Raptors been Bitten

So what the hell is that guy, you know that guy from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back? The Jay guy Jason Mewes? Well seems he is in this vampire film called Bitten. What the?

Ah Christ! Giving head would be painful.

Actually seems like he’s been pretty busy all round with over fifty screen credits to his name but I digress. In bitten Mewes plays paramedic Jack who girlfriend just gave him the flick. With his work buddy Roger (Richard Fitzpatrick) they go about their nightly rescues but his life is seems pretty depressing even with Rogers crude encouragement to get over it. One night Jack comes home and find the extremely hot Danika(Erica Cox) covered in blood and dumped in some trash after an assault. He takes her in and soon finds out she maybe a drug addict after going through what may be with drawl symptoms. After Jacks ex-girlfriend rocks up, Danika kills her and drinks her sweet sweet blood Jack realises she is a vampire…oh the growing teeth were also a giveaway.
I have to say that Erica Cox is super hot. I would kill for her and ask “how many times do I have to stab them?”. Thus I can kind of see where Jack tries to help her at the start but Danikas blood lust becomes uncontrollable and she starts to kill anyone who walks into the apartment all along pleading for jack to help her pain. This really does get annoying after some time and I don’t see why Jack doesn’t take a more hard ass stand after the second killing. I mean first time, ok you’re a little confused, she is hot, yes she tried to bite you too but surly we can forgive her one killing if you’re going to get some right? Jack hides the bodies in the freezer he has but that fills up pretty quick after the 2nd body. And another thing, why does he nonchalantly hide the bodies in his house and ignore them? Wouldn’t you try to dump them somewhere?

Acting here is pretty good. Jason portrayal of Jack is spot on barring the logic holes in the character. I did like the asshole character of Roger. He is an asshole but underneath it his hearts in the right place…kind of…maybe a little to the left of the right place but overall in the general area of the right place. I must also admit that Erica Cox did portray Danika as predatory drug addict who’s addiction over rules any common sense or morality she may have had. I can accept that.

Bitten is a fair movie but I still couldn’t get over some of the characters logic choices. I can concede that it’s not a standard situation that you could find yourself in.  I give this movie a 6/10 for vampire booby action.


Side Note Movie of the Weeeeeeekah!!!
Yes this is my side note movie of the week, Hatchet. A movie with a great start, great characters and a good background story for the bad guy which ends up with a tacked on cliché ending.  What is it with horror moves now days that require a double ending? You know the one were the survivors get away but then it’s an oh no they didn’t really get away that was just a ruse. I mean really. Just pick an ending, we don’t all need to have James Cameron endings on everything.

I give this one 6/10 too.

Centurion (2010)

I'm not sure how to review Centurion: on the one hand it's a basic action/travel tale movie with gratuitous violence from the 300 mould and little to no plot, direction, ending or character development.  On the other hand it's all of the above things. You can view those points as negatives if you're looking for the next Mulholland Drive, or positives if you want to kill a couple of hours watching grown men in costumes chop each other arms off. Personally I took a bit of a positive view, and it paid off. I had never heard of Centurion until after watching The Expendables and reading reviews with comparisons between the two i.e. no plot, no characterisation, lots of loud noises and death. Ever the fan of Romans (especially after the epic Spartacus) I was sold on the idea and signed up.

It doesn't matter what's going on here, you only need to know that gratuitous killing is but moments away.

Centurion is a movie of many disjointed parts. Characters come and go, the story has no direction and we're never quite sure what this is all about. It's kind of good in that a few cliches are avoided, such as a big battle of retribution at the end or portraying either side as the real bad guys. It's kind of bad in that the movie ends and you wonder what is was all about. The answer is sword porn. Centurion is really only an excuse to take swords waved at people and lots of limbs sliced off. The methods of slaughter depicted are many and varied: decapitation, lots of throat cutting, disembowelment, stabbed, stabbed with a spear, clubbed, burned and so on. It's done quite well except for that overwrought blood thing from 300.

Quintus, just moments away from gutting another faceless extra

None of the actors excel and none of the chicks are especially hot. We have Michael Fassbender as the titular good guy Centurion Quintus Dias, Liam Cunningham from Dog Soldiers as a guy called Brick, Olga Kurylenko as the main bad guy...or girl as it is here, Noel Clarke from Dr Who as token black guy with very non-period accent, and Imogen Poots from 28 Weeks Later as some girl who lives in the woods.


Ultimately, Centurion is a drinks night movie or something best enjoyed while a little un-sober. It doesn't matter in the end whether the story made sense (or even existed), because I don't think it was supposed to. As an exercise in simple entertainment, Centurion has achieved it's objective.

6/10

Summary: An action winner with no substance past the opening credits. Leave brain at the door but bring in your 6-pack.

Raptors Mega Day!

Recently I watched the B grade movie of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Why? Because I’m a sucker for both punishment and giant monster movies.

Oh yeah, full on Plane eating!

Both the two monstrosities are released from some glacier after being trapped for hundreds of thousands of years meh why not millions, that’s a number too, and carry on the battle of eating planes and oil rigs um WTF? Yeah that’s pretty much how it all starts. Some scientist in a sub played by 80s pop princes Deborah Gibbs see some soldiers in a chopper cracks open some ice with some fancy charge thingy, that’s the technical term. The first thing the octopus does is take down an oil rig. Why? Who knows, maybe it looked like it’s mommy. The Mega shark then jumps some 2 to 3km out of the water and eats a passenger plane…yeah that’s right. Obviously physics or for that matter logic are part of this movie. At some point you get Lorenzo Lamaz as some super army general called Allan, he orders the navy after the beasts and yes you get it, get eaten. Nom, nom, nom. Eventually they decide to use phermons to lure the beast to America and Japan where they well eat people and then decide to use the same tactic to lure them together so they can have an unholy union and make sharktopus babies or eat each other.

Oh yeah, full on Bridge eating!

Well that’s all very well and good but how good were the special FXs hey. They must have been monumentally awesome! Er not really. They slid from passable to very average to gauge your eyes out crappy. They also had a habit of reusing scenes. I swear I saw the same scene of a soldier guarding a secret base three times. Also the ship and submarine bridges were in a electricity plant or something. I guess the budget didn’t cover that.

Oh yeah, full Shark on Octopus action!

The acting was ok for a B grade movie you just had to roll your eyes a lot to get past most of it. Believe me at the end of it I thought that it was the world spinning and not me.

This movie was sucktastic. Hey watch it if you have nothing else better to do like knitting or trying to see how long you can make a Mintis wrapper. I give this a 3.5/10.

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.

Raptor Clashes in his Pants

I remember watching Clash of the Titans as a kid and thinking this was one of the best monster movies ever. EVER God dam it! Hey why would we question the opinion of a 12year old. Anyway looking back the movie was a little flawed here and there and possibly held together by duct tape in parts but overall still pretty cool. So when I heard a new version of Clash of the Titans was coming out with Sam “Blue Alien” Worthington as the lead of Perseus I was just a little excited. I’d heard bad things about the 3D version of it so I decided to give that a miss and see it in 2D. That made me $10 happier. Don’t take my word for the 3D version as I have no idea…ah what the hell, I’ll voice my unfounded fact less opinion too, the 3D was craptacular! There I said it.  So what did I think of it and compared to the original? Read on….

Hey do you think saw us with our skirts down?

First off, the cast in this is great. You have Sam as stated who is always a commanding screen presence. He puts on his action boots here and goes for the throat. Two thumbs up. I heard he did a lot of his stunt work too which always helps the action shots. Next you have Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralf Fiennes as his brother Hades. There’s some great acting right there. The story pretty much pivots on the two characters battle for dominance on the Olympian Gods and the mortals. Zeus feels betrayed by the mortals and wishes to teach them a lesson, Hades on the other hand wants to overthrow Zeus and make the humans his slaves. Caught in the struggle are Calibos (Jason Flemming) Perseuses father and the man who began the mortals war against the Gods and Io played by a cute Gemma Arterton, Who? I don’t know she was cute anyway. Io is a woman cursed with immortality for refusing to have rumpy pumpy sexy with a God. Go the bra burning! She pretty much helps and advises Perseus through his quest. Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) role is probably one of the biggest differences from the original movie. Where in the first she was the love interest and the driving force of Perseuses quest she is now just part and victim of the battle.

Oh uh hmmm, yes I see, yes. If we cut here here, lift here, stretch here I think we can make you a star. OH GOD! Your head fell off!

On it’s own the new Clash of the Titans makes a great action movie. There are battles and fights, monsters and stunts left right and centre. The CGI effects are good although the medusa was a little plastic in her facial features she was still pretty good. What this version of the movie did better than the original I thought was the concept of the group of Greek heroes gathering together to journey on an epic quest. Of course most don’t make it but that is part of it. Heroic, tragic and epic. They also included in the mix a Dijin named Sheikh Suleiman who was very cool.

Gemma Arterton likes Chocolate...I hope that's chocolate.

Where it lacked from the original was in depth of story. Where in the first we saw more of Andromeda’s plight, Caliboses back story and the bickering between the Gods, this has mostly been flushed out for a smoother ride. It’s not terrible as it does make the ride quicker but still you kind feel like you wanted a little more.

Halloz littlz peoplez

So overall I’d have to say I enjoyed the new version. It had good pace, lacking in some areas but a fun ride. I give it a 8/10.

Raptors Short Shorts:

Paranormal Activity:

I sat down to watch this in the dark and alone as instructed by Gavor. Congratulations, it creeped me out for the rest of the night. Stupid movie go bang now! The character of Micha annoyed the crap out of me. Here is Katie telling him that bad shits going to happen and it’s been happening to her all her life but no he decides to be a macho duchebag and “handle himself”...er it himself.  Anyway. Idiot.  When someone says we can get you a demonologist specialist to help you, you say yes thanks sir would you like me to bend over now. Anyway, still pretty good for the creepiness. 7/10.

7^th Moon:

This one was really lack lustre and by the books not to mention getting the car bogged twice to get the movie started and the guys in white makeup playing the ghosts were really kind of dumb. Amy Smart was in it, that’s kind good right? Well yeah but she needed more kit off. All that agree say “I”…good then. I give this one a 5/10.

Raptor goes a little Gozu

You know Japanese make some really weird ass films. Not to say that the rest of the world isn’t capable but well theirs are all the weirder mainly because they are crazy Japanese.

This guy fails at applying sun screan

Gozu is a film directed by Takashi Miike the guy who did the Master of Horrors episode Imprint that caused a little controversy, I guess who just didn’t want to give up here.

Hello, my name is fred and when I'm at home I like to dance in my undies.

The story stars with two brothers, Minami and older brother Ozaki, who are part of a Yakuza gang. When Ozaki starts to go a little crazy by beating up Yakuza attack Chihuahuas, the head boss orders Minami to get rid of him at the Junkyard. So along the way Ozaki dies and Minami looses his body. So he begins a search to find his brother and comes across more weirdness like a guy with half the pigment missing from his face who gives him a hand or a hotel run by a brother and sister who can speak to the spirits. The Sister also has a tendency to “Milk” herself which seems to tie in with a cow headed daemon. The daemon during a possible dream gives him a letter that directs him back to the junkyard where he finds that his brother has been compacted and the proof is his flattened skin. It’s at this time a girl rocks up saying that she is his brother. He takes her back to the yakuza boss who tries get amorous with her. Oh did I mention the boss can only get it off by placing the handle of soup ladle up his butt? Well there you go. So Minami steps in and stops him with lets say some electrocution involving said soup ladle. Ouch. Finally it all ends with Minami and the girl having sex a hand coming out of her crotch and latching onto his penis and then the girl giving birth to his brother fully grown…yeah seems like she can stretch.

Wave to the cameras!

What can I say, this movie just drew me in mainly due to what the fuck factor, you know that thing where you brain doesn’t quite register what the hells going on but you still want to know what happens next. The acting was pretty good as far as I could tell. They were speaking Japanese. The effects were nothing spectacular although well done. The daemon cow scene was creepy and the birth scene well just ouch really, ouch. Don’t worry the girl was fine after it and they all walked off happy.

I give this a 7/10 mainly for the weirdness. Oh yes for the weirdness.

Some babies are a little late coming out but this is ridiculous.

Raptor looks at Sin in the City

I’m a big fan of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. I remember when I heard this was in the works I was pretty excited. Just this week I watched it again and bam it’s still as cool as a glacier in a shot glass.

Rodriguez took Frank Millers graphic novels and literally transferred them to the big screen in a stylised, black and white and almost panel for panel in some instances. It’s beautifully rendered with splashes of colour that are used as highlights and focus points. It doesn’t skimp on the violence either with stabbings, shootings, severed heads and dismemberments.

Yes black and white makes us look cooler

The story is really 3.5 stories rolled into one. It starts with short story of “The customer is always right”, blink and you’ll miss it. We then get the first part of “That yellow bastard” about a hard boiled cop Harington (great job by Bruce Willis) who is tracking down a little girl who was kidnapped by raping paedophile/murder days before his retirement due to a heart condition.  Having cornered the perk Junior on a pier finds out he’s the son of some Big Wig and his parter steps in to try and stop him and cover up the fact. Harington takes care of his partner and puts a few bullets into Juniors crotch and hand for good measure. The next story “The Hard Goodbye” has Mickey Rourke who is almost unrecognisable as Marv a thug of a man who is framed for the murder of Goldie the one person who had ever shown him some compassion. So he begins a violent investigation that eventually leads to the Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer) who is hiding his secret, a cannibalistic killer Kevin played by unnervingly by Elijah Wood who feeds on the prostitutes of the city.

The red makes Jamie Kings boobies look perkier

We then move to the third story “The Big Fat Kill”. Tough guy Dwight (Clive Owen) gets involved with Jackie Boy (Benicio del Toro) and with Gail (Rosario Dawson) leader of the Old Town Prostitutes kill him and find out too late he is a cap. Trying to hide the body the wraith of the law descends upon them and they desperately try to figure a way out. The last story “That Yellow Bastard” Picks up from the second story 8 years later where we see Harington discovers that Nancy is now a 19yr old stripper (yes she is Jessica Alba and she is hoooot). Too late he finds out that Junior, who now looks like a yellow fatso has been following him to track down Nancy. Then he has to protect her and possibly with his life.

I want to be Jessica Albas horse

So there, those are the stories and the as you can see from above there is a really strong cast and they give a great performance. I loved the hard boiled pulp detective novels dialogue and the tongue and sarcastic humour peppered through out this. The stories link together seamlessly, with characters from earlier parts appearing in later ones or mentioned in some way which creates an overall continuity.

You'd better be paying me triple for this!

Some of the action and violence could be a little over the top, reality really is not grounded here and as much as I did love the dialogue a few times I even rolled my eyes but that was rarely.

In the end I just dug the style and flat out coolness of this movie. I give it an 8.5/10 with a bullet in the eye.

Movie round-up #3

Today I bring a movie round-up of the many average flicks I've endured (plus a couple of ok ones) over the last month. I accept your thanks in advance for sifting through the junk and saving you the time wasted viewing some of the rubbish below. 

The Box

Another mediocre effort from the guy who gave us Donnie Darko. The Box puts to us the premise that a young couple is delivered a box with a big red button on it and pressing the button will grant them 1 millions dollars. Great you say, but of course there's a catch. Pressing the button gives them 1 million dollars but also kills someone they don't know. In the end, it's all a big test by aliens (of course) to see whether the human race is worth saving or if we're all greedy little fucks. Suffice to say that everyone seems to press the button. The other catch is that the unknown person who dies is the last person to have pressed the button, so you get your million but you're pretty much guaranteed to die soon anyway. There's a bit more too it and I thought that at least the end was logical, but otherwise The Box is average. Starring Cameron Diaz and some guy.

5/10





Fire in the sky

A bunch of hicks head out to chop wood and run into a spaceship. Probably more interesting if you're into fairies and UFOs, but I'm not. Based upon the ravings of a real person whose story about alien abduction has been pretty much debunked over the years. Amusing but ultimately not worth the time unless you're short a few dozen IQ. The bit on the alien ship is well done and by far the most entertaining. Starring the terminator who could turn into liquid metal.

5/10

 



The Mothman Prophecies

Apologies in advance, I watched this movie late at night so some details are fuzzy. Richard Gere stars as a guy who, years after his wife's death, starts experiencing odd things. He goes for a drive one night and somehow ends up many hundreds of kilometers away in a different state. Like with teleportation and shit, or something. Anyhow, that's not important. The town he ends up in has experienced many weird things. A 'Mothman' appears to some people and gives warnings of future happenings to others. Gere's wife appears to communicate with him, I think. There's also a premonition of something to do with a river and many deaths. In the end a bridge collapses but through his choices and actions, a youngish female cop whom he flirted with throughout the movie doesn't drown. The end. I kind of liked this movie, it was well made and just a touch creepy. I expected more scary based on the reviews I'd read but it will probably depend on your fear tolerance.

7/10





Battle Royale

A bunch of Japanese schoolkids are put on an island with random weapons and commanded to kill one another. The last survivor will be released, but if there is no result after a specified time frame they will all die when the collars they wear explode. This movie explores what depths people will sink too when fighting for survival and how the dictums of law and society are sometimes the only things keeping certain people fro doing as they please - in the case killing all the people they dislike. There's a decent ending and some good characterisation here, though the ending is overly drawn out. Battle Royale gets a thumbs up as well.

6/10



The 4th kind

Junk. An interesting premise but laughingly put together. Another movie based on the 'real-life' accounts of a few crackpots. Not at all believable and even worse, it's presented as an actual documentary - 'real' footage and recordings interspersed with reenactments, sometimes side by side in split screen for reasons that can only be 'arty'. The fourth kind title comes from their being different levels of alien contact as specified by the FBI (or was it CIA), from first kind to fourth kind. The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind uses the same designations. 'Starring' Milla Jovovich.

3/10

Raptor Sees a Blood Moon

Blood Moon Rising is a flick that could have done with a bigger budget and probably a better cast since the story was actually interesting. It involved a cursed couple who are transformed into a werewolf and vampire by some she bitch Vampire because she had the hots for the guy (Vampire).  The she bitch gets killed and buried but a clause in the curse states that she will rise again if the girl(werewolf) is killed and using a Necrenomicon type book open a gate to hell. Oh, her fathers the devil. Add some vampire bikes, zombies created from the wolf bite and the cast from a horror movie shoot and it’s general mayhem.

This poster looks cooler than what the movie actually does....why God why!?!

This poster looks cooler than what the movie actually does....why God why!?!

The movie was filmed with a grind house style even with annoying loss of voice sections, man that was annoying since it happened like 3-4 times. I’m sure once would have been enough. They also used the old dust hair on the screen, missing footage and burn out scene tricks too. I didn’t mind them so much.

The actors generally went from bad to ok. I guess the Darrell Lee (Neal Trout) the soda shop teller was probably the highlight as a comic obsessed gun carrying idiot. Although the surprise was Ron Jeremy who shows up as a sleazy producer and promptly gets eaten by zombies. Way to go.

The CGI that was in this was pretty average. It wasn’t used to much but when it was it mediocre. There was a lot of practical blood and guts and head exploding done which was pretty good. Some of the devils at the end looked like they were out of the World of Porn Craft back lot. Especially bad was the werewolf. Man was that a crappy looking werewolf. Let me not explain it other than to use the word craptacular. Also anyone bitten by the werewolf gets teeth. The only way you can tell a werewolf from a vampire is they also have fangs on the bottom row. That’s it.

Reiterating this move would be great with more money thrown in. I mean it had zombies, werewolves, demons and vampires.….oh yes and some booby shots. What more could you want? More money I guess.  I give this one a 4.5/10.

Raptors Stuck in the Doghouse

You know Doghouse is a frightening movie for men mainly because it’s about women on PMS with weapons. Actually it’s about zombie women on PMS with weapons.

It starts with a group of guys getting together to head off for a weekend out to cheer up Vince (Stephen Graham from Snatch) after he had a break up with his wife.  So they hire a bus and take him to a town in the middle of no where. Soon they find that all the women are infected with some virus released as an experiment by the government that changes the women to flesh eating zombies who can still wield weapons.  They try to make it back to the bus but that now has been overrun and so begins their plan to escape.

I think they are scared because they saw the extra meat and two veg.

This movie seems to be a vindication for all the trouble that men have with women but it does wear a little thin by the second half and just leans a little too much into the misogynist side.  Even so it does take it all with a comedic bent that takes the edge off enough too be watchable and frankly you wouldn’t want to meet these zombie women in a dark ally and please, please don’t ask for the $10 drop the pants special.  The guys put on a reasonable performance and the British banter makes them quite likeable. The zombie girls, and there are a lot of them,  each have their own individual look such as the hair dresser runs around with two scissors or the gothic paraphernalia store owner is a large breasted zombie with a huge sword….compensating for something. Maybe, just maybe. They also have two phases in their disease. Phase one is a slower, not so bright zombie state. Phase two they morph into red eyed long clawed she demons with more smarts…oh noes!


The ending on this one kind of irked me. They end up getting away but find that one of the guys they left behind was still alive, so they go back to get him and then after finding him are about to leave the village again and…that’s it. What? You couldn’t have put in an extra 5 mins of footage. Bah! What ever.


Over all, the movie was ok. The zombies were interesting and the characters quite solid. I give this one a 6.5/10.

Who's Watching Raptor

With so many super hero movies out at the moment it’s rare to see one with breadth and depth that Watchmen brings. Director Zack Snyder of 300 fame has taken the true spirit of the Allen Moore penned comic book and brought it to screen with his own kinetic and stylised er…style.

It starts off with the death of the Comedian, who is one of my favourite characters I’ve decided. This starts a search for the killer by a vigilante called Rorschach (My other favourite character) which cascades into a wide spread plot to bring about world peace but in a very immoral way which begs the question. Do the ends justify the means? I truly was torn at the end of the film with this exact question.  Is killing a million people to save several billion ok? I could see the point and I could see they why but even I had a hard time justifying it and I guess that’s the crux of it. It’s not an easy decision and most people of moral values would say no it doesn’t but then isn’t it just as morale to save so many…well kind of.

Thuck it in girls! Let the thpandex do its thing.

Now as mentioned before the Comedian, played by  Jeffrey Dean Morgan who you may have seen in the series Supernatural, was the epitome of the Anti-Hero. He performs acts which may be considered heroic or deplorable but all in the name of his country and time after time he is forgiven because of it.  He drips sarcasm and to paraphrase he is a parody of mankind. We see his actions and relationships with the other characters in flashbacks which are used a lot to fill in the plot and background of each of the characters. Laughing while firing a flame thrower at the Vietnamese we finally see him guilt ridden and confessing to one of his old enemies.  Rorschach is another stellar performance by Jackie Early Haley . He plays a gruff, hardnosed mask wearing detective type who sees everything in black and white. There is no grey. The good are there to be protected and the bad to be condemned to hell.  Even at the bitter conclusion he stands firm on his beliefs even to his detriment. He is almost the purist Hero, a violent crazy hero but still a hero. Dr. Manhattan, portrayed by Billy Crudup, is the most powerful naked blue man on the planet. He is so far removed from humans that he is loosing what little humanity he has left and his part shows a lot of his struggle with it. Other notables are Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) who is practically your Clark Kent crossed with batman superhero who along with Silk Spectre (A very cute Malin Akerman) are swept up in the plot. Finally Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) the smartest man in the world, is a very cool Super hero/villain.

I can’t fault the performances of any of the main characters. They were all quite strong and each had there hearts in their roles and brought their A games to characters that could have come out quite plastic and cliché instead became mutli-faceted which in part was also due to the strong script.

Because the movie spand several generations of superheroes the soundtrack fit this perfectly with song by Bob Dylan to David Bowie and other similar musicians form the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Did I mention that the story unfolds in the 80s? Oh yes, there is spandex galore as well as naked blue penis….you’ll see.

Now special FX and CGI wise I loved what Zack Snyder has done. The cinematography was beautiful and he did have a number of his signature slow-mo scenes alla 300 but not to the same degree I’d have to say. It also doesn’t hold back on the violence. Believe me this is not a kids movie. With arms breaking, bodies exploding, hands cut off and multiple shootings this a graphic novel brought to a movie and I do mean graphic.

The movie does drag in parts and the back and forth flashbacks can be confusing to some but these were all minor details. To me this was what a super hero movie should be, fleshed out characters, a solid thought out and complex plot along with lots of kerpow and bang in the eye. Oh yeah spandex too. I give this a 9/10.

Raptors thrown up an Alien Uprising

Every now and then you pick a movie that you end up regretting like a cheap $5 hooker from the night before. Alien Uprising was probably that Hooker. At least it didn’t have teeth.

Beware DVDs bearing pretty cover pictures

I sat down to watch it with some hopes of maybe a Sci-Fi channel grade movie. You know, okish but with chances of rain. The first 10mins of Alien Uprising were really good. The crew was waking up from hibernation a space ship. We find out they are marines. Ok maybe this won’t be another movie trying to be Aliens. Nope, no such luck.  The marines need to go to a prison planet to quell an prisoner uprising and find out that they have been using the prisoners in alien hybridization experiments the result of which is terrorising the prison populace. “Wait, Wait, wait Raptor” I hear you say “that doesn’t sound all bad, It can be saved can’t it” Yeah sure. Throw a decent script at it and maybe at least half a mil in green backs then sure. Unfortunately it turns out that this movie is trying to be Aliens,  complete with a crappy alien which is a guy in a Halloween mask as far as I can tell, marines acting all marines and a backstabbing corporation guy who yes eventually get’s killed by the hybrid.

What about the acting? Well some of the mains were passable. Rebecca Kush who played Lt. Louise Dun was reasonably good as were two of the prisoners who I can’t remember the names of (scientist guy and the African American). Unfortunately the rest of the cast sucked 5 day old ass that has been sitting in vomit basted with crap. I mean at one point we had a shuttle leaving in a desperate escape from the prison of stupid and 4/5 of the escapes were shaking with the G-forces of the escape. The 5^th person, some female marine was staring blankly ahead as if she was bored or maybe was watching a day time soap. What’s more is they kept cutting back to her. Really? Why?! For god sake why? Or for example at the end were the corporate guy is about to get killed by the alien he screams out Nooooooooo. Then there is this long pause and….guess what? He does it again. Che? Why? Edit that out. You don’t need that.

Finally the CGI/FX. Boy these were woeful. At the start they show the ship approaching the planet. Not bad. Looks okaish, nothing special. Then obviously there $200 dollar shoe box budget ran out and all the ships, base and position of the cast were shown on wire frame models. This maybe was an attempt at retro cool.  Well it was done badly so it failed and took you out of the movie more often than not.

My advice, if you can’t afford to do a sci-fi or even get a decent script, then don’t. It’s not brain surgery.  I have seen some Starwars fan movies better than this and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a huge budget either.

So at the ass end of this review I’m giving Alien Uprising a 3/10. No boobies for me.

Raptor Hunts Lesbian Vampirs

The title Lesbian Vampire Killers would make any red blooded male hot to trot for some girl on girl vampire action and so it was that I stuck a stake into the heart of this little sucker. Man, that’s some great punnage there.

Is that a cross in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

So Lesbian Vampire Killers is a British movie centring on a curse. Back in the day, a powerful Lesbian Vampire is killed by the Baron of a town with a magical sword he forged but not before she curses all the maidens in the town to become Lesbian Vampires on their 18^th….See how the caps make lesbian and vampire more important. Anyway present times two pals, Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden) plan a trip to cheap ass hiking to cheer Jimmy up after his selfish girlfriend dumps him for the 8^th time. Little do they know when they arrive at the village that there would be a group of hot girls on a research/party trip. Little do they know that they would all be preyed upon by Lesbian Vampires. Jimmy falls for one of the girls, Lotte played by the very cute MyAnna Burning who has this very sexy accent. I think it’s Welsh. I could be wrong, I have not idea. Anyway, girls are turned, vampires are killed and they eventually face off with the grand poobah Lesbian Vampire.

Jimmy and Fletch work well as a buddy team. Jimmy is mostly deadpan while Fletch is the irreverent larrikin of the two. All their lines are shot through with British humour which works quite well. In fact the dialogue across the whole movie is pretty snappy and the actors bring it across with enthusiasm.

The girls, besides Lotte do not last long. They get turned and then offed pretty quick which is sad but don’t fear. All new lesbian vampires appear to take their eye candy place, one of them being a main vampire Eva who is played by a smoking hot Vera Filatova. She does a good job of looking pretty and saying her lines, what else do you want. Jimmys asshole girlfriend Judy played by Lucy Gaskell is a real bitch in this and I can tell you I was overjoyed to see her Lesbian Vampire ass taken care of. Yes she get’s turned as well. One character who didn’t quite fit was the priest Vicar(Paul McGann), maybe it was just me but I couldn’t take him too seriously.

I'm not sure if I'm suppoed to be aroused or scared shitless by Vera Filatova. Nope, aroused wins!

There wasn’t too much blood in this really and that pretty unusual for a vampire film. When one of the Lesbian Vampires died they melted into a kind of white paste….take the “white paste” as what ever you’d like it to be. While not the flashiest FX they were reasonable and believable and the sets were pretty cool too consisting of fog filled forests, graveyards and run down shacks.

The movie really is for those people who don’t want a story that’s too serious and are just looking for a bit of fun to pass the time. Don’t go too deep. Oh there are boobies. Yes that is important.

I give this one a 7/10 for Lesbian Vampire Booby killing action.

Yes even the DVD cover has boobies. Win!

Raptor Goes Trick r Treating

Let’s admit it, most horror anthologies usually aren’t very good. You may get a good story out of the 3 or 4 shown but they rest tend to be crap. Fortunately when I sat down to watch Trick r Treat I was pleasantly surprised. The four stories in of themselves were pretty good but the thing that impressed me the most was the way they interwove them together. It wasn’t a simple four stories wrapped up by another. Each story was linked to another by something almost like watching Pulp Fiction but with ghosts and ghoulies. There was a short prologue story which kind of kicks off the whole chain and eventually the last story links back to this which was cool. The first story was to do with a Serial killer(Dylan Baker) and the humorous way he tries to dispose of his latest victim. The Second story centred around the telling of a tale of murdered children on a school bus and a group of kids that go down to the lake to offer tribute to them but have other motives. Thirdly is the story of Little Red Riding Hood, a vampire and werewolves. This one was pretty cool itself with Anna Paquin from X-Men playing the Little Red. Finally it ends with a grumpy old man(Brian Cox) who hates Halloween and a little pumpkin headed daemon who teaches him the true meaning of Christmas…er I mean Halloween. This one was probably my favourite and Brian Cox played a great old man battling it out with the little imp. Come to think of it another one from X2.

Mum says that putting a sack on my head means I'm really good looking.

All the actors handled themselves well and were quite believable. The director was Michael Dougherty who really hasn’t directed much at all but based on this I think he really should. He has a number of acting and writing credits to his name as well including the screen play to X2 which is one of my favourite movies.

The cinematography and colours of this were just beautiful. Highly above it’s straight to DVD standard. Shots of a mountain-scape that drops to a school bus sinking into a lake or a street with pumpkins head lit with candles really brought out the atmosphere. There were times were the effects were a little off such as the werewolf transformation scene which had short stints of CGI that didn’t add up but overall most effects were practical. The last story had some really nice practical work. There was blood but not too much really for a horror movie or maybe I’m just desensitised to it all.

Dear god they ripped my dirty dreams out of my head and put them on film.

Sadly there was no boobage in this film. Awwww I hear you all say…Wait! I lie. There was a glimpse of boobs in the werewolf transformation scene. Yay! Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

If you don’t like horror anthologies I’d still recommend watching this was to see how one should be put together. For myself I give this one a solid 8/10.

Raptor Finds a Dead Girl

I heard good things about the movie Dead Girl but I wasn’t convinced so when I sat down to watch it I was pretty much thinking this was going to be another crap fest. Well for the first 20 mins or so it didn’t do much for me. The slightly washed out colours looked cheap at first. The two mains we meet, Rickie played by Shiloh Fernandez and J.T played by Noah Segan both seemed pretty shallow and acted out like stereotypical high school students. This was all until they find the Dead Girl in a sealed off room of an abandoned medical facility. It’s then that the two personalities begin to polarise. The dead girl (sexy Jenny Spain. Yes even if she is dead) is a zombie but in quite good nick. How she got down there is never explained. The two friends panic and leave her but J.T. goes back and ends up killing her but she comes back to life so decides to use her as a sex toy while Rickie thinks he’s crazy. Rickie doesn’t want any part of it and guilt kicks in so he tries to free her but finds out she is quite feral and so splits.  There is a side story with Rickie and a Joann (Candice Accola) who he is infatuated with and eventually spirals into a kidnapping by J.T. and meeting with the dead girl.  It's always awkward when your living and dead girlfriends meet.

Yes, there was some dead action in the back section....ewwwww

The movie is tense and the lack of morality by J.T. is juxtaposed to Rickie who’s initial impotence do anything, possibly due to the friendship with J.T. and the fact the dead girl is well dead, fortifies into a resolve to act. It does pose the question that if somes dead or zombie do they have rights? Beats me. I just watch the film but and leave the philosophy to you.


There are some funny moments such as J.T and pal trying to kidnap a girl to make into a new dead girl only to be beaten up by the victim and there are also some huh? I don’t get what the fuck just happened moments too that just don’t click but overall barring the weakish start it ends with a strong performances and a pretty good story line. I give this one a 7.5/10

Raptor Reads a Bloody Book

I’m a big fan of Hell raiser and yes some of the sequels too so I thought of checking out Clive Barkers’ Book of Blood. Mary, a paranormal expert and comes across a Simon, a psychic sensitive and asks him to help her prove the exists of spirits in a house that’s had an unexplained and violent past. When messages start to appear on the walls and bad things like oh, say the stories of the dead being cut into Simons flesh I think you pretty much proved it.



I was just walking along when suddenly Clive barker Graffiti’s my back! Dam Asshole.

Book of Blood started off pretty good with a girl getting attacked by a ghost and ending up with her face being ripped off. Well, that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately it was a slow down hill run to mediocrity from there. There were attempts at scares with kids going all undead face and ghosts appearing from no where but it just didn’t seem to gel. Mary starts of being quite sympathetic to Simon and seems like quite the nice person. Fair enough but in the last 20 or so minutes of the movie when Simons skin is being written into by ghosts she goes all psycho or mad or something. Even asking for his skin. There really is no build up to it and her story is that the dead must tell there tales and she needs to tell the world. Right. What ever. Obviously it lost something in the translation from Clive Barkers’ story to the movie.

I really was hoping for better on this movie but alas I’m stuck with Hellraiser reruns. I wonder if can find my Nightbreed or Lords of Illusion DVDs? I give this movie a 5/10. Oh there was some boobage…I guess that’s something.

Raptor's Watching Ants

King of the Antz is really one of those movies that will appeal to certain people but will just not sit well with others. It tells a story of Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) who’s life and career are going nowhere. When he is introduced to Ray Matthews (Daniel Daldwin) who convinces him to murder an accountant who has some information on his dirty business dealings for a sum of Fifteen thousand dollars his life spirals in a direction that he cannot control until he gives in to it. Ray reneges on his promises to pay and when Sean protest beats/tortures the crap out of him. He eventually escapes and seeks brutal revenge on ray and his pals. On a side story he falls for Susan Gatley the wife of the accountant played by the sexy Kari Wuhrer but things don’t go to well there either.

So what I took from this film was two things. A) if you want something you sometimes have to eliminate the obstacles in your way B) in the end it doesn’t really matter as we are all just ants to be exterminated. Yes, pretty bleak. I guess that was the point of it really. Sean kills the accounts and manages to form a relation ship with his wife briefly before she finds out it was him and it all falls apart which ties to the first rule. He then seeks revenge on Ray and an even to the pleading of some of the kinder accomplices kills them explaining to the poor suckers that they are just ants and all their protests mean nothing.

I couldn’t decided if I liked or disliked Seans anti hero. While played well he really was a self serving and morally unhinged ass and considering the brutal murder he executed at the begging didn’t truly give you to much sympathy for his plight although the ending does give some sort of satisfaction. The director Stuart Gordon is a bit of cult figure in the Horror movie industry having directed From Beyond and Dagon. In this he kind of looks at the bleakness of humanity and how fragile, short lived and futile it can all be.

 

For me, I thought hey yes it’s bleak but I could see where he was coming from, while I didn’t quite agree and the characters weren’t everything I hoped for they did bring home the message. We are all just ants.

Raptor Stripps like a Zombie

I have a new favourite Zombie movie. Why is that? Two words. Zombies and strippers. In the same movie. Together. Not to mention that you also get Jenna Jameson as one of the strippers and she can act better than…ok with all the porn movies she’s done she’s a pro at faking it. The basic plot of Zombie strippers is that a group of Soldiers called Z Squad go to clean up a zombie outbreak at a lab owned by Gearge W Bush. Everyone know he owns weapons of mass destruction! Anyway one of the nooby soldiers gets bitten and rather than get his head blown off makes a runner and ends up at strip club owned by the sleazy Hypochondriac Ian played to expertly by Robert Englund (again Freddy yo!). At this point he turns full zombie and attacks Kat one of the strippers played by Jenna Jameson. As the soldier is stuffed downstairs Kat of course gets up and but now she wants to strip and turns out being undead makes you a real good stripper. Slowly the other girls begin to succumb to the lure of being a zombie stripper either through envy, jealousy, adoration or other. Ian sees this as a great opportunity to make money but of course as all zombie movies must go, the zombies cannot be contained and the patrons (dumb males) who the strippers keep lap dancing for (eating their bits) soon break loose.


Fairly new director/writer Jay Lee has done a pretty good job getting this movie together on a pretty low budget. He used a lot of the crew as the patrons and a few friends such as Calvin Green who plays the DJ Cole. The editing is tight and the comedic banter is works well between the actors although some of the joke verge on groan worthy. There are a lot of new faces here and other new bits. The strippers are Hawt! Barring Jenna Jameson we have her rival Jeannie played with bitchy flare by the sexy Shamron Moore. One of the strippers that doesn’t get her kit of is Berenge (Jeannette Sousa) a nihilist that doesn’t quite know if she should support or detest what the strippers have become. Then we have Lilith played by singer Roxy Saint, a gothic and pierced raven who is the first to join kats side. Now this leads me on to the music. It rocks. Roxy Saint actually sang one of the songs that Jenna first strips to as a Zombie called Smother and it got me grooving. In fact so much so that I’m actually looking for the sound track to the movie as we speak…right now like. 

To the special FXs! I have to say down and out these are some of the best zombie FX and gore gags hands down. They were created by Patrick Mcgee and considering the whole film had a budget of $1million that’s pretty impressive. Most of the FX were practical with CGI used sparingly and I’ll have to say my favourite zombie was Tongue guy who lost his jaw in a lap dance. Awww sad. The strippers had about 5 stages of zombiness, from just turned bloody but rare to well cooked black eyed, protruding eye sockets and decaying skin.

The extras on the DVD gave a bit of an insight. There is easily about 45 mins of deleted scenes that were edited to get the movie to a tight 90mins. Some of these I thought would have been great to add a little more to it but there were other scenes that were easy targets to be removed. The commentary with Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson, Jay Lee and Joey Medina is hilarious. We also find out that the movie is loosely based on the play by Eugene Lonescos’ allegorical play "Rhinoceros" with the names of the characters being derived from it including Jeannette Sousa character being the conclusion of it.

Some of the acting was at times a little off, mainly in the Z squad characters but this didn’t detract to much overall. I still thought this was one of the best zombie films I’ve seen in a long time. My score 8.5/10.

Raptor Sees it's Broken

There are movies that you expect to be pretty crappy which then turn out to be  pretty not crappy. The Broken, was one of those movies. I sat down to watch it and really was not pay to much attention for the first ten or fifteen mins. Then it got weird during a strange dream/flashback sequence and suddenly I was like WTF was that? Now I swear I will never look at a mirror the same way again, especially the sound of a breaking mirror.

Oh yeah, why you look 100% better with um...makeup

The story revolves around Gina McVey, played by the very hot Headey Lena (from 300), who after an accident and memory loss of events before it starts to believe that her partner is not who he is and has been replaced. As the story slowly evolves in an almost J Horror style we a picture builds up that shows an invasion of sorts. People having chest Xrays have their hearts on the opposite side than normal. This is rare. We get mirrors breaking for no know reason; until finally we find that something is coming through the mirrors. Doppelgangers of sorts and they kill the person they imitate and take over their lives Now I have probably spoiled of lot of the surprises for you, well it’s not the first time.

I’ve never heard of the Director/Writer Sean Ellis but he seems to have an eye for setting a scene up and uses European like slow takes the build these up. One creepy scene is a shot of the other side of the mirror. It’s pitch black with the only light coming from the mirror itself. This seems to be a clue as to why they want out. Another great scene plays out with Ginas father standing before a pitch dark doorway, then from the darkness behind him the face of his doppelganger appear and turns to look at him. It was moments like this that sealed it for me.

The pacing on this film is slow and if you’re not the patient sort this could bore you but if you don’t mind the slow build up it pays off. The reason for this “invasion” is never really explained and revolves around Ginas slowly returning memories. Also the ending is fairly open which a lot of people won’t like but I didn’t mind at all. There is nudity (Yay) and a couple of kill scenes but overall nothing too gory. The Broken appealed to me and in the end I give it a 7.5/10.

Raptors Hellraising Experience

Today I have two Hellraiser movies for you. Hellraiser: Deader and Hellraiser: Hell World so lets continue on with my special thought on part 7 and 8 of this blood soaked series.

Oh crap, another splinter

Hellraiser: Deader revolves around a journalist who investigates a cult called the Deaders when a video tape is sent to her office showing a girl being killed then resurrected. The journalist, played by Kari Wuhrer who I last remember being in Sliders and still pretty hot, eventually tracks down the Deaders amidst warnings from Pinhead that they are raising an army and are a threat to him. Honestly, what kind of a threat are a bunch of resurrected wannabes to a demonic S&M hook throwing leather fetishist. The movie set a moody atmosphere but in the end the pay off was a little drab. Also the Cenobites hardly appeared at all. You got Pinhead making a warning or two early on then they appear at the end to clean things up as usual and that’s it…I mean sure the nudity was there in the film but there wasn’t anything to surprising in this one. The acting was solid enough and there is a little killing here and there but it’s a pale comparison to some of it’s predecessors. I gave it 6/10.

Hellraiser: Hell World, I have a bit of a gripe with this one. All I can say is this wasn’t a Hellraiser movie. This was some slasher movies with Hellraiser themes tacked on to it. You could have easily removed all the Hellraiser elements from it and would have still had roughly the same movie. Basically the story revolves around a group of 20somethings who played an online game called Hell World and one of them died. 2 years later they are then invited a Hellraiser party by the host played by Lance Henriksen. I wont give it away too much but it’s pretty obvious that Lance knows the kid and he takes out the gang in let’s say by the use of fear. There is also some nudity in this one, it can’t be all bad and the actors while mostly attractive enough could have been anyone really. They also do dumb things like at one point one of the girls is trying to get the attention of a cop outside a window but the cops can’t see her. Try breaking the window maybe? You have a whole room full of crap to do it with. What about sticking your hand in some cracks in the floor boards? Yeah that always turns out to be a good idea. Anyway, this would have all been ok but my stickler is that it’s NOT a Hellraiser movie. I don’t care what wrapping paper you used. I give this one 5/10.