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Reviews
Last Sentinel (2023)
Very slow but very atmospheric
Yes its a slow movie. Yes not much happens, and yes, if you think too long about it has quite a few plot holes.
But I still think this is a well done, nicely shot and well acted movie.
It's definitely not a party film or even something you want to watch with your date, but alone, in a lazy evening it might do the trick.
All in all I am happy that I saw it and felt entertained throughout, yet I also feel I wouldn't watch it a second time. It's more style then substance and both the warning about climate change and the notions about the ridiculousness of war were something we all have seen much better on other movies.
Haute tension (2003)
Vile, disgusting, horrific...but not for the reasons you might think!
High Tension, the father (or is it "the mother"?) of true masterpieces of the New French Extremity - mainly Inside and Martyrs - is still known (and adored by some) because it was just that - something new. And it was lucky to be at the right place at the right time.
However, unlike the two aforementioned movies, it does NOT stand the test of time!
That is not to say movie isn't shot well, lit greatly, scored nicely (minus the totally unnecessary Muse song in the middle), the acting is great, the special effects are great as well. It could have been all so great if director amd screenwriter Alexandre Aja didn't decide to include a totally unnecessary twist that does not make ANY sense even in the slightest!
Comparing this to movies like The Sixth Sense, The Others or The Village - there, the twists make sense and even more importantly - hold up even to repeated viewing. Watching The Sixth Sense knowing what is going on adds another dimension to the film, and the viewer recognizes how he missed (or misinterpreted) certains telltale signs and can appreciate how meticulous the screenplays were crafted.
Not so with High Tension: the twist that the male Killer does not exist and the real killer was our main heroine all along not only doesn't make sense, but opens up a can of worms- how could she kill the whole family while being in a room trying to connect a telephone? How could she kill a dog twice her size without being bitten? How could she have done all of that without even a drop of blood on her clothes? How could she drive a car while being in the back with Alex? How the hell did she even get this car when it was her first time on the countryside? Did she plan this months beforehand? Did she pay the car by cash or card? How could she hide in the gas station while her alter ego was talking amicably to the clerk? The answer to all these questions is simple: she couldn't have. Which leads to another conclusion: from the beginning the movie is lying to us! Nothing we see here took place. The "head" scene with the killer? Didn't happen. The tense car chase? Didn't happen. Marie fighting for her life? Didn't happen. All our emotions, our disgust, our fear for the two girls- for nothing. We have been manipulated.
I do understand that Aja and Co. (maybe) wanted to show the workings of a fractured or even schizophrenic mind, but they chose they absolutely laziest way to do so. I hate endings like "It was all a dream" with a passion, but even those can make sense within the movie's world. This does not.
1 star for the qualities mentioned above, another one because I can appreciate it's influence on modern French Horror.
97 Minutes (2023)
Independent Auteur cinema...
....but the independent auteurs are frat boys (or middle aged men in the middle life crisis trying to recreate movies from their youth).
I'm a middle aged man myself, but my God, if the 80ies and early ninetees would have been this bad, no one would want to recreate them. Cameron, Peterson, and all the other -sons crafted meticulous action films, with new ideas, great effects (for their time), awesome set pieces, bombastic music, legendary dialogue and actors that were hungry and wanted to leave an impression. All of that is missing here.
Don't bother to watch this turd, you get more value from watching paint dry.
Busanhaeng (2016)
Overrated
Let's make this short:
The good:
- Great acting
- Great zombie make up and movement
- Great to ok CGI
The Bad:
- Not gory or even bloody enough, the violence packs no punch
- "Emotions" are telegraphed through sappy music like in a bad k-drama.
- Ridiculous "explanation" with how the virus actually got on board the train
- The whole moral core ("career bad, taking care of family good") has been done to death by now
- Rules of infection arr all over the place (the speed of "turning" seems to change from seconds to minutes, depending on how the script sees fit. Also, talking Zombies?)
- No "hero deaths" for heros or even villains (except one)
TL;DR: People reading the user-reviews and expecting a mature zombie film with a big heart and lots of emotions will be disappointed. I would urge some reviewers here to turn down the volume in some of the "dramatic" scenes, the music does all the heavy lifting here. Without that, not much remains. A film as shallow as a fortune cookie.
Smile (2022)
Bland
If the 879 parts of Halloween, Scream and Friday on Elm Street taught us anything, it's that Horror Movies don't have to reinvent the wheel everytime to be effective. I am not even sure Smile tries to, but it fails miserably to be at least entertaining.
Smile is like a hodgepodge of different classics (The Ring - "if you see it, you will die in a couple of days", IT - demonic entity that feeds off of negative emotions), but it's just so bland. Everything is bland, from the look of the movie, to the music, the acting, the jump scares etc etc. The only two "highlights" are actually at the very beginning and the very end of this movie - the scene with Laura including her suicide (great FX) and the scene at the end with the "entity" (again, great FX). The only two things showing innovation are drone shots that were turned upside down and the title card including the accompanying sounds. But the rest is just terrible. Funny where it shouldn't be funny (the scene at the B-Day party will surely make a couple of "funniest scenes of the year" lists, its that ridiculous), hammy acting, unlikable characters, unbelievable story arcs etc etc.
I am rating this movie a totally bland 5/10 stars.
Black Christmas (1974)
A GREAT movie, period
Light spoilers ahead:.
So I just watched this for the first time in my life and although I am not a huge fan of slashers I have to say... this was just a great MOVIE, period.
First of all I would not call it a slasher per se (more like a mystery-horror-who done it) secondly it was smart, beautifully lit, shot and acted. It had little to no blood, but because we got to know these characters it was actually thrilling! The phone calls by Billy were DERANGED (I was actually surprised they got away with that kind of language, and I can't remember seeing a Horror made in the last decade that had similar dialogue/monologue...have we gotten soft?)
I even think the whole POV stuff was pretty groundbreaking. Remember cameras were HUGE back then and they still managed to have a guy climb up a ladder with it on his shoulder (?), Kathrin Bigalow had to invent a whole rig system for similar scenes in Strange Days! And that was 30 years later.
All my issues with this film are in the third act! It's simply not believable that she wouldn't run to the policeman outside for help as soon as she learned the killer was inside the house (she didn't know he was dead in his car).
Speaking of which, who killed that cop?
Also, why would everyone leave the scene of the crime in the last scene and even turn the lights off and let her sleep, that doesn't make any sense, even for the 70ies.
Plus, if the police actually checked all the rooms (including the attic) as soon as there was the missing persons report for the first victim, none of the other murders would have happened.
These minor things aside, Black Christmas totally surprised me and I am adding it to my collection. 9/10 stars!
Neugdaesanyang (2022)
A very gory comicbook movie
Have you ever played one of the Resident Evil games where Nemesis or Mr. X follows you around? A huge, seemingly invincible brute that cannot be killed?
This movie has the same basic concept, sound design straight out of Robocop, a confined setting a la Die Hard and GALLONS of fake blood and violence. People literally seem to explode in fountains of blood, the first couple of times it's kinda impressive but (after you have seen it for the 30th time) quickly looses its appeal. Still, as a horror fan I kinda enjoyed it for the brilliant effects (most of them practical as far as I can tell).
Other things one kinda could compare this to is a slasher movie and even a comic book movie (or a Manga adaptation), simply because it's so OTT that the violence loses its punch after a while.
Pros:
- cool "monster" design
- awesome blood effects
- gory
- no rape or sexual violence
Cons:
- no characters to root for
- story is very basic (and pretty much just designed to show one kill after the other)
- the whole thing is kinda pointless really EXCEPT as a showpiece for the SFX designers
- wqy too long for that
They could have gone straight from "cops and criminals board ship" to "monster breaks lose", saved 40 minutes by doing that and maybe have the cops and criminals even work together and get to know each other. That could have been an interesting dynamic, but of course, then we wouldn't have as many kills.
Grave (2016)
NOT a cannibal movie!!
Every review here says something about cannibals and so on, but - last time I checked - cannibals didn't turn into uncontrolled, bloodthirsty, rabid human-dogs/wolves. I mean, the movie doesn't make a big secret out it: the second scene in the car, the fighting sisters separated by their peers on "leashes", the scene in the morgue, some of the dialogue, the obsession to get rid of body (and facial) hair to "fit in", the animalistic behaviour of the girls.
It's literally a movie about "the beast within", not about the taste for human flesh that is best served with Fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Great acting, good cinematography, good plot, nice ending. 8 stars it is.
The Wind (2018)
A frustrating experience
Think back to some of the greatest Horror movies of the last decade(s) - The VVitch, Midsommar, Hereditary, The Badabook, etc etc. Even if they let the viewer in the dark about what was going on, even if they had a twist, in the end, everything was brought to light and made sense (even if it was just in a metaphorical way). Even the "master of twists", M. Night Shyamalan, NOT ONCE made a film that didn't make "sense" in the end (even if it was just in a very "movie" kind of way). And even someone like David Lynch, whose movies seldom made "sense", at least put enough ideas and feelings into his stream-of-consciousness films, that the dreamlike trip was more interesting than the destination.
The Wind ain't that. This film leaves so much (too much) open for interpretation. It could be about a woman losing her mind because of loneliness and isolation, it could be her hubby betrayed her (but we don't know that for certain, as the only "proof" was written by a very unreliable character), it could be demons are haunting the prairie, it could be she herself was a demon, it could be that she simply snapped and killed two people because of jealousy or a broken heart.
Remember that only one of those theories can be true, but since the movie denies us any answers, what actually IS true becomes nondescript. So that is frustrating, but what's even more frustrating is that we had all the ingredients here for something great - willing and able actors, great cinematography in a beautiful landscape, great lighting and set-design, even the wardrobe department brought their A-game. The whole endeavor clearly wasn't cheap, I just wish the had spent as much time on the script as money on these obvious elements.
But the way it turned out I can hardly recommend The Wind and I am rating it 5 stars for the aforementioned qualities alone.
It's a shame really, this could have been great.
Runaway Train (1985)
Silly
I just saw this movie for the first time and I reckon a lot of the reviewers here saw it when they were more impressable and can't really see this objectively.
Let me make this as short as possible. The good things about RT are:
- the stunt work and
- the train sequences (although some miniature work is obvious)
- the willingness of the acting ensemble to go as far as the script calls them for
But then...
- the script is full of stereotypes (the broken hero, the apprentice, the evil stepfather, the damsel in distress)
- the characters remain very one-dimensional throughout the movie
- the film is sexist towards women
- it shows a prison ward to basically be a person that has power outside of his prison, even going so far as to physically assaulting a rail road employee and getting away with it (and also having an helicopter at his disposal lol)
- a lot of stuff that happens on screen is just very, very silly
- a lot of the decisions the characters make are clearly based on pushing the story forward, but are not based in reality. They are the decisions of a screenwriter, but not of someone being in this situation.
I couldn't care less who wrote the screenplay for this (and I bet if Kurosawa actually directed this we would have had a completely different movie on our hands), the way it stands RT is a very silly, very immature movie that pretends to say something about the human condition when in reality it's as deep as a puddle. The train sequences are impressive, the stunt work is great as well, but if you think this is as rich as some some of the reviews might have you believe, you are mistaken. Personally I am glad we left this kind of filmmaking behind.
Old (2021)
A bad M. Night is still a good movie.
Right, Old. So it's not M. Night's best film (it's not even in the Top 5) but it's also not his worst.
The main problem in my opinion was not the story (which was an OK "X-Files" or "Twilight Zone" kind of yarn...and had an interesting ending, which could have asked "how far are we willing to go to save thousands of people"... but wasnt couragous to do so) but it's main actors:
The main couple have NO chemistry whatsoever together, they look badly on screen next to each other (she is a couple of inches taller than him), in the film she treated him badly, but even when they make up later in the movie and confess their love, it feels like watching two ice glaciers. Also why do their children haven NO resemblance to them (a pet peeve of mine).
I also didn't care for some of the MTV-like shots which weren't M. Nights style at all (maybe they were directed by his daughter that shot second unit?) and didn't fit the material.
It's still a good movie with some fascinating ideas, but for a M. Night movie it's a little bit of a let down.
The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
Gorgeous and truly unnerving
Right, so I love Horror, it's by far my favorite genre. But because I have seen almost everything there is out there (including some sick underground stuff), I'd say I am pretty desensitized when it comes to on-screen violence and terror. Yet this film managed to scare me (or at least build up an awesome feeling of dread) which I really appreciated. It's a pretty dark and grim film, not because of excessive violence, but because of the seemingly hopelessness of the whole situation. So it definitely might not be for everyone, but if you are interested in slow-burn (aka "elevated") Horror, definitely check it out.
This movie also features beautiful cinematography, great acting, and quite an "epic" feel for being almost shot in just one location.
Drawback is definitely the CGI, it's definitely looks sloppy/cheap in some shots, but no deal breaker.
I liked it very much and will buy it on Bluray for my collection.
Infinity Pool (2023)
Somewhere between "that's GENIUS" and "that's BS!!"
Possessor this is not. That movie was gorgeous, ultra-violent and VERY consistent in tone and themes. Infinity Pool is not. It switches between satire, Horror, black comedy, drug-experiences, sex that's boring to look at, violence that lacks any punch, commentary on masculinity, allegories, metaphors and criticism of tourism (and upper class tourists). It's kinda like Cronenberg (Sr.) made Crash but instead of showing sickos loving their cars (sometimes literally), here we have sickos who love to see their doppelgangers killed. It's far fetched, but there you go.
It's a strange, broken movie that I feel tries to tackle a lot of things at once, but fails on almost everything.
The other thing that bothered me is that Skarsgard is playing an absolute man-baby, a guy without any principles or morality, a guy that is literally commanded around like a dog for almost the entirety of the movie... but the same looks like a young Thor and has a wife that could be a supermodel. And we are supposed to root for this character? That was actually kinda difficult.
What also unites both Cronenbergs: their work has suffered by going to Europe for production. Successor (shot in Canada) was gorgeous, Infinity Pool (shot in Croatia and Hungary) looks very flat and boring (and I'm not even going to mention how often the DP has problems focusing properly). Cronenberg Sr.' Crimes of the Future was shot in Greece and... well, the less we say about that movie the better.
On a sidenote: as an European who spends almost every summer in Croatia (one of the safest, friendliest and most beautiful countries on earth) it was quite alienating to see familiar sights of the coastline and architectur "dirtied up" by the set-designers to resemble a third World country.
The Descent: Part 2 (2009)
Ok sequel
Besides logical inconsistencies (no Sheriff on earth would ever drag the sole survivor of a disaster back into this cave system...even more so as she doesn't remember anything) and slight retconning of the first movie, this is actually a good sequel. It's gory, pretty intense at times, has one really great kill and solid acting. As mentioned, to get the story going the screenwriters had to REALLY come up with something bogus (did I mention the Sheriff basically kidnaps the girl from the first movie?) and I absolutely HATED the very last scene...but let's face it, The Descent didn't really need a sequel in the first place, it was a perfectly fine stand alone movie. Having said that, this could have been sooo much worse.
TL;DR - not as good as the first, some poor decisions (the monsters look almost pig-like this time around), but not nearly as bad as it could have been.
Dark Harvest (2023)
Definitely one of the better new Horror Movies out there
Gorgeous cinematography, cool set design, good acting, an intriguing story, a great monster. The plot is a little bit too "out there" for me (I like my horror movies grounded in reality) and the movie doesn't really give an answer as to WHY the ritual is happening in the first place every year (if the answer is "for the town's prosperity" - well, why don't the citizens just leave the town with, you know, their beloved family members in one piece?). The violence is fun as well, though only people that the viewer doesn't know (and doesn't care about) get killed, so it definitely lacks punch.
On a sidenote: some of my fellow critics in this user-review section have obviously seen another film than I did (or they simply weren't paying attention). Some write this contains elements of The Hunger Games and that the boys have to kill themselves?! That is NOT the case! They are dehydrated, starving and out of their minds after 3 days of being locked in their rooms and let out to kill "the monster". That some of them turn against themselves is a result of the state they are in and of gang rivalry, as seen throughout the film.
TL, DR: Cool little Horror movie that you can enjoy if you don't think too much about the plot and rather enjoy it's stylish cinematography and monster design. Not a classic by any means, but definitely worthwhile!
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
No punch and not grimey enough
I agree with 90% of all reviewers here. Evil Dead Rise is a mediocre Horror film and a terrible ED film! In my opinion this comes down to three things mainly:
1. For some reason the audience feels no connection to the characters. Why they chose to write about an artsy Yuppie family of 4 with no dad in sight and a sister/aunt that brings nothing to the table except being pregnant and a "guitar technician" ...and expect us to give a rats ass is anybodys guess. I am not like them, I don't know anyone like them, I didn't even like them, so why should I care what happens to them?
2. The look and feeling of the SFX. The whole thing just looks way too overproduced, there is no heft and no punch to the violence, it kinda resembles a Netflix production that way. There were a couple of good FX shoots (the Chainsaw bit), but also a couple of very bad ones (bfs severed head in the beginning).
3. Tone: they neither went for the grim mood of ED1 or the 2013 version, nor the comedy horror of ED 2 and 3. It kinda was just there doing its own thing, but not in a very convincing manner.
I think the ED movies live on a very basic premise - Demons take over people, other people have to fight them (it gets richer with the lore, the Necronomicum etc., but the basic premise is just that). I really believe one could tell hundreds of interesting stories about that, but EDR wasn't it!
Seed (2006)
Not Bad, not good
I might be terribly desensitized, but this didn't shock me (I DID skip the first couple of sequences of real animal torture though). But the rest is kinda lame compared to some of the movies that are out there. The scene that everyone seems to talk about (the murder of the lady in the chair) would have been way more effecting if she actually stopped breathing, if they didn't replace her head with terrible looking CGI halfway through and if the blood splatters actually looked convincing. And if the camera wouldn't move around and be still for once, oh, and without this corny dramatic music. And that's kinda the theme of the whole movie. The intentions might be there, but it's smeared by terrible choices. Also, how the hell am I supposed to feel something for the detective (or his family), when they are so badly acted and boring characters?
I don't recommend this movie because it's honestly a waste of time, for non-horror people it's too nihilistic and for Horror folks too lame.
Mi Mefakhed Mehaze'ev Hara (2013)
A tonal disaster
What do you get when you try to mix comedy with gore and torture a la Saw? This movie, a totally tonedeaf film that's neither funny (although every second scene tries to go for laughs) nor exciting enough for a gore hound. I'll admit, there is a place in cinema for torture, rape and murder of women, either as the starting point for a police procedural (Memories of Murder, True Detective...) or for exploitation films (I spit on your grave), but to have violent deaths of little girls as a butt of a joke is just really bad taste. I wouldn't even call this a black comedy, because that would require...well, comedy, but there is no to be found here -just cringe worthy attempts. Still 5 stars for good acting, great music and nice cinematography. It's just a shame the filmmakers were lacking the seriousness to tackle this topic in an adult way.
The Little Things (2021)
NOT a movie about police chasing a killer, but...
...about the effect that kind of police work can have on cops and, in the end, a movie about police brutality (and how easily it can be rugged under the carpet). That actually sounds quite interesting, right? But make no mistake - this is a mess of a movie.
A very pedestrian script (with soooo many things that would NEVER happen in real life, starting with the premise that a cop on vacation would be allowed to help the LA homicide team), terrible acting (Denzel has played this role a 1000 times before and is on autopilot, Rami Malek is hamming it up as the young and arrogant hotshot, Jared Leto plays the deranged suspect with an obvious death wish (and still the most impressive thing about his performance is the quality of his prosthetic nose), uncertain directing and just sooo many plot holes. Speaking of holes, as soon as the movie shows the young cop digging two dozen holes (because Jared Leto tells him to??) the rest of credibility goes out of the window.
Also, the editing on this is the worst that I have seen IN A LONG TIME! It's hyper-nervous, too fast, has no regard for the subject matter or "the little things" like continuity (watch the interrogation with Jared Leto to see what I mean). And I am actually quite glad that a lot my IMDB colleagues reviewing this movie have also criticized the editing as well.
A movie that sells itself as a new Se7en, but is actually closer to Zodiac...without ever reaching that movies qualities.
3 stars for the huge names, the set design (this is a period piece, and a pretty convincing at that) and the ok photography. Negative 7 stars for the rest...
Avoid!
The Black Phone (2021)
Not bad, but not great either!
I am not a huge fan of director Derrikson's style of horror - I actually consider the straight-to-DVD flick Hellraiser: Inferno to be his best horror-related work, simply because it had the balls to actually show violence (and it's effects) on screen!
This movie here feels a little bit like Sinister 1. Well done when it comes to worldbuilding, storytelling, acting, special effects...all is present and clearly done with craft and dedication - and yet, these movies don't leave a mark on their viewers. And I guess the main problem is that they are, well, a little bit creepy, a little bit spooky, but never dare to go one step further. Sinister was Rated R but that might have been one of the softest Rs I have ever seen. In The Black Phone we have a killer that we never see killing someone, we don't fear for the main protagonist's life because there is no indication whatsoever that something will happen to him, Derrikson spends a lot of time building this period piece but the terror only seems to come from SUDDEN. REALLY. LOUD. NOISES (a horror trope which I hate as I find it cheap and lazy).
The Black Phone is not a bad film, I found the story engaging, there is a nice little plot twist at the end (an homage to one of the greatest Horror films of all time) and I also didn't have a problem with it not explaining certain things! Why did the Graber kill children? Because he was a sick psychopath, that's why! Why did he wear masks? Because it was in the script (and masks make everything scarier)! Etc. Etc.
I enjoyed the movie for what is was (I feel it could have been great with a little bit more Horror, oe simply the illusion of real danger foe our main protagonist) but it's not necessarily something that I would recommend! It's an ok watch for a lazy sunday, not more, not less!
Cloverfield (2008)
New York is destroyed, but where is the dirt????
Let me put this as simple as I can:
I just saw the movie, spent enjoyable 1 1/2 hours (or so), it was good. The special effects are really AWESOME, I have no idea how they did it, but they look better here (with difficult lightning situations and LoFi-material!!) than, say, Iron Man!
In fact the first half hour is extremely well done and balanced, it's a pity the whole film isn't like this
BECAUSE: Why these actors! Sure, they look good, are young and "unknown faces" but they have absolutely no sense of drama. A giant monster is attacking New York, and they not once scream or curse or freak out or do something REAL! Also, the public sequences with dozens of people "jogging" away from the monster, partly with laughs on their faces, feel strange.
Then, where is the blood? Okay, this doesn't have to be Hostel, and I understand the producers desire to make it PG, but then JJ Abrahms said he wanted to make a thrilling, exciting monster-movie. I'm not talking torn-apart limbs here, but a little more blood would have served the purpose.
Also, if you are making a disaster movie in NY, its logical people see parallels to 9/11. And IMHO the filmmakers should have addressed that (see how brilliant Spielberg did it in War of the Worlds), one or two sentences about "Terrorists?" would have been enough.
The camera operator aka "nerdy guy" was nerve-wracking (in a bad way). Without this unnecessary, nerdy humor the whole movie have worked better (see 28 Days Later). Have the guts to make it bleak, goddammmit!
And please, if you're making a film in a Documentary-style, stay away from product placement.
ALL IN ALL: A great film that could have been a MASTERPIECE if not for the above mentioned things. But still, watch it if you can!