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Paranormal Activity 3 follows in the footsteps of its two predecessors. At least it’s not a completely different film like some sequels are. Even with entirely new characters, it still ties to the story of part 1 and 2 by being a prequel. We now get to see each of the lead female characters from the first two movies as children, thanks to older video footage of when they were young. If you’ve been following the franchise you know that the two girls are sisters. The formula these movies use remains the same – we watch video footage from the family’s tapes that they used to record the ongoings inside the house once they begin to suspect some paranormal activity. They have been very effective so far and this type of horror movie comes off feeling much more realistic than say watching a movie with Freddy Krueger or some monsters. There are reports of paranormal activity in real life all the time, and watching a film that resembles watching an actual home videotape makes everything seem more genuine. This is why The Blair Witch Project was a hit back when it came out. But whereas you don’t actually see anything in that film, you do get to see scary things happen here. It’s still low-budget but you can tell the filmmakers at least spent a little bit of money on some special effects. Paranormal Activity 3 is certainly the scariest in the series so far. So if you’re into these movies as many people seem to be, it’s definitely worth seeing. The movie broke box office records when it came out, so it shows that people are certainly fascinated by this style of filmmaking. The added bonus of installing a camera on an oscillating fan this time around just adds to the suspense. We watch something creepy going on in one room just as the camera starts to pan its view towards another room. Sometimes we catch something happening just as it’s cutting away. That was a brilliant idea. Of course this kind of film may not be so interesting once you’ve seen it and already know what happens, but it’s pretty thrilling the first time you watch.
Fellini’s Satyricon (Federico Fellini, 1969) The films of Federico Fellini always have been intriguing and mysterious because every first viewing of his films I feel like I’m entering in a different world than mine. Not only the imagery but also the narrative and the acting. It is always like the feeling of being in a dream-like universe. The first film from Fellini I saw was his Casanova with Donald Sutherland. It’s time for an anecdote: when I came back from my one month trip in Italy in 2006 my flight from Paris to Montréal had a special passenger: Mr. Donald Sutherland. The funniest thing about this little moment was that I knew who he was and I loved his presence in Casanova , Don’t Look Now, 1900, etc. But everyone was shouting this is Jack Bauer’s father! For Odin’s sake’s this man is a living legend don’t insult him by saying that he is the father of the flavour of the moment! Recognize the man at least! I discovered many Fellini films before I started this blog, so this is why this is one of the first reviews about his work. Satyricon was the first film of Fellini I ever bought, the Antic Roman settings and the name of the movie (I am a fan of the band of the same name) were the two magnets that got me and my hard earned money. Opposed to many Italian and American peplums that tried to recreate with precise details the past, Fellini’s Satyricon is the perception of the Roman Empire by Fellini himself. This is his fantasy about this time and age. It may sound a little pompous but for the neophytes out there Federico or affectively Fefe had an incredible imagination and his creations are inimitable. This creativity is characterized by a childish approach to everything, many of his imagery is taken from his memories and his impressions as a kid on how he used to perceive and see life. Far from being his most accessible work, Satyricon did not have standard narration neither does it have appealing characters. It looks like a freak show set in Ancient times. It is raw, bizarre, and beautiful at the same time. But like many unique films, this Fellini is a masterwork of cinematic brilliance and mise en scène. Even if it’s not considered as a major work from his oeuvre I still think that film has a special aura of greatness and weirdness. Moreover, Satyricon is a very personal film made by the genius vision of Federico Fellini. http://cinephiliaque.blogspot.com/2011/09/satyricon.html
Shark Night 3D is about a group of college kids who go to party one weekend in a secluded lake area (where cell phones conveniently don’t work) only to find there are sharks in said lake. The rest of the minimal plot involves how the sharks got there. For this type of movie you don’t expect much. We get to know the characters a little bit, they’re mostly stock characters, the black athlete, the racist local, the pretty boy, the nerdy med student, etc, but they’re not so bad to watch. I do have to say the lead female's backstory/motivation is kind of dumb. Shark Night does deliver on some scares, and actually makes effective use of its 3D, which is a pleasant surprise. We see Shark teeth coming at us, and flinch as some debris flies our way. That alone is noteworthy, making it a bite a above other 3D shlock like Transformers, or even actual better movies such as Thor and Captain America. Unlike Piranha, it doesn’t go all out with the gore, and while it teases at times, doesn’t have nudity. Some might bemoan this as holding out for a PG-13 rating, but I think they were trying as best they could to make a serious horror film, as opposed to Piranha which was dumb on purpose. 3/5 stars.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is the typical horror movie that involves a family moving into a creepy old house that obviously has some horrible things going on inside of it. This one focuses mostly on the child. Bailee Madison plays Sally. Sally’s dad (Guy Pearce) has a new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) whom Sally is not thrilled about meeting. She has also just found out that she will be living with the two of them after being abandoned by her mother. So the three of them move into this huge old house that looks like it’s been specifically designed for horror movies. It even once belonged to a man named Lord Blackwood who was killed there; we get to see how he died at the beginning of the film. Of course it’s Sally who immediately discovers that there is a hidden basement to this huge house. They all go down to inspect it, and Sally begins to hear voices coming from the vents. They only speak to her, never to the adults. Why is that? Well, at the beginning of the film when the original owner is killed, we find out there are little creatures living within the walls of the house… and they feed on the teeth of children. We’re not told why, but for some reason they only want children’s teeth. Maybe they’re just more pure or something. Though most children would be freaked out by voices coming from the vents, Sally is intrigued because she’s very lonely and also has some of the worst parents ever. Aside from her mother abandoning her, her father doesn’t seem to believe a thing she says and is always making other things a higher priority than her. His girlfriend means well but Sally still has her guard up with her. Plus, the little creatures insist that they want to be her friend; she has no idea of the terror they’re actually capable of. Halfway through the movie, she begins to realize it. That’s when she goes to her father who just thinks it’s all in her head and even has her see a therapist. The good thing is that the creatures are afraid of light. It’s only in the dark that they can hurt you. This makes the title of the film rather senseless. If anything, you should be afraid of the dark. That’s when you can die. So bedtime becomes increasingly more scary for poor little Sally. She keeps a Polaroid camera by her side to flash at the creatures when they come around. That made me wonder if this film actually takes place in present day. You don’t exactly see people with Polaroids anymore. But I suppose that’s just another silly tidbit to this movie that probably could have been a little smarter than it is. Luckily, Bailee Madison is one of the best child actors around. If you’ve seen the movie Brothers you know how great of a little actress she is, and she’s only 11 years old. So she holds your attention on screen. The more established actors, Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes, are basically in supporting roles. There’s a lot of inconsistency regarding the creatures too. At times, they seemed organized and smart, like when killing an old man in the basement. Yet when they have little Sally trapped in a bathroom for 5 minutes, they seem to be a lot slower and come away completely unsuccessful. They are kind of scary looking, but they’re so small that we rarely even see any close-ups of them. This is one of those horror movies that might be interesting to watch once just to see some cool little creatures running around, but after that there’s certainly nothing memorable about it.
Some will say that Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is about remembrances. Others will say that this is Malick's cinematic monograph on how we came into existence as seen through the eyes of one person examining his past to determine his future. Malick opens the film with a Bible quotation from the Book of Job: Job 38: 4,7 God asks Job "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy??" Whether you believe in the Biblical version of how the world was created, or you subscribe to the Big Bang Theory, or maybe you like the molecular theory as the starting point leading all the way up to a cosmic level... it doesn't much matter because Malick gives you a look at all three. There's an interesting adjunct to that as well. In a voice over, Mrs. O'Brien says: There are two ways through life: the way of nature, and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow. Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. Malick doesn't choose either one. He shows us both, and we must decide (although the film doesn't lead us to making a decision) which is our preference. On the surface, Jack O'Brien played by Sean Penn is dissatisfied with the way things are. As he looks into his past - to the parental dynamic that he lived through, we experience his life fragments with him - from his birth to his early childhood impressions of sounds and sights, to his thoughts, fears, joys, and other things like stone dread, and crushing disappointments as a 10-12 year old boy. Since much of this comes in sort of a free association way - like a patient in psychological therapy, week after week, reliving moments from his past while on the Doctor's couch - the film lacks a linear narrative. You might find that this methodology puts you off, or bores you, or in the most simple of terms - does not tell a story. The answer is that this is exactly what was intended and is an absoluely correct description. But if you put that aside, and just let the film wash over you -the impression is different. The O'Brien's were patriarchal family - that would be Brad Pitt as the father who was domineering, and nearly abusive, but only to make his sons better people. There were three boys and early on, very early on, Mrs. O'Brien receives a telegram, and Mr. O'Brien at work receives a phone call. Their 19 year old son has been killed. The parents, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain , deal with it in their own way - which is light on warmth and support but heavily tilted toward silent stoicism. But Jack O'Brien never recovers from it completely. He goes on to become a succesful architect, but when we meet him, at that stage of his life, he looks hopelessly lost. He can't focus on work, and he reflects the sorrow and agony of losing his brother despite the passage of more than 35 years. It is my view that this is Malick's way of dealing with some sort of post traumatic stress syndrome that has affected him as well as others he knows. Seemingly, it has been internalized within him for years only to emerge in this film which was actually made in 2009, but according to reports, had simmered inside of Malick for years. He reflects on not only his life but all life. Now some may see that as pretentious, because none of us have that kind of vision, or knowledge, nor the time to focus on the earth's creation. But Malick has collected the theories and put them all into TTOL. For us in the audience it is a mystical or magical experience. We watch life and death sequences involving creatures from the age of dinosaurs. We watch the planets and the cosmos from within in it as Malick has found a cinematic way to leave the terra firma that we all share. Some of it is immediately identifiable but some of it beyond our ken. I think Malick borrowed heavily from Kubrick's 2001 leaving out the discovery of tools by the ape men, and the unexplained black monoliths discovered on a moon far, far away. But the mysticism and the light show are included though in much sparser portions and in more earthbound settings. More of a mystery is the way Jack O'Brien evolved as he entered his teen years. He showed a tendency for cruelty to animals. He was physically forceful to his younger brother, and even more shockingly, there was a not quite repressed sexual attraction towards his mother. Maybe it was the internalized anger he had towards his father. That is a guess because the younger Jack doesn't reveal his thoughts except when speaking to weither his mother or father. We are given only the visual clues. Malick goes about as far as he can to establish that Jack is something of a strange boy, but clearly he has absorbed something from his father, so he's not really a disturbed child or someone needing care and support above and beyond parenting. But Malick doesn't show us Jack's entry into adulthood. He goes from a 10 or 12 year old boy to the late 40's Sean Penn. We know nothing else about his growth. In fact we are never told what ails Jack today. Malick leaves it to us to piece it together on our own based on what Jack remembers. So in reality Malick doesn't provide us with answers because he's not really asked any questions. The film has some beautiful imagery that's usually tied to some celestial type of music. On that level, Malick is presenting us with images and ideas meant to diminish us, make us small - which of course we truly are on a cosmic level. But I think that creates a distancing from what Malick is sending to what we actually receive. Some view that kind of work as being an epic masterpiece. I'm not in agreement with the term masterpiece but I will agree with epic. My reality or my ability to directly access with The Tree of Life is that boys are boys. I didn't grow up in Waco, Texas as this family did. But I did grow up with heavily wooded areas just across the street to hike through, or to play as a scout, or even a make believe frontiersman heading west. For us, it was the age of discovery. On the other hand, Malick says nothing about Waco - our only clue is the wording on the public works truck coming through the neighborhood spraying DDT which clearly identified the location as Waco, or at least it was done that way to have us think it was Waco. I'm thinking that this is the case because we saw it twice in the film But the main difference between my youth and this one was that I didn't have a father who was the dominant parent figure, nor did I have the experience of the quiet neighborhood that we saw in this film. It was beautiful but nearly constantly empty. Just as Jack O'Briens life was equally empty for us. It is also my thought that many will say that this film was empty for them.
Please note: this is a review for the 2000 anime film, not 2009 live-action movie. Set in 1966, somewhere in America, Blood: the Last Vampire tells the story of Saya (voiced by Youiki Kudo), a vampire slayer told to go undercover as a schoolgirl to kill the vampires that lurk about within the school premises. According to IMDb, Production I.G. wanted to make a three part anime series but due to budget and time restraints, they only had the money to make one installment and so they chose this, being the middle one and released it as a stand-alone film. It could have had a more simple storyline but the pity with Production I.G. is that they let Blood: the Last Vampire ’s unfinished feel show. We get little insight into both the film’s characters and storyline. For example, characters are barely developed and the film finishes just when we gain a little bit of insight into the protagonist, you know, when we start to find her interesting after about 40 minutes ! It’s a pity Production I.G. didn’t do enough work on the script in order to make the film’s short 40 minute running time (excluding end credits) more satisfying. The film could have been a little more simple and I don’t know why Production I.G. didn’t bother to do so. If I had another flaw to pick fin this film, it would be the voice-acting. Some of it sounds quite dull. This particularly shows in the final scene where Saemi Nakamuri, the voice of Nurse Amano, sounds convincingly like she has been replaced with a computer. No, I am not exaggerating. Yes, that bad. And feel free to call this a cheap shot but Youiki Kudo - the voice actress for Saya - sounds a little constipated. With all this said, it would be hard to say that I wasn’t entertained. The fact that I wanted more from this film made me want to watch it more. It is very fast-paced; the character of Saya, whilst not incredibly interesting, she is at least likeable; the atmosphere is unnerving; and the vampires look quite gruesome. This film is also known to be one of the first mix 2D and 3D animation together and although it is not as “groundbreaking” as it was back in 2000, since it is more common to see it in anime today, it still looks as good as it used to. Blood: the Last Vampire is very short and undeveloped, but at least it’s fun, looks good and does not outstay its welcome. However, I hear there is a TV series called Blood+ , which is supposed to be a longer version and apparently it’s good.
Horror movies always come to Korea late, and I almost missed this one as it had a limited release here. This January 2011 American film is loosely based on the book The Making of a Modern Exorcist, which chronicles accounts of actual exorcisms. The main character, Michael, is a mortician’s son (whose father is played by Rutger Hauer). Michael goes to the priesthood to escape the family business, and through a series of events ends up studying Exorcisms under Father Lucas, played by Anthony Hopkins. Two conceits of this film is that the demon must be forced to say it’s name, and that the Exorcist must have faith to win the battle. This brings complications as Michael is skeptical. There’s a few things this movie brings that haven’t been seen in Exorcism movies before, including multiple possessions, and a humorous touch when Hopkins cell phone rings during an Exorcism. Like a few Exorcism movies before it, like The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, it plays onto the skeptical side. Michael wonders if it really is possession and not psychological trauma. However this side isn’t as played as strongly as it was in the 2 previously films, playing much more strongly to the supernatural side. Michael takes a class on Exorcism at the Vatican. We see the class looking like a modern college class, with computer equipment and big screen presentations, that was a nice touch. At the class he meets Sandra, a journalist taking the class to write a story about it. Michael is reluctant to help her at first, and learns that her brother was put in an asylum for claiming to be possessed. Like the Last Exorcism, this movie is light on scares, but does have a few. The best one being one of Michaels flashback scenes involving his father. It’s really the story of Michael’s journey through faith. It’s a fairly interesting story, but loses some steam toward the end. Sandra’s dialogue of encouragement to him at the end is a little heavy handed, and the end scene can come across as a little hokey. Also midway through there’s something Hopkins does involving a frog that seemed so odd it was unintentionally hilarious. That shook the tone of the film a little. Still, Hopkins was great to watch, playing an unorthodox man of faith, whose had his own struggles with doubt. At times you can see him channeling his inner Hannibal Lector of 20 years ago, coming out as a man unglued. I don’t know how much of this story can actually be considered true. The Emily Rose film for example, was based on a true case but was mostly a work of fiction. Overall it’s at least a fairly interesting story, but with a weaker ending places it on the lower tier of modern exorcism movies. 8/10
The good old Asian monster flick genre has been on hold since the Japanese decided to stop making Godzilla features. Well, the whole King Kong concept has been exploited since the beginnings of the special effects in Cinema. Gigantism is a very Japanese and especially American complex. With the more recent remakes, the Jurassic Park franchise, Cloverfield, etc. The monster genre was a little tired lately. The Host, a Korean monster film opens similarly to Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, a scientific incident. In the British film it's the infected apes that spread the disease while in the Korean film it's the toxic substance thrown in the river that created this fish-like monster. Besides, the horror/action angle of the film, the story implies a funny 21st century family of a lazy lunatic dad in his thirties, his yuppie cum little criminal brother, his athlete sister, his smart daughter and his good will father. Each of these characters will learn and overpass his weakness to survive to the passage of the wild creature. Tinted with moments of pure horror using the classic codes of the genre while injecting a great dose of humor and just a tint of sentimentality this crossover of genres is a very hip movie. It's a crowd pleaser. The kind of film that can easily become a cult film among young film lovers. The mix of genres may irritate the purists of the horror genre and maybe some older cinephiles will feel that it's too "cool" or too young... The colors of the film are superb and like many Asian films they are a little saturated but it balances itself with an extraordinary cinematography. We are in the presence of an eye candy looking picture; read here in the most positive way. Despite some very interesting moments and many twists, I got bored by the whole thing. I think that the story lacked of tightness in its final thirty minutes. However, The Host is a very good movie.
RATING 5/10 BOTTOM LINE: The film has some good atmospheric moments, but it relies on stereotypical conventions that do not gel well at all with the overall story, all despite an ending which almost makes up for that unevenness. THE GOOD: The film starts with lead character Anna (Browning) telling her psychiatrist about a recurring dream she is having. Needless to say, it is spooky. On advice from her psychiatrist, she returns home for the first time in many months after a tragic explosion at her home killed her mother. She reunites with her sister Alex (Kebbel), and the pair are jointly upset with their father Steven (Strathairn) and his new relationship with Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), who was her mother’s live-in nurse when she was sick. Events start to spiral out of control after the sisters discover that Rachel is not who she says she is and starts becoming much more nasty and violent. The film offers some good atmospheric moments, particularly with Anna’s visions, and the cast are very good, particularly Elizabeth Banks who effectively portrays a menacing and manipulative character. The film moves through some interesting plot twists, but perhaps the film is mostly boosted by its ending, which you cannot really say is a twist, but it definitely casts a whole different light on what you are seeing and makes complete sense. “The Uninvited” is a different take on the usual horror film, and does a decent enough job of supplying the scares and offering an insight in to madness. THE BAD: The filmmakers never get the tone right for this film. Relying on many clichés and stereotypes inherent to the genre, it seems to be leading you to a more supernatural conclusion, particularly in the opening scares, but then clumsily moves to something else entirely as the narrative progressives. As a result, the film never really satisfies, and it is only in watching the ending that everything starts to make sense; but even this feels more like its been tacked on as an afterthought. There is no build or suspension of disbelief in the story that will inevitably lead to this conclusion. The explanation is quickly brushed over, and the final shots, although creepy and different from a narrative perspective, seem altogether unbelievable and silly.
One, if not, the most controversial movie of all-time depicting some of the most disturbing scenes ever film in a fictionnal film, Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust will be discussed here. I should mention that it was a challenge for me to enter in this infamous movie, because of the violence and the reputation of the film itself. I am not too enclined about exploitation films and I entirely disagree when a filmmaker uses animals and hurts them voluntarly (turtle scene and the pig scene). They are gratuitous and they don't bring anything interesting to the story or the propos of it. Deodato's challenge was to make a fictionnal movie about a documentary that feels like the real making-of of a documentary. He succeeds in this aspect; the movie feels like if it was shot by two different teams. One in New York and the other one in Amazonian forest. Instead of presenting the shocking images all in one continuous shot, Deodato makes us wait with the trip to find the tapes of the documentary with the Professor Monroe. The professor Monroe is one of the most important character in the movie, he represents science and also morale. He is the only character the viewer can actually identifies himself with. He has a lot of common sense but he also wants to understand the native tribes he encounters in his trip; a representation of our curiosity and interest in viewing the film. He will oppose himself with force agaisnt the broadcasting of the disturbing images of the final journey of the journalist team. This team of reporters thirsty for celebrity and money will do anything to get the images they want to show to the public of the civilized world. It represents this buzz of journalists that will kill themselves or others just to get the scoop or the most blood of some news or documentary. Cannibal Holocaust is a metaphor on journalists and on how they feed themself on human misery and sensationalism. The final image of the film when the camera moves from Professor Monroe to some buildings in the city reprensents one of the many metaphors of the movie: who is more civilized? the cannibals living in the "stone age" or the "civilized" living in stone buildings in "societies"? Well, the answer of the film states that in every "world" there are evil and good. The buildings and technical advances do not mean that we are better humans than the one still living in the jungle or the "stone age". Even with all the thinking Cannibal Holocaust has provoke for me it was not a film I particularly loved, but its messages are clear and maybe the methods are extreme, it still denounces abuses within it. I also believed that this is not a film for the faint of heart by in some ways it's like a mandatory film to watch...
RATING 6/10 BOTTOM LINE: Kudos to the filmmakers for believably milking the original premise in this sequel without replicating it, but the build up of tension achieved so well the first time is absent here, and despite some good scares in the last third, the film is very dull. THE GOOD: One of the best things about this sequel to the hit horror film “Paranormal Activity” is that the filmmakers have wisely chosen to use the same found footage format, but have cleverly utilised the idea of security camera footage interspersed with home video footage to tell the story. By doing this, they have many more angles to play with rather than the single static one from the first film, which allows for more variety in shots and scares. Also, the filmmakers play with night-vision options to create some great scares in the last third of the film. Story-wise, the film wraps around the first film in that the majority of it takes place before the first film, with the climax taking place after the events of the first film, and provides a richer explanation as to why this demon is terrorising sisters Katie and Kristi. In doing this, the filmmakers have provided a valid reason for this sequel to exist outside of generating more revenues for the film’s distributor. The film is a valiant attempt to replicate the experience of the first film, and in parts, it does bring something new to the table and provides the requisite scares at various points. THE BAD: Until the scares truly kick in about two thirds of the way through, the film is really dull. What made the first film work was that it used psychological thrills to slowly build up tension. Each new event was worse than the one before, and they used the characters to achieve this. The scene in the first film where Katie stands up in the middle of the room for hours during the night, for example, is psychologically freaky. There are no scenes like this in the second film. All we get are grunting noises and some objects moving around, which is unfortunately boring when you consider that the design of the footage using security cameras could have lent itself to more variety in the scares. The characters are not doing anything themselves to induce the terror, only reacting to what they see (which is not much). It is not until we are deep in to the film that we get the truly terrifying scenes, but by then, it’s too little too late.
Sharktopus is a film that cannot be watched alone, so I sat down with my buddy Pat to watch this. Marcey: “What the hell?” Pat: “What the hell?” Yup that’s Sharktopus, through and through. It is a film that will have you saying “What the hell?” or various variations of those three words such as “What the fuck?” or “What the shit?”. On a serious note (well as serious as I can be talking about a film called Sharktopus), this film is bad. It isn’t even Troll 2 bad, it just really stinks. You would think a film about a man eating half Shark, half Octopus would be awesome. But it is not, there are a few laughs over how utterly awful this is, but that’s about it. It wasn’t all that fun, as it should have been. The acting …. wait there was no acting, the only decent thing was Eric Roberts and it is sad to see such a great talent wasted in this garbage. I have no idea where they found the people in this film, they actually tried to act with excruciating results. The script was written by a monkey on a type writer, which was then re-written by a donkey and then subsequently re-written by a mouse fart, which was then eaten by the dog and regurgitated. Watching Sharktopus is like waiting for something awesome to happen and it never does. It’s like opening a bunch of birthday presents and waiting for that awesome gift that you were told you were getting and never receiving. Instead you get a bunch of used toilet paper from everyone’s number two’s. Oh yes this film really is that bad, and worse. Most of the people they got for this film looked like they were kidnapped from a 5 cent brothel. I mean you get women in bikini’s which should be awesome, but instead watching them makes you want to poke out your own eyes for seeing them and stabbing yourself in the ears for listening to them. The CG is indeed awful, which is what you’d expect from a film called Sharktopus, that is what made this film funny for the first 10 minutes. It also kept getting bigger, and bigger through the entire film. Continuity is something no one had heard of while making this! One minute there’s no clouds in the sky, next minute it’s over cast … oh yes it does that through the entire film. Obviously what they had to work with was so bad they had to keep re-shooting scenes without noticing the drastic weather changes. Not only is this film so bad, it kind of is bad, it also is rather boring. After the first 10 minutes, the hilarity of a Sharktopus wears out and it all just becomes annoying and hard to watch. A lot of the film does not make sense, and it hurts to try and think when watching it. Honestly not much happens in this film, when it does it looks so bad, I mean this actually made Shark Attack 3 look credible! There really isn’t a need to watch this, at least not the last 80 minutes of it. Laugh at the start, see the awful Sharktopus and then press stop. I mean even the build up has zero pay off at the end, and the way they manage to *spoiler alert* destroy the Sharktopus would make the ‘science’ in Independence Day laugh. Yes I know this film wasn’t meant to be good, but where was the fun? It wasn’t fun, it tried too hard to be a terrible film that wanted to be fun and it failed, badly. Rating: 1/5 First published on Feb 6th at SuperMarcey.com
RATING 5/10 BOTTOM LINE: The re-imagining of nightmare villain Freddy Kreuger was done with great care, both in make-up and Jackie Earle Harley’s menacing performance, but everything else about this remake of the horror classic is bland, boring and lacking in character. THE GOOD: As with the original 1984 film, the idea of a psychotic murderer who stalks and kills people in their dreams is a potent one. This remake captures that idea by creating a world where the characters force themselves to stay awake to stay alive, only to see the boundary between the real and dream worlds often disappear, leading to the iconic character of Freddy Kreuger (portrayed menacingly here by Jackie Earle Harley) showing up in various places and forms to terrorise and maim his subjects. A group of teenagers are all having the same dream of Kreuger stalking them while they are asleep, and one by one, they start to die as Kreuger kills them with his insidious knife-fingers. Nancy (Rooney Mara) suspects something more is going on, and eventually uncovers a town secret involving Freddy and his dark past. If anything works in this film, it is the performance of Jackie Earle Harley. He more than adequately captures the chilling menace of Freddy Kreuger, and combined with the fantastic prosthetics, make up and computer work, you have an extremely nightmarish villain that is worth watching. The tone of the film is quite low key in parts for a horror film. Yes, there is blood and slashing, but the filmmakers know that silence and subtlety at the right moments are just as effective. This remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street is worth watching to see Freddy in this re-imagined state. THE BAD: Much effort was put in to the re-imagining of Freddy Kreuger and his menace. Unfortunately, no effort was put in to the rest of the film. All of the characters, save Freddy, are cardboard cut-outs that have no life in them whatsoever. At times, they seem interchangeable, and it does not really matter who dies when or how, or that you should even care. Since the success of a film like this rests on you caring about the characters so when Freddy shows up you feel ‘horrified’ at what he does to them, the film falls completely flat when the character are far from engaging. Kreuger himself is scary, but the situations presented do not generate any thrills or scares, outside of the usual cattle-prod scare. Another issue for the film would be stating the obvious: the Elm Street series is one of the most famous horror franchises in history. Most people know about Freddy Kreuger, and even if they do not know the story, they know that he kills people in their dreams, which robs the film of any sense of novelty or surprise at the horror being presented. The film presents nothing new to make Kreuger and his story more innovative and surprising. The film should appeal to a younger generation who may never have heard of Freddy, but to everyone else, it’s a lacklustre facsimile of the original, save Harley’s performance.
Director: Ace Hannah Running Time: 86 minutes Australian Release Date: 26 December 2010 Review by Tom Clift From the same studio that brought us the direct-to-DVD films The Da Vinci Treasure, Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, Sunday School Musical and Paranormal Entity comes an all new adventure with a plot so flimsy and ridiculous that it can be summed up in single sentence; a sentence that also happens to be the film’s title. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus is a movie about exactly that – a mega shark versus a giant octopus, and less interestingly, the human beings who get caught up in the middle of their epic million year old conflict. I had the chance to see the film projected at Cinema Nova in Melbourne as part of their Cult Cravings project, a series of late night B-movie screenings that also includes weekly sessions of Tommy Wiseau’s infamous disasterpiece The Room. Like Wiseau’s film, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus is already on its way to becoming a modern day cult classic, one that sparks cries of derision and abuse from an enthusiastic audience more than willing to embrace the movies’ status as something so bad that it’s good. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus fails on practically every level a film can fail. The title sounds as if the film is just an excuse to show two CGI sea-monsters battling it out – which essentially it is. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t have anywhere near the budget to afford decent effects, and as a result most of the fighting between the creatures and the human military is made up of one of about three effects shots that are recycled literally dozens of times throughout the film – of course that’s when the action isn’t downright incomprehensible. Little money seems to have been spent on any of the sets; most of the film takes place on what appears to be a Laundromat dressed up as alternatively the inside of a war-ship, submarine or military command base. Perhaps the bulk of the funds was spent on securing the cast, which includes an eighties pop sensation and a washed up soap actor. One hopes not, because the acting in this film is uniformly abysmal, as is the dialogue that the characters spew. At least that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is that the movie is a rousing success, an unparalleled triumph in crap to film stock conversion. When viewed from that perspective, and aided by a passionate crowd, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus becomes a cinematic delight, a film that can be laughed at and cheered for, and a viewing experience that can be treasured and recreated at home on DVD with friends (and preferably alcohol…lots of alcohol actually). Like so many films of its ilk, it is never entirely clear whether this movie is meant to be the way it is – there are moments so preposterously atrocious that it seems almost insulting to believe anyone involved was trying for anything other than unadulterated, under-produced garbage. Then again, perhaps it was just some happy accident. Are the filmmakers subversive geniuses, or just really, really lazy and/or incompetent? Regardless of the answer to this burning question, the resulting movie is so god-awful that I for one cannot help but enjoy it as the stench emitting cheese that it is. And truthfully, even as the film crashes and burns, the flames that it emits have a warm and charming kind of glow. While the performances are undeniably terrible, it’s clear that the actors are trying their best. Even after the third consecutive montage of our heroes “doing science”, they never once let up, making sure to furrow their brows and purse their lips before practically shouting “Eureka” as two colourful chemicals combine to create a third, different coloured chemical. Likewise, when a ship get hit, the cameraman shakes the camera for all he’s worth, and although you have a hard time believing that the ship is actually sinking, the enthusiasm is certainly appreciated. All in all, you might find yourself feeling the same way towards Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus that you would towards a kindergarten play that your small child in performing in – it might not be good, but the effort is kind of endearing. Plus it’s rarely deemed acceptable to scream abuse at a kindergarten play, so the film gets additional points for that. I can in no way condone watching Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus by oneself. That would be truly agonizing. But with a like minded audience, at a friend’s house or even better, on the big screen, the film transcends its own awfulness and passes into the realm of the sublime. Scream at the actors. Cheer for your preferred monster (I’m Team Shark, in case you were wondering). Abuse the editor who felt the need for black and white flashing cuts every five seconds, and ridicule whoever thought we’d need to be reminded where the main characters are with repeated establishing shots accompanied by title cards, even when the location haven’t actually changed. If had a spoon, I would throw it at this film - what higher praise can I give? Melbournians, let’s just hope Cinema Nova follows it up with its spiritual successor: the SyFy Channel original movie Sharktopus. No, I’m not kidding…that’s a movie too. More reviews at http://reviewsbytom.blogspot.com and at http://rowthree.com
The Last Exorcism is a mockumentary about Reverend Cotton Marcus. It opens with a brief over view of his life. He is a son of a preacher, who was reared from an early age to be a preacher himself. A natural showman, he is very charismatic during his sermons and does a lot of magic/slight of hand tricks. His father performed over 100 exorcisms in his lifetime, and has an big ancient looking book about various demons that posses people. Cotton has a young son with some kind of hearing problem. In a cute scene he’s asked what his father does, to which he replies that he fights vampires and monsters of the world. He’s asked if his father really believes in monsters, to which he puts his finger to his lips (shhh) and says no. This brings us to the heart of the story. Cotton had a lapse of faith over his son’s disability. He credits science and not god for his son’s treatment (he has a hearing aid). He examined his own life and realized he was only preaching because of his father. At some point he read a story about a young boy around his sons age who died during an exorcism. From here he made it his mission to expose exorcism as a sham, which is why he’s hired a two person film crew, Iris and Dan, to document him doing and Exorcism. (We see Iris on film, but we don’t see Dan much, but he does have some dialogue). Cotton and his crew go to a farmhouse in the backwoods of Louisiana from which they got a letter about a young girl named Nell who is possessed. Nell’s mother died recently, and she lives with her father Louise and Father Caleb. Caleb has a great interaction with the crew early on as he tells them to get lost and throws rocks at Cotton’s vehicle. Cotton secretly sets up a room in the farmhouse with various props and later performs the Exorcism. We get the various beats of exorcism films, the shaking bed, moving furniture, smoking crosses, all interspersed with earlier footage of Cotton revealing that these are in fact special effects. At this point, not that far into the film, Cotton figures his job is done and is soon to head home. However, various strange events occur which keep Cotton and the crew in the area. The Last Exorcism isn’t the scariest movie, but unlike other movies of the “found footage” genre (Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield, etc) it’s incredibly strong in the story department. It’s got foreshadowing, lots of twists and turns, with a few red herrings that keep you guessing to what’s really going on with this family. It’s got a normal sized movie cast and many varying locations. This may because unlike other “found footage” moves it had a larger budget (though still small by Hollywood standards) of 1.8 million. (As opposed to Blair Witche’s $60,000 of Paranormal’s $15,000). Regarding the nature of Nell’s possession, the story goes back and forth on whether Nell is really possessed by a demon. During the investigation there’s several odd happenings but nothing that’s blatantly supernatural. You don’t know what’s really going on until the very last scene. Like Cloverfield, Last Exorcism doesn’t pretend to be a true story. There’s not dates given in the footage, no post credit updates on the story, and no story about the footage itself. Though slightly lacking on scares, it offers a very intriguing story, and is a very worthy addition to the found footage and exorcist genres. 9.4/10.
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