Tag: Thriller

Restitution. I have hard time spelling that word sometimes. Not at all relevant to the movie, just figured I’d let you know.

This is a weird low budget movie.

Featuring all of the stars of yesterday! Mena Suvari, of American Beauty, and Tom Arnold, of Tom Arnold.

Is it just me, or does he always look confused nowadays?

The main character however is played by Mark Bierlein, who I am ashamed to give the IMDB for. But the dude is a writer, actor, and producer. He was an actor in this movie and Street Boss. He was a producer in this movie and Street Boss. He was also a producer, in this movie and Street Boss. At least he does what he loves, I guess?

At least his movies seem to be set in Michigan.

This movie was super low budget. Blood looked bad, and I cringed when I heard the potted plant crashing noise. Just a dumb sound effect. As for the story. Eh. Dude gets framed for murders at the beginning of the movie. A year later some other dude comes to investigate it for a book. Turns out lot of people in the town are in on the conspiracy, and more people die because of his search.

His neighbor is Tom Arnold. The other dude’s lover is Mena Suvari. And yeah.

I hated the ending. There was a lot of unexpected action scenes at the end, which felt stupid as well. The explanation for everything, I thought was dumb. But for reasons I can’t explain without spoilers. Most of the movie was slow too.

They were going for this big “Whoa! Twist!” stuff near the end, but really, just felt dumb. I will note that an actor in this movie is named Jimmy Doom. How awesome is that name?

He played the role of “Hillbilly”.

So I came upon this title by accident. I was on Jeremy Sisto‘s imdb page (who is kicking ass on Suburgatory), and saw the title. I immediately went “OH MAN MUST SEE THIS MOVIE!” I was assuming it was some pseudo sequel thing to what every existentialist worth his lone self would know about, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Yes, the movie based upon the play of the same name, both fantastic.

I already feel like this is a mouthful.

This movie has not much at all to do with that movie/play. They do makes some references to the work, but its not at all related (Yet Tom Stoppard apparently told them to go for it). The play/movie is a personal favorite of mine, full of some great quotable gems, so that was a shame.

“We’re actors! We’re the opposite of people!”

So anyways, this movie takes place in modern NYC. Jake Hoffman is forced to be the director of the play, in a theater owned by John Ventimiglia. Everyone else involved is a vampire. They want to do the play that they made up, which is the name of the movie. All the director really wants to do is win back his ex girlfriend, Devon Aoki, from none other than Ralph Macchio! Sisto is barely in the movie, as a cop guy.

Eventually they realize that their version of the play is actually a true story, with a real Hamlet, and involving real vampire’s during Shakespeare’s time. John V goes around performing the play, turning the actors into vampires and audience members around the world. Similarly, the real Hamlet is out there trying to stop him. The only thing that can stop him is the Holy Grail.

Does this sound ridiculous? Because it is.

It is hard to figure out what is going on most of the movie. They had different play sequences throughout, and it was supposed to be all interweaved and surprising, but it just felt clunky and confusing. For all I know this could be some super meta type of movie that I just don’t get, but I don’t want to get it either. The acting was bad and cheesy, and well, just bad overall. It probably would have been better if I just watched the original movie again.

“We can do rapiers… or rape… or both!”

OoohhhhhhOooohhHhOOHHHHH. (That is ghost noises).

A retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. For some reason the advertises of this movie made sure everyone knew that the people who did this movie also did Twilight. Clearly setting itself up for a not so serious movie.

The story stars Amanda Seyfried, who can be great and sing, but neither of these things really happen in this movie. She lives in a village where it always is winter and near a dark forest (I assume). They used to be attacked by a werewolf, but it stopped when she was a kid. She fell in love with a woodcutter, but he is lame and an orphan. FLASHFORWARD TO NOW. She is being forced to marry some other cute boy, who is prestigious or something.

I will say that I could not tell the two guys apart. This lead to some confusing moments for me.

OH NO WEREWOLF ATTACK.

Or just giant CGI wolf.

He kills her older sister. Eventually they call in Gary Oldman to come and kill the wolf! Even though Saul from Battlestar Galactica (oh how he has fallen) thinks he killed it already.

Blah blah. Witchhunt in the village. People thinking its everyone else. Eventually it is revealed. It is dealt with. And then a different dumb ending.

Alright first of all, the entire village just seemed fake. Even if they were in the woods for real, everything just seemed like shitty CGI to me, even her damn hood. In terms of guessing who the wolf is, I had about two guesses. One was right. Hooray. But I didn’t care. I also found it ridiculous that after the reveal, the wolf was still killed (spoiler?). Like, don’t be a bitch Amanda.

ESPECIALLY if you compare that ending with what happened right after it. That makes it even more stupid.

I wasn’t even interested in the movie for that long. Gary Oldman’s character was even annoying. He mentioned like, four or five times that he had to kill his own wife because she would be a werewolf. That was about all he said. Where I come from, killing your wife isn’t celebrated or a reason to get to do what you want.

“Give me that sandwich sir. I killed my wife.”

But rawrrr. This movie wasn’t good. I haven’t given a 0 in awhile, because that means I am mad I wasted my time with the movie in addition to it being pretty bad. Oh well. This fits my bill.

Trespass is one of those words that just looks misspelled to me always. Trespass. Treespas? Tresspass? Just all look wrong.

Trespass however tells the story of a nice rich family! The dad (Nick Cage) deals with diamonds, not the blood kind, the normal legal ones. His wife (Nicole Kidman) just loves that money, and their daughter is probably spoiled, but at least has good morals (Liana Liberato).

I heard she has less morals in Trust, but I haven’t reviewed it yet, so who knows.

Long story short, she sneaks out of the house to go to the party, and the parents get held up at gun point in their own home. FROM TRESPASSERS. Three men and a lady, guns, mask, all black. They’ve been working on this for months (expected the kid to be home) and need that sexy diamond money / diamonds. Cam Gigandet is one of those bad people, and he has been in a bunch of movies lately.

Longer story short, fuck Joel Schumacher.

I was generally interested in this movie. But after awhile, not only did I get bored, but aggravated. There is a twist limit. A few are good. But every couple minutes another “Twist” (coupled with more of the happy married couple getting beaten) did not entertain, just annoy. Because after a few twists, if they keep coming, you can no long accept the new twist as real. Then its just, “get to the fucking point already”. Because when you are on a rollercoaster of twists, you can just blank out and wait for the last one and be good.

I give it an okay rating, just because I was interested in the beginning. Some of Cage’s yelling scenes were good. This movie just goes to show (over and over and over again) that everyone lies.

Everyone.

I guess the first and most obvious thing to note about this movie is it is called Faces in the Crowd, not to be confused with A Face in the Crowd.

This movie, which IMDB calls a Horror-Thriller despite being more of a Thriller-Drama (unnecessary semantics are unnecessary), stars Milla Jovovich and many other people who I haven’t really seen before. Thankfully, who they are is not an important aspect of this movie.

Milla is just a kindergarten or something teacher, having a corporate boy friend, going to the clubs with her friends, living free. But she accidentally witnesses another girl getting stabbed and murdered (and then raped). Talk about a way to ruin your night!

“Alright, murdered then raped? Sorry. That is too much for me.”

Turns out that is what some local serial killer has been doing. She runs, he attacks, she falls off a bridge and hits her head. Wake up later, FREAK OUT! Apparently she comes down with something called Prosopagnosia, or face blindness? Sounds completely made up in the movie. She has trouble recognizing faces. I assume the movie went for the most extreme way of her having this condition. In her class room, all the girls look alike, as do all the boys. When she loses site of a persons face, like looking away and looking back, it looks different to her. A lot of faces just keep changing, including her own.

At first it is hard to notice. Overall, it is just super annoying for the viewers. So, the movie is mostly her being paranoid that the killer will come after her still, in case she does remember how to recognize him. The ending is reminiscent of the classic clone fight scenario. You know. When two people are identical and fighting, and you have to shoot one of them. But you may mess up!

Seriously. This isn’t spoilers. The movie has jerk boyfriends/friends, and a lot of Milla freaking out. I never really care about any other character in the movie. Just wanted the stupid concept movie to be over.

Now Progeria is a P based disease I would love a thriller movie about.

On the cover of this movie, it makes sure you know it is produced by James Cameron! Who is one of apparently 9 producers? Wow. He actually played a small part in this movie. Apparently he just really likes underwater stuff.

There is definitely some (all?) stereotypes in this movie. Including grizzled older guy, who knows what to do, isn’t emotional, and just wants to survive. Played by some guy Richard Roxburgh. There are more people in here too, but most I do not recogn- WAIT WAIT WAIT. Richard Roxburgh?? I only know him from one role.

“And in the end should someone die?”

Hah. The Duke from Moulin Rouge. Not to be confused with The Duke. In this movie, a group of people are investigating the largest unexplored cave thing ever. That connects somewhere with the Ocean of somewhere else.

It is funded by Ioan Gruffudd, playing stubborn rich dude who wants to be on Natural Geographic. There is also grizzled old dudes son, other people, rich dudes lover, other experienced diver, and some others.

Emergency! Cyclone thing starts flooding their camp way underground, surprise big storm! Their way gets blocked out. They have to try and hope this cave does eventually reach the ocean to escape. SO yeah. Normal plot. One-two people die every time they get to a possible conflict point, very normal escape thriller stuff. Title has no meaning, Sanctum.

Roxburgh is the the best here, nothing like his Dukeness. But yeah. You will expect most of things to happen, before they do. The ending isn’t a surprise at all. But it is kind of pretty. Interesting for a one time view. Watch Roxburgh freak out when everyone tries to do their own thing, and take his stuff.

“I just don’t like other people touching my things!!”

2 out of 4.

Hey look, a low budget Ray Liotta serial killer movie. Here is some fun things about this movie. This is NOT a mystery! Not a whodunnit at all. They are pretty clear in showing you, the viewer, who is killing these people. If the obvious clues don’t knock the sense into you, the actual acts of him doing so should ring it in.

As you may guess The River Murders takes place in a small town with a River. Murders happen near it or around it, and this shit needs to get solved.

Because you know who did it, the movie focuses on the more interesting kind of question there is: Why? Why is this man doing these killers? How is it related to Detective Liotta? Why are there so many titties in this film compared to a National Lampoon movie that doesn’t feature Chevy Chase? (Oh that’s answered. Because the women are dead, having been raped and, pretty often, thrown into a river. So their lack of clothes explains that.)

“Ah-ha! Finally! Another movie with Rape! Let me out of this chair right now!”

I was interested in the outcome, and was glad this was rated R. The deaths weren’t graphically shown, but the aftermath could be, and it allowed the language to be a tad bit more appropriate. There are some cliches also heard in this movie, including the ever so fun “by the book!” phrase in every cop related movie. Will I ever watch this again? Nah, probably not. It felt like a made for tv movie, besides the dead bodies, boobs, and swearing. But it was decent one watch affair. Also, despite Christian Slater being in the movie, he didn’t add much to it.

Hurray, deciding to rent movies that I have heard zero about. They are the best. Don’t you hate hearing others opinions about movies when all you want to do is watch it yourself? (My bad, by the way, posting all my movie opinions).

Gerard Butler gets to play an intelligent and super pissed off mad man killer, which he rarely gets to do. Normally he is just some bad ass guy, but usually good. The last time he got to play a psychotic and smart killer was Phantom of the Opera, but he also sang a bunch then. He also does that role OH SO WELL.

“Ohh, I wish I was an Oscar Meyer Weinerrrr”

Normally just the muscle, I found it incredibly believable his character could do everything he does in the movie. Sure, even a super smart person would have a hard time completing everything in the film but I guess its tiny possibility makes it interesting to watch. He has 10 years to plan it all, so the resources are there I guess.

Oh yeah, should probably note that at the beginning of the movie his wife is raped, and killed, and his child killed as well, right in front of him. He identifies the perpetrators and they are caught, but thanks to the justice system, one gets out way early. Gerard does not approve! His lawyer, Jamie Foxx, can’t help him either. So he, a normally Law Abiding Citizen, takes it into his own hands to punish both the wrong doers, and everyone in the justice system that screwed him over.

“Are you still using Flynn from Tangled after you mention rape scenes?” Yes. Yes I am.

The ending though, the ending was not what I was expecting (in the bad way). Overall I think the way they made it end left it kind of…eh. Like it was all pointless. Fuck it, this movie you can cheer on the bad guy and you only feel bad morally for a little bit.