Tag: Horror

It turns out that Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation are actually connected movies! Shocking I know. But for some reason I just figured they’d be two different stories both set in the same town, based on different games in the series. After all, it has only been a six year difference between the movies.

But nope, Sean Bean plays the same character in both movies, so I had to rush watch the first one to make sure I understood all the complicated plot developments this movie would surely have.

Well, at least this also has snow. Wait no. Ash. Yep, that’s ash.

Well don’t worry, seeing the first film is not necessary. The dad (Bean) and daughter Heather/Shannon (Adelaide Clemens) are moving all across America because the cult in Silent Hill, West Virginia is after her. She doesn’t remember any of the events from the first film, when she was in the town with her mother (Radha Mitchell), and didn’t know that her mom was still trapped inside its city limits.

But when they move to a new town, with new identities, she continues to receive strange dreams that feel extremely real, telling her that she is never to return to Silent Hill.

So when her dad gets kidnapped to protect her location, she does what anyone would do in that situation, and returns to Silent Hill. Thankfully she has the help of Vincent (Kit Harrington) who also happened to be a new kid in school, and for whatever reason doesn’t find any of this weird.

The cult wants to kill her, because they believe she is the innocent part of a demon child Alyssa that is terrorizing their town…that they also created. They are hoping to kill the demon, in order to birth a new demon, who can uh…kill the world? I am not even sure. But Carrie-Anne Moss is in charge of it all, and Malcolm McDowell plays a blind crazy uncle.

This is also how I like my womenz.

I don’t go to 3D movies a lot, right now my count is at six, but I am trying to give them more chances. “Silent Hill: Revelation” is by far has the worst 3D I have ever seen, and I also watched Katy Perry: Part Of Me in 3D. Its 3D consisted entirely of things coming out at you and roughly zero of everything else. It was made purely for a scare factor, but even did poorly at that aspect.

I don’t think you need to see the first “Silent Hill” film to see this one, because they try to explain everything you need in the second movie. However, the plot made absolutely no sense to me, despite seeing both films. I can’t tell the point of the cult, nor could I fully grasp why the town went to hell in the first place.

Most would say that the movie isn’t about plot, but cool visual effects. Well, its visual effects are bad (and they should feel bad), so then the movie just might be about being scared! But even I didn’t find it scary, just predictable and weird. The first film most would agree was a bit dull, trying (and failing) to recreate the alone feelings felt from the game. I think it is obvious that for this film they tried to amp everything up, yet still it just didn’t feel quite right. A bit disappointing that this is the only horror movie to be released on Halloween week. If you are looking for some good scares, I’d recommend basically anything else but this.

I readily admit that I am a coward, but I also claim that I am willing to watch anything. This often leads me to situations where I scare myself for the entertainment of others. Like Paranormal Activity 4! I never really wanted to see these movies, but last Monday I marathoned the first 3 just to catch up, and strangely enough did not find them scary. I attribute that fact to my multitasking nature, and that I may have missed a lot more of the subtle scares in the build up.

In order to get the full experience, I realized I needed to see the movie with other people. A nice midnight release. Once I got there, I also picked my seat so that I would have groups of women on all sides. I figured hey, if women scream more at movies, I might scream too! If I increase my own fear, I can probably talk about the movie a bit better.

Paranormal Activity 4 takes place about five years after the events of PA1/PA2. Katie had stolen her sister’s kid, Hunter, killing everyone in her path, and disappeared never to be seen again! But now, we are in Nevada, with a completely new family.

Alex (Kathryn Newton) is your typical teenage girl, but lives kind of in a big wealthy house. Mac notebooks everywhere! She actually has married parents (Stephen Dunham, Alexondra Lee), but they fight a lot and might get divorced. You know, if they survive. She also has a younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp) who is pretty normal.

You know who isn’t normal? That kid across the street, “Robbie” (Brady Allen), who lives pretty much alone because his mom Katie (Katie Featherston) is away a lot. But when she gets injured in an accident, the family agrees to watch over “Robbie” for a few days while she is in the hospital. Just like every other movie in the series, weird stuff starts to happen in their house as soon as “Robbie” is staying over. Alex’s good friend Ben (Matt Shively) notices that “Robbie” is being weird while they Skype, so they agree to set up mac book pros around the house to record their activity and make sure he is on the up and up.

Definitely not a ploy by Ben to have access to Alex any time of the day. Perverted teenagers are not a thing.

Hopefully “Robbie” doesn’t befriend Wyatt too much. It would be weird if there was two scary young boys running around.

Nonchalant face of terror + night vision = pants being shat.

Paranormal Activity 4 turned out to be a pretty different beast than the previous three films. The technology used is ramped up, the replace a lot of the subtle scares with more noise based rumbles and shadowy figures, and the main character is a teenage girl instead of the adults. Some would say that replacing a lot of the subtle scares is almost a dumbing down of the film series, no longer rewarding the observant viewer, and yeah, I would agree with it.

But I am more upset that the main character, who has all this physical proof on her computer, has a great inability to show her parents and get some sort of solution in the works. Most notably would be the “car/garage” scene. It is almost as if they decided after setting up all the computers to never actually check them again for evidence, which is bonkers.

I also have a problem with this movie in that it doesn’t really answer any questions into the mythos of this world. The plot involving Wyatt and Robbie doesn’t actually make any sense, nor do the actions of Katie. Instead, we are left with another tragic ending, but practically no plot development, which to me only feels like a waste of time.

Boo! Okay, that never scares anyone anymore. No, we need more subtle weirder and realistic stuff to scare us. Which explains the Paranormal Activity franchise. Heck, the production companies love it because they are relatively cheap to make and can rake in the cash.

In case you didn’t see the first two films, here is some catch up! Obviously this contains spoilers for 1 and 2, but hell, 3 also.

In the first film, Katie has moved in with her boyfriend, after which she tells him that some evil presence has been following her around and messing with stuff. Well shit, kind of late there. Weird stuff happens, grows more and more, she becomes possessed and kills the boyfriend and goes missing.

In the second film, it takes place before the first! Ah sneaky. Instead of Katie, it is her sister Kristi, who is actually married with kids, including a new born boy. They recall that demons haunted them when they were kids, and that their family could have been involved with a cult that requires the first male born son. That son, Hunter, is the first in four or five generations. Awkward. Demon stuff happens, it escalates. Then the end of the film is after the events of the first, Katie comes, kills everyone, and steals a baby!

It’s Katie and Kristi! It’s Katie and Kristi! One is a demon, the other’s just dead!

So lets go to the third film now! Which takes place before both of the other ones, hah! Take that, continuity!

No, this movie takes place like, 18 years prior or so. When Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) and Katie (Chloe Csengery) were kids! Where recording stuff happened on big VHS recorders, with tape and wasn’t all snazzy and digital. They live with their mom, Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith), because not many people get married in these movies.

Weird shit happens, so he sets up some cameras around the house to see if he can record any more. If only he was their actual dad, then we could say we know it was some genetic issue for each family to do this later as well. But I guess it was the guys idea each time, so hmm.

Shit escalates. Some invisible demon bugs the kids, until it convinces them to do what it wants, mainly Kristi. They convince the family to go to the grandmothers house for a bit, thanks to all that weird ass shit. Then it becomes a fuck with Dennis movie, which it might have been all along. They hear weird noises at the grandmothers house, Julie goes to investigate, does not return. Dennis finds weird images in the girls room, but can’t find the girls. He sees shapes, but no one there. He notices the back door open, goes to investigate, heads to the back shed, turns it on, BOOOM, a bunch of old ladies in black just standing there all creepily.

Julie is found dead, and used as a projectile against Dennis. He finds Kristi and tries to hide with her. Doesn’t work. Finds Katie, she goes all demon on him and he falls down. Just to make sure, the grandmother pops up and breaks his body completely. Yay happy endings! So I guess uhh, after this, the girls go to live with grandmother all creepily until they move out?

Bloody mary is a fun game. And by game, I mean time waster. And by fun, I mean stupid.

You’d think they’d remember these type of things happening, since they even say they were haunted in the previous film. But their mom and her boyfriend violently killed? Come on.

Out of the first three, I think this is the worst. I think it has more subtle stuff going on, but having it go back to their childhood to help explain the first two movies? I didn’t think it really worked. Sure, a lot of weird stuff happened. But for the girls to just completely forget about it until almost 20 years later when it happened again? That just feels like a plot hole. A giant plot hole kick in the nuts.

The only plot that matters from this movie, if you were going to continue the series, is that you got to see they had a creepy grandmother, who probably knew about the demon cult curse thing mentioned in the second movie. Definitely not necessary (yet) to understand any more of the series.

My first thought when I heard of The Cabin in the Woods was of course, Evil Dead.

What? Evil Dead?

Yes. If you were awesome, you’d know why too. Not to like, immediately insult most of my readers or anything.

Why yes, yes that is Thor sitting on the chair.

Woo, trip to the woods! We got Curt (Chris Hemsworth) and his girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchison) who just died her hair blonde! We also got a stoner, Marty (Fran Kranz, who you may remember from Dollhouse). On this weekend retreat, they really want to hook up their friend Dana (Kristen Connolly) with this new guy, who is also athletic, Holden (Jesse Williams).

Things are weird there though.

What else do we got? We got some scientists, kind of! Two head guys (Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford) talking confusing stuff about how the Netherlands and Sweden. They are being bugged by an assistant (Amy Acker) and have a new guard for their door (Brian White) who doesn’t want to be there.

And that is all you get, fuck you!

Well, they at least look like scientists. The validity of their science is another thing.

Pissed off at the shitty plot outline? Well good. Then you can go watch it and see what is up.

Never have I personally seen a more polarizing film amongst my friends, who all mostly got to see it before me it feels like. I didn’t see anyone say it was okay. It was purely a love or hate affair, which intrigued me. What does that usually mean? It means the film is either artsy, or weird. This one I would definitely describe on the weird side of cinema.

It just goes against the grain of what you expect, and rustles some of your jimmies doing so. Personally, I had a good time watching it. Wasn’t perfect. But super weird. So just give it a shot, and well, don’t get too upset when weird stuff happens.

Hooray 550th review! Err. Okay. Not actually an important milestone, but every 50 seems like a good enough reason for me to do a special longer movie. (Like Twilight 1, 2, 3, 4a, High School Musical (and spinoff), Dark Knight, and Clash Of The Titans).

Recently I finally finished the Saw franchise, and the last four films of the series fit my time frame for reviews. But that’d be weird to review just 4-7 right? Sure, why not. Although it is kind of like 2 trilogies, and a “bonus overall movie connecting even more shit” together. Needless to say, there are tons of spoilers. If you want to know, yes watch the first one at least, it is the best. After that

Let The Games Begin!

Fuck your horror genre. That is what the first Saw said. It begins with Adam (Leigh Whannell) waking up in a tub full of water! It is a dark medical (?) room, and also features a Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), chained to the wall. Oh, Adam is chained to the wall too. But once they get light on, hey look, dead guy in the middle of the floor. Apparently he shot himself instead of dying to some poison.

Lawrence’s game is to kill Adam before 6pm, or else he loses his wife and kid. They realize they are now victims of the “Jigsaw” killer, some new serial killer who sets victims up in deadly games to fight for survival. They eventually find some hacksaws, that are not strong enough to go through their chains. Nope, have to go through their bones /feet to get out.

As You Wish…

At the same time, we have the crime parts of the story. Try to separate them by a picture!
Detective David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Detective Steven Sing (Ken Leung) are trying to find this guy, and investigating people. Like the Doctor, a victim who escaped, and others. Eventually find a warehouse, and hey, booby traps. Steven Sing totally gets dead.

Also, the whole time it seems that Jigsaw is the one holding Lawrence’s family hostage. Nope. Dude “dead” (Tobin Bell) in the middle of the floor, Jigsaw the whole time, fucking with him. Lawrence escapes (despite losing a lot of blood), and shot but did not kill Adam. Jigsaw/John then locks the door to the room, leaving Adam in the dark and chained there, trapped forever. Fucking creepy. Also, watch out Lawrence!!

THEY ARE BACK. But this time, there is a house of horrors set up with eight people, who have an hour to find the antidotes to a nerve gas being sprayed throughout the house. If they don’t they die, simple. Also other ways to die in this house easily, especially on retrieving the antidote. But wait, is that Amanda (Shawnee Smith)? Yep! The one person to have survived a test from Jigsaw is put into another test. That sucks.
Not only that, but there is a damn kid in there too!

Turns out I have to show gross pictures with this franchise. Don’t do drugs kids!

That kid being the son of Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), who just lead a SWAT team to find Tobin Bell. He refuses to go with them, but no resistance, and tells him that he just wants him to sit and talk with him for an hour. While the house game is being played, with cameras, of course.

Eventually Eric loses it, thinks he finds his son, but nope. Empty house. That shit took place earlier in the day, and he only thought it was still happening! His son was locked up with Jigsaw the whole time! Amanda was a double agent! Eric is now trapped to die! Fuck!

<--rage dude. This time, Jigsaw has a more specific set of tasks for his victim. Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) is a dude mad because his son died, and got little to no help to deal with it. Jigsaw places him in a meat packing plant, and has him come across people who affected the death of his son, whether they didn’t testify in court, bad judges, or the actual killer. He has the chance to save each person, but it is up to him.

Also, Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), is in the same place, but has a shotgun necklace around he neck. She has to keep Jigsaw alive, from his tumor. If he dies, she dies. If she tries to leave, she dies. She can’t leave until Jeff finishes. Amanda is there to make sure shit goes according to plan.

Brain surgery, serious business, but easy to do with bullets around your neck.

Eric actually escaped from his prison at the beginning of the film. Maybe. Other cops are in this movie, but they are more important next film. Lets just say one of them dies. Also it is unusual to note that someone passed a task early on in the film, but the door was welded shut, making survival impossible. A big change from the normal games, kind of fucked up. (Severely fucked up, actually).

But more importantly, Amanda won’t let Lynn leave! She shoots Lynn, which Jeff sees and shoots Amanda! Turns out Lynn and Jeff were married, and Amanda “failed” her test to follow Jigsaw’s orders. Who dies. HE DIES? THE THIRD MOVIE IN HE DIES? WHAT IN THE FUCK? Sounds dumb, but let’s see what happens. Jeff is now stuck in a different room, with three dead bodies. Awkward.

The cops are now more important, so they get top status! Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) finds a tape recorder (protected) in Jigsaw’s stomach. He is definitely dead. He is told he too will be tested. Just not yet.

Lt. Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is our fun victim now. Totally in the last movie too, along with Mark. They realize that there is no way Amanda or John could have set up a cop who died in the last film, so someone else must be working on it. Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) believes Rigg is at fault. But that is just racism.

Rigg is abducted at his own home, and put in a city wide game. He has to figure out clues, go from building to building to “realize” how Jigsaw works, and get in the right state of mind. Most importantly, he has 90 minutes to do it, or else Eric (from movie two yes), and Mark (From above) will both be killed. Rigg himself has it easy. Agent Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) and Peter are following the trail, trying to catch up. She totally gets blasted during this shit.

The first saw trap. Too bad this movie wasn’t called Machete.

Who isn’t as important yet? Jigsaw’s wife. Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) was pregnant, and had Jigsaw’s baby. Pre Jigsaw, when he was just John. She was a nurse. But forced miscarriage thanks to a robber junkie, who Jigsaw felt the need to punish (above). The famous puppet was meant for his son. Sad.

The two detectives are also trying to figure out what she knows, which is apparently nothing. Rigg was supposed to learn to slow down and not rush into things, but nope. He does. He ends up setting off the trap to kill both Eric and Mark. Or does he?

But then?! Mark gets up and frees himself, not dead! What?! He leaves Rigg to die, and goes on, because he was the accomplice. Also, that autopsy? Takes place after the events in the film. Whoops. Also that Peter guy thought he was in the right spot, but was actually in the same building as Jeff from film 3. Peter shoots Jeff in confusion, whoops.

Getting confused yet? Too bad.

This time the special trap is arranged for five people (in the fifth Saw film, crazy!). They are all chained at the neck and attached to the same rope. Blades behind them, keys ahead of them. One minute timer, who will survive? Turns out four of them. These people, connected by a burning building, are mostly corrupt people, but not entirely bad. I mean, Brit (Julie Benz) is one of them after all.

They have to go through the traps, where one person at a time ends up having to be killed.

Wow, some of these people are actually famous!

Detective wise? Some weird shit. Way too many flashbacks. Needless to say, Peter thinks Mark is the accomplice. Trying to gather proof, Mark sets it up to make it look like Peter did it instead. They do a lot of back and forth shady shit, but Mark totally convinces everyone. Then Peter accidentally lets Mark escape (thinking it a trap) and gets caught and dies himself, so that Mark can run away free.

Also the five people? They were morons. The traps could have been completed just as easily with zero deaths, if they had thought a bit more. All it did was make the final test of getting 10 pints of blood with saws with 2 people much harder than with 5. (I thought all the non five people plot was dumb in this one, by the way. Too many flash backs and bullshit).

Fuck big time insurance companies! This is a film with a message! William Eastbridge (Peter Outerbridge) runs one of them, and didn’t approve of a Norwegian test for Jigsaw to take for Cancer. Jigsaw didn’t like him choosing who lives or dies, so he set up a test…doing just that. He is pitted against his own employees who work for him, and has to help save them while hurting himself potentially. Including the famous scene of the six interns, strapped to a spinning wheel, with a shotgun. He can only save up to two, and if he takes some pain to do it. All while they plead to save them too.

Chat Roulette, in real life. 4 out of 6 will get paired up with a dick (killed), the other 2, friendly strangers (life).

Lot of more crime bullshit. Everyone thinks Peter did it now. Except Lindsey, who was Peter’s partner in Saw 4. She totally didn’t die, secrets! Mark receives instructions from Jill, that she got from Jigsaw’s will, to kill some more people. But the cops are on to him, and note the recording is different and are able to to figure out who the new voice was. So he kills them all. Fuck those guys. Fuck em. But Jill was told by her husband to kill Mark, ending it all. He gets reverse bear trapped, and survives, despite not having a real way too. Tears his cheek though.

And insurance dude? The people watching it were supposed to be his “family”, but it turns out the family we saw were people who lost their dad/husband over one of his decisions, and the family was just his sister. They decide his fate, and yeah, they mad.

It’s finally over right! Nope. Because Mark survived. What in the fuck fuck. Mark is mad, wants to go after Jill.

Turns out there is a group of people who meet to talk about surviving Jigsaw’s puzzles. So we see some people from the past, including Dr. Lawrence, whats up cripple! We get to see how he escaped without his foot. This is all lead by Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery), a liar. He claims to have escaped from a puzzle, but its all a lie to be a grief counselor and make money.

Well Mark captures him of course. Puts him through a trial, where he has to save his friends and agent and lover. But he fucks some shit up, saves like no one, and can’t even pass the same test he claimed to have conquered in his speeches.

Oh no, they got the Boondock Saints now too!?

Mark is trying to end all this shit now. Especially because Jill went into police custody, to rat him out for protection. He tries to burn up all of his evidence, and leads the SWAT team on a trap to actually break into police head quarters to kill everyone in his path to Jill. Who he reverse bear traps as well, but this time, it works! Yay, Mark is now off scott free. Until people in masks capture him too.

Hey look, how he is chained to the wall, where the first Saw film took place. Oh what’s that, Dr. Lawrence was ALSO working with Jigsaw the whole time after escape? I guess that makes some sense, they needed a doctor for some of that crazy surgery shit. Either way, he decides to not leave him the hacksaw, and leaves him to die, stuck in the room, starving to death in the dark. How dare he fuck with Jigsaw’s wife.

Did I talk enough about this? In case you didn’t know, this shit is torture porn.

I thought the first film was brilliant, the second film had some moments, and the third one was confusing and dumb. Killing off the main killer left us with shitty twist accomplice story lines, and made him seem like an Omnipotent figure who could plan all this shit out. I say bull to that.

The crime figuring it out stuff was a mess, because it felt like they just kept throwing new characters at me to learn and forget. The sixth movie was dreadful, because it was too full of messages. “I don’t like how you decided who lives or dies, so I am going to make you decide who lives or dies”. I was very upset when traps started having lose/lose scenarios, with no chance of survival. But that was all that dick Mark’s fault, who didn’t follow Jigsaw at all.

But hey, at least Cary Elwes came back!

And you know, wasn’t killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Despite its flaws, Piranha had its moments. One of those moments being a geologist who kicked some sort of ass.

But the end of it did leave us with a cliffhanger. Turns out that the big Piranha’s attacking the lake from way back when were actually babies. The adults were much bigger, (as we saw in the last scene a character getting killed by this many meter long fish). Alright, reason for sequel! Piranha 3DD, because of boob jokes.

That’s what you get for going to a water park and expecting to have a good time. Right in the face.

“Fuck your continuity”. That is what the makers of this film said. Despite the knowledge gained in the last film, the only Piranha in this film are the same size as the last film. And smaller, if they want to be. Whatever.

Maddy (Danielle Panabaker, yes from Sky High, because I apparently want to mention that movie as often as I can on this website) is a 49% owner of a water park, yay. The 51% belongs to her step dad, Chet (David Koechner), after her mom died. And well, he is turning the park into a joke of itself.

In its grand re opening, he is trying to sell sex. He fired all the former life guards, and replaced them with strippers (who are technically certified) just to look hot. Has deals to get more women to come to the park, and an adult only pool, where clothing is optional. Oh yeahhh.

Either way, turns out the Piranha’s that fucked the world up last Spring (and apparently no one has noticed moving) have migrated to the local lake, where the water park dumps its water out. According to the mad scientist (Christopher Lloyd) they may be getting confused and start to go through pipes and drains to more populated areas. Uh oh. Like the water park!?

Maddy tries to stop the opening of the park, just in case, but to no avail. And then Piranhas happen. Worst opening day ever. With the help of her best friend who is definitely not gay Barry (Matt Bush) she tries to save the day! Too bad he can’t swim. There is also asshole local cop Josh (Jean-Luc Bilodeau), best friend Shelby (Katrina Bowden) (who we will get to later…) and even David Hasselhoff, playing himself as a “lifeguard”.

Heck, even Ving Rhames returns to reprise his Oscar worth role as a deputy, now without legs after the tragic events of the first film.

There’s no way a Piranha would be in her bath tub. Right?
That’d just be silly. …Right?

Here are some spoilers. The movie ends by setting up for a third movie, like the last one. This time saying the Piranhas are evolving to maybe grow legs and grow on land. But like with this movie, I expect if there is a third, them to say “fuck you” and lie about that as well. (Despite showing one on land, like the big one last time. Bah). Also, I am disappointed with some deaths. The step dad was just stupid. Most of the others were expected. Hated the lake scene before hand too, just because the woman was just incredible dumb.

Speaking of incredible, how bout incredibly painful. The biggest WTF moment in the show happens when you realize that Katrina Bowden’s character has a Piranha inside of her (small one I guess) that chooses to not eat anything. Skinny dipping was the cause, and I will let you figure out what happened there. This doesn’t lead to anything until she has sex where…well you can figure it out.

There was some nice self parodying in there. Hasselhoff put it the best, when someone was yelling for him to help and he refused to leave his chair. Pretty much said he won’t help, they are in a dang pool, once everyone just leaves the pool they will be fine. Not his fault they are all morons. Well put Hasselhoff, clearly the best part of this movie.

The movie did had some nice moments going with it, but by ignoring the first one’s big discovery (seriously?), and other factors, it was just not as good as its predecessor. Also the credits were like 11 minutes long, with extended scenes, bloopers, and more Hasselhoff. Was bizarre.

Normally when I do a review intro, I might say a small quip about what I think the movie was about before watching. Most of the time that is a made up dumb joke, just to show that I tend to try and watch a lot movies without knowing what they are about.

But this one is true. Baghead? The cover is the picture below, four people with bags on their heads. Well, I figured that Baghead sounds a lot like Baghdad. This is probably a comedy (the front says comedy) that has a fictionalized place named Baghead, where instead of turbans, they just have bags on their heads, and people assuming they are all terrorists. A satire or something. This is actually what I determined from the cover and word comedy. But man was I way wrong.

Oh man, oh man what is the movie about?!

Dead wrong!

This indie movie is about four people wanting to make a movie. The group of them are seen at a film festival, and seem to be critiquing to themselves how bad a movie is that everyone else seemed to love. That director, Jett Garner, said he made the movie on a small budget by doing scenes with some real people who thought the events were all real and hidden cameras. Alright, cool. But they do get inspired. They should make a movie! Don’t know what kind, but the four are going to a cabin in the woods to figure that shit out.

We have the would be director Matt (Ross Partridge), his ex girlfriend Catherine (Elise Muller), his best friend Chad (Steve Zissis) and a girl that Chad likes, Michelle (Greta Gerwig).

But first, party time. Michelle has a dream that some guy with a bag on his head was stalking around the woods and trying to kill him. Matt says that is PERFECT for a movie, a dude with a bag on his head is scary, and proceeds to prove that point by scaring them. Of course the level of fear is more based on their reaction to a surprise than the fact that a bag is on his head, but still.

Chad really wants to do Michelle, but she wants to do Matt (who said he won’t go for it). Then a dude with a bag on his head enters Michelle’s bedroom, who she assumes is Matt. She is scared because he doesn’t do anything but rummage and leave. No one claims to be the one who went into her room. DUn dun dun..

What started out as a simple joke and a movie idea is turning into reality. Did she actually see him in a dream the first night, or was he in her room then? When everyone finds out that some dude is outside their house with a bag on his head, will they all freak out and panic, or you know, tell him to stop being a douche.

Are you scared?!

Alright well, yeah. It is a horror drama thing. Definitely didn’t find anything really comedic about the movie. I also saw what was coming a mile away, and it just bugged the shit out of me how boring I found the movie. Definitely more dramatic most of the time. Very slow. Realistic, sure, but man do I not care about any of these characters.

Really not much else to say. This movie was not a good purchase on my part.

Prometheus! Such a meaningful word. This movie I had the pleasure of seeing in theaters, which of course means it is automatically a bit better than it might be, so the review could change months later.

Outside of the amazing trailers, of course I knew that Ridley Scott was the director. I had heard originally that they planned on being a prequel to the Alien movies, but it was scrapped when it became so big. Well, it still is pretty much. Not a direct prequel, but same universe, and before Alien at least.

I’m sure there is nothing ominous about those vases.

Prometheus is the name of the ship, sent to a moon of a very very distant planet. Two archaeologists, Liz Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find a bunch of cave paintings, showing old nations worshiping a lager man, and pointing to a very specific star system. It is weird, because none of these nations would have had contact, and are quite old.

So they believe that these beings are inviting them to their planet, and really want to “meet their maker”, and so they convince a trillionaire (Guy Pearce, looking like an old Bill Maher) to finance a ship and crew to do just that. Presumably the ship cost most of the funding, so not all individuals of the crew were the top of their field (on a potentially suicide mission), but still. We got a pilot (Idris Elba), a biologist (Rafe Spall), a geologist (Sean Harris), some sort of high level CEO like figure (Charlize Theron) and an adroid who is fucking fantastic (Michael Fassbender).

Of course other people too, like medics, navigators, security, etc. But eh whatever.

They go to the planet, find the people in question, but they are all dead (OR ARE THEY?). Also, find some nice black ooze. I’m sure after this they go home disappointed and no one dies.

After unlocking all of the secrets of the universe, of course.

Let me go over some pros first:

Michael Fassbender as an android. So good. So so good.
The visuals and shiny colors.
That basic premise.

Some of the cons?
Well, obviously, this is by far the worst depiction of a geologist I have ever seen in film. Thus my comments on not top of the field. Scientifically, a lot of this film is a travesty. Liz demanding no weapons on a new planet for safety, is pretty dumb, as is having only one “Expert’ on each field. But man, that geologist. It sucked, knowing he would die so fast in the film before I knew his field.

A lot of the characters don’t get as much development as one would like. So when certain self sacrifices are made, emotionally it doesn’t hurt as much because we barely know these people. Other conversations seemed forced (“I can’t have babies!” “Father!” etc) and it almost cringe worthy to see. Also drugs.

If I could rate this just on potential? It would be quite high. A lot of the elements are there but I think a bit too much was left on the cutting room floor. This film with a directors cut would probably be great. There is a lot of implied themes that make this film great as well, with plenty of evidence. Just…not enough for me to call it great.

Give a watch, but maybe wait for a nice Directors cut on Blu-Ray.

Ah fuck.

The Woman In Black is based off of a book too. Seriously. I think that is at least 50% of my movies nowadays. Should I go back and tag all movies based off of books to figure this out? Just might have to.

Oh hey look, Harry Potter.

Set in some Olden part of ye Englande, it begins with three kids playing. Oh no! Wait that isn’t weird. It is weird when they all decide to jump out of the window and kill themselves. Huh. And then a woman in black.

Enter Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), who is in no way a ghost buster. No, he is a lawyer. Lives with a four year old son, Joseph (Misha Handley) and the nanny (Jessica Raine). Wife died during child birth, and everyonce in awhile, Arthur likes to imagine her still alive. Weirdo.

Either way, he has to go to a different town and handle the the closing and purchase of a new house. Who use to live there? Some woman Alice, her husband, their son, and their sister, Jennet (Liz White). No one seems to like him, except for the wealthy landowner (Ciaran Hinds, possible the most British looking person ever) and his wife (Janet McTeer).

So guess what? He hears weird noises, and scares himself a bit. He sees a woman in black, outside, but she disappears. Next thing you know, some kids are all “ahh our sister is dying” because she drank something poisonous. Well he doesn’t save her. She dies. Rumor has it anytime someone sees the woman in black, the child closest to the scene will be driven to kill themselves. That makes sense.

Blah blah blah. Some people getting possessed. Some people in bad mental states. Some people raising children falsely. A very weird muddy graveyard. And a solution to the curse!

Seriously. Could anyone look more British?

The Butler did it!

Just kidding, there is no butler (with speaking lines).

But seriously, I thought this movie was lame. Even for a person who claims to get scared easily, I wasn’t ever really scared. This film seems to implore the “Lets just have normal things happen unexpectedly for fake tense moments to have the person jump but never really scare them” technique 9 out of 10 times. It kind of got annoying, and very predictable. Real normal unexpected surprising events for jump scaring don’t always come out with the music, but in this movie, they will.

The story wasn’t the worse. But how they figured out the “solution” to the curse seemed to come out of no where. That was the only scary-ish movie just because it looked a bit gross.

And the ending? Ugh, it was dumb. Very unsatisfying ending. Don’t worry, it is not “it’s all a dream”. I’d rather that be the ending than what happened.

Wooo. Here is something I have been putting off for awhile. Repo! The Genetic Opera.

I like musicals. And well, this is still something different. But I figured I was going to watch Repo Men soon (maybe), so why not watch this also soon. I knew this wasn’t a normal movie, probably something made with the intention of being a “cult classic” right off the bat. But damn it, Giles is in it, so I had to watch it.

Only took me like, two years.

Singing and gore. Pretty standard today.

In this futuristic world (2050s) Organ Donation is now being treated like a car loan. Great offers, most people can get a heart when they need it, no money down. But they have to pay their bills. If they don’t keep up with payments? Well, their organs will get repossessed back.

Also lots of plastic surgery too.

Head of the company GeneCo. is Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) but he is dying soon. He has three children, Pavi (Nivek Ogre) who wears a different face on his face, Luigi (Bill Moseley) who has anger problems, and Amber (Paris Hilton) who is addicted to surgeries and the painkillers involved. Anyways, bad and evil family, and he doesn’t trust his kids. They do shady contracts with their organs too.

The Repo Man (Anthony Head) is forced into killing others and taking their organs for GeneCo, because he is being blackmailed by Rotti Largo. The killing and organ stealing is also legal. The Repo Man thinks he killed his wife before child birth, trying to cure a disease for her, but he was set up by GeneCo.

Because of all of this, and his shame, he has trapped his daughter in his house for her whole life, making her think she had the same disease and that she could die if she goes outside. Shilo (Alexa Vega) goes outside anyways, causing a lot of problems. Rotti Largo was only mad because he was dating her mom before she left him for the Repo Man. Operas are dramatic.

There is also Blind Meg (Sarah Brightman) who is no longer Blind, thanks to GeneCo! She is a singer, and thinks that she can retire and it just be okay. There is another character called The Gravedigger (Terrance Zdunich), who I felt was pretty much a narrator like character.

But yes. Main plt? Rotti Largo is still pissed, and wants to get more revenge before he dies.

And the gravedigger is also a pill pusher.

So, this was definitely a weird movie.

As it is more of an opera than a musical, a lot more singing happens instead of just normal talking. Singing transitions between actual songs. None of the songs I can really even think of how to sing. Very…well, weird.

It is also not the finest display of singing talent. It had its moments, but a lot of it was just talk/singing.

This was another movie where I wasn’t sure what I thought about it after I watched it. Was it just okay while being super weird, or did the super weirdness make me like it a lot? Definitely didn’t hate it. I loved the little things they did to create their world, and the comic book back story telling of certain events.

It felt weird to be over “so soon” at the end though. Felt like a TV show worth of potential plot, and its obviously just a one shot movie. I also liked the ending, or at least what was left available for the viewer.

Ahhh, fuck it. Originality gives it the higher rating.