horror
Review: Triangle (2009)
Friday, February 12th, 2010 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong. Her suspicions are proven when the yacht hits a storm and the group is forced to board a passing ocean liner to get to safety, a ship Jess is convinced she’s been on before. The ship appears deserted, the clock on board has stopped, but they are not alone… Someone is intent on hunting them down, one by one. And Jess unknowingly holds the key to end the terror.
If you are into mystery and somewhat horror this might be a good choice for you. Even though the cover looks more like another hillbilly flick the key element of the mystery is time bending/travel and it is portrayed quite well. Films that play with different time lines often lack logic. Triangle manages to have at least three (maybe even four, I can’t remember) parallel realities – which I found very well done regarding the complexity that may occur. There is just one minor glitch that you might want to complain about – why is Jess acting as she does first entering the boat? No more explanations here, I don’t want to spoil the story. Speaking of the story, don’t expect too much, it’s above average, but nothing special – compared to earlier instalments of director Christopher Smith (like Creep or the downright annoying Severance) it’s pretty good.
What I liked best was the camera work / setting / editing… everything is shot very impressively, right angle, right light – not to be mistaken as pretentious, more like minimalistic but elaborate. I don’t really know how to express my impressions. It just was an eye treat that I enjoyed a lot. Not one of these cheesy low budget cheap shots.
7.0 / 10 – Entertaining and a pleasure to watch.
Review: Zombieland (2009)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Earth’s population has been decimated by a virus, related to the mad cow disease, that turns everyone into flesh-craving zombies. Only a handful of humans remain, including Columbus, trying to make his way to his home town, where he hopes his parents are still alive. Columbus has long been an outsider and somewhat phobic, which he uses to his advantage in avoiding zombies. In fact, zombies are not his greatest fear: clowns are.
Woody Harrelson and dork Jesse Eisenberg in a zombie flick? Well, you kinda get what you expect, a quite cheesy comedy, but the zombie part is very well done – and very graphic (almost feels real). After watching the opening scene I was completely hooked. See for yourself (wait for the opening credits part starting at 2:35!):
Zombie splatter in slow-mo accompanied by Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. An instant winner 
It’s a pity the film cannot stand up to this brilliant start, it’s coming down to a quite good zombie comedy (Zombie Bill Murray, muhhaha), but towards the end it feels kind of random. I am impressed this film made it into the IMDB Top 250, well done!
I also have to state that I disliked the “senseless destruction” scene. Watching a bunch of Whities whacking an Indian store to pieces… felt kinda racist to me (yes, there was a cowboy, too, but come on, next time whack a Wall Mart!).
7.5/10 – a modern zombie comedy that almost rocks completely, almost …
Review: Paranormal Activity (2009)
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Who is afraid of the Kwyjibo? A couple is haunted by an entity that tortures them every now and then. This time it’ll be the last.
I was sooo happy seeing this film, because I expected something really spooky.
Heard about it, saw the rather high IMDb rating, got excited.
Here are some quotations from the cover (should have known these are NOT to be trusted):
“Paranormal Activitiy” is one of the scariest movies of all time. You will be affected as it’s hard to ignore the imprint it leaves on your psyche. Nightmares are guaranteed.
Don’t see it alone.
What I got was a pretty bad instalment that borrows from films such as Blair Witch, Poltergeist and The Grudge without ever becoming something that might play in the same league. In fact, it’s very dull except for the few moments when something is happening. These moments start promising, but just never evolve to something that really gets you. People might say that all happens in your head, well, for me it ended seeing the footsteps scene. Evil twin, dead stepmother, schizophrenia, all gone. Anyone call Mulder, please? Okay, Mr Spookaway explained that this entity is a demon rather than a ghost. This even allows for more nonsensical things happening, right? Lights on, lights off, wow!
There is also practically no such thing as a story, no twists and no explanations, just some knocking noises, a wind here and there and finally physical intervention of the invisible force. The shaking camera genre is once again used as an excuse for the absence of writer’s skill.
3.0/10 – A highly overrated and overhyped film. May only scare the unversed masses.
Review: Drag me to Hell (2009)
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Sam Raimi strikes again! And he still knows how to do so! His “The Evil Dead” is a masterpiece horror classic (Beware! Remake approaching!), no doubt about that and he even did an outstanding job doing “Spiderman” – a completely different genre. Now he returns to classic horror and does not fail as so many other out there do all the time. The last film I remember that scared/thrilled/entertained me equally was “The Ring” remake (don’t tell!), and that’s quite a while ago. Since then I digested dozens of cheap boring horror wannabe flicks, “Drag me to Hell” being a most welcome exception.
Okay, a few words about the film without spoiling too much. First, it is not a remake of an Asian classic (w00t!). Second, it’s done by somebody who knows his profession – no low budget “my first director’s job” 5 kids in the wood spilling guts crap (again, the exception proofs the rule, right?). The story is basically “Don’t piss off any gipsies or they might curse you” with our main character almost unwillingly deciding to go for the curse – doh!
What I liked especially (apart from the perfect technical presentation of the flick) is that it does not focus on one stylistic device, but tortures the viewer on multiple levels. A recap of the my feelings that arose during the first “scary” scene: reserved, repelled, disgusted, embarrassed, intimidated, and finally horror-struck. I was trying to have my dinner watching that, for heavens sake 
Watching “Drag me to Hell” made me somewhat feel like a kid watching “The Evil Dead” for the first time. I am happy that it is apparently not my fault that most of the so called horror movies out there just plainly bore me to death. I can now blame the directors/writers/producers, because even for a superficial western blockbuster it is possible to do a great entertaining job! Well done, everybody!
9.0/10 – Thanks for providing something that stands up to 80s horror classics and is not stealing from an already made film.
Review: Pontypool (2008)
Monday, August 24th, 2009 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Winter in Canada, a guy is on it’s way to work. It’s early in the morning, still night, he is on his way to his morning shift working as a radio host. What starts as a normal work day soon evolves into a complete mess of news and facts of what is happening on the outside. The viewer stays with the moderator, just listening to the reports of bloodshed and a weird virus that is spread by words! “War of the Worlds” (the radio play!) meets “Tape“.
The main actor is really cool (Stephen McHattie), the story is a refreshing change to the straightforward “atomic waste” or “five kids in the wood” films. Unfortunately the story telling is not good, it just looses it’s logic half way through the film with just random events happening. Still, above average for good acting and a nice idea.
6.5/10 – quite well done but too far fetched and illogic
“Hey, that was a great movie, let’s remake it!”
Friday, July 24th, 2009 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
I already complained about Hollywood Remakes in recent posts. Today my wife asked me, whether I already knew that “A Tale of Two Sisters” also was remade. Funny thing is, that I was going to watch the film quite soon anyway.
She gave me an interesting link that lists all the blockbuster remakes of Asian cinema since 1980. See for yourself if you have been fooled by a rip off of an Asian original. (Okay, sometimes the remake is better than the original, the exception proves the rule.) @see Remakes of Asian Movies
Review: Resident Evil 5 (PS3)
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | Games, Misc, Reviews | No Comments
Oh, how I longed for the day Resident Evil 5 would hit the stores. I totally fell for RE4 – one of my favourite games of all time. Now part 5 is finally here, and I ran through it twice already, currently beating the “Veteran” levels. I read some reviews, but generally couldn’t agree with them, either because they were complaining about the wrong things or missing out some important details – just my 50 cent worth …
Okay, here we go, my review is intended for RE4 veterans. RE5 is basically RE4 in high res. Sounds good? Well, pimping graphics is not enough to deliver a good game. In fact a lot of kewl things from RE4 just got kicked out of the game, I guess this was done due to the massive coop team feature.
What’s new and good:
- hey, it’s Resident Evil – okay, this one doesn’t count…
- graphics/environment/the setting (RE4′s Spain setting was even more scary, but they did a great job bringing fear to Africa’s broad daylight!)
- the controls – a lot of people complained about the new RE5 controls (strafe while walking, turn while running), but I think they are very smart – you just have to get used to them (some people complain about not being able to move while shooting – this handicap is a stylistic device to increase fear just as the fact that you can hardly see your surroundings ’cause the cam is just behind you.)
- weapon / inventory system in real time (look, zombies approaching!) – more realistic and increases tension.
- weapons can be assigned to up/down/left/right keys for quick access, this is something I really missed in GTA4 (bloody weapon cycling!).
- teamplay – even though I rather play alone (the fear thing)
- weapons that are maxed out (again, pimping your weapons is something I missed in GTA4!) sometimes unlock new weapons
What’s new but not really RE:
- you can select any chapter to replay it
- all ammo/treasure is transferred, thus grinding is way to easy
- you can train a certain chapter until you know it by heart, making the game less horrible (in the sense of the “survival horror” genre)
- you can hardly die (your partner can rescue you while you are dying, you really have to try hard or be plain stupid to die in a normal fight) – this takes away a lot of the thrill a survival game should provide
- infinite ammo – come on … the infinite rocked launcher of RE4 was hilarious, but every weapon?!
What’s missing:
- the MERCHANT! (impossible, inexcusable!) “Welcome stranger, what are you buying?”
- you cannot buy treasure maps – so you have to look for the last piece of treasure for ages – could be a pro as well
- weapons that are maxed out don’t unlock their extra special feature (remember the 200 rounds shotgun? hmm…)
- you cannot combine treasures any more to get a more valuable object (I guess this was removed due to the chapter replay option, it would have been far to easy to obtain valuable treasure this way)
- last but not least: the atmosphere. RE4 scared me big time. The only game that really scared the wits out of me is “Fatal Frame” aka “Project Zero”. Compared to those games RE5 is quite boring. The first run is fun, but after that (and after you get comfy with the chapter replay) you just play the game without any adrenaline pumping though your veins. A big let down IMHO.
To sum it up: still a fun game to play, nice next gen fx, but the new coop teamplay lead to a lot of survival horror element cuts. What’s left is a decent horror shooter, nothing more, nothing less. I guess RE will never get to me again like part 4 did, even thought RE6 is said to be completely different to RE4/5. Let’s wait and see…
7/10 – good, different, but not fit to hold a candle to the ingenious predecessor
Review: The Haunting (1963)
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
This is one of the rare gems that you have to stumble upon by chance. Even though this is a classic, I don’t know a lot of people who still bother to watch old movies. Years ago I was zapping and stopped at a non-private channel, seeing this movie for the first time (same for Carnival of Souls (1962)).
First I was hoping for an old school mystery thing, but at the end I was really frightened. Eleanor’s arising insanity is very well portrayed by Julie Harris – still an active actress today.
Don’t bother going for the 1999′s remake, even though Catherine Zeta-Jones is starring as the lusty Theo – it’s a pity Famke Janssen was doing the remake of House on Haunted Hill at the same time (original from 1959 starring Vincent Price), she would’ve been the perfect cast. Sorry, I am drifting off…
Open your mind and give this one a try and see for yourself how an eerie atmosphere is created without any modern technical fuzz.
8.5/10 – not cheesy, not boring – sheer terror awaits at hill house!
Review: The Descent (2005)
Saturday, November 29th, 2008 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
It’s been the second time I saw this movie and it still makes me jump! Finally a scary but not a cheesy movie! Sometimes the story is drifting into an artistic angle, the way the characters are presented, camera movement and the more graphic scenes – everything seems to be deliberately exaggerated without becoming a splatter or gore movie.
The story evolves around a couple of women who do outdoor activities for fun, pretty rough stuff like rafting for example. This time they are going to descent into a cave. Only problem is, that someone didn’t want to take the scenic tourist’s route and chose an never before explored cave for their trip. Bad idea! 
A fun flick to watch, thrilling, shocking, sometimes even repelling. This is what I expect from a “descent” horror movie!
8.5/10 – Pretty much awesome!
Review: El Orfananto (2007)
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | Movies, Reviews | No Comments
Hmm, this was a nice fresh breeze in the horror/suspense genre. An abandoned orphanage, new inhabitants, their kid making new friends that cannot be seen… just a child’s game? Maybe …
This movie is very well done, something apart from recent horror flicks, more a suspense thing with some graphic moments – a classical ghost story.
I wanted to give it a straight eight, but there were a few let downs, too many unanswered questions or logical errors. In the end it’s a nice picture that’ll make you jump once or twice and gives you the creeps even a few hours after the credits. What kind of noise was that kid doing in the hallway?? Seems the 100th clone of The Grudge is finally over. Well done! What I liked best is that everything may have happened as shown – the ghostly explanation in not mandatory – stupid mom
7.0/10
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