Tag: Horror

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.

Piranha! A movie in no way taking itself seriously, relying on CGI “3D” effects for a better experience, and a lot of naked womens. Okay, technically that could fall under a lot of different Horror movies, but this one still has a more obvious comedic element to it. In fact, the first scene involves Richard Dreyfuss being the first to die, which is an obvious shout out.

Obvious shout out, sure. But to what?!

Earthquake opens up a chasm to an underground lake that has been sealed off for thousands of years. What is in it? A larger more dangerous form of Piranha!

“Wait!” you say. “Sealed off for thousands of year? How could they survive!”. Apparently cannibalism. So they still have large numbers somehow despite that.

At the same time as this small earthquake, Spring Break is happening on the lake of this local sunny town. Ving Rhames is the Sheriff of the town, and he hates it, with his Lieutenant being Elisabeth Shue. Her son is local boy, Steven R. McQueen, who instead of watching his little siblings, accidentally gets a job showing a pornographer the cool hot spots of the lake. Jerry O’Connell is the drug and sex crazed filmmaker, and really shows that Jerry will do anything they ask of him.

Also involved? Jessica Szohr, his friend who is talked into coming along, and Kelly Brook, a way too hot porn actress. Anyone else in this movie? Of course!

Christopher Lloyd plays retired paleobiologist like dude, who recognizes the species that was thought to be extinct (somehow). Also, Adam Scott, a GEOLOGIST, who leads a team to check out the opening to the lake.

So, most of the film is a couple of random small deaths out of no where, and teases of deaths. Also, lots of hot college kids partying it up, and the “famous” underwater naked scene involving Kelly and random porn actress. That scene was /very/ long, and had opera music in the background. An example of mocking itself, I guess. But once they finally attack the boat / the spring breakers, it is just way way way too long.

Its weird enough to see the local cops firing their shot guns into the water to try and kill all the fish. But it just seemed like so many minutes of watching people, more or less, die the same way, in a gruesome light. The “dude trying to escape on a motor boat and run over people along the way” scene was also horrid. Ving Rhames deserved his Oscar for what he did in the movie though. It made the most sense out of all the cop actions (didn’t make sense. Just made the most sense.)

Only a bad ass geologist would think to jump on a jet ski to drive around and shoot fish in the ocean.

I was going to give it a 2/4 just because of including a Geologist hero, and so I did it anyways. I almost made it lower because of a silly grudge, but fixed that. Just now. There is a planned sequel, Piranha 3DD (get it?), and it is starring that plant chick from Sky High, and a water park.

Wow. If there is anything to say about this movie, it is that Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is definitely a refreshingly original movie, that I had no idea what to expect.

The movie takes place in way north Finland, the Lapland area. A small village is preparing to herd a whole mess of Reindeer into gates, so they can sell the meat and fur around the world. At the same time, an American man is leading an expedition on the nearby mountain, digging for something. That something?

Santa.

“Why the fuck would I be buried? Don’t you see me in this field with these kids? Alone? Hmmm…”

Santa?! Yes. Two local boys spy on them and find out that this mountain may actually be Santa’s grave? Unfortunately, the main boy does more research and the Santa is actually nothing like the “Coca Cola Santa,” but actually a much more sinister being. Instead of rewarding good kids, he instead punished the bad ones and stole them away at night to eat them. Oh shi-.

But really. Finnish Santa lore had the Santa stealing the bad kids. He may give good ones presents. But at least one person around Christmas would dress up as Santa (complete with Fur and Horns, mind you) and scare the bad kids. Apparently parents would reward Santa with Alcohol too, which just means the last kids house, if he was bad, would probably suck.

Anyways. The day before Christmas, the main kid discovers that all the other children in the town are missing! The the reindeer herd only consisted of about two Reindeer, as the other 100 or so were found slaughtered.

I will stop describing the plot now, for sake of giving it away. But lets just say, this is a crazy interesting movie. There is a lot more naked man penises than I thought, and a scene similar to the Eurotrip beach scene almost. These are actually based off of two shorts (by the same Director), Rare Exports Inc and Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions. Both are complete on youtube. Yes, most of the movie is also in Finnish, so you will have to read subtitled.

Parts of the ending may have felt anti-climatic, but I will blame that on budget. I actually understood the ending even better thanks to watching the youtube videos after. If you watch them before, most of it is spoiled. But hey, you probably aren’t going to see this movie anyways. The name is obviously dumb, but it makes sense in a way. This movie also has zero female characters. Similarly, it is a very creepy overall movie, and it is a dark comedy at best. If you watch it before your friends, you may get cult classic movie points later in life.

Yep. Finnish “Santa” is way more creepier than “Coca Cola Santa.”

3 out of 4.

.

I might also be able to call this a tale of two movies. You see, this was going to be my first foray into the 3D movie experience. Not the fancy clear glasses stuff, but the classic RED/BLUE spectra. And it was bad. It said it would take about 5 minutes to get adjusted, did everything right (dark room, distance, etc) but it was just bad. Only the main character seemed to have real color, the background for everybody and everything else being a grey/brown, and flashes of yellow and blue filled my screen.

Let’s just say it was annoying.

More annoying than this white background on white background.

I said screw it, switched to 2D for the last 30 minutes and I had a swell time! The colors were very rampant (I accepted the fact that as it was similar to Tim Burton esque movies, it may just be grey and dull) and I loved it. The details were a LOT better than the first hour for me, so now I just feel robbed. The ability to see a few things be 3D-esque would not make up for the colors and experiences I had to miss out on.

But in terms of reviews, Coraline is pretty damn creepy. Dakota Fanning voices the main character, and the horror like story behind it with the “Other Mother” kinda had me going. Maybe because of all the spider imagery at the end, either way, eeek.

I am glad to find out it was all based off of a book, because otherwise I would be very impressed with whateverfilmmaker to make something like that. Book by Neil Gaiman of course, who has some creepy graphic novels.

Story overall was interesting. Beginning kind of slowed. Not as excited about the over exaggerated characters in it. I am not a fan of freakishly thin, freakishly fat, freakishly disproportioned humans. I am fine with the family being from Michigan, but not fine with the dads Michigan State sweater, that he never takes off. Fuck that.

Seriously. The dad could have died and I would have been fine with it.

I will have to watch this movie again, obviously, so I can focus more on enjoying it, instead of tearing my eyes off. But overall, I don’t think I’d watch it really ever again.

Finally the review, maybe one of you was waiting for. After all, I kept talking about other actors in other movies being in Scream 4 as well, but never having a review for Scream 4. Might have made you rage.

I imagine that this is what my readers do on a daily basis.

Scream 4 takes place many years after the first Scream movie. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette all return as their same roles. Arquette and Cox are now married! Cox is no longer a reporter, but a writer. She wrote the Stab books that the Stab movies in the movie are based off of. Arquette is now Sheriff! And Campbell has wrote her own autobiography of the events, and is now famous again.

So famous that she is returning to the scene of the crime for the first stop in her book tour.

But then, TRAGEDY STRIKES!

And he left the comedy mask behind.

New Ghostface killer. New teens. New victims. New “rules”. Starring more new hottie hot hotties, such as Hayden Panettiere, Alison Brie, and Emma Roberts. Also includes smaller cameos from Kristen Bell, Anna Paquin, and Aimee Teegarden.

Holy shit clickable links. If you are keeping count and know Scream movies, you know a lot of those women are going to die. Not much else to say about a Scream movie. This is definitely better than Scream 3, but maybe on par with Scream 2. Not enough pop culture references for my liking. This will probably remain the only “horror” movie I review too.

Thanks to the Video On Demand stuff, I was able to see Red State movie much earlier than I thought I would. This is the long awaited and controversial Kevin Smith Horror movie, another of his outside of Jay and Silent Bob realm films.

If you didn’t already know about Jay and Silent Bob, here is a picture to go with the link. Also, please get off my site and watch a Kevin Smith movie.

Loosely based off of the Westboro Baptist Church people (whom the film even identifies as a similar group to this fictional one. I guess just in case of suing?), it tells the story of a group of boys who get captured by the group. The group, lead by Michael Parks who does outstanding, claim the boys are homosexuals and they plan on killing them (As they have others) in the name of the Lord.

Obviously there is a lot of death in this film, but some of the scenes are pretty long. The first time you hear the old pastor give a sermon, that sermon must go on for at least 10 minutes, and it is very intense. It gives a pseudo explanation for why these people may act this way, and what they also would do with that same logic. Who ends up dying and not dying does end up a bit of a surprise.

A little halfway through it it kind of lulled a bit. Way too much just shooting and running around compared to the quiet calmness for the start. Kevin Smith still likes to write scenes where lots of action is happening, and having the camera mostly on John Goodman, hiding behind a car on the phone. I think that is how he wrote his original script for the Green Hornet, more or less. I figured John Goodman would have been a natural for cult priest leader, but he actually plays a member of the ATF.

He’s a smooth talker, that there Cyclops.

Also, more Breaking Bad sightings. The mom is played by Anna Gunn, Skyler, and one of the pot friends plays the deputy. Also Sky High characters make their return, as the main character and the glowing character are both in this movie as well.