Reviews

The seventh installment of the Child's Play franchise introduces some interesting, albeit hamfisted in ideas. We got a brief glimpse of this at the end of Curse when Chucky was performing the soul spell on Alice, and then showing up at Andy's place in the box.

The payoff from that last bit comes immediately, as the movie opens with Andy having Chucky's head in a safe, a quarter of it blown off from the shotgun he had pointed at him and fired off when the screen went black, along with some interesting patch work to keep Chucky's head relatively together.

It's been four years, and Andy has been taking justice out in his own way, suffice at the expense of having any kind of real life. We get a slight insight into this, but unfortunately little more than that. By the end of the movie, you might be wishing this had gone in a similar vein, but instead had focused on Andy's attempts to stop Chucky.

Sadly, the movie then moves to Nica, Chucky's daughter. What follows is a bunch of typical, cliché "You're nuts, but you're not really nuts, but everyone tells you you're nuts" psychiatric schlock. And the interesting twist to the series is slowly poked at and introduced.

Chucky, with some help from Tilly, makes his way into the hospital that Nica is being held in. But wait, how can he be there if Andy has his head? Well, as is eventually revealed, Chucky can now split himself into other dolls, and other people.

This is a neat, but as I said, hamfisted idea. How he came about this is passed away by his claim that he found a new spell in a voodoo for dummies book a few years ago, basically. And that's it. There's no touching on how in the hell his soul can be put, fully, into multiple dolls. But it is. And each doll literally seems to be a full, new Chucky, acting the same, same murderous intent, so on and so forth.

There's a lot of implications here, and a ton of questions that people with a thirst for sci-fi and theology might have. But, again, it's glossed over very quickly and is basically a "He can do this because the plot requires it" type of thing.

Even sadder, Chucky does not really get to shine until there's only about 18 minutes left in the film. There's brief snippets of him and his unique humor and homicidal tendencies, yes, but he doesn't go nuts, so to speak, and break out until right near the end. This is quite different from Curse, where when he revealed himself and started his killings, there was still a good chunk of movie left for him to do that in.

This causes a rather uneven tone. While there is blood leading up to this, it's quite obviously subdued for the most part. However, once Chucky makes his big reveal, the blood and gore amps up quite noticeably, and a lot of kills are stuffed into the film rather quickly.

The first scene with the multiple Chucky's together, thankfully, is quite hilarious. But again, it does show a lot of missed opportunity here, had Chucky revealed things sooner.

How the movie ultimately ends also brings up a hell of a lot of questions as to how the franchise is going to be, moving forward. The implication seems to be that Chucky as we have known him for seven films will NOT be returning, so.

It's not a bad film, persay, it's just that it's not quite as great as Curse was. The hospital Nica is in and that much of the film takes place in is weirdly well furnished, and seems very well maintained, despite the outside of it looking run down as hell. It also has a VERY sterile look and feel to everything. Seriously, damn near everything is white as can be. It's a stark change from the darkness of Curse.

Ultimately, the movie doesn't reach the levels the first two managed to attain, and doesn't have near enough Chucky being Chucky. It introduces some ideas, but doesn't elaborate on them well enough.

Here's hoping that it does well enough with its release that yet another one is made, and that it doesn't take quite as long, and that it returns to the format that made Curse such a surprisingly good sequel, while improving on what flaws that movie had as well.

Four minutes into the film, I counted numerous retcons just from Alice's little monologue that she always does at the start of these things. Then of course there are more retcons or just glaringly ignoring things established in previous films, and by the end of this film, if you paid attention to anything that happened in the last five, you'll be sitting there wondering what in the hell was the point of anything in the last five (yes, even the first one) because they basically ignore EVERYTHING.

This movie is an excuse for action, nothing more, and the editing, the atrocious, god awful, 90 cuts for a 30 second fight editing kills any enjoyment you might get from said action.

What little plot exists basically boils down to Alice was betrayed by Wesker, the white house was blown up, and she awakens under some rubble. She goes investigating, the Red Queen lures her to Raccoon City, and along her way there she runs into Dr Marcus who is, for some random reason, in a tank directing the undead towards the city.

Of course, along the way, Alice runs into random people...again...for the sixth time in a row. Helps them, then drags the survivors along with her to go back into the Hive.

Overall, the motivations for what happened in general through these movies end up being very basic (destroy the world to reboot it) and the motivations for anything beyond that make NO. EFFING. SENSE.

You see - Umbrella destroyed the world and wanted to ensure a small group survived to establish a new world order. All well and good - these people are all UNDER THE FREAKING HIVE THOUGH.

And the Red Queen and her allegiances have been altered and retconned so many times through this whole series, to do it AGAIN is just ridiculous. Also, haven't they destroyed Red Queen several times over by now? Oh yeah - that whole ending from Retribution, where Wesker injected Alice with the virus again to give her powers once more? Where the last of humanity was supposedly making a last stand? Yeah, that was all BS. Apparently? None of the films plots make any sense when you try and put them together. Zero. Nadda. Zilch. Don't even try. And don't watch this piece of garbage, there are far better and superior action/gore fests out there.

Oldboy is a remake. Leave it at that and go into it with nothing more than that. Open it to the movie itself.

This movie is by no means a masterpiece, however having watched a great deal many bad movies, B movies, extremely low budget movies, I fail to see what everyone else is complaining about.

Our story is about a man named Joe, who we learn fairly quickly in the first few moments is rather a bit of an asshole. He has an ex wife, won't attend his daughters third birthday for the very reason she is only three and work is all important, and then when he lands a big deal thanks to the wife of the man who gave it to him....he hits on said wife.

And not subtly either. Needless to say, this does not end well and he proceeds to drink himself into a stupor.

The next day, he awakens in what I personally consider a rather tortuous room...it's made to look like a cheap motel room from the early 90's (which the movie starts in) but Joe soon realizes is a prison. The mental trauma of being stuck in what appears to be a normal room but you know is not and you can't get out, well....

The first third of the movie then shows Joe over the next twenty years of his life and finding out he is framed outside those walls for the murder of his wife. Seeing on the news in a television in his room that his daughter was adopted, he vows to change himself and escape one day.

The rest of the movie deals with his search for answers as to why he was imprisoned, who put him there, and to get his revenge and clear his name. It sounds like a typical American who-dunnit movie, however as things are revealed, it becomes clear there is a much darker motive to his capture.

For one, the fact he was willingly released the day he tries to escape.

Everything that occurs is not exactly spellbinding, and it certainly takes its time to get rolling. It's not a movie everyone will be captured by intellectually by any means, and any action buffs seeing this will be disappointed after the extremely well done and brutal hallway fight scene.

However...everything in this movie happens for a reason, with a purpose, even if it doesn't always make sense with the random cuts and jumps in time (very likely due to the heavy editing the studios did to trim the original time down) In the end, regardless, you will be shocked, likely horrified, and almost certainly enthralled and remembering back to everything you just saw in the last forty minutes with a completely different view.

And you will likely either love the ending, or if you're extremely jaded, find it just another in a long series of twists.

I would implore anyone with any genuine interest in this movie, however, to give it a chance and watch it. Expect nothing, and simply let yourself into the world it shows you.

Pleasantly surprised does not begin to say how much I loved the movie.

And I'm a huge fan of the original.

Curse of Chucky is by no means a literary masterpiece, even by horror standards, but what it does, it does well.

The story focuses on Nica (by no coincidence, I'm sure, played by Brad Dourif's real life daughter) and her harrowing experience. One day, out of the blue, a fairly large package is delivered containing Chucky. He looks just a tad different from his original form, but still very much the same.

Moving on...Nica's mother dies, prompting her sister, sisters hubby, child and nanny to come over and console her. And general mayhem ensues from there. There are some neat little twists with the characters, and Chucky himself is genuinely creepy once again, thank god.

Sadly, the one thing this movie suffers from is it takes a good long while for Chucky to be Chucky. Yes, we see him a lot, we see very small signs he's alive, but he doesn't say anything until the 45 minute mark, and we don't see his face animated at all until then either. We don't see him actually up and about until about 5 minutes after that. Once he does, he's great, but the movie takes just a bit too long to bring him in.

There are, of course, plot issues with the movie and extremely convenient plot holes (ie phones don't work, cell phones can't get a signal, yet somehow they can connect to the internet to do research on Charles Lee Ray and the Chucky murders involving Andy, convenient wheelchair in the closet, characters run to the garage and could escape, but don't to go back and find the little girl) The lighting and atmosphere in the movie is superb. The music as well is incredibly good at setting mood and keeping tension in the movie, and for intensifying the scares.

The connection with the first movie is fairly well done too, if extremely subtle with some details.

Sadly, this movie does not ignore bride or seed of chucky, and despite the fact that the movie is all around good, it feels the need to remind us about the last two piles of crap with the ending and jennifer tilly doing a small cameo, of course being the one who mailed Chucky to begin with.

The very final scene is...odd, to say the least, and brings doubts to Chucky continuing in any way, shape or form past this movie.

This movie deals with an overly obscure ghost story about the Grey Man. The Grey Man whispers in peoples ears when a storm is coming...basically, the legend is that he warns people about storms.

Yeah. That alone should tell you how awful this movie is.

The main premise is that this group of people end up hearing about a house that is supposedly haunted by this Grey Man. They decide they're going to become "ghost" hunters, but in a duality sense....their real objective is to show what a load of crock all those ghost hunter shows really are, by faking a lot of things happening in this house and filming all of it.

It's a good premise for the first five minutes. And then you hear about the Grey Man legend, and it just goes downhill from there.

With a very short running time of an hour and 4 minutes, this movie takes over 75% of it's time to get to anything "scary" happening. The first 40 minutes deal with interviews, talking with the family, explaining the legends, talking about what they're planning (usually in overly vague and generalizing terms, such as the camera guy saying "I'm setting up all these cameras everywhere, to capture everything!") At almost exactly 41 minutes and 10 seconds in this movie, is when something finally does happen. The scene that is depicted on the movie poster, with the girl floating above her bed....except that it looks nothing like on the poster of course.

After this, it's a blatant rip off of Paranormal Activity, with one of the ladies screaming, the main guy runs in with a camera just as she's being pulled through a door by something. He saves her. There's nothing there. She wants to get out. He says they're going to stay, finish, just get some rest.

After being dragged through a door by something or someone, yes, get some rest! And then it just cuts to the next day.

There's a séance after this, where the "psychic" of the group brings in an Ouija board, they establish that something is there with this, and then said psychic begins to cry "blood" from his eyes (its very poorly done) then goes into a bathroom and vanishes.

One of the ladies goes looking for him, she ends up in the little girls room, the door slams shut on her, she sits on the bed filming herself, the little girl shows up behind her looking a bit evil. She then quickly leaves the room, the woman gets pulled under the bed.

Little girl goes downstairs, the main door opens for her all by itself, she walks out. The mother gets her stomach cut open, the father gets his head hit, and the doors slam shut. The main guy gets hit in the stomach, falls on the floor, and his eyes turn grey.

All of this is done in the most laughable, badly shot and over acted way possible.

So for 40 minutes of build up, you get roughly 3 minutes of "scary" stuff.

This is one of those movies where they did a better job on the artwork for the DVD. That this even got a release on DVD is amazing really.

There's no real explanation in the movie either about why this is happening, the inference is that the Grey Man latched onto their daughter and "protects" her by making her hover over her bed, and then killing a bunch of people, including her family. The only real conclusion to come to from the info in the movie, is the little girl is the reincarnation of the Grey Mans dead lover, who he lost in a storm (hence why he warns people about them)

*insert raspberry sound here* This was baaaaaaaaad. I thought 4 was bad, but this makes 4 look like a shining gem of a movie.

Plot is same as always, group of people cheat Death because one of them inexplicably has a premonition about how they're all going to die.

This was interesting in the first movie, because it was something new, we hadn't really had a horror movie where we didn't actually ever see what was doing all of it, and because the "villian" or bad guy killing everyone, literally could not be stopped.

Unfortunately, unlike the first two, it has devolved into basically setting up grotesque looking death traps. Whereas in those first two movies, it actually explored how freaked out people would really be if stuff like this happened, and how the person who had the vision would essentially go a bit nuts, they just keep losing things that made them great.

Like, for instance, the small warning signs. There was one that I can recall in this movie, and it was the girl who gets her eye all burned up by the laser, she drops a photo of her and a friend and it shatters outward from that eye. Everyone else, no warning signs whatsoever.

Ominous and inexplicable audio and visual cues when "Death" shows up to start the trap, sure, but small things like the warnings, made these films originally very interesting, kept you guessing.

This just basically tries to fool you. Such as in the gymnasium, there's the screw on the beam, the electric cord in the water, the fan. They make them all seem very evil and it's really about the only death trap that does this. But it's essentially just a slap in the face, as what happens - girl to die gets off beam, goes onto swinging bars, another girl gets onto the beams. She eventually stabs the screw into her foot, falls down, knocks the fan onto it's side, blows dust around the girl on the beams, she STUPIDLY dismounts, twirls around, lands on her neck.

It just makes you want to put your head in your hand and shake it.

The girl with the laser, does actually get her eye/hand burned pretty good by it, but actually dies by slipping out of the window and landing on a car. Chinese looking guy, same thing, falls on the needles in his body, fire envelopes the room....what kills him is the buddha statue falls on his head.

Two deaths actually occur with absolutely no warning and little build up, the jerk boss gets a wrench smashed into his face at high speeds, which you basically see rattling around and then falling onto a belt about 15 seconds before, and the guy at the end gets crushed by a plane wheel, right after he finds out the guy he "killed" to steal his life, was going to die anyways.

Oh, and the main character realizes they're screwed on the plane about 15 seconds before it actually goes boom and takes him and the girl with it.

On that note, there are two things this movie did somewhat right....the "twist" of this being a prequel to the first one, had you heard NOTHING about this before seeing the movie, would probably make you go "Ohhhh...nice!" And they setup the inevitable continuation of the series, as the Coroner from the first two movies, in one scene, explains that "He's seen this stuff happen before....a group of people cheat Death and then one by one, it comes back for them...to reset the balance" and blah blah blah.

Once you realize this is a prequel....DING DING DING!! This stuff was happening for god knows how long BEFORE Alex ever got off the plane in the first movie :O Shock and awe!! And likely where the sequels will come in.

However, they made a BIG BIG BOO BOO in continuity here (actually, there's major continuity issues throughout this whole movie if you pay attention) ..... when they board the plane at the end and after Alex and everyone gets off, the main guy looks at his plane ticket.

The first movie took place in 1999, starting on September 25th. That was when the plane took off for Paris, and Alex and everyone got off, blah blah. The ticket in ~this~ movie shows the date being May 13th, 2000.

Again, face in hand, shake at the sheer idiocy.

Every time a new installment comes out, I keep hoping they'll do it wisely, do something actually new (the concept of taking anothers life for you own is not new, they did a version of this in 2, trying to save the baby, escaping deaths grip by being drowned and clinically dead for a few minutes) and of course, it never works.

Even just somehow tie the rest of the movies together, like they did with the second to the first one. Actually go somewhere with the damn story for once! Bring back the thought provoking of the first movie.

If this is any indication of the future movies, then I know it won't be happening, unfortunately.

The original Fright Night is a classic monster movie, many many people grew up loving it and watching it again and again, it's a cult classic. And like so many classic horror movies, it was inevitable this would be remade as well.

Unfortunately, this decision comes after the massive sweep of disappointing horror remakes, especially of the big 3 (Nightmare, Friday, and Halloween) and so it was met with a lot of negativity and skepticism, myself included.

I was, thankfully, very wrong.

The only reason I write this so long after the release, is I did not see it in theaters, as there were no shows in non-3D, a fact which also likely hurt the movie very much. 3D had no place in this film, what parts were even 3D in nature were obviously changed at the last minute to be part of that cheap gimmick.

The movie starts off with showing us a random family being killed by Jerry, and then goes into a homage of the opening of the original, with Charlie watching a promo for Fright Night with Peter Vincent, except of course, it's on an HDTV this time around.

The movie is filled with small homages like this, from Evil sarcastically saying "Oh, you're so cool Brewster" to Charlie calling him Evil, the club scene where Jerry takes and turns Amy, Amys face contorting into that overly sinister and freaky grin like in the original (unfortunately only for one brief shot) and many other things.

The story is paced much faster this time around, there isn't nearly as much wondering and worrying, spying on the neighbor and everything. And Jerry does not bide his time and play along with Charlie, quite the opposite in fact, once Charlie is onto him and becomes a nuisance, Jerry actually goes after him full force, which was a quite pleasant change from the original.

Much of the same stuff happens in this film, just in different ways and at different points, modernized, but yet still with that charm of the original. An actual remake, taking what the original did and had, and making it into its own movie, but not forgetting what it's supposed to be.

This one also ups the gore level considerably, though it's nothing modern day movie goers aren't used to, and by todays standards, would probably be considered a bit tame for a horror movie. Ironically, it's actually Evil Ed that gets most of the gore parts in the film, he loses a limb, is hacked in the neck by an axe, and has part of his heart stabbed out of his chest as well.

There are a few small things this film does not bring over, or changed for the worse however. None of the vampires change into any type of animal or anything, so there are no scary wolf creatures, no Ed in that horrific half man/half wolf state, no demonic bat, no melting zombie type thing. While the ending does take place in Jerrys home and mainly in the basement, Jerrys home is nowhere near as grand or interesting as in the original, it's just a normal, boring suburban house which hides a rather extended basement under it, which in itself is rather underwhelming.

And then of course, at the end, after Jerry having been much more creative and forceful and gung ho about killing Charlie throughout the movie, he gains the stupid villain curse and basically toys around with him.

As far as remakes go however, this is a shining example of how to do it right. It's not perfect, so many movies nowadays aren't, but it's certainly above the rest of the remakes that have come out in recent years, and should not be missed just because we've had to wade through so much trash before.

You won't be disappointed.

I don't mind films that try to be artistic or stylish in one way or another, it can be interesting.

Having sets look like they're made out of paper and taken straight from a 4 year olds drawing is not artistic. Lighting everything in various hues from blue to green to red to yellow and blah blah blah is not artistic, it's lazy.

Here's the basic plot....world blew itself up, humans decided they should ban guns....why guns only, I don't know, since the movie establishes that we basically nuked ourselves near to extinction, but HEY. So this is post apocalyptic.

1 man, Drifter, and another Japanese man, Yoshi (yes, seriously) both are after a man named Nicola, who, as we are CONSTANTLY reminded, is the strongest man east of the Atlantic. And by constant, I mean at least every 15-20 minutes.

Drifter wants to kill him for reasons that are never really explained...at all. Yoshi wants back a medallion that Nicola stole from his clan. Yup.

In a SERIOUSLY dragged out first half, Drifter and Yoshi come to cross paths with The Bartender (yes, seriously again) and then each other. Drifter eventually "borrows" 48,000 dollars from Yoshi to enter a poker game, in order to challenge Nicola to....another poker game. To draw him out into public, as he never goes out (the movie claims nobody knows what he looks like, but of course, WE are shown his face many times over) In doing this, Yoshi gets caught up and gets his Uncle killed and his cousin kidnapped, they both go after Nicola for even more reasons, blah blah blah. All of this takes an hour and a half to establish and get out there. 90 minutes!!! During this, there are poorly choreographed fight scenes, which establish a few things.....in this post apocalyptic world, anyone can challenge who rules if they have at least 20 men and can win in the challenge. Nicola usually only sends 1 of 9 "killers" he keeps as his personal guard basically, although we don't really see any of the others except for very brief shots. Killer #2 (....noticing the lack of actual names with anyone but Nicola?) is the only one really fleshed out to any degree as a character.

People use old time technology....VERY old time. As in, 40's style phones, morse code machines, and people drive around in what are essentially clown cars. And since there's no guns, everyone fights with knives/swords, and just sheaths or pieces of wood they find lying around.

Yet everyone has overly fancy clothing.

IF you're willing to sit through a lot, a LOT of unnecessary narration (such as pointing out that men in red enter a room...when they're entering the room....not kidding) and conversation that is meant to be deep and philosophical yet is just boring and ultimately pointless, the movie does have a few interesting points (the poker game is intriguing) and some slightly decent fight scenes....emphasis on slightly.

But the story is basically non existent. The reason for everything happening is very simple, very boring, and takes just over two hours to tell. It's basically taking the plot of a Final Destination movie and trying to stretch it out for another 45 minutes.

Much like anyone else who has seen this, or plans to see it, I was lured in by the trailers, in particular the "funny" one, which makes it seems like a seriously campy B movie, about a homicidal tire that goes around and blows things up, for apparently no reason other than it can.

Unfortunately, any/all humour is located in that trailer.

The movie opens, weirdly enough, with shots of many chairs, and a man holding too many binoculars. What occurs after seems to really have no reason, as a car starts driving down the road, knocking over all of these chairs (and in no way tries to hide the fact, they were made to crumble at the slightest tap) The car pulls in next to binocular man, a "sheriff" of sorts gets out of the trunk, taps on the window, is handed a glass of water, and proceeds to seemingly break the fourth wall, talking to the audience about movies that contained elements of no reason, such as why ET was brown. Somehow I don't think people were really scratching their heads about that back in the day, or even today, and the rest of the list he rambles off just made me think, this is going to be a preachy movie. And sure enough, because after the "sheriff" is done his spiel, the camera pans back to a crowd of people, the ones he was actually talking to, they are handed the binoculars, and begin to "watch" the movie with us *groan* From this point on, while the movie is occurring, (which in all truth, if you consider the parts about the tire and it's journey the real movie, is maybe 20 or 30 minutes in total), we are constantly reminded that this is all happening, because these people, and us, are watching. I'm sure to a select few, this is great art. And that's fine. But it also shows why this was never released en masse (at least until DVD/blu ray) to the public and in theaters. There would have been no point, as word would have spread like wild fire about the horrendous nature of this film.

Much like the opening monologue, explaining no reason, there is no reason to this film, and that's apparently the whole point. It's an homage to no reason. Absolutely nothing must make sense, and nothing must be explained.

So essentially, they took the most annoying, idiotic thing about movies (the things that are never explained) and packed that into a full movie, in a constant state of moving. The minute you realize this, you're dreading watching the rest, morbid curiosity or not. Had they decided not to be so god damn preachy and constantly reminding you, that this is not real, this is a movie, actually gone the dark humor/b movie horror route, it would have been much better.

There is gore in this movie, heads/animals explode, in true enough B movie fashion. That, and the scene where people shoot at the "sheriff" because he tells them to, to prove it's not real, are really the only interesting parts, in this entire movie.

And be fore warned, at least 20 minutes of this debacle is artsy shots, shots of the drab, desert landscape, shots of the tire rolling around aimlessly, shots of plants, shots of the tire drowning in a pool, just laying there *sighs* The ending, as well, will have you smacking yourself in the head, wondering why you watched this POS.

Also, do not be fooled by the description of the movie. There is no town. There is the desert spot where the people are watching....and there is a gas station, and a very crappy looking motel. Which is somewhere near Hollywood *rolls eyes* People claim that it does give you the unexpected, that it is clever in it's own right, that it is ingenious!! Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I think a lot of people are starting to get really blind to blatant stupidity, smacking them right in the face, and kicking them square in their ass. Watch, if you dare, because this is not a movie that is so bad, it's good. This is not Troll 2. This is a movie that a lot of money was put into, and there are no quirky catch phrases, or absurd plot devices aside from the sheriff shooting scene. There is just mind numbing, dragging you through mental hell torture.

The problem with sequels is always that you expect more than the first one, you expect bigger, better, faster, more. You figure the first time around was the learning and experimenting, the second time around is the good stuff.

Experimenting almost always works out better.

The movie opens much like the first, with a car being pulled up into a drive way. This time, the car is carrying a baby boy named Hunter and his parents, being filmed by their daughter. Through the course of events, we are rather subtly told that this couple have been married before, or at least the dad (Dan) has, and the grown daughter (Alli) is his child from a previous marriage, making his wife (Kristi) now her step mother, and Hunter her step brother.

Of course, much like the first, this family is pretty well off, living in a rather sizeable house, with a pool in the backyard, a nanny (Martine) and a dog (Abby) We are then shown that Kristi is actually the sister of Katie, from the first movie, and these events are happening prior to Paranormal Activity. Both Katie and her twit boyfriend Micah make appearances in this.

One day, we are shown the house has been trashed, tables have been turned over, pots/pans have been thrown on the ground, paintings have been thrown to the floor, general messiness and chaos....except for Hunters room and the basement. Nothing is missing, save for a necklace Katie gave to Kristi at some point (the first of the flawed logic, as from this point on, everyone continuously says that ~nothing~ was taken, and the necklace is never mentioned again) At this point, the family decides to install cameras throughout the house, 5 if I recall correctly, one in the kitchen, living room, main hallway, outside at the pool, and Hunters room. Much of what happens is then shown through these cameras, although periodically people do use hand helds.

This is where the movie falls down. Unlike the first, where it was localized to one room, there are 5 locations constantly changing through each and every night, and for a ~very~ long time, nothing remotely interesting happens (a pool cleaner machine keeps being out of the pool each morning, but we are not shown how for quite some time) Instead, the build up is ~much~ slower this time around, and frankly, less scary. Whereas in the first, there was no actual location the so called demon came from, it just appeared downstairs somewhere and kept coming up to their room, this one sets out that it's in the basement, so anytime it really shows up, it's ~always~ in the same place.

And whereas the first built up and gradually got worse and worse, this varies in what happens. One night it can be just a sound, or a door closing and locking the daughter out, another night it's footsteps going up to Hunters room and Hunter being slowly pulled up and out of the crib, then left to wander the house on his own (somehow making it back to the crib by himself), but nothing overly BAM, right in your face until very far into the movie.

My main gripe is the ambiance. Whereas the first built and built constantly, this weaves back and forth through everything is all right, to it's not, to it is, to it's not, again and again. It constantly shatters the ambiance, which is not good.

Furthermore, in the first, there was not always that faint rumbling to cue that something was about to happen. Things just happened, especially when they started to occur during the day. This time, there is ALWAYS that rumbling, it ALWAYS warns you when something is about to happen, save for one scene late in the movie.

While it does have scares, it also has flawed logic. The cameras are all set up to one main computer, where they can watch the footage at any point they want. Only twice do any of them do this, Alli after the front door slams and locks her out one night, and to see how the pool cleaner gets out every night. However (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) When the dog is attacked and you hear that it was seizure like symptoms, AND when the wife is attacked and 'possessed' and drastically changes her personality, SOMEONE would check the footage from the night before. But they don't. And then the movie does something very stupid....when there is hand cam footage taken of Kristi, they omit what happens between her and Alli in Hunters room. All we see is a few hours later, Alli calling her dad to get home right away, crying hysterically, and then yelling at him to watch the tape from the cam. It is NEVER shown what happens, and it's never explained, they just automatically jump to "somethings wrong with Kristi" So a wee bit of flawed logic, less scares, and a LOT more talking about nothing really, choppy ambiance and atmosphere that constantly changes from good to bad to good. As a whole, it doesn't work as well, and it's not better. It's like the dumbed down "american" version sadly.

However....it does combine both movies and give fairly good explanation to why this is happening (though you might miss it from boredom) and also serves as a short sequel to the first movie at the very end. Unfortunately, the ending is not anywhere near as spine tingling as the first, and just....ends.

Fortunately, this is already doing well enough that they will likely green light a third one. I would seriously suggest they let the guy who made the first make that, as he's much better at it, and go back to simplistic tactics and don't try to take on so much....or if they do, use better cameras!!

I was quite surprised by this movie after having watched the god awful Tribe sequel that was very hyped up, but was complete crap. When I heard about this one, I instantly asked why, when that one was so horrible.

Well, thankfully, I gave it a chance, and I'm glad I did so. While nowhere near as good as the original and not in the same feel/tone as it, this is a good movie on it's own terms.

Opening up with a flashback to 5 years previous, we see what had happened to Alan Frog finally, in that he was turned into a vamp by ostensibly being force to drink vamp blood during an assault in Washington to save a congressman. I say ostensibly, because when you see the shot, it doesn't fully look like he's being force, and even after finishing the movie, I'm still curious if that is going somewhere in further movies.

Anyways, Edgar is right where he was at the end of the tribe, living in his little shack. He's contacted by a vampire novelist looking for her brother, who she believes has been kidnapped by DJ X and his gang of vamps to become a sacrifice during a full blood moon. Why they want to sacrifice him does not become evident until the ending, and ~should~ have raised Edgar's curiosity, but did not.

Having destroyed Sam, who apparently became a vamp, he seems to be stuck in a depression, and the movie does not spell it out, but this would be the reason for his being 'sloppy' as I took it.

When they do go to rescue the brother, the movie does what the tribe failed to do....turn 180 degrees in the last 20 minutes and throw you a curve. It's a nice touch and a good feeling of the original, when you found out who the head vampire really was. I won't say what happens, suffice to say it culminates in one of the best vampire killings I've seen in a movie in quite a long time.

The overall tone of the film is rather light hearted, aside from a few bleak/dark scenes that harken back to the original. Sadly, once again, the vampires in this are pretty much just 'there', there's no real back ground to them, no real character, they're evil, they have to be stopped, end of story. This is really the films only downfall, but it proves to be a big one, and is about the only critique I have of the film.

If you loved the original and passed on the tribe, continue to do so and watch this one instead. If you were unfortunate enough to watch the tribe.....well, this will wash that bad taste out of your mouth.

Here's hoping that if they do do another one, it returns to the more darker tones of the original. Although....next time, it won't be vamps they'll have to worry about ;)

The original Night of the Demons, when I first saw it, I thought it was terrible. It had some interesting things happening in it, but for the most part, it was a lot of babbling about nothing, a lot of teens being stupid and what not.....in keeping with the original, the remake is actually really good at that.

The teens all wind up at the mansion for a party that angela has thrown, and in a reversal from the original, she's not some crazy goth chick that nobody likes, instead, she's actually got the mansion completely full of people and throwing a hell of a party.

Now....had they kept the mansion full of people to allow for a hell of a lot more killings, there would at least be entertainment value there. Instead, the police show up, bust the party, and through very stupid reasons, the main people all end up back inside, and the gate somehow locks them in.

This movie is infamous, much like old 80's horror films, for the constantly changing outside of the house. The gate itself is different when you see it every time, the outside of the house is made out to be insanely huge, yet shots showing the whole exterior, you know it's not that big. Ironically, the inside, for the most part, stays the same (keep an eye out later in the movie though, when they leave a room covered in spells on the wall....very bad continuity shot at one point) The demon effects are meh. The only actually good looking one was Suzanne imo. The rest were pretty generic, and even Angela wasn't anything special, which was very disappointing. Almost NO demon talk whatsoever, and very little actual gore. They did the lipstick scene though, which was nice to see, and unfortunately, was about the only neat scene in the whole movie. You see very little of Angela.

This one does try to give reasoning and a story behind everything happening, and why the demons are there....when it does come out, of course, it feels like cliché crap, although Furlong has some very good lines about stuff like that.

Overall, it was made much like the movies of the 80's were, just more polished and neat looking, but still shitty. Quite a big budget for straight to DVD though, and it's worth a rental at least.

Monsters was one of those films that intrigued me from seeing the trailer in theaters. If you're hoping for what you get from the trailer, prepare to be disappointed.

This is NOT sci fi. This is a dramatic movie with a 'love' story, that has an alien infested world as the backdrop. This focus is NOT the aliens, despite what the intro and trailers would have you believe.

A cynical, slightly soulless and moral less journalist is made to bring in a rich mans daughter from Mexico, back up to the US. Along the way, they have discussions, arguments, try to stay away from the bad bad aliens (who only come out at night, only ever at night) as they cross what is known as the infected zone (essentially the top half of Mexico from shore to shore and small part of the bottom of the US) to get back to their home.

The only interesting aspect of this movie is the world as it is after it has been "invaded" by other life forms. Travel through the zone is dangerous, costly, and travel around it, between US and Mexico, is safer, but costs you an arm and a leg. Which brings up the question WHY people are doing it, but hey.

Otherwise, the aliens exist in this simply to have the people traveling alone. And why are they crossing through the zone?? Because the guy slept with a prostitute who stole their passports.....after he got shut down by the girl the night before she leaves. A completely dick act screws everything up, and throws them together, they travel together, fall in love....typical cliché stuff.

There are a few interesting shots in this, but unless you LOVE art films, this will bore you to death. I kid you not, this entire movie is about the traveling. Walking, resting, walking, talking, walking, walking.....did I mention walking?? By the last 20 minutes, you'll be wondering what the point of this movie is, aside from seeing if the girl will get home safely.

And on that note, if you do bother to watch this, keep in mind what occurs in the first 5 minutes. It's the only clever thing they did in this POS.

Much like the two other sequels, this fourth installment in the great movie adaptation of the popular gaming franchise is different than the ones before it.

Picking up after the third movie, Alice is seeking revenge on Umbrella's Tokyo Underground Base, specifically Wesker, and as she promised, she brings a few friends along. The beginning is a very clear sign of just how much slow motion is in this film, as we watch what is assumed to be the first zombie outbreak in Tokyo, painfully slow as the camera crawls up along a woman standing in the rain as people walk past her, during which the credits flash about. Finally, as expected, she attacks someone, lights go out across Tokyo, Japan, and the whole world as the camera pans way back, skipping ahead four years to where the third movie left off, and slowly going back down again.

We are treated to Alice's invasion of the underground lab, and in a nod to the first film, 3D wire frames of the immensely massive building are used constantly throughout the opener to this movie. As she goes after Wesker, we are shown that is in fact her clones from the end of the third movie attacking, using the powers that apparently, all her clones share and that were shown in the previous two sequels.

Unfortunately, they strip these powers away, via Wesker injecting the real Alice with antibodies that destroy the T Virus within her. Which brings up about the only really confusing part of the movie, as she literally right after survives a helicopter crash and walks out pretty much unharmed.

Skipping six months ahead, she seeks out Claire and K-Mart in Alaska, and thus begins the actual movie itself. As she searches for everyone, mysteries pop up, and she meets new people, yet again, including Claire's brother, Chris (who unfortunately has no real point in being in the movie) and your typical group of people (Black guy, Asian guy, dickhead guy, hot lady who dies about 10 minutes after we meet her, perv guy) Arcadia turns out to be a ploy by Umbrella to gather survivors, to keep testing the virus on them. Why, you never really know, it doesn't seem like there would be much point, since the impression is that the world is pretty much destroyed. Once they find this out, it's time for revenge on none other than Wesker, who as was hinted at at the beginning, is infused with the virus as well, much like Alice.

Not an overly complicated story, and aside from the why of it all, it works. It is, of course, left open ended once again, with a surprise cameo from Sienna Guillory, which incorporates plot elements from the recent Resident Evil 5, which was nice to see. And it does leave you wanting more.

Throughout the film, slow motion is used to the point of you sitting there and going "Why?" There is more bullet time in this movie than the previous three combined, there is even a freeze frame shot of the helicopter crash in the beginning with Wesker and Alice, which as far as I could tell, served no real purpose. It's neat looking, yes, but....doesn't really have anything to do with how she survives it, or him for that matter. There's slow motion of Alice jumping off buildings, jumping off ropes, throwing stars, jumping through glass, falling down a shaft, shooting zombies in the head, there's a ~seriously~ stretched out fight between Claire and a hooded hulk of a zombie with an axe to match his size, where quite literally at least an entire minute and a half is them running, looking at each other, looking at the gun on the ground, and running towards each other, before Claire finally ducks under him and shoots him while sliding along the floor...in slow motion.

I was sitting there thinking they did this on purpose just to make the movie longer, and also wishing they would just hurry up already.

When they do finally fight Wesker, slow motion goes into over drive, as does the bullet time, with the movie finally incorporating the awesome fight scenes we've seen in the games with Wesker essentially beating the living hell out of everyone, and it is quite awesome and fun to watch. Unfortunately, since they did so much slow motion before that point, it's a bit anti climatic.

And then unfortunately, Wesker gets stupid villain disease and is dispatched of incredibly easily. If you're a fan of the games at all, you will be cringing at the end when you see what happens to him.

Once again, the music is also completely different from the others, and the awesome tunes from the first one do not make a return, although some of the sound track is very interesting to listen to.

The acting is great, the story is decent, and the graphics are amazing. Way too much slow motion makes what few fight scenes there are tedious, and underwhelming, and since the ending is basically just a set up for a fifth movie, it leaves you a bit disappointed, once again.

Actually, the infamous destroyer of video games with his horrible movie adaptations had nothing to do with this movie, but from the result, you would think he had.

First off, they totally screwed with the story line. In the movie, the world was devastated by wars and the businesses that survived took control of what was left, ironically probably not far from the truth of what would happen in reality in that scenario. However, this is explained in a whole 10 seconds and is very rushed.

Tekken, in the film, refers to both the corporation, and the tournament they hold....which yes, really is as stupid as it sounds, since EVERY OTHER corporation in the movie ends in corp. I kid you not.

So anyways, getting past the fact they desecrated the very name of the series in the movie, we are introduced to Jin. He's a teenager, which is about the only element of him from the games that is really brought in, much like every other character that appears, for example -

Heihachi - Kind of has the hair, runs the corporation Kazuya - Wants the corporation from Daddy Nina Williams - Dresses in slutty purple outfit, assassin Anna Williams - Dresses in slutty dresses, says nothing, assassin Eddie Gordo - Jamaican, fights by what looks like dancing Yoshimitsu - Uses a sword, wears weird but cool looking armor Christie - Slutty, perky, can't wear anything that fully covers her ass

So on and so forth. And that's the problem, is that it's only elements of things that are brought in.

The rest of the story?? Jin's mother is killed, goes to fight in Tekken, becomes the "people's choice" as he is annoying referred to throughout the rest of the movie anytime he fights, becomes the "people's champion" (if you're having flashbacks of the Rock on WWE, you're not the only one) and gets his revenge. End of story.

Oh, and he's also a man whore, because he has a girlfriend in the beginning, almost sleeps with her, then when he enters Tekken, almost sleeps with Christie, but then leaves Christie behind when he wins Tekken, and you see the girlfriend, but they never reunite on screen.

And the reason he wears the gloves?? His hands get diced up by a glass table when Nina and Anna try to kill him in his room under orders from Kazuya....and they never get bandaged or looked after really, because through the rest of the movie, they still look mangled and bloody. But yet, when he puts the gloves on, ....he's fine! No big!

The fights are decent enough, they do a semi decent job on pulling in stages from the games via the arena, they make small homages to the game via stupid "select character" screens at certain points.

Unfortunately, the story is utter crap. Had they stuck with the games storyline, which would have been possible and more plausible, despite involving devils and ogres and what not. This stupid post apocalyptic crap is getting annoying, especially when it's not done very well.

But if you like some scantily clad women for a few minutes, some decent fights which typically end up in someone getting arm locked and thrown to the ground in a submission hold, and really crappy heavy metal and rock music throughout, then yay!!

If you were wanting something a bit better, steer clear. This doesn't learn from all the previous shitty game adaptations, it just does the same mistakes all over again, as usual.

This movie has a good premise. A girl who lives in your neighborhood, going around and killing everyone around you in varying forms of gory torture, just to entertain herself. The thought of that would be very scary in real life, and if done properly, could make for a very tense, entertaining movie.

It's unfortunate this idea was turned into this horrible B 'movie'.

While it starts off very strong, and in a very interesting way, it unfortunately goes downhill, especially after the half way mark when it tries to do hallucination based alternate time lines that make no real sense and have no point being in the movie, other than to provide more gore.

A young woman, who is never named, starts off in a kitchen, eating some cereal, going through the house as if just waking up in the morning, giving the viewer a sense of calm. This quickly turns to horror, as she goes upstairs, into a room very calmly, and finds the actual husband and wife of the house, tied up to chairs, with horrible looking wounds on their bodies, the wife dead in the chair. Very chilling and nerve racking, as the Girl displays massive psychosis and a very calm nature while finishing off the occupants.

From there, we go to the main leading man, who just had a crap load of shrooms and wakes up in his chair, watching TV on his widescreen....which is inexplicably hooked up to an archaic cable TV device. It makes no sense whatsoever if you are aware of technology of both today and yesteryear. And this is just the first of many head scratching things in the movie.

We find out that the main lead guy is a 'musician', hangs out at a local eatery/pub a lot, is infatuated with a girl from the bar, but never says anything to her, was in a relationship with a rather chubby, unattractive blonde who works in a book store filled with seemingly nothing but paperback books....I haven't seen a store like that in about 10 years.

He has two male friends, one of which is getting married, which only ever comes into play in the aforementioned hallucination sequences later on, and serves really only at a feeble attempt of character development.

After spending a night at the house working on music, and then watching a movie together....3 men, watching a movie together, with no hint of beer or anything....just a bit odd. But not as odd as where they all actually live, because the 'neighborhood' is constantly shifting and changing, from posh, to suburban, to ghetto hood depending on the shot in the film. Incredibly inconsistent, even in the interior of the house, as the main leads basement looks like a rat dwelling, and yet the upstairs looks like it's taken care of by Martha Stewart? See how I went from one point to another there without finishing the first point? Expect that A LOT in this movie. It will randomly cut from one thing to another, and never really finish certain shots/stories.

Anyways, after the movie watching, the male lead is standing in his driveway, a bunch of stuff with the friends, then he's in his basement tied up in a chair by the Girl. What follows is inconsistent, blathering nonsense, punctuated with scenes of bloody gore.

Now, with the gore....while it looks decent, it too, unfortunately, is very inconsistent. For one thing, the main guy has his wrists duct taped to the chair, but in one shot when he's 'escaping', the tape is magically gone and he's free. I kid you not.

One girl is given a glasgow smile with a hacksaw....yet in scenes just a minute or two later, with her cheeks all torn apart, you can literally see the sides of her mouth, still in tact.

The main guy has his eye lids pinned up into his forehead, yet again, later on, the holes still in his forehead, his eyelids are fine, in fact back to completely normal, no holes, no nothing! At it's very core, it's essentially a girl who just tortures the hell out of everyone in a few houses for an hour and a half, with about 20 minutes of WTF is going on thrown in the middle for some reason.

This movie could have been something much better, but ultimately, it's just bad. Besides, any movie that constantly finds an excuse to throw in the beginning of the credits from some movie the director made 10 years ago, which was also a B grade movie, is just not good.

While Daybreakers has great ideas and creates a very interesting world, it ultimately fails to delve very far into anything and feels more like it should have been the pilot episode of a new TV series.

In the future, 95% of the world's population is vampires. How they got this way is only, ~very~ briefly, explained in the opening credits, through paper clippings that are only one screen for about a second. So basically, blink and you miss it. I would have liked if they'd gone more in depth on this and done more science, explaining ~why~ this happened, and having that information being used to create the 'cure' later on in the movie....but ultimately, no.

The vampires are....well, not vampires. They're humans with very neat eyes who drink blood. If they don't get enough, they turn into deformed bat like creatures (which the only reasoning for is they did not drink 'blood' for about a month....however, many characters turn into these creatures much faster than a month throughout the movie) They don't move fast, they don't have super strength, holy water/garlic never enters into the picture....and they can survive in the shade. Yes....if they're just slightly covered from the sun, that's fine. Only direct sun causes massive burning/death.

They heal very very fast....usually. One of the major continuity issues is when Ethan Hawke's character, in attempting to cure himself, is set on fire again and again, and each time, has no burns/scars/anything on his body right afterwards. Yet not a minute later, they show another vampire with his arm in a sling....from what is alluded to being a broken/dislocated shoulder. So....they heal fast....but, only when it's necessary for the plot to make sense.

And on that note....the plot. Blood is in short supply. Humans, supposedly, are getting more and more rare and going extinct....and vampires keep gobbling up blood like it was some miracle elixir. Which, granted, is what vampires usually do....however, yet again, some of them seem to be able to resist/control these urges, while others can't. It flip flops.

Essentially, this is a political thriller with a supernatural twist. Everything revolves around curing/fixing their resource problem. Truthfully....it's quite dumb. It's known that animal blood is drunk, and sustains the vampires....yet apparently that's not a solution. A substitute is apparently a solution though....but only because it would make the vamps pay more for real blood. Like I said....they're vampires, but they're still human. They are still greedy, conniving, scheming, power hungry people. Which kind of begs the question that should have been brought up in the first place.....why turn? Because apparently, many of them were given the choice to turn, or to reject it. Hence why there's still humans.

There are many questions you'll ask yourself while watching this, and at the end, you'll sit there thinking "What was the point of all this, to end it like that?" And that is the movie's biggest disappointment. It had no point. It has no resolution to anything. It's essentially an over glossed story, simply to point out the new, ingenious way to cure vampires (which really is quite interesting, but shouldn't be the ~only~ good thing in the movie) In the end....it feels more like a TV show pilot, that they decided to give a huge budget and make into a film. It's bloody, it's got jumpy parts, the screeching will kill your ears, and you'll be sitting there wondering why you watched this movie.

Don't get me wrong, Boogeyman 2 was a good movie, but it was much more gross out, slasher fare then psychologically scary.

Considering the first movie made my skin stand on edge and crawl the entire film, I was rather disappointed by it. So when I heard there was yet another sequel, my doubts of course were raised and I almost condoned the movie right away as being even worse.

However, after reading about it and seeing some pics on the net and watching the trailer, I decided to give it a go.

First off, for anyone disappointed by the second movie for the fact that it wasn't actually the boogeyman, you will be very happy, for it is indeed him in this one, not someone just dressing up like him. He vanishes, appears out of thin air, has a 'hidden' world where he keeps his victims (which is quite bloody and has a wonderful creepy score to it when it shows up in the film) and knowing before going into the movie that it is indeed the boogeyman makes it all that much better and ruins nothing of the movie, trust me.

There is a bit of a twist before the ending, something I haven't seen a movie do in a long time (the twist, not the fact they do a twist) The deaths in this are not as intense as the second one, yes, they're bloody as all hell, especially the laundry room one, but they're not revolting, a la maggots crawling under the skin or vomit being pumped into a victim. And I think that makes the movie work better actually.

There are side dialects in this, such as the main character having been some kind of nut job in the previous year, and they never fully explain any of these side dialects, so character development is definitely not a strong point in this movie. In fact, the only real character that's developed overly well is the first one to die, who is also used as a the poor connection between the second and third movie here.

Overall, there are some jumpy parts, the boogeyman looks pretty damn creepy in his own regard, there's a lot of blood, some pointless nudity, and some neat effects. And the movie is indeed entertaining, I actually watched the whole movie in one sitting without wanting to get up and do something else.

This is my first review ever on here, and given the last guys review of this, I feel I should start here.

You can always tell when people have never tried acting or being on camera themselves when you see comments about how unemotional a person acts on-screen. I've seen it a million times about Keanu Reeves, and it seems to be something Josh Hartnett is garnering a reputation for. If you actually pay attention during this movie, let it take you in, and aren't such a smartass and mocking it throughout, then you'll realize that Hartnett, while mostly intense throughout this movie, has a reason that is very underlined and very subtle. He's a protector, he cares for the town and it's people, just as he cares for those around him. In the midst of an attack by vampires, which shouldn't be real, he doesn't panic or get scared...he protects and does what he does best. Which if this situation were real, would take incredible courage and guts. Every other piece of acting is good...EXCEPT for the stranger. His character is good, his actor does a good job getting into it....until he says his 'bar the windows...try to hide' line. The way he says it just sounds so forced.

Aside from acting is the violence and gore, and there is a lot. If you have half a brain, from watching the trailer, you know this isn't a shy away from the violence type of film. While a lot of the violence is done in quick cut style, there are times when it flips and shows you a hell of a lot more than you're expecting....like near the end when Billy meets his end by first getting attacked and having half his throat ripped out, then pushing a vampire into a massive grinder, into which his hand gets sucked in, which is shown in great graphical detail, bones and all, and then he is beheaded before he changes, which again, in great graphical detail, unlike most of the beheadings before.

My only complaint about this movie is it's slight lack of realism when the characters move from place to place. They don't show it most of the time, they just suddenly pop up in the new spot except for the main characters. It isn't explained to us as if we were sheep, so it does require some thought and doesn't always make sense. The only reason I complain about this is because the general public will hate this, and it will make them hate the movie, which is a shame.

If nothing else, this movie is worth seeing for the incredibly interesting take on what vampires look like...many of which have their faces contorted in such sharp angles they almost look like a half changed werewolf at times...and to see the final confrontation between Hartnett and the ringleader of the gang of vampires....a very very awesome conclusion to that fight which has to be seen.