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) bloodily miscarries, complete with a concluding close-up of the dead, gory fetus. We quickly learn that this bad dream is based on Kate?s reality; she and her husband John (Peter Sarsgaard) have been trying and failing to have a third child, and are going the adoption route instead. At a home for orphaned girls run by Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), they make the acquaintance of 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is preternaturally smart, polite, well-spoken and artistically creative. Not realizing they?re characters in a horror film, Kate and John ignore these obvious warning signs that all is not right with Esther, and decide to bring her into their home.


An evil-child movie is only as good as its evil child, and Orphan has a great one in Fuhrman?s Esther. The young actress, who has only had a few small roles prior to this one, radiates both intelligence and calm malevolence, not to mention a convincing Russian accent?which leads the Colemans? son Daniel, played by Jimmy Bennett from this year's Star Trek and the Amityville Horror remake, to accuse her of being from Transylvania. Daniel doesn?t care for his new younger sister, whose odd habits and dress are putting a crimp in his social life at school, and Esther at first seems to bond stronger with the Colemans? little daughter Max (Aryana Engineer) who, for that extra touch of vulnerability, is deaf. In fact, everyone in the household has some sort of weak spot for Esther to exploit: John once had an affair and Kate struggled with a drinking problem that almost led to a tragedy involving Max.


Slowly but surely, however, ORPHAN?s creators up the ante until it becomes clear they?re not letting any standards of good taste get in the way of delivering the thrills, cheap or otherwise. Throughout the opening acts, they drop in bits of black humor deriving from Esther?s inappropriately mature behavior, from her use of profanity (including a hilariously obscene threat directed at Daniel) to her insistence on snuggling with John during a thunderstorm (if you think that?s creepy, just wait...). As it becomes clear there are no limits to its little villain?s bad behavior, ORPHAN tightens the screws and cranks up the giggly tension, and part of the fun simply becomes watching to see how far the filmmakers will go. Pretty far, it turns out, and quite beyond the bounds of most mainstream horror, and even if it?s hard to take the movie seriously overall, it generates moments of genuine suspense in the final reels when it isn?t eliciting shocked laughter.


Orphan's final scenes are nothing you haven't seen before - a dark and stormy night, a desperate race to get home, a chase around the house - stuff used in enough home invasion and slashers films 100 times over. I suppose it's different here, beings the killer is quite different from the rest. Orphan is not the best mainstream genre outing this year, but it's definitely not one of the worst (that honer goes to Saw once again).

Romantic comedies are a staple of popular cinema. They always have been, and from the looks of their box office success, will be for a long time. Unfortunately, their not exactly my cup of tea. A good comedy will succeed by making me laugh. By throwing something funny onto the screen to get a chuckle out of the audience, and you usually expect nothing more. A good drama has engaging lead characters and an entertaining story to go along with them, good or bad. I Love You, Man, like recent comedy hits such as Role Models and Knocked Up deliver in both categories.


This is supposedly a new variation on the romantic comedy where the emphasis is on the bonding between male mates rather than the old-fashioned pursuit of true love between a boy and a girl. I found something interesting and likable about each and every of the characters - from the buddy team of Paul Rudd and Jason Segal, which like all good friendships starts off awkward but ends up good, the beautiful Rashida Jones, and even Jon Favreau - whom you grow to hate so much.
Amusing without being uproarious, I Love You Man manages to offset some of its raunchy dialogue and bad taste antics seen in other Apatow produced films with good humour and charm and also offers the bizarre bonus of guest appearances from rock band Rush and Incredible Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno.