Mirrors

Pretty much Kiefer Sutherland's big screen comeback, Mirrors, as I recall, got panned by critics and didn't perform too well either. Sorry Kiefer.

It's directed by Alexandre Aja, who previously directed the enjoyable The Hills Have Eyes remake and the ridiculous Switchblade Romance/High Tension/Haute Tension.

Keifer plays Ben Carter, an alcoholic ex-NYPD cop who takes a job as night security at the burnt out Mayflower department store, curiously the mirrors in the store are in pristeen condition. Soon enough some spooky goings on start occuring where the mirrors are concerned and people think Jack, sorry, Ben is going mental, but he's not, no! There is crazy stuff going on with the mirrors and only Jack, sorry again, Ben can solve the riddle.

Okay, so it's not a great film, my girlfriend thought it was "a load of crap" for instance. I however quite enjoyed it, sure it's a tad slow and disjointed, but it falls in well with films of a similar ilk and kept me interested for a couple of hours.


Mirrors - 6/10

Eden Lake

A British horror/thriller from the writer of My Little Eye (which everyone tells me is crap). For Eden Lake, take one part "horror-in-woods-slasher-flick" add one part Deliverance and a whole lot of chav.

I'm not sure if it's even attempting to make any sort of intelligent comment on chav culture in the UK, or whether it's just using it to try and give us a slightly different take on things, although in the grand scheme of things it's no different to the various American redneck slasher type movies that have come before.

It possibly would've been ok, after all there's not many decent british horror/thrillers out there, however it takes too long to get going (as I've said before, I'm all for slow builds, if they're done right), or maybe it's more that it feels like it takes too long, I don't really give a shit about the couple introduced as our leads and thanks to her whining and their joint decisions, I fail to care about them throughout.

The writing could be tighter, although, credit where credit's due, he sure can write chav, and the kids sure can act it.

When it does get going, it's not too bad though, there's kids committing violence (as much is explained on the back of the DVD), a fair bit of gruesomeness and a reasonably interesting end. However, because it's not totally clear as to where it's coming from, I'm not sure if it packs the punch it should.

Eden Lake - 5/10

Splinter

I really can't decide if I actually liked this movie.

It's a reasonably interesting concept, but they do kind of spoil it, buy making a point of it rather blatantly several times throughout the movie.

So the monster's an anthropomorphic rat...

No, I really don't know. It wasn't a bad movie, it was pretty well shot, nice and short, I think I wasn't totally satisfied by the end, which I won't spoil here, but needless to say I didn't feel it had the impact it needed for me to come away feeling the way you should after a really good gore fest.

There are a couple of nice touches in there gore wise, the script's a tad expositional, but for what is essentially a small, low budget horror, it's ok I guess, worth a watch.

Splinter - 7/10

Friday the 13th (2009)

Mediocre, Samey, Nothing Original, Just another slasher flick etc etc etc.

It's not very inventive, it doesn't do anything new for the genre, it's mildly entertaining yes, but mildly.

Watch it if you like, but if you don't, it's not much of a loss.

Friday the 13th (2009) - 5/10

Creature

Yay for Joost!! I've recently rediscovered Joost. I signed up yonks ago, near when it first launched and was still using it's own desktop client rather than being web based, I remember it had Bridezillas, some random Jackass type stuff and Total Recall 2070, which was the first programme I looked at and had a surprising amount of nudity within the first few minutes.

Anyway...

Joost is growing, there's still A LOT of crap on there, but there's enough to find something to watch every now and again, and "Creature" was what I randomly picked last night to see what it was, and my girlfriend and I ended up watching the whole thing!! (we've turned off "better" films!)

There's an easy way to explain "Creature"... "Alien". It's quite simply an Alien rip-off, the details of the plot are different enough, but there's still a similar looking alien, a dark, windswept, inhospitable planet, a crew of civilians, an alien craft that's been there for a long time and Klaus Kinski... ok he wasn't in Alien.

The dialogue is terrible, it feels looonng, the effects are average (despite it being nominated for an award), the sound effects are taken from Star Wars and all in all this is a proper Shit-Good film. I've given it 4/10, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it, quite the opposite in fact. If you like watching a really bad film every now and again, this is one you should watch! (it's on the Really Terrible Film Channel on Joost)

Hopefully if the code works, it's embedded below!!! ;)

Creature - 4/10

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Looked interesting, was mildly interesting, but was kinda lacking in something.

Not sure what though, it was an interesting concept, apparently based on true events, however it's clumsily executed, too much voice over and the different testimonies, make it a bit of a slow watch, it's almost two films mashed together in a bad way.


The Exorcism of Emily Rose - 5/10

[Rec]

Okay so a few days back I threw down my thoughts on Quarantine, which is the recent English language remake of this Spanish horror. I neglected to mention tho (I think, I could check, but sod it.) that the heating in that particular screen of Cineworld Crawley had broken and thus it was pretty cold in there. Despite the offer of a refund/credit if you came out within 45 minutes, only a couple of people left, everyone else stuck it out and was scared shitless, so by the time we left I felt that the cold certainly added to the experience, and wondered if maybe the cinema had done it on purpose, if so I applaud you sirs, well done.

ANYHOO.. Rec/.rec/[Rec]/[.rec] whatever.. there's probably gonna be SPOILER stuff here

Pretty much every thing I'd heard about Quarantine was that [Rec] was better, all the internet buzz and fanboys were "[Rec] is sooo much better, Quarantine is EPIC FAIL!" (paraphrased), even after I'd seen Quarantine and twittered how scary it was, someone posted "Rec is better IMHO :)"

My view on this is if you see [Rec] first, then you'll probably think [Rec] is better, the same with any original and remake combo, which ever you see first, you'll probably think is the better, there are going to be exceptions yes, but as a rule I think this will apply. Thus I saw Quarantine first, and do happen to think it's the better film, I digress..

Okay, so they're pretty much the same film from the overall structure and setup, the infection device is changed between the two, for clear cultural reasons, and to be honest the US one makes more sense to me, but there's still the reporter following the fire crew which leads them to the house and the old lady.

The main thing I found watching this second, is that there doesn't seem to be as much that happens, Quarantine, when it gets going, is pretty relentless, [Rec] gets going a bit, stops to throw in some more fluff in the form of "interviews" with the residents (Quarantine has pretty much all it's fluff up top), then ambles back into the "action" again.

I found Spanish Angela VERY annoying, one of the things with Jennifer Carpenter's Angela is she does completely shit scared VERY VERY well, Spanish Angela was just whiny and annoying. [Rec] wasn't as scary for me as Quarantine, this is because I knew pretty much when to expect the relevant beats, and was disappointed when certain ones weren't there, I wasn't as involved with the rest of the residents in this one and by the end I was feeling pretty Meh.

Also reading comments elsewhere like "..THIS is how to do hand-held-POV.." No it's not, unless of course it's supposed to be a 5yr old with a handycam, that's still crap.

Who knows how I'd felt if I'd seen this first, in my view it's an interesting idea, but the US remake takes that and runs with it, something that can rarely be said of a remake!

[Rec] - 5/10

Quarantine

Ok... SPOILERS!!

There's no way I can voice my opinion on this one without giving away a major spoiler, so you have been warned and here goes...

Ok for starters this is an English language remake of a 2007 Spanish film called [Rec] or [.REC] or however you want to say/type it. It falls into the current fad of hand-held video style films (such as Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, even Blair Witch to some extent), and follows Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter), a late night reality show (ob-doc) host, who's shadowing an LA fire crew.

After a bit of faffing about in the beginning, setting up characters and stuff, they get a call and off they go. They arrive at an apartment block where the residents are worried about an old lady in one of the apartments....shortly after the shit hits the fan.

Also falling loosely into the Zombie genre (in the same way that 28 Days Later does), it's a scary fucking movie! So scary in fact that a certain person I was with was so scared she was nearly sick, that's pretty good for a horror movie. It's also pretty relentless. Cloverfield in the cinema was a full on assault to the senses, cleverly done handheld, ridiculous noise, and almost non-stop pacing. Quarantine is just as full on (once you get past the fluff at the start), the POV of the camera lends itself to some truly jump out of your seat moments (as most of the people in the cinema were), and those moments, don't go by quickly, they last, making sure you've well and truly evacuated your bowels.

It also works very well on the laughter side of things, meaning, there are moments in the film which aren't specifically comical, but allow you that release, where you can laugh and relax for a moment before the next assault starts. This guy can do horror.

Apparently [Rec] is better as various people have said, I'm guessing those people saw [Rec] first, and thus already knew what was gonna happen with Quarantine, therefore, I'm assuming [Rec] won't 'do it' as much for me as Quarantine did for the same reasons. Will see tho.

Quarantine - 7/10 (find out why only 7 down below)

Here's where the real spoiler is.

What the film company can't do is marketing.

If you've seen the trailer (and indeed the poster!), you know how the film ends, down to the final shot, this becomes apparent as soon as that sequence starts, possibly earlier. Thus after a REALLY enjoyable horror (especially after the abortion that is Diary of the Dead), it was spoiled by shite marketing. There was plenty of other bits they could've gone with, but they didn't.

Okay, it's a remake, but I haven't seen the original, I don't know if it ends the same way, I'm guessing it's pretty close at least, I'll find out when I watch it (so please don't spoil it for me if it's different!!), thus showing me the final shot of the film in the trailer and on the poster, kinda fucked it up a bit. It wasn't like I figured it out and saw the end coming, I KNEW by that point in the film, that's how it was gonna end. :(

AVP: Alien vs. Predator

AvP should've been an outstanding triumph, it should've been fucking AWESOME!, but no, unfortunately they had to let Paul W.S. Anderson at it, and while Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil (and Death Race) were enjoyable, and even Event Horizon was pretty good I seem to remember, he was WAAAAY off for AvP.

First we have the (now) cliched, strong female lead, then two of the three Predator's are shite, also the rest of the human cast are pretty vacuous, the gestation period of the Aliens is shortened quite a bit, slo-mo flying facehuggers, slo-mo running from big explosion, large helpings of cheese.

It's not great, hopefully they'll do better with the sequel... oh wait...

AVP: Alien vs. Predator - 5/10

Outpost

After the disappointment of Unearthed, I wasn't expecting a lot from this (watched them both in the same evening), however, this proved to be an unexpected gem.

It's got Ray Stevenson as the lead, which didn't fill me with confidence, I wasn't really into Rome and the Punisher: War Zone trailer looks God awful. He is in this however, pretty damn good.

The rag tag band of mercenaries, form a more serious Dog Soldiers type vibe, an uneasy camaraderie existing between them, ex-soldiers from various nations (keeping the diversity). Their task to protect their client as he investigates some acquired property.

This property turns out to be an old Nazi bunker, where, funnily enough, crazy Nazi experiments were carried out, and funnily enough, things start to go to shit, basically because of the crazy Nazi stuff.

I almost loved this film, I say almost, because it feels like the filmmakers didn't quite have the courage of their convictions and bring in the action too early. They could've quite easily kept the slow pace and the suspense going for longer with better effect, and the fact that they didn't was a tad disappointing.

Despite that, I heartily recommend watching it!


Outpost - 8/10

Unearthed

This is a perfect example of a film where the trailer is better than the film itself. WAAAY better.

For your delectation I have included a trailer for this one, something I've been thinking about doing, but this one is in context. The only thing is that this trailer isn't the one we saw on the DVD rentals over here, it shows a little more and doesn't finish on the 'buried' tagline, enjoy tho.

Okay, so there's a trailer, basically when we watched the one that we saw, we thought, yeah it's a shit straight to DVD horror flick, but it looks reasonably entertaining (a "shit-good" film), no, just shit.

The "acting" is terrible, they clearly didn't have enough money for more Luke Goss, who whilst not brilliant, is better than all the others here, especially the TERRIBLE lead, Emmanuelle Vaugier!! The script is awful, there's a whole backstory to the Sheriff that is of no importance or consequence whatsoever, the CG is ridiculous, the creature IS an Alien Xenomorph for all intents and purposes (they even rip off the shot from Alien 3), it's just ridiculous.

Unearthed - 2/10

Alien3

(SPOILERS!! more for previous films though)

Although I've seen both versions of this, for the purposes of this little post I'll be focussing on the theatrical cut which I re-watched recently. For the record, I also prefer this cut.

The first three Alien films, literally follow on directly from one another. Following Ripley's story to it's conclusion.

In this one, the EEV containing Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop, crash lands on Fiorina (Fury) 161 a prison planet. They're found by the resident inmates and taken in. The reason for the crash is a fire that broke out onboard the EEV (guess what started that! It's in the opening credits and pretty obvious!!).

After Aliens' whole hive, we're back to just the one, not that that's a good thing for the characters as one's bad enough!

A lot of people don't like this one (or Resurrection for that matter, but that's a different post!), I do! I really like it, I love the premise of the prison, the characters that fill it and general plot. The only bad thing for me is the hokey (using that too much) CG Alien, the tech wasn't quite there at this time, probably could've done with more man-in-suit-in-shadows.

Despite all the trials and tribulations, David Fincher pushes the envelope to create a beautifully atmospheric film and worthy addition the the Alien line-up.


Alien3 - 9/10

The Hidden

Literally a "Hidden" gem, a really entertaining scif-fi film.

A mix of Bodysnatchers, Terminator, Species etc there's an alien running amok and only two men, namely Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri can stop it!

Basically there's cops and FBI, chasing an alien around whichever US city they're in, it's funny, cheesy action and a bit creepy, overall it's brilliant.

Apologies for the crappy type up (like I apologise for the others!!) I'm technically working, but got a little down time, so trying to catch up!


The Hidden - 7/10

The Monster Squad

Happy birthday to me and cheers to my girlfriend for getting The Monster Squad for me as a present!

I remember watching this some years back (probably around 1987/88 to be fair) and loving it! Although when we watched it recently, there was practically none of it that seemed familiar, which was pretty cool as I was coming in nice and fresh to it. It didn't disappoint!

The film is an unabashed homage to the classic Universal Monsters, although due to licensing they're redesigned for this film, which is a good thing.

The very basic plot revolves around an amulet that can unleash all evil or banish it for another 100 years, thus the monsters, led by Dracula, want it and the small group of outcast misfit Goonie-lite kids (The Monster Squad) are out to stop them.

It's brilliant fun, the Stan Winston workshop creatures are great and the nerds can enjoy spotting all the in-jokes and references (I got a couple), well worth getting, although mine's Region 1, I'm not sure on the Region 2 situ.

The Monster Squad - 8/10

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The Spanish language version of a "Quentin Tarantino Presents.." this "Guillermo Del Toro Presents..." follows a very similar style to Guillermo's own films.

It got pretty good reviews when it was in the cinema, and overall it's not bad, got quite a good end, although does suffer a bit from Return Of The King Syndrome, my main complaint is that it's VEEERRY SLOOOOW, it's a good story though and we stuck it out.

Not as creepy as I was expecting, there's a couple of creep-out moments, but it's not IMO, a full on scarefest. Well crafted and looks beautiful, Guillermo's certainly on a mission!

The Orphanage - 7/10

Diary of the Dead

So So bad. George Romero has done ONE good film that was Night of the Living Dead. Everything else is pants.

This is the biggest pair of old man pants yet, even bigger than Land of the Dead (which was pretty bad), top marks for experimenting though, going all "Handheld", although it doesn't have anywhere near the conviction or success in this area that Cloverfield does.

The shots are too framed, the "Narrator" (see shit V.O.), tells you what cameras they're using at the start, one of which is a shoulder mount Panasonic, the other, a handheld one, is conveniently found lying around at a point during the film. Technically it's laughable.

Now onto the "actors", I say "actors" cos they're shite, really REALLY BAD! And the SCRIPT! George has really come up with some God awful nonsense this time! Preachy, hamfisted tosh, it's up there with Zombie Strippers with how not to write a script!

And I think he's still a bit peeved about Zombies/Infected being able to run in other films...GET OVER IT!

Good news though, there's a sequel in the works :/


Diary of the Dead - 2/10

Zombie Strippers!

Ok, three basic genre keywords for this one, I'll take them one at a time...

Horror

So we have zombies, virus orientated ones in this case. They're a cross between 'traditional' and 'modern' zombies in the fact that, on the whole the move quite awkwardly and slow, but on the other hand, their pole dancing improves quite dramatically.

There's a fair bit of gore to go with the zombies, a mix of composited elements, which could be better, and some, actually pretty good, practical grue and giblets.

It ain't scary, there are simply no scares, nothing to even remotely make you jump.

Comedy

Admitedly I chuckled at least twice, they were chuckles though. The "possibly some badgers" line made me chuckle (although there's a groan inducing line that follows) and the lead up to "Paco time!" also gave me a chuckle, but I think that was about it.

Before moving on to the final genre keyword, I'll cover a couple of other bits. Firstly; Robert Englund. Clearly the most experienced member of the cast, and despite everything, seems to be enjoying himself, plays a brilliant role, which you have to give him credit for, taking into account the overall quality of the script (see: Not Good).

There are clearly Easter Eggs throughout the film, in both the set dressing and the script, some are less subtle than others, note to film makers; Easter Eggs are meant to be discovered, not delivered. Although fair's fair, it's supposed to be a comedy script and as such they tried to be clever with some of the lines. FAIL.

The film is called Zombie Strippers and starts Jenna Jameson, expect nudity, in fact I think most of the film is a pole dance montage, picture the script....

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 1

JENNA JAMESON is on stage, removing all her clothes.

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 2

JENNA JAMESON gets bitten by ZOMBIE MACGUFFIN

INT. STRIP CLUB - NIGHT 3

ZOMBIE JENNA JAMESON is on stage, removing all her clothes.

I think that's pretty much word for word. Also, something I learned from this film is that Jenna Jameson looks better with black contacts and covered in blood. Which is wrong on so many levels.

Satire

Now, the meat (so to speak). It's shoved-down-your-throat-clear from the outset that the film is one big attack on the Bush administration. From the poor attempt at a Verhoeven-esque news report at the start, via the various 'Bush' logos, Osama related military codes and mentions of "the war", right through to the In-Case-Your-Brain-Doesn't-Function-Here's-What-We're-Getting-At Exposition sequence at the end.

Excuse me, Mr Lee?.. Intelligent satire this ain't. However if you were going for the Ham-fisted my first attempt at a political message, you're spot on.

Zombie Strippers! - 2/10

The Ruins

What can I say about "The Ruins" apart from the fact that it's a pretty average film. It's not great, but it's not terrible.

The main 'horror idea' is reasonably original, but draws on a number of influences, the characters are pretty much standard horror 20-somethings, the girls are pretty damn annoying and stupid in my view, not quite Wolf Creek irritating, but close and the guys actually seem to have a bit of sense, which is quite nice, that it's not all but one of the characters who are dumb. I think the girls got the bum end of the deal though.

I'd put money on the fact that EVERYONE should be able to identify who will die first, which is a shame, because as I was waiting for this first death, I was thinking what an interesting dynamic it would add to the rest of the film, but it was not to be.

There are a couple of pretty gruesome bits in the film, although not as much as I'd been led to believe by others.

The end is also kind of predictable, although I had a few different scenarios going round my head before one of those got checked off.

So, not the best, but not bad, kept me engaged and Vicky (girlfriend) really enjoyed it (gives it an 8/10)

The Ruins - 6/10

30 Days of Night

I have to be honest, this was a bit of a let down. I love the comic and the film just didn't seem to have the impact it should've done.

My main issue was how they represented the main characters differently from the comic, it changes the dynamic and, in my view, not in a good way.

Apart from that it's a slow slow film, ok, it's set over 30 days, but it just doesn't have the tension it should do, and as such the interest levels drop lower and lower over the course of the film.

And yeah I agree with the comments on IMDb, too much velociraptor style screeching.

30 Days of Night - 5/10

Rawhead Rex

Good God this is bad, and to think Clive Barker wrote it, you'd think he'd be able to come up with something a tad better than a man in a toothy monkey suit!!

And the title!?! Really?! Rawhead Rex?! As if ANYONE will take you seriously now!

Rawhead Rex - 2/10