Tag: Horror

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.

Oh snap, Beneath The Darkness, that sounds scary right? Seems like something that would fill me with fear, because there might be something else afoot, outside of the normal murder shit going on. Like ghosts? Double fear. Who doesn’t want that?

But there is no double fear. Just normal fear, that of which is not too scary. Damn it!

(And by damn it, I mean woo. I hate being scared).

Unless of course you don’t like the idea of digging your own grave and being buried alive.

Here is the basic premise. Dennis Quaid is a mortician, and thus has a creep factor going on. But when his wife dies (not in movie) he begins to stay at home more and more, yet still a respected member of the community. The actual first scene shows him going on a run and meeting a neighbor. He then takes said neighbor to a graveyard (with his gun), makes him dig up that grave, open the coffin, and hey look, it is empty. He pushes him in, locks the lid, and buries him. Okay, so yeah, Dennis Quaid is the bad guy!

Then we switch the movie to the group of teens and its stays there for awhile. The main character, Tony Oller, believes in ghosts. His sister died like, 10 years earlier, and he thought he saw a ghost over her bed. He also is the gardener for Quaid, so he and the others get the idea to go into his house at night, just to try and find ghosts.

But what they don’t find is ghosts. No, they find out that Quaid might actually be some crazy killer, and he is all like “Ahh!”. He ends up killing one of them, because they “accidentally fall down the stairs” and he is free to go, because hey. Respectable member of the community, and the others were breaking and entering!

Now Tony and his not girlfriend but maybe, Aimee Teegarden, and another friend want to try to prove that he is a murderer, and it wasn’t an accident. But the detective, Brett Cullen, can’t believe that without evidence. So yeah. Rest of the movie is trying to prove it, breaking and entering in more than one occasion, and a lot more funeral/buried alive talk.

Inappropriate picture, or a joke I haven’t made yet?

Obviously the movie doesn’t sound scary at all, just kind of suspenseful. Sure some people might die, like the nerd in the first scene, but not much. Really what it is, is a movie trying to figure out why he is doing the things. They give a reason, it is just bad. More or less, he is crazy. They try to compare it to some literature too, like the Tell-Tale Heart, but that doesn’t work too well either.

I think the only reason I am giving this a passable grade is because of Dennis Quaid. He hammed that role up, and it made it enjoyable, if not silly. Yes, I showed a pig picture, because I wanted to say “Hammed”. So damn hammy. The final scene the fourth wall is even broke, and unnecessarily.

Its an okay teen scary movie, but one that will also be forgettable in a few years.

This is a movie I have walked by about a jillion times, with no intention of rushing to watch it. Vanishing on 7th Street just sounds like a dumb title. I also couldn’t tell if it was a horror or a mystery (its the former).

But I did the craziest thing, and read some of the back. It takes place in Detroit, yess! WATCHING THAT SHIT IMMEDIATELY.

No horror can terrorize Detroit. They’d either take a punch to the face, or leave because its already terrorized.

Movie begins at the movies. Thats awesome, because this is a movie. John Leguizamo is some sort of maintenance guy, flirting with the ladies. But while he is in the back, (where it is already dark, so he is using his nice head flashlight thing), it gets darker and he hears a lot of screaming. What what?!

When he gets to where there is people, well, there isn’t people. There is a bunch of clothes on the ground, but no bodies. Some more screaming, but that is it. Turns out that whatever is happening takes the bodies when they are without a light source, in the darkness. Main power generators were all taken out, but anyone who had a lighter or flashlight or something at the time wasn’t taken.

Until their light goes out. Thankfully day still happens, but it is getting shorter and shorter. What ends up happening is his character, Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, and Jacob Latimore all end up meeting at a bar that has a generator and is making it a safe haven.

The rest of the movie is them trying to figure out how to escape the city, not sure if there is others out there, or if it is just affecting Detroit area. Mostly thing this because of the Lost Colony on Roanoke, and also claiming that the phrase “CROATAN” is mysterious, and not a very well known Indian tribe also in the area of Roanoke colony.

Oh noes! Look out for the darkness, John!

But the movie also feels like a huge let down. I feel like it didn’t tell a complete story. No you will not find out about the darkness. No, you won’t get any closer to what the hell is happening there. And you also really won’t get any [real] hope for the survivors. They tried to give hope, but that hope seems like bullshit.

And really, the comparison to that situation and the Lost Colony was stupid as shit. Colonists were told to leave where they were going carved in wood, and they did, “CROATAN” a neighboring island tribe. They may have been killed there or whatever. But for the character to say no one knows why they did that, or what it means it just dumb. And a horrible “possible movie plot point” to make.

I thought the movie was horribly slow, for no real payoff.

Dream House? I never saw a preview for this movie. Just new it was “thriller/horror” based, had james bond, and the poster involved two girls wearing outfits that looked like wall paper.

Alright. Sounds like nothing new, but lets see what happens!

Something religious, maybe?

Daniel Craig is a writer, but he is done with that shit! He wants to move with his wife (Rachel Weisz) and two kids to a non city area, and write! Oh yeah, he isn’t done with writing, just wants to help raise his family better. Suburbs are good for that. Write novels at home and stuff.

Well, his daughters start to see things. A man in a window? And there is someone they sometimes see outside? Turns out five years prior, a MURDER happened in their house. The wife and kids were killed by the dad who was taken to a mental institution. After further research, he was released not too long ago! He tries to get more information out his neighbors, Naomi Watts and her husband Marton Csokas, but they seem uneasy, and unwilling to help.

At this point have you figured the whole movie out yet?

Well yeah that is true. But then there is more. After all “Dream House”. The things that happen in the house, how much of it is real, and how much of it is fake? Thankfully every question is answered in the movie. Whether or not you accept the answers as good enough is the bigger question.

There goes the wallpaper clothes. Is that supposed to be scary? Just seems like they’re poor.

The movie is only about 90 minutes and can easily be broken up into about three parts. The first part is the boring set up, possible weird stuff going on, without anything actually being scary. Second part is the investigation and realization. Third part is the confusion of what is real, what is fake, and the wondering of why any of it matters. The ending of the movie is a complete mess. Confusion is what they were going for, but even when you should know what is going on, you will be confused because of poor design.

So what am I left with? A thriller that isn’t thrilling, and a lame conclusion / obvious plot line (that they try really hard to muck up). Blah.

Before watching, I had no idea that Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark was made by Guillermo del Toro, but finding that information out now makes perfect sense. The visua style, the creatures, and the use of a little girl in danger to make a movie.

Pan’s Labyrinth is about a long game of Peek-a-Boo, right?

The story begins sometime long in the past, and it is creepy, so lets ignore that. Bailee Madison is moving into this mansion with her dad, Guy Pearce, and his girlfriend, Katie Holmes. Pace is creepy. Belonged to some past lord a long time ago who did paintings and stuff. They currently have it just to try and sell it to people who love that dead dude. I think I got all of that right

But her room is creepy. She even hears voices. The hidden basement and fireplace is where they come from too, and despite the groundkeepers best wishes, they go down there anyways to check it out. Yeah, then shit eventually starts to go down. More or less, these gremlin/goblin like things (that hate light), used to steal teeth from children and leave money. Or something like that. Also they can turn other people into them, if they do please. So they see Bailee and go balls to the walls nuts. They want her bad. But no one will believe her, since they hide!

And then the horror movie happens. Stuff is creepy, people die, and eventually it concludes. Kind of.

Kind of like rat creatures from Bone.

This is probably the first Horror movie I watched that actually scared me. Most ended up being kind of a joke, or Scream 4, and going for gore over fear. But I am also a self-admitted coward, so who knows, it might be very tame for others. Only thing I would say is that I wish this had more of a story to go with it, and more of a “just them vs the girl” mentality.

When someone sees the title Shark Night 3D they will assume certain things about it. One, that there is a a lot of gore, peopl getting ripped up in bloody disgusting ways. Two, if it is about college kids, sex and naked swimming is bound to happen, and then those people will die. Three, probably they will die because of having sex, or doing drugs, or being bad people, not just dying for no reason.

I can say that this movie has none of the three expectations, and for one obvious reason. It is rated PG-13.

WHY THE FUCK IS A MOVIE LIKE THIS RATED PG-13??

This is about all you will get on option 2.

So yeah, group of college kids going to…a lake house! The “main character” is Sara Paxton, from the picture above. She used to live in this area of Louisiana, and left for college to get educated! It shows, because no wone they meet in town seem to have any brains. Not even local sheriff, Donal Logue, or that guy from Grounded For Life.

The main guy, if any, is played by Dustin Milligan, but they also have Joel David Moore, or that guy from Dodgeball / Grandma’s Boy. So yeah. Eventually a shark attack happens. Not sure whats going on. Sharks take out boats too. Other twists and turns. And then it ends, on a very very vague note. Not in “oh man, what happens?” way, but a “okay, they won! Hey look another shark” kind of way. Boring.

Oh no watch out!!!!!!

Also, the sharks in this movie. They look horrible. Fake and bad. Not even scary, just dumb. Obviously CGI’d, and CGI’d badly. Might even make you throw up. Which is a reaction the movie might be going for, since there cannot be any gore.

The plots for the characters and how they die are stupid. One guy, for some reason, wants to get vengeance so badly that he takes a spear and walks into the lake, just to try and fight it. What the hell? His whole character doesn’t make sense.

Usually I give it a 0 only if I am angry at it. While I am not as angry as I normally am for an 0, I am angry that they attempted to do this sort of movie, with the rating restrictions in place.

I think everyone knows about Apollo 18 by now. A “Shaky cam” and “security cam” based movie. Of what? Of the Apollo 18 mission that was “canceled”, due to budget reasons.

Or was it?

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

So of course in this movie, it wasn’t canceled, just kept secret. Why? Because shit goes down that they want to keep secret. And no, they don’t find any old transformers.

One guy has to stay up in orbit (Ryan Robbins) and the other two are on the moon (Warren Christie and Lloyd Owen).

They just have to collect some rocks? But then things go missing, they get scared, and paranoid, and it is all captured as they try to escape and fail. Yay.

I thought the beginning was super super slow. Really, I didn’t think it got interesting until the very end, then of course it ended. Making it very disappointing. The geologist in me is also displeased though.

Also, this guy.

This is supposed to have been edited down from 86~ hours of footage, over many many devices, and posted onto a fake website. (The website didn’t work for me. That is dumb…) And then made into this movie so everyone could get the truth.

Well if that was the case too, it would have worked better as a 10 minute thing, and not intentionally using the bad camera angles available. Don’t give me this “so the public can know!” message, and then try to make a (non scary) horror movie as the message conveyance. Would have rather had that explanation not as part of it.

Final Destination 5? The Final Final Destination? (No, not really. Apparently if this did well, there’d be two filmed at the same time? Not sure if that has been decided yet.) As far as I know though, it doesn’t really matter. You can always make a new movie about a group of people who escape death, and end up dying in gruesome ways. Pretty much writes itself!

Don’t look too shocked. Your role could have been done by anyone!

What is the big event this time? A bridge collapse. The main group of people all work for or are related to people at some company going on an outing. A nice bus and all. The main character is Nicholas D’Agosto. He has a vision of most everyone die, except for his girlfriend Emma Bell, who he manages to save. Needless to say, after he sees all this, he freaks out and saves some people from the bus (the others are like, what?). This includes his good friend, Miles Fisher, his lady friend, Ellen Wroe, and the guy at the office no one likes, P.J. Byrne. We also have hot office mate, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, new guy who runs the factory despite age, Arlen Escarpeta, and everyone’s boss, David Koechner! Eight in all.

Eight? That’s a pretty good number of people who are going to probably die then. There is also the detective assigned to the case, Courtney B. Vance, who I only remember from being in that one season of FlashForward.

As you all know, I am not a usual horror watcher. But nothing else is really coming out this week, so I said screw it. The only other FD I have seen was the second one, and parts of the third. General knowledge of the first. I was told that this one relates to the others, and it is good to see them. But I don’t want to see them!

So I did the next best thing, read the plot outlines on Wikipedia! Do not do this. The plot outlines, in an attempt to relate all the movies, kind of spoil the ending of this movie. I didn’t know I had it spoiled, until the ending happened. And went “Oh! That was the twist! Well shit.”

For shame Wiki. For shame.

Who dies while getting a massage? Seriously?

So, I was sufficiently scared during this movie, I think. I definitely found everything to be pretty gruesome, which makes me mad that I watched this during lunch time. Filmmakers did a good job of throwing a lot of red herrings at our faces, trying to figure out just how they would die. Usually you’d be wrong.

That gymnastics scene in particular was the biggest tease. I also disliked that during the credits, they showed footage of the other movie deaths all back to back and crazy, probably just to give the 3D viewers and extra whoa! I didn’t need it all at once though, myself.

I think fans of the series would enjoy this one. The acting wasn’t the best, but I cared enough about some of the characters to make me hope they’d survive. Damn death.

Fright Night! Rawr vampires! This is of course a remake of a movie with the same name. I don’t know anything about the older movie though. Besides it also had a “comedic” element to the horror trope and was self aware of that fact. I am sure it is a fine movie, and I have probably seen a few parts of it before on TV. So I think I would rather just assume that this new version and the original are only similar, and not actually alike.

After all, this movie had to come up with a reason why cell phones do not work.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT ROAMING FEES?!?

The movie begins with a death! After that, yay school. Anton Yelchin is the main character, who used to be a big nerd but now is trying to be all “Cool” and shit. His old friend, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, thinks that their third friend not showing up to school is a bad sign. He thinks a vampire got him! But Yelchin is too cool for vampires. He doesn’t listen to him. You know. Until Chris also disappears.

So he starts to get all paranoid. Could his neighbor Colin Farrell actually be a vampire? (Yes). I know I know, its crazy. He is way too charming to be a vampire.

Unfortunately, of course, no one believes him either. Not even Peter Vincent (played by everyone’s favorite new doctor, David Tennant), the bad ass vampire hunter on TV and in Vegas shows.

It isn’t until Colin openly attacks his home, with his mother, Toni Collette, and girlfriend, Imogen Poots (can we all laugh at her name for a second?), inside does he finally get any help.

Now, I am not one for normally watching “Scary” movies. But the new releases this week were not plentiful, so I gave it a chance. This movie is definitely not scary, but more kind of bad ass. It was very very entertaining. No one is going to win any best actor/actress awards from it, but you will definitely have a good time.

Here is a scene of people not having a good time.

Honestly, all the vampire tropes you want will be in this movie. They didn’t invite a new vampire or anything silly. I was surprised at how much was actually packed in the movie. Halfway through, I thought the film was climaxing, but it got more and more intense instead. Which definitely was a good feeling.

I don’t think you will leave feeling screwed at the ending either. The worst part of some movies is the buildup of how powerful the bad guy is, but in the final fight something easy takes him down due to cockiness or love or something. But in this movie, the vampire proves he is a badass, and the final fight is actually worth it.

Probably would have been better if I watched this at night, instead of noon time though.

Jennifer’s Body is listed in the Comedy section at Blockbuster. I think that statement is enough to show how the general public perceives this “supposed to be horror but also kinda not ish” movie.

But this movie is brought to us by the same girl who wrote Juno! It must be good! But if the same level of writing was used in both movies, it is clear what made Juno work was the actors and actresses involved, not the script.

Both movies cater to a different fetish group though.

In Jennifer’s Body, we have two friends, Megan Fox as Jennifer, and Amanda Seyfried as ‘Needy’. Dumb nick name, probably alludes to something. They used to be best friends, from the “sandboxes” of yore, and in high school, they still get along great. You know, despite the huge slutty cheerleader-ness of Jennifer, and the dorky whatever-ness of Needy. Needy has a steady boyfriend though, in Johnny Simmons, and is taking it slow.

But they go to the only bar in town to see some indie band play a gig, named Low Shoulder, with the frontman being played by Adam Brody. I have been told he was trying to imitate the lead singer of The Killers with his performance, but I really couldn’t say! Anyways, a FIRE happens, and a person dies in it at the bar! Next thing Needy knows, Jennifer has disappeared with the band, and has no idea whats going on. Then later she appears at her door, all being creepy and covered in blood!

Egads!

Then some people die in the school, namely boys. Who is doing it? Well, Jennifer is. Because she is some demon now, and only Needy seems to realize it. It is like the girl she used to know, is no longer there, but what has remained is Jennifer’s…body. Oh yeah, if you want to see both JK Simmons in his ugliest and worst role ever, this would be a great thing to pick up.

In a movie that has gore, death, Megan Fox acting, this is still the grossest thing.

So, somehow, according to the writer, this is a movie about women empowerment. But I get absolutely nothing like that. All I see is a movie trying to use T&A to sell tickets/dvds, with a pretty dumb and badly acted plot. Oddly enough, one of the reasons Megan Fox didn’t like working in Transformers is because she thought she was being exploited for her looks. Huh. Then she did this movie? Glad you have your priorities straight.

I need Amanda Seyfried to get out of these dumb teen movies right away. She was funny in Mean Girls, and was one of the stars in Mamma Mia!, but then she did this and Red Riding Hood? Stop it right now Amanda.

I have also heard this referred to as “Twilight for Boys” in the good way. What?? That would be assuming that guys only care about “hot” looking womens in their movies, nothing more. Clearly this is just offensive to guys (which may be pro women empowerment? Who knows.