The Conjuring 2

Wait. What's this? A new review?

Easy, gentle reader, do not adjust your browser or intoxicant of choice. This is the real deal, an all new review and, if you took note of the site name, a slightly new direction for the site. We now encompass not only movies but games, books and whatever other media catches our eye. Now to cut short the detour and get on with the review.

Conjuring 2 is a continuation of the kinda new Conjuring cinematic universe, a la Marvel, DC, 1920s monster movies and Police Academy (one of those is a horrible travesty, and it's not Police Academy). In the first movie we encountered some cool ghosts, genuine creepy moments, clever use of cameras and a fairly engaging story. It was a stand out horror experience amongst what has become some fairly cliched fare of late. Following the 21-gun opening salvo came a wet fart labelled Annabelle. Booooo. Let that fucking thing go, Conjuring, let it go. The damned dolly even turns up in Conjuring 2 like the proverbial unflushable turd. So the latest installment? How does it work?

I'd say pretty well; not as well as the original, definitely better than that floater in the bowl. The beginning is unnecessary and the main "bad guy/gal" is a pointless addition like sugar on fairy floss (candy floss? sorry global readers, not sure of the varying names for spun sugar), but the meat of the story is well executed and tries hard not to fall into (too) well worn grooves. When the protagonist says "some funky shit is going down" we don't then have to wade through 10 to 15 minutes of everyone nodding in sympathy while preparing the strait-jacket. They see it too, or something equally crazy, and it puts all of the actors into a "we're all in this together" vibe. I liked it. There were several cool set pieces I really enjoyed which were mainly clever room based stuff involving two or three of the protagonists and some interesting setup they had to overcome or endure. They didn't all work, but there were more good than dull and I can't remember one that made me cringe in a bad way.

Plus all of these guys were passingly convincing and not too annoying. That's a tick in the box.

Downsides, it hasn't a patch on the creep factor of the original. Where the original sustained an ongoing undercurrent of gloom that unsettled for the duration of the movie, the sequel is pretty tame and relies more on shock and a few jumps. The chair was a cool device but other "creep" factors were too well trodden to be interesting. The ending didn't blow my skirt up either and didn't need a bad guy shoehorned in after we had already established a hierarchy or good guys and spirits that was working just fine.  I don't mind progression or twists, but this was neither unexpected, clever or necessary.

Cliche

So, The Conjuring 2, my comeback movie review and the first horror movie I've watched in a while. Did it titillate my terror or fall flat with a squelch like a rotted out corpse? I'd say neither. It was average, slightly above perhaps, but more on the beige side of colourful when I had hopes for tinsel and sequins.

6/10 - Nor bad, not great, Conjuring 2 is a bit to long and could be significantly improved through the removal of the shitty antagonist and all related material

Raptor Goes Reaping

I have haven’t watched many movies of late, why? Don’t question me! Ok, I tells. I’ve been watching the now cancelled series of Reaper.

Constipation? We have the cure.

It’s about Sam (Brett Harrison) whos’ parents sell his soul to The Devil(Ray Wise). Since The Devil now owns his soul on his 21^st birthday he recruits him to bring escaped souls back to hell. The Devil obviously makes this task difficult for him so to help Sam recruits his friends Sock(Tyler Labine) and Ben Gonzalez(Rick Gonzalez, yes same last names, neat) to help in his task. Mean while he is trying to ignite a relationship with his girl-friend Andi(Missy Peregrym).

Hey it's the Scooby Doo gang. Wait, which ones the dog?

The series ran for 31 episodes and sadly was cancelled after plans to sell it to another channel fell through. I’d have to say I really was into the series by about 5 episodes in.  Brett Harrison was quite likeable as the harassed and frustrated Sam. He doesn’t portray him as looser but more of an every day guy who is stuck in a bad situation.  Ray Wise is in the perfect roll as The Devil. I mean he was made to play the conniving, manipulative and vindictive lord of all evil. Oh he does dress well too. Both Brett and Ray gave the series a good solid base but the ones that made it shine were defiantly Tyler Labine and Rick Ganzalez as Sock and Ben. Sock is an outrageously extraverted eccentric who is the guy that comes up with crazy plans to get the girls. Not always successful. He was the character that had me laughing nearly every episode.  I'd keep an eye out for this Labine character, he is going be be appearing a lot more on TV. Ben is almost the opposite being really nice and sensitive but still prone to the crazy ideas that plague his colleague. His family lies in fear of his grandmother who rules with an iron spoon. Oh he likes bunnies and has a demon girlfriend. Score! Andi, Sams lady friend, is also quite likable and hot. I think she was in a cheerleading movie. Mental note: must find cheerleading movie.

The series has some reasonable FX and creature costumes. The demons who appear reasonably often are quite the spiffy practical make up. Also the souls from hell tend to all have their individual powers such as turning invisible, exploding into fire, multiplying etc which leads to some interesting situations although the escaped souls are not always the centre of each episode.

The weakness of the show was the demon hunting was a little repetitive, especially at the start. This though decreased a lot latter in the first series when multiple story archers began to be introduced. Maybe this was a little too late to save the show. Who knows but I was really looking forward to next episodes of the series.

Reaper is a cross between Supernatural and possibly Scrubs. If this sounds good to you then check it out otherwise go QQ somewhere. I give this series a 7.5/10

Raptor is Heartless

Every now and then there are scenes and depictions in a movie that just creep you out. In Heartless it’s a street gang but I’ll elaborate.

Wow what a crappy poster!

Heartless is revolves around Jamie Morgan (Jim Sturgess), a photographer born with a heart shaped birth mark on his face. This has caused him to be withdrawn and lonely which was made worse when his father, who he looked up to, died earlier in his life. As the movie continues news stories of violent and unprovoked murders begin to be reported on the news. Then one night while taking a picture he finds an image of a disturbing creature in the background. This sets him on a path to find out what it was and discovers that there is a demonic gang incinerating random people with Molotov’s. He is eventually approached to Papa B(Joseph Mawle) who turns out to be the devil who offers him his hearts desire for one simple task, graffiti a wall. Jamie asks for to fall in love and in a phoenix like scene is reborn without the birth mark. He then meets Tia played by a cute Clements Poesy and they fall in love. This all starts to fall apart when the Weapons Man (Eddie Marsan) calls in on Eddie to help him complete his task of murdering someone by ripping out there heart while still alive and placing it on the church steps. Wait a minute you say, that’s not graffiti? Yes the devil lied. Who knew? Things all go down hill from there.

So what do you see here? Yo momma. Bazinga!

Director and Writer Phillip Ridley has put together an eerie and at times disturbing movie on a small budget. The British cast all give very solid performances. Jim Sturgess as Jamie is a flawed anti hero. The birth mark is his weakness rather than a strength and when this disappears he gains his confidence back or so it seems. The other characters are not as fleshed out as Jamie unfortunately and the story revolves mostly around this character.  Joseph Mawles Papa B is menacing in an underworld bikey boss sort of performance. There wasn’t a vast range of emotions to show but that seemed to help rather than hinder character.

I want to talk to you about God. Wait come back! I have pamphlets!

Now the creepy part that I mentioned above is the gang with the serpentine faces, screeching bestial screams all while dressed in hoodies and jeans. I must have been the meshing between the demonic and street gang that was unnerving but it worked for me. The tension and unease was also built up in news reports of violent crimes and second hand accounts of what was happening so that when Jamie actual meats up with the gang there is a certain about of dread already built up.
On the down side and also a spoiler warning the movie ends with the ambiguous notion of it was all in his head which I find to be a cop out most of the time. I can kind of accept it here but barely as there were clues throughout in a Sixth Sense kind of way. The pacing was also a little to slow at times especially at the beggining.
Overall I would say it was a reasonable effort as a Faustian tale. I give it a 7/10.

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.

Raptors Breaking his Day

Daybreakers goes on a great premise, the world has been converted to Vampires and there are only a few humans left. This is a problem for Vampires since they need blood to survive….because they are Vampires see. It’s just like if all the cows in the world suddenly died how would we get our Macas? McTofu burger anyone?

It's really not the Matrix and 28 days later at all....FYI Yo!

So the Vampires go about farming humans for blood but knowing this isn’t sustainable they also look for a blood substitute. This has not gone well like exploding of said vampire not gone well. Charles Bromley (Sam Neil) is head of the corporation which farms the blood and his lead scientist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawk) is the lead scientist working on the blood substitute. Dalton has become disillusioned with his failures and when he runs into a group of human survivors led by Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan) and decides to help them. Bennett takes them to Lionel Cormac (Willem Dafoe) who is leader of a camp of survivors. He used to be a Vampire but cured himself by accident using….THE POWER OF THE SUN….yes that’s right. Now Dalton is trying to replicate this. Oh vampires that don’t get blood for a long while go feral and turn into these half bat creatures.

I'm soooo pretty! Oh so pretty. So pretty and witty and gaaaaay.

Daybreakers is directed by the brothers Peter and Michael Spierig who brought us Undead and is largely and Australian production. It’s quite polished and has a very dark dystopian feel to it, sort like Ethan Hawks older movie Gattica.  Ethan Hawk and Dafoe put some effort into in to their characters and Sam Neil is quite insidious as Bromley, he seems to do subtle evil pretty well. Must be all that practice at being the Anti-Christ from Omen 3. Claudia Karvan gives us some female acting muscle here. We also get Vince Colosimo as a scientist here. What? Wasn’t he in the Wog Boy? Ok what ever. Finally with a minor part we get Isabel Lucas the girl that played the sex transformer chick from Transformers 2. She’s basically eye candy. All in all the performances were adequate. I wouldn’t call this Oscar wining acting but good enough.

Isabel Lucas. Role: Eye Candy.

On the Special FX side we do get some crazy bat vampires. There are explosions, car chases, gun fights, a few bodies getting ripped up and lots of blood. There are also some freakish scenes of vampires lining up for Coffee/blood or kid vampires just hanging, as you do or peoples eyes lighting up when the lights go out breifly waiting for a train.
I did like the plot overall. It grabbed me more towards the end when the true version of the cure was show but I’d have to say the last 2-3 minutes kind of spoiled it some. It was if they wanted to tie off the loose ends. It was virtually the last few mins. They didn’t need that.
Overall the Daybreakers was quite watchable with some good ideas put on screen and some competent acting. I give it a 7/10.

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. 

Silent Hill (2006)

I don't know a single thing about Silent Hill the video game beyond the 10 minutes I played of #4 (The Room) and the 20 minutes I played of #2 (supposedly the best of the lot). To be fair, I played both on a PC and apparently the ports are as dodgy as your 15-year-old 486, so I always let it slide that both games sucked hard. I simply fucking hated them.

Flash forward to 2010 and I'm sitting at home in my best jodhpurs deliberating upon what to watch next when I notice a move called Silent Hill. The only reason I missed this on release was my antipathy toward the game series, or so I surmised because I can't remember it being released. Anyhoo, off I went into the video world of Silent Hill once more. And fuck, it was good.

I have no mouth yet I must scream. And shout. Let it all out.

See, there's this little girl who dreams of a place called Silent Hill and tries sleep walking off of cliffs. Naturally this worries her parents a little so the mother (Radha Mitchell) ...


...whisks her off to Silent Hill for some personal PI work. Here's some more of my PI work into Radha...



Anyway, moving along, they are chased by a cop, crash, and all three end up trapped in Silent Hill. The daughter goes missing after the crash and the story becomes one of searching, being hunted and seeing a bunch of pretty cool stuff. Except to the characters, to them that shit is pretty scary. There's guy with a pyramid for a head (funnily enough called pyramid head by SH fans) and a bunch of things that scuttle along the ground making a funny noise. It's better than I make it sound.

Eventually mum and the cop run into the remaining inhabitants of Silent Hill and it turns out they're remnants of the population, evacuated after a fire started in the coal mine beneath the town. Over the years they've gone batshit religious and like to hunt down and burn witches among other things. The scene where the key characters are pursued by pyramid head up to the church sanctuary and he skins one of the crazy churchies, is simply an awesome spectacle.

In the end the daughter is rescued but she's found to be the good side of a little girl possessed by a demon many years previous to the movie. The possessed little girl is now a grown woman, a warped and twisted cripple with scary powers of demonage. Seems the town people tried to burn her once and now she's really pissed off.

Welcome - come for the fog, stay for the crazy

In a hectic finale, the cop is burned alive (graphically), the demon possessed woman goes on a rampage of slaughter in the church (not graphically enough) and the woman plus her daughter escape. As a little aside to the main story, we also see the husband searching for both wife and daughter. He talks to people near Silent Hill and even visits with the local cops from a nearby town, but it's a totally different place. No fog, no monsters, no church. In the end he goes home empty-handed, as does his wife. But while he is in a normal house, she and the daughter are in a house filled with and surrounded by mist. Are they dead already? It's your call because the movie ends.

So I really liked Silent Hill, sure it was long and the acting was so-so, but the story was pretty good and the atmosphere appropriately eerie. Everything else such as effects, direction and scenery was above expectations also and in some cases pretty darn good. Silent Hill for me was like heading out to a bar for a few quiet drinks and coming home later wearing a different pair of pants and a sombrero. You thought it might be an ok time, but it turned out to be a ripper.

8.5/10

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.

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.

Raptor Howls at the Moon

So last weekend I caught the The Wolfman at the movies. This was one of those movies I was looking forward to but was a little worried that it would be…well crap really. I’m happy to say it wasn’t crap but a reasonable fair. This I can pretty much say was mainly due to the strong acting guns of the cast.

Director Joe Johnston has a number of well know movies under his belt such as Jumanjii and Jurassic Park III and some Visual Effects notably from Indian Jones and Star Wars. Here he has brought to life the Victorian period along with the superstitious village atmosphere meeting the forward thinking city folk.

Do these teeth make me look angry?

The story centres on Ben Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) and actor who returns home to his windowed father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), after the death of his brother to some wild animal or crazy psychotic. He encounters Gwen his brothers now widowed wife played by the lovely Emily Blunt and promises to track down the killer. After tracking down some gypsies they are assailed by the werewolf and he is bitten.  Soon London sends their finest to help track down the killer and by finest I mean the Detective on the Jack the Ripper case, Abberline, non other than Mr Smith himself, Hugo Weaving.  This leads to the eventual confrontation between Ben, the Werewolf and Abberline.

As you can see, the cast is really strong and they do put their acting chops into this and make quite the believable and dramatic presentation. Del Toro does a great job as the brooding Ben and even manages to make some of the cringe worthy lines laudable. Anthony Hopkins plays the liege of the family as a distant broken man slowly drifting into madness. At first I thought he may be playing to his role in Dracula but believe me it’s wildly different from this. Hugo Weaving is great as always as the Abberline, a cunning and grounded man who doesn’t believe in the superstitious; by the end of the movie his views are shattered.

Emily Blunt actually plays a very strong heroine as Gwen. She isn’t simpering and does take action herself in lie of events.

19th century Victoria is recreated beautifully. From the cities, to the clothing and even scenic locals of the misty woods it’s exactly what you’d expect. Now the werewolf transformation was pretty good although it did look a little CGI at times. The werewolves themselves were mostly practical FX which is great and harkened back to the old black and white Werewolf movies but every now and then you just look at the makeup and think, I wonder if that mask is going to fall off or can you pick your nose in that thing? Also there is a lot of killing and gore in this. We have decapitations, eviscerations and I’m sure there was and emasculation there somewhere amongst the severed limbs.

On the other side the end fight see did make me giggle a little also with all the latex masks and body fur running about. The big reveal of who the identity of the werewolf was so obvious that I don’t even have to mention it here but let’s just say it’s one of the above. Finally there was a couple of cliché dialogue scenes were I did groan a little, these saved only by the deliverance of the actors.  Oh yeah, no boobies at all to see in from here to Queen Victoria herself.

Overall the Wolfman is a very good creature feature with a couple of fury areas that could use a trimming. I give this movie a 7.5/10.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

I like ghost stories and I like first person movies. Cloverfield was good, Diary of the Dead was okay, shame about Seventh Moon. But I digress because Paranormal Activity is the subject of todays mini-review.

Paranormal Activity is both a ghost story (or demon story) and put across as an edit of footage shot in the home of a young couple. The husband captured this footage to document frightening stuff happening to his wife and find a solution. Much like a poltergeist, this weirdness has followed her around since an early age; shadows on walls, knocking, footsteps and someone breathing on her in the night. Sounds like my house after I have a few drinks. Back to the movie - stuff happens, things go bump in the night and once or twice it creeped me out, an unusual occurence.

Looks like just another day in my bedroom, my wife wakes up screaming and I plead innocent

The movie came over-hyped, though it's still a relatively unknown indy project, and I was skeptical of how good it would be. Usually the amount of goodness in a film is inversely proportional to how much people slap each other on the back and throw around superlatives (the same inverse rule applies to how awesome a trailer is). This wasn't completely the case here; scares are rare but effective, the acting and characterisation is good, effects were impressive for the budget and overall while the story was slow I never got bored. That makes Paranormal Activity average, but still entertaining. Oh and everyone dies in the end but I didn't mind for once.

7/10 for scaring me once or twice, though I still walked naked through the dark house on my way to bed.

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.

Zombieland (2009)

Fat vs bat. My money on the bat.

Zombieland is quite simply a good film. What it lacks in boobs it makes up for in zombies, guns and sass. I expected a quiche and they served me prime MSA steak with chips and a tasty red wine jus. This movie has all the vital elements; humor, a pretty girl (Emma Stone with permanent bedroom eyes), Woody Harrelson, a geeky guy (Jesse Eisenberg), zombies, guns, aforementioned sass and some very cool slo-mo effects. The fourth member of the quartet is played by Abigail Breslin.

Eisenberg plays a neurotic recluse with no friends and little family contact. He spends his time eating pizza, playing WoW and avoiding human contact. After a pretty girl stumbles into his apartment and goes all zombie on him overnight, he's forced out of his apartment and into the mean streets of Zombieland, a world populated almost exclusively by zombies. As time goes by he establishes and expands a list of rules for survival in Zombieland and these rules appear on the screen as text each time a rule is followed. For example when Harrelson runs down some zombies then reverses over them before driving off, the rule 'Double Tap' appears over the dead zombies. Simple, but never grows old.

Harrelson and Eisenberg eventually meet two sisters, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, who con them out of their car and weapons. The two parties, following some more hijinks, eventually overcome their misgivings and team up. What begins as a marriage of convenience grows into friendship and mutual support. Stone's character learns to trust people, her younger sister learns to be a kid again, Harrelson opens up a little about why he's so angry and distant, and Eisenberg finds a family. What makes this movie work so well are those developing characterisations which are admirably supported by the actors, all of whom turn in a believeable performance.

There's a bit toward the end where I thought 'oh no', because the movie seemed to have run out of ideas and steam before it ran out of story. I'm happy to say I was wrong and the ending shows off a very cool shoot out by Harrelson, a zombie duck-shoot from the top of a carnival ride and a lot of cardio work by Eisenberg (rule #1). I felt satisfied by credits time yet hungry for more zombieland...which is all I needed to say really.

9.5/10 - Zombieland went in my eye from frame one and never relented. Three thumbs up...oh God, that's not a thumb!

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