Reviews

this film is one of the worst Australian films i have ever seen. it is one of the worst horror films i have ever seen. it is unoriginal and cliché laden, the script should not have been filmed, it should have been burned. no concern has been spent trying to develop a reality in which the story could occur. no energy has been spent trying to make anything in this film interesting. instead it is just part ju-on, part ring, with a dash of snuff. though, even that makes it sound a tiny bit interesting, which it absolutely is not.

this film was so pointlessly bad that i only continued watching to see if it could outdo itself and keep getting worse. in this case it did not let me down. it wasn't even funny bad, it was a tedious 78minutes. acting and characterisation was dull and dodgy. horror was reserved only for the fact that someone spent a chunk of their lives making it. go and vomit in a toilet instead of watching this film, your time will have been much better spent.

unfortunately i could only view the softcore, cut, australia version. but even in this mangled version it was still an interesting film. while there were bad moments, and the young all american boy was one of the worst actors ive ever seen, this was an extremly intriguing film. it was a fun action romp, but deodata's direction is superb. there is a real slash of cannibal holocaust in this film, which adds so much more to it. instead of just being a simple action film, it becomes a very disturbing adn intriguing look into the dark world of cults and mad leaders. the occasionally documentary and mondo aspects add an impressive frisson to the scenes which shouldve looked like left overs from an Arnie or Sly flick.

not the worst film ive ever seen, not by a long shot, but man, this was painful, this was bad, this was annoying! so many interesting films get labelled as misogynistic simply because they have women being murdered. well if ever a film deserved that title, this filmis that film! it has plenty of sexism to go around. the main character is little more than an annoying rambo wannabe, he seems to exist solely to get angry and abuse people, neither of which adds to the enjoyment of the film or the plot! the plot i might add is not particularly interesting, let alone striking or innovative. its not very original, it certainly has little to do with videodrome (as opposed to what other commentators might say) and is far to badly handled to ever inspire any thoughts on it being a fun nod to old b movies. irritating trash of the worst kind!

it was good, I've given it a 9 out of 10 rating. it has its flaws, the script has some plot retardedness, there was a complete lack of any human devouring going on except for one little "cleverly" edited scene (hardly even got to see any biting action), the characters werent as good as the original because there were like 20 of them instead of 4. but otherwise, it did what it set out to do, it gave us a hell of a lot of things which have been missing from the zombie film and was competently put together. some scenes were actually quite effectively horrorific even. the long shots, where they just pulled the camera right back out and showed shots of the entire city and/or landscape, were infused with a certain dread and horror that has rarely been captured in other zombie films. the credits at the beginning were nifty, but so not scary. it was tooooo mtv style to be scary, you know, hey look every 5 seconds we'll flash a close up of zombies on screen and you'll jump out of your seat!..... uhuh, don't think so. occasionally they let the idea that high impact speed horror is more scary than lingering knowledge horror get the better of them and it degraded scenes which couldve been much better. but, there were very few actual flaws with the film, and i think most people would thoroughly enjoy it. but yes, no entrails. no devouring of bodies. which for me, unfortunately, made it a little too much like 28 days later. the actions of the zombies became just brutal bashing violence, like 28 days later. it COMPLETELY lacked the absolute fear of being devoured and swallowed up by these creatures. the fear generated by this film is just nerve ending fear, you never feel it in your bones. but it was still damn good, and I'm sure i will enjoy it even more the second time round. and one should keep an eye out for how many exploitation movie references you can pick up on. wasn't so much references to particular films, but just ideas and styles that are classic 70s 80s exploitation, gotta love that cannibal holocaust scene :D although most people will think its just trying to rip off blair witch....*sigh*

when going into this film, i really had no idea what to expect. the cover made vague allusions to zombies and such but after watching over half the movie i wondered if this was ever going to actually happen. so, by the time i got to the end of it, i was pleasantly suprised. it actually had zombies and they were pretty good for an american flick. the problem with this film is, that aside from being almost totally ridiculous, the first half is very up and down. some sequences are well directed, some sequences are well scripted. but the majority of them in the first half are just ludicrous, and will lead to many comments and jokes from the viewers. the rubber gloved demon surgeon who wanders around the grounds of the mental institution looking like he's is modeling the latest full moon production, standard loony inmates, the laughable dream sequence and the sleeping attire of the main character. its all so ridiculous that it is impossible to get by. however, once it gets past this, and stops attempting to be a stalk and slash piece of trash, once it digs out the zombies and becomes an actual horror film, it gets more in its stride, successfully combining humour and gore and the over the top melodramatic aspects into a rip roaring ending, which will probably still leave you laughing but for a better reason than the first half. an overall enjoyable experience as long as you can survive the tedious first hour. note: while managing to take the final part to a different place than the film it rips off, this film is hugely derivative of nightmare on elm st part 3 and hellraiser 2.

dead kids is very well made and unusual addition to horror cinema. it is an australian/new zealend production, and was made with the intention to sell it to an american market. so you get a film that looks very much like an american film, is shot and crafted like an american film with american actors (who are often better than any australian actor that gets into this kind of film, neighbours and home and away are rarely good casting grounds) but the script has a definite australian feel to it. from the odd, sly humour, to the way it deals with the murders and the almost complete lack of morality in the film. not to say it is immoral, but themes of morality never come into it, which is not often seen in american horror.

for the most part, it is wonderfully directed, one that has to be seen in widescreen to appreciate. however, the murders are somewhat lacklustre, they are directed with very little bite. it is obvious that the director has no idea of hot to show "action". most of the time it does not drastically effect the overall film as this is not a typical slasher film. in a few scenes however, this "relaxed" view of violence heightens the horror, such as the final murder and the "human experiments" carried out on the main character. as mentioned above, the script is quite interesting and entertaining. however, there is a 2 minute ending tacked on after the final showdown which drastically decreases the power of the film.

while not being a classic, it is still one of the better and more interesting horror films of the 80s that deserves a far wider audience than it has recieved.

a very, very silly film. not once will you feel horror or revulsion (unless you are the sensitive type or a nun) but you may smirk, and you may laugh and you may even find yourself cheering on dear old sister gertrude as she goes on her rampage of false teeth destruction, morphine addiction, random sex and abuse and an extreme misuse of stockings. somehow this all ties together in a film which is somewhat cohesive, quite impressively directed for the most part, beautifully scored, very well acted and just generally entertaining. certainly not for everybody though, you do have to have a slightly bent idea of entertainment or at least enjoy cinema on the edge, on the edge of what, im not quite sure. over all, an enjoyable psychodrama with a touch of taboo.

the original story upon which this film is based is an incredibly powerful raw piece of horror. and in writing the script for this film, clive barker managed to capture that, and write some of the best dialogue ive heard from a horror film in a while, just natural and real, without seeping into cliche and trashiness, and while there was not a lot of character development, the characters were again, not cliched. it also had the guts to push boundaries that are normally avoided, even in horror cinema, or should i say especially in horror cinema (but thats a different rant). however, the director deserves to be executed. the entire thing stinks of a dodgy cheap bbc doctor who episode. no imagination in the direction, and not even a documentary style, just a plain old no effort made for tv look, which really hurts the power of the script, totally removes it in fact. add to this the fact that the "monster" looks like something from doctor who as well, except doctor who usually manages to come up with horrors far more scary than this trash. with someone who could actually direct a movie in the helm and some actual effects as opposed to the childrens toy junk that is on offer, this could have been a classic of the 80s. but instead its just a nightmare for all the wrong reasons....

this film works for me. i know it wont work for everybody, but it is worth a go, and it probably is more enjoyable if you've had a couple of drinks and are in a forgiving mood. this film works for me because it is made with verve, everybody (for better or for worse) appears to have really thrown themselves into this film, and they understand that this is not brain surgery, nor is it gone with the wind. there is barely any plot, but they do not allow this to make the film slow, it moves along and its own good pace until it reaches a totally pointless climax which matches up with the rest of the film and thus completes it. it isnt really a laugh out loud film, more like 80 minutes of smirking. right up there with conan for the top silly loin cloth films.

oh my god, i give this film three stars out of ten for the following reasons. the final sequence is once again quite effectively handled and it was absolutely hilarious. that is what it gets those three points for. other than that, it was atrocious. it wasnt meant to be this funny, that much is obvious, but the dubbing, the acting of the dubbed voices, the dialogue they said, where often hilarious. the actions performed, and/or not performed also lead to much hilarity and/or throwing things at the screen. such as when the whole town is being slaughtered and one small group of people stand on a balcony looking on as if they were watching a cooking glass, or the "attempted" escapes from the church in which they hole up.

evil mayor: i think something is going on outside so you should go upstairs and look out the window.

hero: ok.

evil mayor: now is my chance to make some idiot go outside and flail around with fire being totally ineffective and getting hacked up.

insert sequence in which this occurs.

evil mayor: damn, wait, i will get this small child and she will walk outside and cry pappa seemingly obvlious to the fact that those rotten corpses are not just spooky strangers but are actually zombies with no flesh or skin or anything and she will lead them away and i will flee! insert sequence in which this occurs.

hero (upstairs): he is trying to escape again, fool, and he has left the door open, he is silly, this is a nice view.

woman: where is my daughter?

hero (downstairs now): i dont know, i cannot see her anyway and she was not outside because i could not see her despite her being out there and me having a view of the entire neighbourhood and she is standing right outside, where on earth could she be?

needless to say, anybody would be throwing things at the screen after 10 minutes of this. so, watch the first film with a couple of friends, having a few drinks, and make sure by the time you get to watching this one, you are absolutely blindly drunk and can just giggle at the stupidity of it all. and there wasnt even any decent gore, such a shame.

I'm not quite sure what to say about this film. it was interesting. i have encountered the kind of British "lads" that it depicts, and they are not often so clearly depicted. but it did occasionally sink into some kind of weird lady chatterly's lover/heartbeat cross over, which was thoroughly pointless and helped diminish the narrative drive. the story for those who don't know: David (dustin Hoffman) and Amy (Susan George) are on a quiet retreat from American life, living in a cottage in the British countryside. he is there to write a book on mathematics. but Susan has some kind of past with the natives, which is never quite explained. 4 of the locals are working on David and Susan's shed, repairing it, and while David it out hunting one day, one of them (who she seems to have some kind of past with) "rapes" here, and then assists his friend in sodomizing her. David remains oblivious to this occurring, even when the final confrontation comes, in which a couple of rowdy locals including the repairmen attempt to break into his house to kill a man accused of killing a local girl (its all a bit convoluted and i cant be bothered going into all the details). anyway, David finally makes a stand and refuses to move from his house, thus things even in a bloodbath. so, themes of violence, attacking the audience, blah blah blah. this was my first Peckinpah film, and i must admit i was not greatly impressed. a director renowned for his violent imagery, pushing the boundaries at a time when intense violence in the mainstream was largely unheard of, one must approach this film from the time it came from. but that still doesn't help it much. the first major problem: the rape scene. it is hard to tell if this film is sexist, or just trying to show some screwed up relationships. and it is hard to tell if it is just being exploitive or if it does actually have some meaning. unfortunately, i think it is both sexist and exploitive. the rape scene is totally pointless to the narrative, it never once comes into play, and doesn't even affect Susan's participation in the climax. this combined with the fact that it is clearly shown that while she does not want to have sex with the man, she still enjoys it (at least until she is anally raped by the other guy), points it in the direction of pure exploitation. the ending is quite impressively written and directed, paving the way for many films of this type, hell, even home alone can be seen to borrow from straw dogs. so while i found it interesting, and i think it is a reasonably important film in film history, i do not think it is a true classic. now, after watching it, i couldn't help but think of irreversible. both contain similar plot points and themes. but in irreversible, we have Gaspar Noe, a creator who understands destruction, who understands who to wield violence and drive it straight into our hearts so we cannot escape from it. Peckinpah, from what i have read of him, and after viewing this, his most controversial film, i don't think he is a creator. he is only a destroyer, and thus his films come out as they do, heading in one direction only, downhill into death and decay. and because he does not control destruction, only creates it, his vistas of violence are so overplayed that they become exploitive, and tap into our global mainstream unconscious joy for violence, thus a film like straw dogs CAN lead to a film like home alone. Noe on the other hand, because of everything i said above, he needs only one or two acts of violence to make us feel all the things we want or don't want, and because it is so painfully alive it will never become a cypher for entertainment in its most basic form.

this golden oldie is from 1971, that makes it 33 years old, and it actually doesnt look it. well. too much. this is one of the many things which helps make this a thoroughly enjoyable old school horror film. i wasnt sure what i would think of it until it finished, it went up and down a bit,but it made it in the end. it begins as some kind of strange spanish melodrama, with old friends meeting, complicated non-sensical romances, leading to a lone girl wandering into the night, to hide away in an old abandoned monastery....only to be attacked and drained of blood by the evil blind dead! and well, it goes kinda up and down. the blind dead themselves are quite effective, very well designed and very spooky. the scenes of them reading their living dead horses through the night in slow motion are very creepy....until you realise that the horses are stuck in some kind of slow motion hell and the cannot move in any other way. but, it was just so surreal in parts, and wandering all over the place and combining such varied genre types that it ended up succeeding, somehow. the final sequences in which the blind dead spread out into the world are very effective horror of the type one does not see much anymore, and help but the icing on the cake. i was left with a good olf creepy feeling and a desire for me. this one is highly recommended for the middle of the night with a couple of drinks and some good company

in order for people who have not seen this to better understand it, i will compare it to two recent films, bowling for columbine and schindlers list. this is what schindler's list would have been if spielberg wasn't too busy trying to make people think how sad the events were. and whereas bowling for columbine helped people understand what is going on and pushed them on the path to discovering the truth, this film MADE you see and MADE you understand.TF Mous, the director, does a very impressive job of keeping the film from wandering dangerously into the area of exploitation, allowing the script to clearly get across its reason for existing. this film is the accusations that the victims of squadron 731 were never able to make, this is the bloodied finger pointing at the murderers of 3000 people for the sake of death. but then schindler's list did the same thing didn't it? it did....but it made the occurrence safe, they were distanced from us, everything was black and white (both visually and symbolically), it was safe in the past and it couldn't hurt us. man behind the sun does not allow us this safety, it shows us how well this was hidden from everybody, it shows how it is clearly tied to our present, it gives us a first person view into the sickness that man is capable of. in part, it does that by becoming part of the sickness, it is not afraid to get its hands dirty in order to make us understand, which lends it even more power. real corpses are used in several sequences, for a child's autopsy, for the decompression of a man. and there are scenes of animal torture (although the famous rats eating live cat scene is not real, the rats are obviously just licking the cat and the blood is clearly just poured on while the cat is probably drugged causing it to slow down and appear dead), clearly showing that nothing is safe from man when he allows himself to see everything as an object. another thing which makes this so applicable is its connection to America and our modern world. the events in the film are real. and the man at the centre of it all was later picked up by American intelligence and given immunity in return for handing over everything he had learned and coming to work for them. i believe it was called Operation Paperclip. and a hell of a lot of modern medical technology came from the horrific events depicted in the film. and i don't think i need to go into any detail discussing the way prisoners of war are used and abused.....*cough cough*... this is an intelligent, and very very honest film. it is horrific, and most people would be incapable of seeing it. but it is something that people should know about. there is not much we can do anymore about making the world a better place, but we must always strive to know what is going on, to never let our heads be shoved into the sand either by ourselves or the people who supposedly protect us. my only complaint with this film is the god awful sub-titles which often don't even bother translating stuff, which does make comprehension of what is occurring difficult at times, but that is no fault of the films.

Well? Everyone raved over this film like they raved over Ringu, so I should've known better. But I never learn. Ringu was a failure because of its complete lack of imagination and its degeneration into an endless, pointless detective story, which meant that when resolution finally came it was all explained away and any impact was totally dissipated. Well they didn't make the same mistakes in Ju-On?well except for the lack of imagination. But along with that, they made an entire no swath of mistakes! A Ju-On is a type of curse, a spirit of vengeance that haunts a place when the spirit has died in the midst of a great rage. Whoever comes into contact with the Ju-On, will be destroyed by it. Thus we have a house, and we have various stories of people who come into contact with the house that contains the Ju-On. This should have been horrifying and freaky and disturbing, but at every turn, they succeeded in diminishing it to nothing. For a starters, we never get to know ANY of the characters, we meet them, and 5 minutes later they are being terrorised by the spirits. They are less than two dimensional characters, and I am not able to just accept dumb bad character writing like most idiot viewers. The key to making your audience feel fear and anxiety is to get them involved in the characters. They get an F for that one. Because of its fragmented style, the narrative is totally about the spirits and the evil they perform. Thus there is no actual plot, which should allow for some great horror sequences and very little boredom. But after you've seen the first 4 incidents, you realise that they are all exactly the same with little to nor variation and thus you sit bored for the rest of the film waiting to see if they do something interesting. The one time they do actually try something different, it makes to little sense and doesn't seem to be from the same film and involves a character who you never ever found out what happened to him, thus making it irritating and very much not interesting. So there is no imagination in the horror sequences, they get an F for that one too. And oh wow, look , it moves back and forth in time? so you don't actually really know what is going on half the time and have to stop and try and figure it all out, which, in a film that is meant to be a continuous driving horror fest, is not a good thing. It adds very little to the film and increases the irritation factor. They are remaking this one for the western world as I type. I believe that this one could actually be improved by Hollywood, as they will enforce certain narrative aspects and imaginative big budget horror sequences, which while not necessarily the best kind of horror, is a hell of a lot better than any of the trash that occurs in this version.

This is the second film from writer/director/actor Tim Blake Nelson to disappear into film limbo. Known for his leading role in O Brother Where Art Thou, he also wrote and directed O, which was shelved after the Columbine massacre. It has taken 3 years for The Grey Zone to arrive on Australian shores, and it has now gone straight to video. This is a great shame as this is a stunning film worthy of far more attention. It is the true story of the Sonderkommando groups in Auschwitz, the most infamous of all Nazi concentration camps. The Sonderkommandos were Jewish prisoners who volunteered to work on the gas chambers and furnaces in exchange for better treatment and extended life. No team ever lasted more than 4 months, and would themselves be added to the groups herded into the gas chamber by the next sonderkommando group. This is the tale of the 12th group, who used their position to revolt against the Nazis and blow up the two primary gas chambers/furnaces. There are many flaws within the film; the dialogue feels too much like a play which makes the discussions somewhat static, everybody has an American accent except for Harvey Keitel who somehow manages to sound like Mel Brooks impersonating a German, and the details of how they select Sonderkommandos and their lifestyles are not very well dealt with. However, these faults do very little to diminish the power of this film. For above all else, this is a story that not only succeeds in answering the question of why Jews would volunteer for such a duty, but also allows the viewer a stunning and horrifying look into human psychology and the politics of oppression. While a film like Schindler's List allows us a broader view of the overall situation, it failed to truly give any insight into the individuals who allowed the machines of war to keep operating. How could people not rise up and at least to try fight knowing they were going to die anyway? The Grey Zone gives the viewer a very clear and very painful view of the weakness within humanity, of how humans allow themselves to be convinced that everything will be ok, no matter what evidence we have in front of us. In telling the story of the one uprising to occur within the most destructive of all concentration camps, we get to show the good in man, and the evil. And in this the film succeeds above many other films, and is worthy of praise far surpassing the melodramatic tripe that Hollywood usually tries to feed us in regards to the second world war. And, in our current political climate, it is more important than ever to understand how easily we fall back on our ability to turn a blind eye and believe the lies that even our next door neighbour will tell us.

its hard to know what to do with this film. is it enough to state that it is a terribly made film? no. is it enough to state that it's a joke of a film. no. somewhere in between is the right answer, as this is a terrible film, but as far as jokes go, this one may be meandering and pointless and without a punchline, buts that never really stopped a laugh-fest before. we begin with creepy music by Goblin (im sure that most of this soundtrack is exctly the same as the one they did for dawn of the dead) and some kind of factory filled with people with scary tans. suddenly a rat attacks and there is more fake blood than you can poke a stick at, and well...then im not quite sure what happens then. some terrorist thing, with a swat team, and some bad jokes, and some worse jokes, and more scary tans....no, i shouldnt go on, there is just too much badness in this film for me to describe, and i wouldnt want to spoil the fun for you. from the worst screamer ever, to the token nude/vine g-string/what the hell scene, to incredibly over the top gore, and then, ahh the best part, the endless stock footage of animals and native rituals. what endless fun. is best enjoyed if slightly tipsy and you dont have a weak stomach find it if you can!!! and oh yes, last but not least, my new favourite tag line: IF ONLY THEY WOULD DIE!!!!! the cast seemed to through sentences like this around more than they used their guns to put the zombies down....so bad...so very very bad.

An early piece from David Cronenberg, this is his first cinematic exploration of themes which he would continually come back to throughout his career in films such as eXistenZ, Videodrome, The Fly and Crash. to best explain these themes, i must qoute the man himself, "I was saying, I love sex, but I love it as a veneral disease. I am Syphilis. I am Enthusiastic about it, but in a very different way from you." and while that doesnt shed a whole lot of light on the film, it sure is a hell of a qoute :) the plot of Shivers, aka The Parasite Murders, revolves around a parasite which has been bred to heighten sexual desire and other primal instincts while dampening our mental awareness. this parasite has been let lose within a high-tech high rise block thanks to the experiments upon a young girl by an older scientist. the horror begins immediately, as do the social metaphors and ideas of sex and death. it is interesting to note this film was produced before the outbreak of AIDs, but is entirely applicable in our modern world. in some ways this is a tale of warning, of what can go wrong and how we can destroy ourselves. but above all, cronenberg delights in sinking us into the flesh, so the film can also be seen as fable of a world gone mad with life and freedom, which many would not consider so horrific. it defies simple catergorisation, it is not just a story about rampantly sexually active teenagers like so many of its kind. it is a story about every person's desire for safety, and the darker desires which hide behind it. wonderfully directed, intriguingly written, there is little that i can fault this film for, except perhaps its little to obvious reference to Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. while it is obviously partly inspired by that film, and brilliantly reinterprets it for a new age and a new social strata, the tiresome zombies that stagger about like slugs are a little out of place, but fortunately it does not let the film down. a must see.

TCM remake is f***ing dumb. its written by someone who has no idea of horror and directed by someone who obviously has no diea of cinema and only knows how to direct music clips, which rarely contain suspense or horror (and i dont mean horror of the gore variety, i mean horrorific).....5 seconds before the end of each scene, you know how it is going to end, and you were always right... basically everything they changed in it from the original, they changed solely so as to make it more offensive and crude, rather than horrific or interesting. "we'll get rid of the sick weird frightening grandpa character that has freaked more people out than jesus, and we will replace him with some old war veteran with no legs who needs a cathatar to urinate. cathatars are gross and freaky, it'll make the kids wanna puke or something" ARRRRRRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then replacing hitch with some retarded typical traumatised comatose girl who then pulls a gun out of her underwear and blows her brains out!! what the hell! they made it as offensive as they could, instead of actually freaky and scary like the original opening. AND NOT ONE REFERENCE TO CANNIBALISM!! not to mention the screwing up of symbology. the original film is about the collision between the old decaying world and the new world, it is a social metaphor. the old world, its all there on display, we only choose to turn a blind eye to it, it is not actually hidden from view. the entire house is filled with horrorific degeneration and murderous activities. in the remake, everything looks normal, its all happy families and fine and dandy. no, all the sick stuff happens in the basement, frued's sub concious, the darkness underneath the happy exterior! thereby cancelling out most of the deeper meaning of the original. in this remake, they have removed the originalty of the first film, the meaning behind it all, and replaced it with the typical cliched all-american horror images and ideas, there by making it no different to films like valentine or i know what you did last summer. its all messed up. they ripped everything out of the original film adn replaced it with blood soaked fairy floss.... minus 10 stars.

"so what's the film about" "well its about this guy who is a secret agent and he loses his memory" "so how are you going to establish his character and make people identify with him" "we'll have matt damon play him" "oh good, well we wont worry about making him an actualy character then"

and this sums up one of two major problems with this film. one is that it is totally about it being matt damon. jason bourne is not an individual, he is matt damon. now i dont have a probably with damon, i think he can be a fine actor, but there was no discernable writing in regards to his character. i was left feeling more for one of the assasians who is sent after him and was only in the film for 5 minutes than i was for the two main characters. it meant that one got to the end of the film and asked why? followed by who cares. the second problem was that the director seemed to be going for an old fashioned 70s spy film feel, the kind were lots of talking happens and then there is a 5 second fight scene and we then cut back to exotic locales and lots of talking with exotic women and tough men. except the director had no idea of how to achieve this, so the film just dragged on interminably, leaving the viewer wondering when something was actually going to happen. it never did. 1 out of 10 thouroughly average

this film did and did not work. it evoked very real feelings of what it is like to be young and lost, what it is to be unknowingly abandoning things which held so much meaning for one once. but as a narrative and emotive piece, it continuously cheated, covering things up so that the audience was confused and lead along on a leash, only to discover facts about the characters had been obscured just to make the end more dramatic, to force the plot to keep moving. and it left one asking, why? in the end it just felt like self important tripe, tripe which invoked many real and painful feelings about the nature of existence, but still fundamentally tripe. and scarlett johansen cannot act.

this one really doesn't deserve the raves it got. yeah its fun and its cute, the animation is amazing, but it just wasnt that spectacular. the plot was straight forward the characters were cute, and with the exception of one or two, werent very memorable, and the jokes were not very memorable.

in comparison to pixar's previous film, monsters inc, this one couldve been spat out by disney during the 80s. yeah its fun, and it cant be faulted for that, but as of writing, it is number 83 on the top 200, and fun and cute should never be mistaken for classic, inovative, stunning cinema.

session 9 is a very interesting film, that also happens to be seriously scary. a true psychological horror film, it follows a group of hazmat workers decontaminating an abandoned state psychiatric hospital. well, to be honest, this film scared the hell out of me. when it was over, i was not ready to go to bed yet as i wouldve laid in the dark for hours thinking things which are best not to think while attempting to sleep. the final words of the film are so truly haunting and leave one thinking about the nature of insanity. with excellent acting and director, this one will leave you thinking about it for days.

first things first, the dialogue sucks, it really really sucks. a lot of the characters are painfully undeveloped. the good news however is that everything else manages to make up for this which is quite an achievement. jeffery combs is still herbert west, and always will be. half the enjoyment of this film is watching him play an older and beautifully realised west. the rest of the enjoyment comes from the intense horrific violence, which is wonderfully realised, and it all pays off in the last 20 minutes when previously useless characters come to fruition. and be sure to watch the first 5 minutes of the credits for one of the greatest battles ever played out in cinema history.

an early film from rolf de heer (bad boy bubby, the tracker), it is also one of the most impressive pieces of visual art to be created in australia, and far superior to the majority of horror coming from the rest of the world. a tale of the human condition in the lonely mental wastelands of the australian outback, de heer succeeds in making us feel the insanity and discordance which lurks beneath the surface of country australian life for anybody who can no longer keep themselves sane through nature, sports or trips to the pub. far superior to picnic at hanging rock, this is a film that will truly creep you out and leave you thinking about what lurks outside. america has its backwoods, and australia has its outback.

some have commented that this is plot-light, and in some ways it is, but it doesnt need a plot. this episode of the animatrix is pure philosophy and lead in to a great character in the films. the key to overcoming reality in the matrix is to unlearn everything you know. if you can learn that gravity is meaningless, then it is meaningless, our minds hold total power. and if we can make ourselves believe that death is not the end....well.. brilliant philosophy, amazing, unique animation. great stuff.