Raptor gets Hunted

I’m one of those people that liked Predator 2 so sue me. I also didn’t like Predators vs Aliens but I though PvA2 was pretty good. See first sentence. So I decided to check out Predators brought to us by one of my favourite directors Robert Rodriguez but not directing this time but producing, instead we have Nimrod Antal. So what did I know going in? Well there would be no Schwarzenegger and there would be Adrian Brody as the lead.  There would be multiple Predators, a gazillion I hear. It would be set in an alien jungle and there would be a bunch of bad asses tagging along.

Oh Snap! You got served!

The story went like this: dangerous people from our world are picked up and dropped onto this planet so that the Predators can go hunting. They then try to figure out what happening, survive and turn the tables against the Predators, so really the first movie but with more Predators.

The Predator hounds are pretty horny...hehehe what?

Did it suffer because of the lack of good old Arny? I have to say defiantly not, I didn’t want to see another Arnold film, I wanted to see something a bit different and I pretty much got that with Adrian Brody. He brought a lot of screen presence to the film and he buffed up even on his wiry frame. He is quick like the Minx. He character Royce is ex-military turned merc and is jaded by life and believes that you can’t count on anyone else but yourself. This ideal is questioned by Alice Bragas’ Isabelle, a sniper from some war who lost her spotter on her last mission.  Other characters include the crazy felon Stans (Walton Goggins), Nikolai a Chechnyan soldier who is the 2^nd rate stand in for Schwarzenegger, a cool Yakuza by the name of Hazo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), Mombasa an African soldier and Danny Trejo one of Rodriguez favourite actors and soon to be in the up coming Machete. Then the black sheep and they guy who doesn’t seem to fit into it all is Topper Grace playing a scitterish fish out of water, Dr Edwin.  I guessed it and you will too as to what his bad habit is but he turns out to be a bit of a bastard. One of the cool but disappointing cast members was Laurence Fishburne who played a previous survivor.  His part felt a bit short and expendable. I guess he was there to explain the fact that they were all seriously fucked.  Who knew? The group worked well as a whole and for an action movie there is some character development unless they got killed off early.

 

The most touching part of the movie was the love story between Predator and man.

Now let’s get to the Predator. I lied. There weren’t a gazillion, there were only four. Three of them are from one Predator race while the last is the seemingly classic Predator who they have captured. The three Predators had quite distinct looks and hunt in different ways and they also set traps to lure and weaken their prey. They have their big face offs and such as the Hazo with a samurai sword vs wrist blades which is all pretty cool. Even the classic Predator get’s a few licks in with one of them although not fairing to well. 

Oh come back, I just want to play with your spine.

The SFX were pretty good all round. I can’t really complain at all. The predator hounds looked awesome and were pretty viciouse. There was also a spaceship, laser blasts left right and centre and even a net trap. Dam that Wookie. There was a bit of gore even Predator gore and included such hits as stabbing, beheadings and blaster wounds, overall nothing that would make you to squeamish though. And finally no boobies to be seen unless you count Predator and Brody bare chests.

Mucho Mucho Man. I want to be a Mucho man!

I have to say I liked this instalment of the Predator franchise. It when back to it’s roots but with a bit of a twist. The first act was built up at loping pace and the final act brought it all home. I would defiantly be interested in seeing a Predators 2 if there is talk about it. I give this one an 8/10 for action in your eye.

Pontypool (2008)

I came across Pontypool on a website promising to be the definitive list of best horror from 2008. Two titles stood out as features I hadn't heard of and wanted to see, on the back of the glowing reviews. I don't know what it is with me and horror movies lately. I don't enjoy the pap bandied about by self proclaimed 'horror aficionados' - Drag me to Hell, The Ring, The Grudge and so on - and I really get into movies that somehow missed out on the love. Not necessarily smaller movies, niche or indy stuff like Splinter - also big budget movies like Silent Hill.

I really enjoyed Silent Hill

Anyway, I'm reviewing Pontypool today, a movie that falls firmly into the 'small film' niche. Small film, small budget, one location for the entire movie (except the beginning and end). Pontypool tells the tale of a real honest to goodness cowboy, Grant Mazzy played by Stephen McHattie, working as a radio DJ. Once he was a big star in the big smoke, now he spins shit and discs in small-town Pontypool. Once cold, snowy day, Grant and his two off-siders - Sydney (Lisa Houle) and Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly) - begin receiving increasingly disturbing phone calls about riots and mayhem around the town. Safe, or so they think, in their little radio station, they listen with increasing horror as the town outside falls apart.

My spattered blood forms in the image of a cowboy. Shame, I was hoping for a naked woman.

While fairly well made, Pontypool annoys me through all the missed opportunities. After about and hour of decent build up, nothing striking is done with the built up tension and great concept. There was a huge opportunity to follow through with a truly scary second half but instead I saw a hokum and slightly silly segment about the plague outside being transmitted by sound, the characters running about the small set like headless chickens and some boring zombies. Where the first half was eerie and filled with a slight sense of impending doom, well built through the use of phone calls and the isolation of the protagonists from what was happening, the second half was flaccid and boring.

And that's about all I can say because that's all that happened. The ending wasn't a Deus Ex Machina so to speak, but it negated all the work Grant and Sydney did trying to save their own lives and perhaps stop the plague. Still, by that stage the movie had outlived it's premise and I was ready for it to end anyway.

5/10

Summary: A watchable movie that would have worked better with a little more show, a little less tell and a much better second act.

Carriers (2009)

If you've seen a post apocalyptic movie, you'll know the basic premise here in Carriers. A bunch of young things are crossing the country (America of course) in a car to holiday at the beach; complete with sunglasses, beer and surfboards. We have hunky guy who does all the driving and drinks beer, not so hunky guy (his brother), pretty girl number one (girlfriend of hunky guy) and pretty girl number two (some rich chick they picked up along the way). However, all is not well in the world and these four are actually heading to the beach to escape a terrible worldwide plague.

Humanity as a plague, not that old chestnut

Along the way, the foursome pick up two more people - an infected little girl and her father - then drive on to check out the rumor of a cure at a nearby medical. Naturally the little girl is a threat, so to avoid spreading the disease the characters seal them into the rear of the car. This part of the film is by far the best and explores a few interesting concepts like humanity, compassion and fear. I don't mind the resolution, it's only disappointing that the rest of the movie failed to retain that level of focus and interest.

Guess what happens to the sick little girl. A happy ending and free tickets to Disney on Ice?

After leaving that plot-line behind, the  movie jumps from locale to locale, situation to situation, without grabbing your attention or making you care much about the characters involved. This is a touch disappointing when the characters involved are the key characters and the only characters that made you care have come and gone already. I really didn't give a shit about 4 young things in a car trying to reach a beach resort to save their own asses, while a little girl and her dad are a pair of characters (well acted characters) you form an attachment to and want to see win out in the end. So when the 'main' characters start falling, it's hard to give a fuck - and I didn't.

Left to right: slutty but caring girl, unstable and unlikeable guy, boring guy and undeveloped character girl. This picture makes me sleepy.

If Carriers were about the guy and his daughter travelling America, avoiding plague victims and cocks like the four pictured above - then Carriers would be a decent movie with heart-string pulling moments and plenty of action. Perhaps even a positive but ambiguous ending to satisfy the taste of as many viewers as possible and leave it up for a sequel. Instead we get a bunch of cardboard pretty things, half an hour of decent movie, a few very prolonged character deaths and...yes indeed...another shitty and highly predictable horror movie ending. Such promise put together in such a mediocre fashion.

4/10

Summary: Something that could have been quite decent; let down by crappy characters, mediocre story and a predictable ending. Watch to the end of the little girl plot then turn it off. The two characters on the left die and the two on the right, the least developed characters of 2010, survive and make it to the beach. Blargh.

Martyrs (2008)

For some reason I hesitate to watch movies described as dark, depraved and cruel. I guess I know subconsciously that depravity isn't my thing. It therefore took a few days after getting it to finally watch Martyrs - a movie either praised quite vaguely and held up for it's surprising ending, or reviled for being pointlessly sick and hard to watch. I'd like to forward another review, but first some plot.

A young girl, Lucie, is running away from something and obviously something unpleasant judging by the state of her - bruised, bloody and terrified. Lucie has been tortured and locked away for reasons unknown and this is shown through little flashbacks as the movie progresses. While in an orphanage she's befriended by Anna and this friendship continues when the movie flashes 15 years into the future. Lucie is now crazy as a loon and guns down a family as they sit eating breakfast, claiming these are the people who held and tortured her all those years ago. This is also the point where a decent movie could have become a great thriller and instead...well...goes in a different direction. In a nutshell, Anna turns up to help bury the bodies and Lucie is tormented by a demon who cuts and beats her - a demon Lucie had been tormented by since childhood and thought she would purge by killing her tormentors.

Not this phylum of demon, unfortunately

So that's a pretty good start. Lucie is obviously crazy, and not the disco crazy everyone loves, oh no, she's imaginary demon crazy. Homicide crazy. Cutting yourself crazy. It's pretty obvious the demon is in her head and the cutting/beating thing is self-inflicted. Although obvious, I thought that was a good idea and had to wait until later in the movie before I was 100% sure. Anna on the other hand isn't so sure that Lucie is right about these people being monsters, in fact she isn't sure Lucie was even tortured. As a viewer I was left pondering whether the whole thing was a construct in Lucie's mind - perhaps she was abused as a child and built a fantasy over the years then latched onto a couple who superficially resembled the people she remembered from childhood and used them for revenge to 'purge her demons'. Oh, if only the movie had gone that way this would have been something worth watching.

A note on the gore and torture. It's pretty mild. I expected everything laid bare, no punches pulled, right in your face gore and horror. Nope. A lot was done off camera or obscured by something else. Horrific stuff was glimpsed or filmed from an extreme angle to mask what was being shown. Only twice did I wince a little, and that was Lucie cutting herself. It wasn't extreme, I just don't like scenes of people openly cutting themselves. The torture at the end, though overly long and unpleasant, wasn't hardcore or graphic. Just pointless. Perhaps when the girl is skinned you could make a claim for extreme, if muscles and a little blood freaks you out. I've seen worse, a lot worse..and I don't even watch movies like Hostel or Saw.


So, what really happens in the second act is weird and disappointing. Lucie kills herself. Anna finds a torture chamber under the house. A bunch of people rock up and talk about martyrs and creating martyrs so they can gather information about the afterlife. Apparently extreme torture can make someone a martyr and push them into glimpsing the afterlife. Or something. Obviously this is bad news for Anna and her hope of a full and rich life. Which I'm sure she'd have lived after 15 years with crazy Lucie and witnessing a bunch of gruesome murders.

The future of virtual reality isn't quite what they promised

The bad guys go on to torture the fuck out of her, which we get to watch for 20 minutes or more, then skin her. The skinning works a treat though and Anna apparently sees the afterlife. A gathering of people participating in the program (mostly rich older people, because rich old people have lots of time for crazy) is called at the house to have Anna's words related to them by the old woman who heard her testimony. The old woman kills herself instead so I guess Anna told her they don't have chocolate eclairs in the afterlife. The end.

But they do have trifle in the afterlife. Lots and lots of trifle.

Martyrs, therefore, was not a very good movie. The first half had potential but the rest was unpleasant claptrap. I can only assume that the people who describe it as extreme are more familiar with the works of Disney and those who praised the ending are under the age of 16. Or have received a large blow to the head recently.

Now you're ready to watch Martyrs, here's your ticket

3/10

Summary: Martyrs is shithouse, don't believe the hype.

[REC] (both versions)

Spanish jazz-hands

Watching the American version of REC (I'll be dispensing with the [] from this point on) was a bit like eating cheap easter eggs. They look the same, weigh the same and feel the same - but the taste is just short of chocolate. Sometimes disastrously short. Both versions are about a surprise zombie outbreak (is there any other kind?) in an apartment building as documented by a pretty girl and her camera man as they follow a fire fighting unit and record their shift (at night of course). Be warned, this movie is of the first-person cam style like Cloverfield or Diary of the Dead. Personally I love the first-person style when done right, but it's not for everyone.

Over the course of the movie, various of the residents are bitten and infected or torn apart by ravenous zombies. Then the other characters are killed off and finally it's all down to the girl and her camera man. Turns out someone was running experiments in the attic, which became infection ground zero when the subject escaped.

I watched the original Spanish version a couple of years ago and loved it. Naturally, if you dislike first-person movies you shouldn't bother to begin with, otherwise I'm confident horror and zombie fans will agree with me. The characters were interesting enough but more importantly the action and suspense carried this flick all the way through. Doing a first-person movie is like doing a first-person novel, rather than being used as a cheap gimmick, the style must suit the story and not be shoehorned in. The things you can do with first-person - such as only show what the person could see - must be used to further the story and add to the tension or doubt.  Since we can't always see what's happening and we only know what the protagonist knows it sometimes forces us to use our imagination and thus fill in the gaps. Plenty happens off-camera in REC, with lots more being shown in flashes or glimpses, adding to the value of re-watching later. As a matter of fact, I feel like watching it right now.

The remade American version is pretty much the same as the original, except in English and with a different cast. For some reason it's also not as good. I can't put my finger on it and perhaps it's simply because the American lead actress wasn't as good as the Spanish one, or maybe because I'd already seen REC and the remake was literally a carbon copy. I should probably mention at this point that the American remake is called Quarantine, not REC.



REC the original gets 8/10 from me, the remake maybe 6.5/10. 

The Book of Eli (2010)

In post nuclear America, half a generation has passed since the disaster and only the dwindling numbers of 'old-timers' recall life before the bombs dropped. One of these old-timers is Eli, a man with superlative combat and survival skills wandering the wastes (Denzel Washington). In his possession is a book, a book he reads every day and that he vows to transport somewhere. Somewhere a little vague and apparently inspired by God. Along the way he runs into a tin pot dictator, played by Gary Oldman, who wants the book for himself because it will grant him power over people with the power of  its words. Kind of scary. And yes, it's the bible. The last bible in existence actually after people went crazy and blamed all religions for the apocalypse - and rightfully so I imagine. So, in a nutshell, Eli claims a mandate from God to save the book that caused all the trouble in the first place.

On the evil side, Gary Oldman is the old-timer who understands religion's power to control people, and therefore represents the fundamental truth that no matter the best intentions of religious folk, there is an abundance of people out there ready to use religion for their own gain. The plot therefore sent mixed messages and annoyed the hell out of me. Meanwhile, the rest of the world no longer has religion and the people live tough, brutish lives. I'm pretty sure this was intentional. The unenlightened had few morals and some were on the way toward to bestial lives governed by pillage, rape and drunkenness.  Interpret that was you will.

In the end it boils down to this; Oldman gets his hands on the book after shooting Washington in the stomach - though this is after Washington kills pretty much all of Oldman's private thug army. Washington is then saved by a female hanger-on whose role in the film probably read 'look pretty, rescue Washington'. Oldman then discovers the bible is in Braille and so we're led to believe that Washington's character, Eli, was blind. Or at least I think we are, it's quite confusing. He acts like a man who can see most of the time (such as when he's looking over a cliff edge and watches a couple being attacked and raped by members of Oldman's gang), but the big finale with the braille bible thing seems to suggest he is blind. Personally, I don't think he was. If I'm wrong they handled it incredibly badly so it made no sense, added nothing spectacular to the ending and generally brought the overall tone of the movie down. 

Meanwhile in Japan, a new breed of superhero emerged to save the people of earth...

Oldman of course cannot read the bible and then dies. Washington escapes to Alcatraz with his young poontang and then dictates the entire bible to Malcolm McDowell, the leader of an institution dedicated to collecting what they can from the ruins and kick-starting all of civilisation again. Naturally, only the Americans can achieve this. Washington then dies and the poontang wanders off to do fuck knows what. By this time I'd lost interest in the quasi-religious bunkum and prepubescent philosophy, so I kind of didn't watch the last 10 minutes properly. The institute then prints the bible according to Eli whereupon they take it to a book full of books and put it on a shelf with a bunch of other religious texts. A fitting place for it really, just one book among many.

I'm not sure if my feelings for the movie came across in that little synopsis so let me state it clearly - this movie was rubbish. Denzel Washington as Eli gave a passable performance, especially in the first 30 or so minutes when we see him journey across the wastes alone. Everyone else was average to mediocre, though the cookie cutter characters must have made life difficult for them. After that initial 30 minutes of interest the rest of the movie was as stated above, religious and pseudo-philosophical. Some people died, a book was sought and pretty much all the main characters died. A great set up and well constructed visuals, wasted on a muddled story so full of holes it leaked the credibility right out by the 60 minute mark.

I'll give this one two scores; 2/10 if Eli is blind, otherwise 4/10. At the least the beginning was entertaining.

Bad Lieutenant - not a remake (2009)

Last night I had the pleasure of watching Bad Lieutenant, not the original but also not a remake - mostly. Sure, it's about a drug addicted cop who does things his way -  accepts drugs and sex as bribes, steals from the property room and shacks up with a hooker - but only some of those elements are in the original and if the director of the flick says this wasn't intended as a remake, then that's good enough for me.

This is pretty much the expression he wears all movie

This movie is about a cop (Nicholas Cage in a rare good performance) with a bad back who takes a lot of drugs to deal with the pain - or at least that's his easy excuse for being consistently fucked up on coke, painkillers, crack etc. The great thing about this movie is that he remains the same character from beginning to end, fucking things up, making them right and putting the bad guys away. There were two ways I interpreted the ending; first it could be a drug induced dream and secondly it was the real deal. As shown, instead of being caught out and learning from his mistakes, he solves all his problems through the judicious use of drugs and know-how and in the end he's cruising along in his usual drug induced haze.

You can consider the ending real or a crack pipe dream, it's never clearly stated and the viewer is left to their own discretion. I liked it, it wasn't your usual bullshit happy ending.All things considered I believe the ending was real, if a bit jokey. Cage's character went on to feign sobriety in front of his ex-junkie ex-hooker wife as well as his recovered alcoholic dad and step-mum. These were the only people who knew or had an inkling of his secret life before they reformed, and he simply added them to the list of people he lies too. There's a glimmer of redemption in the final scene but that's how it stays. Just a possibility, then the credits roll.As a whole movie I think this worked. Ignore the naysayers clinging to their original cult classic (which I've never seen), this is a similar movie with a different story and worthy of viewing in its own right. Some of the cinematography was odd but I forgive that for the way the rest of the story was so well told, shot and wrapped up.

Snorting coke off your hand in a dimly lit toilet never played out so good - 7/10

ps. Still no nudie pics, none of the women in this movie appear to have removed more than an overcoat in their movie career. Sorry.

Zatoichi (2003)

Look at my stick, it's a big ol stick. STAB!

Zatoichi, is a remake of the popular and long running series set in the Edo period of Japan's history about a blind Japanese swordsman. The movies began in the 60s and a TV series of over 100 episodes was also produced in the 70s. All up there are around 26 movies plus a few knock-offs like the American made Blind Fury. This particular incarnation is the first Zatoichi made since 1989 and features a far bigger budget than any of the previous movies. The director is also the main character and one of the editors, so that was one way to cut costs. But enough of the history, was it any good? Well, unlike many Japanese/Korean/Chinese martial arts films, the answer for me is a pretty confident yes.

The film begins with a couple of murders then introduces the main character - Zatoichi - followed by the bad guys made up of two rival gangs, then a few good guys to round out the cast. Among the good guys are a middle-aged peasant woman, her mostly useless nephew, a Geisha woman, her brother (disguised as a Geisha) and a motley collection of others featuring the crazy next door neighbor who runs around in his underwear carrying out his version of samurai training. The movie bounces between several main locations; a bar, the peasant womans house, a gambling den, the streets of the town, various flashbacks - and it all feels genuine. That coming from a man who has never been to Edo period Japan, but as far as movie sets go they were convincing.

The story revolves around the Geisha woman, her brother and their quest for vengeance. A gang called the rotting ropes murdered their parents in a paper-home invasion several years back, and ever since they've travelled the land disguised as Geisha entertainers, tracking down gang members and killing them. The siblings arrive in town and meet Zatoichi and the nephew. As the story progresses they discover one of the warring gangs in town is the rotting ropes, and so hatch a plot of murder and dismemberment. Zatoichi goes on to kill a lot of people including all the men in the gambling den when he catches them cheating, and it's wrapped up at the end with a nice long dance number. Yes, a dance number.

For all its funny little idiosyncracies (synchronised field ploughing music, overwrought spurts of blood?), Zatoichi is a serious film about a hardcore dude who kills every motherfucker in the room while at the same time being completely blind. What I really appreciated about the fighting was its brevity. A fighter won or lost in the first 5 seconds, none of this back and forth rubbish, because that's pretty much how real sword fighting worked.

I found the music understated but well matched to each scene and character. The acting was excellent, as I almost always find in Japanese cinema (except Guitar Wolf, but that's a different kind of movie altogether). If I had to complain about anything it would be a few little plot holes and perhaps the length - it was just a touch too long. If anyone can explain why the brother and sister initially tried to kill Zatoichi and the nephew, it would fill in a big plot hole for me.

8.5/10 - Good fun cinema from the far east (or near north for me in Australia). Lot's of swords, plenty of killing, a little philosophy. Oh and no wire fighting. Recommended.

The Orphanage

Remember when The Phantom Menace came out and everyone who'd seen a preview or a snippet of it before release would crow about the brilliance? Remember how you felt after the credits started to roll and the lights came back on? For me, that was The Orphanage.

Touted all over the internet as the most frightening and thought-provoking horror film in years with superlatives such as 'terrifying', 'edge of my seat', 'mesmorising' and 'unforgettable' being thrown around, I would like to put forward another view. First with the adjectives (and other); 'boring', 'on-trick pony', 'slow', 'predictable' and 'over written'. Now for the explanation.

The Orphanage was a fair bit of story to it. A young girl grows up in an orphanage until one day a family is ready to adopt her. She sadly leaves her friends behind... and now jump forward to the present-day. The little girl is now a woman, the orphanage has closed down for being too cliche and the woman has somehow talked her husband into buying the old building so they can set up a half way house for sick children. If that isn't a recipe for disaster I simply don't know what is.

The woman has a child of her own now, though we learn he's adopted, and the movie shows them moving in and how happy they are. Later, the little boy makes imaginary friends (I think he had other imaginary friends already) with another boy. This other boy is a ghost, apparently. So some stuff happens, a crazy old lady character shows up and the try-outs for position of sick children are held at the house. On the day of the trials, the woman argues with her little boy because this is such an important day and he is wasting her time as he wants to show her something exciting. She hits him. He runs away. This, and the 'proper' ending make up all that is good in the movie, while everything else is slow and boring. The argument, slap across the face and the 'ending' (trust me, i'll explain in a minute why I keep saying 'proper ending') are heart wrenching moments if you have kids of your own, if only they stuck with that storyline this movie would have been worth watching.

I digress. They boy ultimately goes missing and the rest of the movie is about the parents searching for him. The day he goes missing the woman sees a 'ghost' and that night she hears noises in the walls - banging and thumping. Over time various theories are put forward; they think he might have drowned in the ocean or been kidnapped by the crazy lady. Months pass. Nothing. They boy has simply disappeared.

There's a subplot where it turns out the crazy lady was a worker at the orphanage and one of the children was her son. He wore a mask to cover his deformed face and this led to him being left out and laughed at by the other children. One day, after the woman had left the orphanage, her friends lured him down to the beach and he drowned. The mother found out and later poisoned all the children, then ran away. Back in the present-day, the woman finds their cremated bodies in a shed. It's a bit tacked on and only there to offer support for the 'crap ending' and add more ghostiness overall.

Eventually the woman goes a bit crazy, her husband moves out and she plays a game with the ghosts. The ghosts provide her with clues to find something and if she finds it she also finds the next clue. This will lead to her son of course (though the logic of her coming to this conclusion is vague) and after some dicking about, it does. I consider the next 10 minutes the proper ending. What she finds is a secret door in the broom closet and this door leads down to a hidden basement, a basement set up as a childs bedroom. In fact it was the bedroom of the deformed kid  back in the days of the orphanage, and also the exciting thing her son had found and so desperately wanted to show her until she slapped him.

After slapping her son she left the room in a huff and he ran away to sulk in the secret room he'd discovered. Unfortunately, the mother took a bunch of metal poles and shoved them into the broom closet, thereby blocking his means of getting out again. The noises and banging she heard that night, the ones that so frightened her, were the sounds of him crying out while trying to escape.

When she first arrives in the basement it's a vision, the room looks clean and light and she finds her son asleep under a blanket. After a heart warming moment the vision is gone and she's holding an empty blanket. She turns to see the room is now gloomy and dusty, the staircase broken (one of the loud bangs that night her son went missing) and on the floor, a withered corpse. Her son. While trying to escape, the stairs broke and he fell to his death. It's a moving moment and if the credits had rolled, i'd give this movie an 8. Instead it goes on and fucks the whole thing up.

Now mentally disturbed, she kills herself by taking sleeping tablets. While dying, the ghosts of her childhood friends all come to life in a vision and then her son comes back to her (his dried up remains reanimate in her arms). Great. No, I meant rubbish. In the end her husband stands at their graves for a moment then walks away a broken man. The end. I hated it.

So, apologies for the long explanation, but I felt this movie COULD be made into a good thing by cutting a bunch of crap, integrating the 'crazy lady and her deformed son' subplot better, showing the ghosts as figments of the woman's imagination and fixing the ending as I explained above. Just hit Stop when you get to the dead son and I guarantee you'll walk away happier. Well, maybe not happy but at least with a feeling of fulfillment instead of the disappointment I got.

Another great example of not believing the hype.

4/10 - So disappointing I'm not even adding pictures. Oh ok, maybe just one.

"I've managed to show the lead actress, cleavage, wet dress and a shot from the movie all in one. Bravo me

Seventh Moon (2008)

You know how sometimes there's a product that really grabs your interest but no matter how hard you try it doesn't seem possible to get your hands on it? You obsess about it a little, build your own mythology the product can never possibly match. You know this deep down but it doesn't stop you. Seventh Moon was one of these things. By all reports a good horror film, the details were sketchy but included some of my favourite movie aspects like handheld cameras (a la REC or Cloverfield), demons, gore and hot women. The trailer..well see for yourself.

Looked like hot larb to me and the kicker was how difficult it was to find anywhere showing it. In the meantime it became my golden movie; something other people raved about, containing all my favourite elements and elusive in its existence. Then, I came across a copy. I should have known better.

Don't get me wrong, Seventh Moon is an okay flick. Set in China on the seventh full moon of the year, the story revolves around an old mythology and the festival associated with it. Every seventh moon, ghosts arise and seek flesh - any flesh. In the cities this isn't a problem but out in the countryside people take the myths very seriously, leaving live animals outside their houses so the ghost's hunger can be satiated.

Into this stumble the idiot Americans; Melissa (Amy Smart) and Yul (Tim Chiou).

The newly wed couple are on their honeymoon when the tour guide driving their car wanders off in the dead of night leaving them alone in the dark. They proceed to stumble about rural China, encountering another luckless man (in a robe) caught out in the open as well as a bunch of ghosts. The ghosts are kind of disappointing as they're naked extras painted up white. So anyways, the trio bumble about in the dark for a while longer until the man decides he'll be better off alone and knocks Yul out. This seemed like a great plan to me, leave the whiny American of Chinese extraction as bait and do a runner in your bathrobe (or whatever the guy was wearing, some white robe thing). The plan goes awry and robe man is forced to run from the ghosts, though in the end they catch and presumably eat him. I say presume because the last we see of robe man is the ghosts dragging him into the long grass. This brings me to another point of unhappiness, the gore. There is none unless I was watching some cut down PG version. Sigh.

Following some more running about, the honeymooning couple are lured into a mansion filled with creepy people holding candles and told they'd be safe there. An odd woman gives them something to drink, which they both go ahead and drink without a second thought, and next you know they've stripped off for sexyness and sex in front of a bunch of weirdos. Cut to them dressed in white robes, outside, locked in bamboo cages. Surprise! Every year the village lures outsiders as the ultimate sacrifice so none of their neighbours are taken. Brilliant! Obviously robe man from earlier in the movie was their original sacrifice, yet somehow he escaped.  Moving right along, the ghosts take Yul away for killing and leave Melissa to be sexy another day. Instead however, she hunts down the ghost's secret lair (this is a genuinely creepy scene) only to find Yul on the brink of death, his blood being drained away so he can die then arise as a ghost himself. Cue escape. The end.

Aside from the average story, dodgy SFX and lack of gore there was no shaky first person camera work. Is this the same movie I read about? The camera was shaken around sometimes but never was it done in a way to suggest that first person, live and unedited experience. A disappointment for me, but others will disagree I'm sure. Enjoying shaky camera work puts me in a select group of people who can handle it without feleing sick and appreciate the premise that less is sometime more. This premise does not apply when considering gore or naked female bodies.

Seventh Moon was an okay horror movie but it broke my heart and for that I give it 6/10.

As an aside, I watched Return of the Living Dead last night and it was pretty good. Two thumbs up for the chick who spent half the movie naked though wearing a flesh-colored prosthetic over her hoo-ha.

Humanity's End (2009)

A great example of how far we've come with CGI when a movie can (at times) look so good but play so badly.

Cool fonts, things blowing up and someone in a welding mask....so far so good.

Humanity's End (YouTube trailer) promised so little yet delivered slightly more than expected. Far off in the future of a cliche story involving too many races, sub-races and plot holes - homo sapiens is wiped out by the Nephilim. The Nephilim are a race that evolved parallel to homo sapiens but always strived to grind humans under their heel. After being destroyed, coming back, being destroyed again and coming back again,  the Nephilimhave teamed up with Homo Technis(I think) to destroy all humans. Homo Technis is an off shoot of homo sapiens, their street name being the Konstructs. Throw in some bio engineered races and bio engineered robots (not clear on the distinction) and you've got a movie that tries to do too much with too little yet succeeds at creating some, at-times, impressive visuals regardless.

Did I say humans were wiped out? Well mostly. Two survivors, a breeder and a mercenary captain, team up with another woman who thinks she's human but turns out to be a robot, plus a bio engineered bald guy and a ship called Blue. They fly to Mars with the purpose of finding weapons that turn out to be of no consequence to the plot, then manage to destroy the entire Nephilim fleet with a single fighter (their big ass ship being all crashed on the planet). Also, the Konstructs are now humanity's friend as part of a suddenly revealed double cross by the Konstructs against the Nephilim. Could have sprung the surprise BEFORE killing all other humans. Oh and the mercenary guy is killed at the end. His character was rubbish and his acting poor so it didn't matter so much. I was a touch sader when Blue, the computer, was taken offline.

While on the topic of acting, I must say I struggled to detect any. There was talking at each other, bad emoting, fake crying, a laughable sex scene(but in fairness I think it was supposed to be) - but no actual acting or character building.

The effects on the other hand were plentiful and generally well executed. Given the low budget there was obviously a mix of good and bad, but for the money they got some decent sets and many many effects. Ships, explosions, more ships, guns, more ships. All externals shots were quite attractive and the ships well realised, however the explosions and some of the incidental effects came out pretty awful. Overall, plenty of eye candy and most of it good.

I'd be interested to see what the same studio could do with more money. My sincere wish is that it'd free them not only to create more and flashier effects but also pay some decent actors and buy a proper script. That's a movie I wouldn't mind watching, the world needs more sci-fi movies with ships, explosions and humorous one-liners. Throw out the fucking subtext and intense stares and throw in more leather pant and cleavage. There, done.

No boobs, no acting but lots of decent effects (remembering the budget).

5/10

Late night double feature: Session 9 and The Grudge

Recently I was retrenched from my job of almost 3 years, and it really sucks. Blah blah blah etc etc. The crux of it is that I've lost a bit of motivation lately so I find myself sitting up drinking beer and watching movies/reading books long after I should have gone to bed. Bad for my youthful looks, good for this review site. Last night I had a late one which included watching football then going on to view a couple of movies I'd read were unsung horror classics of the 2000s.

Note: If you're about to scroll down looking for breasty pictures, please be aware in that neither of these movies included nudity or sex. They've been marked down accordingly.

 Session 9

Imagine a world where all horror movies included David Caruso as a lead actor. A lot of intensity, looking out of windows at nothing in particular and wearing sunglasses even after sunset. He'd have to be the softly spoken character with a nerve of steel and murky past. Why does he sleep in that van? Did kids at his school call him Bluey? What's with the implied but overlooked drug use plot line?

But I digress right from the start. Session 9 is actually a thriller set in an abandoned insane asylum and so named for a series of tapes found by one of the characters. Each of these tapes contains the recording of a doctor and former patient as they discuss her irrelevant mental condition and past crimes. The tapes are labelled sessions 1 to 9, with 9 being the ultimate reveal of her naughtiness. Session 9.  She's kind of crazy on the tapes with 3 seperate personalities that each take turns talking to the doctor. The princess represents innnocence, Billy is her protector and there's a third personality that embodies murderous rage. He only pops up on tape 9, surprise!  This whole plot line, beside giving the movie it's name, felt detached from the rest of the movie. It also failed to be creepy. In hindsight I'd have cut the whole she-bang and renamed this flick 'No-boob Asylum Movie'.

The other portion of the movie follows an asbestos cleanup crew as they push to get the asylum tidied up and ready for redevelopment. The crew is made up of David Caruso, a tired looking irish guy who doesn't drink or hit anyone randomly(initially), a young kid with a mullet, some hick character who stole Caruso's girlfriend and a smart guy who should be a lawyer but instead opted to clean up asbestos. Er, sure. I have a computer science degree but I'd rather clean sewers. If you can swallow that bullshit you're sure to love this movie.

In a nutshell, these characters are all shit. They have vague motivations, weak emotional responses and wander around doing random shit throughout the movie. The irish guy hit his wife when she spilled water on him, the hick finds treasure in the incinerator, the smart guy discovers those tapes, the kid likes loud music but is afraid of the dark and so on. As the movie slowly bores you to death it's portrayed as a supernatural flick - in that weird stuff happens, lights go off, sounds are heard and theres a scary chair upstairs.

Sweet baby Jesus! Make it stop!

The hick dude eventually goes to the asylum at night to collect his treasure and while there runs afoul of some one or some thing. Later in the movie he reappears but has lost the ability to form coherant sentences. He dissapears again and only the kid has seen him. Is he a ghost? I really didn't care. This sort of thing goes on for another half hour. Scary bits, people looking out windows, the irish guy gets angry. There's a brief moment where we suspect Caruso of being the bad guy but right at the end it turns out the irish guy actually killed his wife and baby when she spilled that hot water on him. This scene is showed over and over again in the course of the movie, each time slightly different to the last with the ultimate scene being him stabbing her and the kid to death. Nice guy. He then goes on to kill everyone else and the movie ends.

While not really a horror movie, Session 9 tries to present itself as one by having an asylum, scary (or not) tape recordings of a crazy person, people acting strangely and characters that might or might not be ghosts. In the end the tapes mean nothing, the ghost guy has just been lobotimised with an ice pick (for some reason) by Mr Irish, and all the weird behaviour can be attributed to the fuckwittedness of the characters. This movie was vapid and un-entertaining. The plot was fatuous. The dialogue didn't use as many important sounding words as I just did. In short, Session 9 will scare you right to sleep.

4/10

The Grudge

The Grudge is a remake of the well regarded Japanese horror movie, The Grudge. This movie is told piecemeal from the viewpoint of several characters, starting from pretty much the present day and going back into the past to show other characters.

In the beginning a young girl cares for an invalid woman until something in the attic kills her. This something is basically a pale woman with dark hair that covers most of her face, the emo ghost as I called it. The only thing I found scary was the prospect of her music and clothes taking the world by storm and making us all look like total wankers. The story rolls on. Some young thing, played by Buffy the vampire slayer, takes over the case of  the old lady and quickly experiences the naughty old emo ghost - and her son whom I'll only mention one more time in passing due to his complete irrelevance.

Just as a brief aside, I never understood what the attraction of Buffy was until I saw this movie. Sarah Michelle Gellar is pretty hot in a way I'm unable to describe; in the first scene my initial thought was 'look at her nose!', but that quickly devolved into an appreciation of other things. Is it the body, the emotive acting, nose envy? I don't know.

What follows is a showing of some past events. Another couple, business type man and his horse-faced wife, move into the house with his mother, the demented old lady. They're both killed in short order, leaving the old crone alone and in need of someone to help her. Business guy's sister is then killed off in her apartment after escaping from emo ghost in an office building. I'd like to say this was relevant or creepy but it was more like something a 6 year old is scared of and had no bearing on the story whatsoever.

Finally we come to the reason for the hauntings and murder (do ghosts commit murder?). Turns out emo ghost was once a flesh and blood woman married to some guy. Emo woman had an obsession with her old university professor and wrote him letter after letter outlining the depths of her stalker-ness. Jelly and rubber rockets were involved I believe. So anyway, the husband guy finds her obsession diary and goes crazy; killing emo lady, their son and even the cat. I'd like to mention the cat is killed in their bathroom, please insert wet pussy joke here. Husband hangs himself and this whole story is kicked off. Unfortunately. As an aside, professor guy comes by and sees the bodies then throws himself off a building. Professor guy was Bill Pullman so this can be viewed as a 'good thing'.

Back in the present, Buffy rushes to the house to save her doe eyed boyfriend - only to fail horribly and start a fire that burns his body along with the ghost. Oh wait, no she doesn't. The firemen come along and put the fire out, so emo ghost is free to kill and kill again. Movie ends with the ghost standing behind Buffy, probably on the cusp of making a cutting remark. Cut to credits. Get it - cutting, emo? No? Ok, roll score.

4/10 - The Grudge is not a frightening film, nor is it an interesting film. It falls onto the heap that includes overrated crap like The Ring and Session 9, medicore movies that do nothing new and throw up 'scares' not fit for anyone over the age of 6. I've seen scarier episodes of Land Before Time. Littlefoot, watch out for the sharptooth! SNAP! Er, TV off now kids.

I'm really sad because the music told me to be!

These guys are happy because they haven't wasted their night watching two shitty movies. Lucky bastards.

The Descent (2005)

A bunch of over-enthusiastic, under-skilled women go on a caving trip together to help move long the healing process of Sarah, a close friend who lost her husband and daughter in a car accident 12 months ago. Long story short, they get lost in the caves and killed off by a bunch of proto-humans called crawlers, though I don't remember them being referred to as such in the movie. In part, the women turn out to be their own worst enemies and the final score is something like Crawlers: 4, Humans: 2, as the girls manage to kill each other off both accidentally and through terrible revenge! Well done humanity, 2 hours in a cave and out come the knives.

"I am become death. I feel the spirit of Sigorney Weaver channelling through me!

I quite liked how several of the women had a moment of panic when initially trapped and attacked, then hardened the fuck up to go on a monster killing rampage. Very British. Had this been an American movie the group would have included a chisel jawed man to rescue their useless arses and a black ex-navy seal that taught them all the meaning of life through drinking your own urine and building a catapult from stones. He'd be killed meaninglessly. Back to the actually movie; some of the women go to pieces, some are terrified but keep it together and a couple just go Ellen Ripley bat-shit crazy. Two thumbs and perhaps something else up.

Overall, performances were good and the creatures believable. Gore was moderate when compared to Feast or Dawn of the Dead, but well done. No complaints there. The direction was tight and camera work quite stunning at times, I could really relate to the women imagine just how difficult it would be to keep your shit together in tunnels no higher than the length of their forearm. In fact, at least half of the tension and drama is drawn from the caving experience and environment, with the crawlers only showing up in the last third of the movie to really fuck things over.

The actresses aren't known to me but I particularly enjoyed the characters portrayed by Saskia Mulder and Nora-Jane Noone (of Doomsday vintage). These two acted like real people with natural reactions to everything around them and I appreciated their work.

As you may have read in the past, the ending is a bit arse - especially when you know the basic plot of the upcoming sequel. Sarah escapes and we see her drive to safety, then she's back in the cave again and the escape was all a dream. I don't enjoy that style of ending but in fairness she isn't actually killed, it's merely suggested as she lies in a dark cave with the cries of the crawlers growing louder and louder. Well here's the spoiler, she survives to lead the sequel. Apparently in the North American release that whole dream sequence was dropped anyway so her escape was a given.

To sum up:

The Descent - good old suspense with plenty of gore and decent monsters. 7/10

Gutterballs

Purile, pathetic, poorly performed, pointless, ponderous garbage.This movie and everyone involved in it can go fuck themselves for wasting my night.

0/10

Taken (2008) - Revenge done hot and stabby

Sometimes a magical things happens when you watch a movie. You're in the right place at the right time and your mind frame is perfectly aligned with the theme of the movie you're about to watch (of course this also applies to other media like books and music). Such a happening came about the other day at 30,000 feet, winging it overseas on an impromptu work trip after arriving back home from a holiday just the day before. Three flights in 24 hours does nothing for my state of mind. The seemingly decent movies on offer were 12 rounds(or 10, or whatever), Watchmen (which I'd already seen), Gran Torino, Taken, The International and some other movie that escapes me now. Not a bad selection for a 9 hour flight.

I went for X Rounds first, figuring it would be mindless crap to fill 90 minutes and get me sleepy. Or drunk. Or both. It was mindless crap. Restless, tired and with only one beer in me; I was a touch cranky when I decided to watch Taken - a movie starring Liam Neeson(who I quite like)  and co-starring Liam Neeson's fists. Also co-starring was Famke Janssen who looks like Claudia Karven and features the same lack of breasts. See.

You could land a plane on that chest

So on with the review stuff - man, I loved this movie. Liam Neeson is an ex-CIA operative, Bryan, who left the agency and moved to be near his daughter in downtown somewhere-or-other, USA. The ex-wife (Jannsen) has re-married a really nice rich man who looks somewhat like Colonel Sanders, so perhaps she enjoys hot wings (excuse my poor innuendo). Bryan's daughter wants to get out and see the world(ignoring her cynical father's outlook on the global village) so she heads overseas with a friend and they're promptly kidnapped by  sex-slavers(is that a label you can apply to someone?). Great setup for this one too, Bryan is talking to his daughter on the phone when the girls are taken and the kidnapper just happens to find the phone after the girls are taken away.

Bryan: I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
Marko: [after a long pause] Good luck.

I think we all know what happens next. Bryan goes bat-shit crazy and destroys most of the European sex slave industry with his bare hands. Long story short...

Bryan: A friend gave this to me. Its Albanian. You mind translating it?
Marko: [translates paper] "Good luck".
Bryan: You don't remember me? We spoke on the phone two days ago. I told you I would find you.

That's solid gold revenge movie right there. Of course Marko isn't top of the pile and Bryan goes on to kill a bunch more people before the happy ending.

Neeson was great in this movie, the last before the untimely and tragic loss of his wife. Let's hope he can get back to a happy place and produce more entertaining movies like this one. Janssen was pretty good as the wife, I don't have a great deal of time for her but she always seems to put in a decent performance - plus I spent the whole movie thinking she was Claudia Karven and I like Claudia. Speaking of Australian actresses, that chick from Neighbours who went on to become a minor singing sensation, then disappear, was in it too. Holly Valance! Yeah, that's her.

By the time I'd finished enjoying this movie I couldn't end the flight on a down note so I went on to watch Watchmen. Important footnote(footnote: this footnote not inserted as a footnote): I thought they edited airline movies, but no, the lovely breasts were front and centre for all my fellow passengers to enjoy.

To sum up the movies I watched during the homeward leg; Gran Torino looked good but the sound was too quiet to be heard over the plane noise and The International was shithouse.

Taken - revenge action awesomeness distilled to perfection. 9/10 and a couple of metal rods shoved in your leg.

Star Trek (2009)

Watching a new Star Trek movie and knowing that frothing masses of people holding plastic tricorders milled around cinemas worldwide in their pyjamas waiting for the midnight showing while I just wandered in on a whim with no knowledge of what the movie was all about makes me feel a little bit as if I'm missing the point of something grand. A little bit. Mostly I feel like a better person for it as I drop change in their tin cup then go about with my cushy life.

But anyway, enough with comparing Star Trek fans to bums, on with the review. As hinted above I knew next to nothing about the movie before watching it; the crew was all new, it was a 'reboot' and that guy from Heroes was in it. Speaking of the cast, we have Chris Pine replacing Shatner as Kirk (not do-able, but he tried), the above mentioned Heroes guy - Zachary Quinto - as Spock (who did a pretty good job) aaaand Simon Pegg as Scotty. Standing in as generic bad guy is Eric Bana playing Nero, an angry Romulan with a mining ship more powerful than the death star. Kirk's father was played by an Australian actor once seen in Home and Away. This amused me very much since the last time I saw him was on an advertisement for said soap opera - wearing board shorts and staring seriously at the horizon in true soap opera fashion. Either he was considering cosmic issues you and I could not possibly understand, or he really needed to shit and couldn't remember where the toilets were.

Star Trek cast posing for a shot at the after party

I'm not going to bother with the other cast or characters because either I don't know the actor, don't know much about the character, or the character they played was relatively minor. Suffice to say that I was happy with the performances and nothing stood out as crap acting from the Martin Lawrence school of 'oh god what is he doing??!'.

Basically the plot is this (STOP READING NOW if you're one of those whiney 'no spoilers' idiots). A small ship captained by Kirk's father is blown up by a larger ship captained by Darth Vader but someone central to the overall plot is rescued by being shoved in an escape pod. Later, the young and rebellious man - let's call him Luke though his real name is Jim - joins Starfleet and is mentored by an older guy. Then along comes Vader...no wait I should consult my notes...Nero actually, and Nero uses his mighty death star to destroy a planet (the Vulcan home planet - that might be important to know). Did I mention that Nero is from the future? Well he is and by coming to the past, pursuing an old Spock by the way, he creates an alternate trouser of time thereby justifying and explaining this reboot of the Star Trek universe. Neat idea. I'll leave out the reasons for all of this just in case you missed the spoiler warning and are busy composing a bile filled comment about how I ruined your day. Before you do please allow me the courtesy of  saying fuck you and let's move on.

In the end the plucky crew fly their banged-up ship to the rescue and everything is good again.

So down to it. What I really enjoyed was seeing how the various crew members met and what brought Kirk to Captain-ship at such a young age. The story was okay and the SFX quite good so if you're looking for some enjoyable sci-fi, regardless of whether you even know what a tricorder is, check out Star Trek.

On a side note - I'm normally a really hard marker and difficult to please but lately I've seen some bloody entertaining new releases and Star Trek is one of them. Therefore, so people don't think I'm a soft reviewer, I won't be reviewing any of those great movies for a while - if ever. Instead you can look forward to such greats as Lifeforce, Rise of the Reeker and the new Punisher movie.

8.5/10: The new Star Trek really did go to the final frontier, entertaining me. Damn you Abrams.

Disclaimer: While writing this I came across a cool video demonstrating the similarities between A New Hope and this Star Trek movie. I unashamedly borrowed some concepts from that video for this review. 

Raptors Take

I like 'em Star Trek movie a lota. Beam me up! 9/10

Raptor Gets a Splinter…Groan

Prostate exam?!?

For my first movie I’m going to be reviewing Splinter (2008), an indie flick directed by Toby Wilkins. The movie is about two college students who are wrangled up by two crims on the run from the law and end up at a gas station which happens to be the local hang out for a crazy arse parasite.

So to start, lets just say I loved this film. The plot kept me involved, the actors were pretty good and overall it was kept in the realms of the believable without going too far out or into any clichés.

Now, I'm a huge monster movie fan and this monster was reminiscent of both Ridly Scotts Alien and John Carpenters The Thing, both great movies. Lets look at the Alien similarities; you didn’t see the monster much and when you did it was quick glimpses or a blurry look. This would have to be due to the movies low budget but damn it, it worked. I found myself craning to see it around corners and thinking, "what the heck is that blur over there - dear god save me now! Oh…no I’m fine". On The Thing reference, the creature was grounded in reality which can make for great monsters. It’s a parasite that after entering the blood stream begins to take over the host and distort and shape them by breaking bones and twisting flesh. It’s attracted to heat and will mindlessly go after anything it sees as alive including cars and fire. It also has a few other surprises but let leave them for you.

Bottom line, I give this move a solid 7.5. I minused 1 for lack of nudity since I always go into a horror movie hoping the main actress will get her kit off. Also another minus a .5 for not having Arnold Schwarzenegger save the day. I also believe that a bigger budget would have decreased this movie but hey, I’m game. Go the big budget crap sequel!