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Kingp35's Horror Viewing Log

  • 18-08-2010 3:53pm
    #1
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Lake Mungo

    Australian "mockumentary" type horror film that is quite different to the other films of its type. For starters there are no cheap scares and the supernatural elements are kept to a minimum.

    The plot is told through a number of interviews, reconstructions, “actual” footage and photographs and tells the story of the death of a teenage girl and a number of strange occurrences that happen in the family home and in photo’s taken of the home and the area the girl was killed. The occurrences never amount to anything more than a few noises and images of the girl in various photos but these are used to drive the story along which eventually reveals the strange occurrences surrounding the girl’s death.

    It’s certainly a unique film in the way it’s told, there are very few instances of horror, instead it’s simply a family trying to come to terms with the death of their daughter and the strange happenings surrounding her death. It’s almost a character study as it shows the hardships the family suffered, especially the girls brother, and the various methods they use to try and move on with their lives. The ghostly images do nothing more than to prevent closure for the family and when some shady aspects of the girls past are revealed this leads them to investigate the girl’s death more closely. What they find is quite interesting and eerie and leads to an excellent ambiguous ending that will leave you thinking. The acting throughout is excellent which it needs to be for a film of this type to work. The plot moves along well although somewhat loses its way in the midsection when almost doubles back upon itself. Other than that Lake Mungo is an interesting film which certainly brings something new to the genre.

    Although not for everyone, Lake Mungo is a unique film that creates an eerie atmosphere with a suitably ambiguous ending.. It has no loud noises or gore; instead it tells a strange story regarding the death of a girl and a number of strange images in photographs. Slow moving at times, it’s still gripping and is definitely my favourite mockumentary type film so far. Be warned though that it's not for everyone.

    7/10


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Comments

  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    See No Evil

    Considering that See No Evil is produced by the WWE, stars one of its wrestlers and directed by a music video director, it’s fair to say that I didn’t exactly have high hopes when putting this on. It turns out that I was right; it’s a fairly poor and derivative slasher film but does provide a few moments of entertainment, both intentionally and unintentionally. The plot is typical slasher fair, a group of teenage delinquents are sent to clean up a run down hotel which just happens to be home to a killer with a fascination with eyes

    The director is incredibly annoying and uses far too much MTV style directing with blurry shots, quick edits, extreme zooming, loud rock music and extreme shaky cam. The gore is rather tame with most of it happening off screen bar couple of scenes and the kills are nothing new. Kane is surprisingly the best thing about the film as he is suitably menacing while throwing people around the place, it helps that he has no dialogue though!

    It's an ok film with plenty of unintentional laughs. Acting and directing are both terrible but slasher fans will find some light entertainment here.

    4.5/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Creepshow

    I have had this in my possession for so long but never got around to watching it. I finally did after reading about it on here and I'm glad I did because it's great fun. Written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero, it's an anthology film of five horror tales with plenty of dark comedy thrown into the mix. It's based on the 50's horror comics and if not taken seriously each segment is great entertainment. The last of the five is probably the weakest but it's still good fun. The effects are great throughout which I suppose isn't really a surprise considering Tom Savini was the man responsible. It's perfect late night viewing and of course with all anthology films if there is one segment that doesn't quite do it for you then you only have a to wait a few minutes for the next one!

    7/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Black Water

    Black Water is an Australian film very much in the same vein as Open Water in that it believes that less is more. Two sisters and the older sister's husband become trapped on an Australian river when a crocodile flips their boat and eats the tour guide. They end up trapped in a tree and have to come with a way to get home. The film has a good opening and sets the story up well but then the pace seriously slows down leading to a largely boring midsection. It's clear the director was trying to build up a tense atmosphere but I can only watch people sitting up a tree and doing absolutely nothing for so long. The crocodile barely raises its head until the final 20 minutes when the pace and action pick up again and leads an entertaining and exciting final act. The acting is decent as is the minimal amount of gore and the idea to use real crocs rather than CGI is obviously a good one.

    In the end Black Water is basically Open Water with a croc rather than a Shark. It's just too slow in the mid-section but does have a solid opening a great final 20 minutes. If 15 minutes of people sitting up a tree doing nothing was cut then we would have a great little film but instead we end up with an average one.

    5/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Exam

    Exam is an English psychological horror film about 8 candidates for a job with a mysterious corporation who are invited to do one final exam in order to see who wins the job. They are taken to an isolated room and told they have to answer one question and there are three rules, don't speak to the armed guard, don't spoil their papers and don't leave the room. When they turn their papers over they are blank. Will they group together to figure out the question or will they turn on each other?

    It really is an excellent premise for a story and it’s ripe with mystery. The plot moves a long in real time so it’s reasonably slow paced but this works perfectly for a film of this type. Admittedly it gets more and more absurd as the characters begin to do some strange things and the corporation itself is very amoral. It’s understandable that some people just won’t buy into the central mystery or the corporation’s way of handling potential employees but if you invest yourself in the plot there is much entertainment to be had here. The films climax is a little disappointing in its simplicity but the majority of people will not figure it out. The acting is mostly good although there is one cockney character that is bound to get on everyone’s nerves. There are no special effects or explosions to be found here, it’s just a character based mystery thriller similar to Saw and Cube but without the gore.

    Good film but it won't be to everyone's tastes.

    7/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Abandoned

    An adopted Russian woman living in America travels to Russia in search of her birth parents. While there she discovers that her mother is dead and that she has received the family farm in her will. After traveling to the house, strange noises begin to happen and she comes face to face with her doppelganger. Her long lost brother also shows up and it quickly becomes apparent that something has drawn them to the house and is hell bent on not letting them leave.

    There are plenty of twists and turns in the story which actually works against it as it becomes a little hard to follow in the final third. In fact we have no idea what is going on in the opening two acts which makes it very hard to get into the plot. This in turn completely takes away any frightening atmosphere that the director tries to create and cheapens the loud noise scares even more. There is much to be admired though; the house is suitably creepy, the film is very loud and intense throughout, it moves along at a swift pace and the production and effects are excellent. Sadly though it’s just too hard to follow in the final third and if you aren’t scared by loud noises then there is isn’t much here that will frighten you. Credit must be given for trying to come up with an original story and some of it does work but too many things are left unexplained and will leave many people scratching their heads in confusion.

    The Abandoned is an ambitious film that almost works but is ultimately too convoluted for its own good. Great effects, a loud soundtrack and brilliant sets all add up to a decent horror film but it should have been much better.

    6/10


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,925 ✭✭✭Otis Driftwood


    I loved the Abandoned I have to say.Cerda is definitly a director to watch out for.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Rest Stop: Don't Look Back

    Following on from roughly where the original ended, the plot in this sequel is based around Tom, the brother of the Jesse character that was kidnapped in the first film. Tom is a soldier and is convinced that Jesse is still alive so, along with the help of his girlfriend and geeky best friend, sets out across country to find his brother. After a run in with a strange gas attendant, they unsurprisingly end up at the same rest stop as his brother and his girlfriend Nicole did in the original. Our mysterious driver from the original shows up and kidnaps Tom which leads to all sorts of ghostly happenings and torture.

    I’m not going to say anymore as it will give the plot away but suffice to say it is actually a rather interesting story about restless ghosts. Yes this is a low budget direct to DVD effort to a rather poor original film of the same distribution level but it still manages to be quite an entertaining little film. It could have played out as a simple slasher type film but you have to give the writers credit for at least attempting to come up with a twist on the tired old formula. There are plot holes here but a reasonably ambiguous ending will get you thinking about just what happened previously. There isn’t much gore but when there is it is handled well. The direction is quite good but the acting is pretty awful but never distractingly so.

    Maybe it was the fact that I had almost zero expectations for this film but I ended up enjoying it for what it is. It takes the muddled story of the original and fleshes it out into a much more coherent plot involving a stalker and the ghosts of previous victims. If you don’t expect too much you may be surprised. Admittedly most won’t be as entertained as me!

    5.5/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Tales From The Darkside: The Movie

    Considered by many to be real Creepshow 3, this is an anthology film consisting of three stories and one wraparound story based upon the popular TV show. The stories contain a mummy who is brought back to life, a killer cat and a love story containing a winged creature.

    All the stories are interesting but unfortunately they don’t transfer very well to the big screen and would be more suited to be read in a book. The opening story is the strongest one as the mummy is reasonably menacing and it features a nice ending. The Cat From Hell is pretty much as it sounds, a cat stalks a man for 20 minutes and it’s somewhat entertaining if not taken seriously. By far the weakest of the three is the final story which is a supposed love story but is laughably bad. The couple becomes engaged after about 3 days and it features the most obvious twist ever committed to film. The effects in all three stories are excellent with some great practical gore effects and the film is well directed and acted but unfortunately the short stories just aren’t strong enough to provide anything more than light entertainment.

    Poor enough effort at bringing the TV show to the big screen.

    5/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    House of 9

    Nine people of various backgrounds are kidnapped and placed within a mansion with no means of escape. They are told that they’re part of a game where there will be only one winner and that winner will receive $5m. The catch is that to win you must be the only surviving member of the nine people.

    Now this simple premise opens up all manner of possibilities to explore the darker side of human nature and just how far someone will go to become a millionaire or to simply survive. Instead we are given an incredibly slow moving film where close to nothing happens for the first 50 minutes. The house is populated by incredibly annoying characters, none more so than Dennis Hopper as an Irish priest with a laughably bad accent and truly terrible acting. By the time the killing starts you will have lost all interest in the characters and therefore couldn’t care less who lives or dies. There are some decent gore effects and admittedly the pace does pick up in the last half hour but it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the previous 50 minutes.

    4/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Outpost

    A team of mercenaries consisting of different nationalities are hired by a man to provide help and protection in his quest to retrieve an item from a military bunker in Eastern Europe. Once they arrive at the bunker they find out it is an old SS outpost filled with Nazi equipment. Strange happenings begin to occur as the team is fired upon by soldiers who seem to disappear. When members of the team begin to disappear or turn up dead, the real story behind the outpost is revealed which concerns Nazi occult experiments that may just have worked.

    What Outpost does well is provide the perfect mix between military action and a creepy atmosphere. As soon as the team arrives at the bunker you get the feeling that everything is not as it seems and the scene involving the bodies in one of the rooms is genuinely unsettling. The character of the mute old man is an excellent catalyst for the mystery unfolding around the team as you know that he is not quite what he seems. The direction is excellent as snippets of information are fed to us but never enough to give the plot away. Once we do find out what’s going on it’s a perfect set up for the final half hour of gory action. The acting is rock solid from the mostly unknown cast, as are the effects, lighting and camera work and the dark bunker is a great claustrophobic horror setting. The pace of the film is perfect and although it could never be described as scary it’s still creepy enough to keep you interested.

    Outpost fuses military action with supernatural happenings very well to create an entertaining and creepy film and one definitely worth checking out.

    7/10


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Needful Things

    Needful things is base on the Stephen King novel of the same name. The main plot synopsis follows closely to the book in that the story is based in the small town of Castle Rock where a new shop called Needful Things has just opened. It is run by a “man” called Leland Gaunt who seems to have something for everyone but that something comes with two prices, money and a prank. Gaunt uses these pranks to manipulate the town’s people into fighting and killing each other by turning various people against each other.

    Now admittedly Needful Things isn’t King’s best book but it is still a good read where the small details create the story. With this film adaptation there are far too many changes made to events, items and characters, some of which are ignored completely. One particular character that is instrumental to everything in the book is completely ignored here and the ending is completely different. Items bought by characters in the shop have also changed as well as various relationships between characters and character traits. Leland Gaunt in particular has totally changed and is a much less mysterious figure in this film version. This all begs to question as to why exactly would a studio choose to film a version of the book if they were intent on changing so much of the story! Even if you haven’t read the book there isn’t an awful lot to recommend here. It’s a little slow moving and there is no mystery or suspense here. The ending is also a little flat but one thing the director did get right was in the casting of Max Von Sydow as Leland Gaunt, he is by far the most interesting thing in this mediocre adaptation.

    Yet again a Stephen King novel has been butchered by the film version.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Burning Bright

    To put it simply, Burning Bright is about a tiger on the loose inside a house and a girl and her autistic brother’s ordeal trying not to get eaten. Their stepfather bought a tiger off Meat Loaf, used the oncoming Hurricane as an excuse to board up the house and then set the tiger loose to kill both his step kids and collect a nice life insurance pay out. Sounds like completely ridiculous but it works and works well.

    The most important decision made by director Carlos Brooks was to use a real tiger rather than CGI effects, this instantly elevated it above the countless cheap SyFy films of the same ilk. Burning Bright is also very well written, the first half hour is spend on character development making sure you actually care about our protagonists surviving their ordeal. Despite one or two ropey effects shots, the tiger action is all shot and handled very well and there is quite a tense atmosphere throughout. Yes one or two of the decisions made by the girl weren’t the cleverest and the autistic boy was used a little too much as the catalyst for the attacks but it’s still a very entertaining film that provides 80 minutes of pure fun. Really it’s hard to not to like a film with two people being stalked by a tiger in their own house!

    It’s a silly concept that’s handled very well and the end result is an entertaining horror film that never overstays its welcome.

    7/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Last Exorcism

    Reverend Cotton Marcus is a man who has performed hundreds of exorcism around America, none of which have ever involved supernatural elements. Instead he uses tricks to convince the psychiatrically disturbed person that the exorcism has rid them of their perceived demons. After an exorcism performed by another person results in the death of a child, Marcus decides to make a documentary exposing just how fake exorcisms actually are. He chooses a disturbed girl at random but while performing his “fake” exorcism, strange things begin to happen that he has never seen before. Are there actually supernatural elements involved this time?

    The opening of the Last Exorcism is brilliant, a number of interviews with Marcus and family members tell us his background and how he is having a crisis of faith and wants to expose the fallacies behind exorcisms. It’s all interesting stuff which then becomes gripping as we meet the disturbed girl and the strange happenings begin. Nothing extreme never happens leaving you questioning whether or not this girl is just mentally disturbed or actually experiencing supernatural phenomena. The films ambiguity works perfectly right up until the utterly ludicrous ending that ruins everything that came before it. It’s such a bad ending that words can not do it justice. I understand that the filmmakers wanted to leave it open to your interpretation but it just doesn’t work with what came before it. It’s such a shame as the first 70 minutes is very good and the acting and effects are great throughout although some of camera work s quite poor. If ever there was a film that’s ruined by its ending then The Last exorcism is it.

    5/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Piranha 3D

    In typical B-Movie fashion we have a ludicrous plot. A small earthquake uncovers an underwater lake and releases scores of bloodthirsty prehistoric piranha into a lake that just so happens to be populated by thousands of horny college students on spring break. Mayhem ensues as the piranha snack on the students and it’s up to an unlikely group of people to try and save the day.

    Having been directed by Alexandre Aja and produced by Eli Roth, it’s obvious that Piranha was going to be gory but I wasn’t prepared for just how gory it is. Once the attack begins there are all manner of body parts being ripped to pieces and the effects are all top notch. The jokes come thick and fast and there is a number of genuinely laugh out loud scenes as well as an inordinate amount of boobs on show. Nothing is taken seriously here and if you go in with the right attitude you cannot help but be entertained. It’s well acted in the most part with Jerry O’Connell as the sleazy porn director being the stand out character. Richard Dreyfuss and Christopher Lloyd provide a couple of great cameos too with the Dreyfuss cameo being a nice nod to Jaws. The 3d effects are very good in some scenes but there was the occasional blurry scene which is very distracting.

    In the end Piranha 3d was exactly the film I hoped it would be, buckets of gore, plenty of jokes and pure cheesy entertainment.

    8/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Maybe not strictly horror but what the hell....

    After.Life

    Anna Taylor (Ricci) wakes up in a funeral home after being involved in a car crash following an argument with her boyfriend (Long). She meets Deacon (Neeson), a mortician who claims to have the gift of seeing the recently dead and helping them on their way to the other side. Anna doesn’t believe that she’s dead and with three days left until her funeral a battle of wits evolves which will result in her life or after life.

    The entire film is based on the simple question of whether Deacon is who he says he is or whether he is a deranged serial killer with the intention of sending Anna to the after life. Now there is no denying that this is an intriguing concept but After Life is far too ambiguous for its own good and offers up far too many clues for both sides of the argument. Come the final act your head will be so full of clues and non-clues that you will have no idea what to think leading to a muddled ending. I always like a film that makes you think, and having thought about it I do believe that the film did actually choose one of the sides, but it did it in such an ambiguous way to make the viewing experience extremely frustrating. The pace is also a little slow at times but the acting is solid throughout which is enough to keep you watching.

    In the end it’s a passable effort that’s at least worth watching for the ending that will get you thinking.

    6/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Nine Dead

    Nine people are kidnapped by a masked man and handcuffed to nine poles inside a locked room. The killer informs them that there is a reason all of them are being held captive and they must figure out this reason in order to be set free. The catch is that one of them will be murdered every ten minutes until they can figure it out. Much deliberation ensues and not much else.

    Everything about Nine Dead is completely unoriginal, it has almost no gore with nearly every kill happening off screen and the majority of the acting is dreadful. Yet somehow it still manages to be a somewhat engaging film which is mostly down to the decent script that moves along at a nice pace and never ventures into ludicrous territory. The final reveal is a little disappointing in its simplicity but it is fun watching this rag tag group of characters bickering among themselves as they try to save their lives. The short running time certainly helps and the sight of Sabrina the Teenage Witch going all crazy is always entertaining.

    6/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Devil

    The main plotline is quite simple; five people become trapped in a lift inside a large office building. Strange things begin to happen to the five which eventually leads to a number of deaths. One of the office security guards is convinced that the Devil has come to earth in the form of one of the five in order to claim the souls of the others. It’s up to a cop and the security team to try and rescue the trapped people before it’s too late.

    In fairness to Shyamalan, he has come up with a good story that is ripe with opportunities for horror but although Devil is marketed as horror it’s very light on scares. Usually this would be an annoyance but there is so many other things going on that the film still manages to entertaining. There is never any doubt that the devil is in that lift so this leads to a guessing game as you try to figure out who it is. The direction is solid meaning that you will suspect various people throughout the running time and it’s never predictable as to who it is. The pace is quite fast never allowing you to become bored and at 80 minutes the film really zips along. The trapped characters are all quite interesting and there some genuine moments of tension in the lift. As I said there is very little in the name of horror here; there is no creepy atmosphere, the gore is minimal and there are no jump scenes. Instead the film plays out more as a thriller with the odd killing here and there. There is no twist ending, in fact the ending is very good and fits in nicely with everything that came before.

    Devil isn’t going to win any awards but if you go in with reasonable expectations then you will have a good time.

    7/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Hole 3D

    The story revolves around the Thompson family, consisting of a mother and her two sons, who have just moved into a new house in a small American town. The sons find a mysterious padlocked hatch in their basement which they open to reveal a seemingly bottomless hole. With the help from the girl next door they try to uncover what the hole is which leads to a series of ghostly happenings that seem to be connected to their worst fears. They must try to overcome them to thwart to evil lurking in the hole.

    Joe Dante has created an excellent kid’s horror film that is genuinely creepy. Kid’s films are far too watered down these days so it’s excellent to see Dante back and doing what he does best. The plot is an excellent setup for all manner of ghostly happenings and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. The pace of the film is excellent as the opening half an hour introduces the characters and builds up the mystery behind the hole before the second and third acts unleashes the evil from within. Although there are a lot of jump scenes that will undoubtedly have many kids jumping from their seats, there are still plenty of imaginative visual scares with scenes involving an incredibly creepy clown being the standouts. The effects are excellent and the dream like sets featured in the films climax are suitably twisted. The 3D doesn’t add an awful lot to the film but it’s still fun at times and the child actors are quite strong.

    Joe Dante has created an excellent 80’s throwback film that really is quite creepy for what is a kid’s film. The story is good, the effects are good, there’s plenty of imagination and at 90 minutes it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. Just be prepared for your kid’s to be scared of clowns forever after watching this!

    8/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Hostel

    Three backpackers are travelling through Europe looking to pull as many girls as possible. They meet an Eastern European guy who tells them of a Slovakian hostel with the most beautiful women you could lay your eyes on. Our three head off to Bratislava but quickly find themselves in trouble as the titular hostel is the place where a local group uses to kidnap tourists in order for their twisted clients to torture and kill them. Much mayhem ensues.

    Too many people describe hostel as torture porn when in reality there is very little torture to be found here. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some great gore effects but there isn’t very many of them. What there are given is great horror action, a nice revenge tale and an interesting story. The first 40 minutes or so is your usual horror film setup, plenty of drinking, drugs, boobs and nothing much else. We get a small amount of character development but the first 40 minutes are largely forgettable. It’s only after one of the three disappears that the film really kicks off. From this point on Hostel is great entertainment as it zips along at great pace and is full of tension, gore and killings. Yes it’s incredibly unrealistic but the action is great and what gore scenes there is are great.

    Hostel is a very entertaining horror film that has a bad reputation as being all about the gore.

    7/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Hostel 2

    Sequels are generally supposed to offer something new or at least expand on the ideas from the original. Unfortunately Hostel 2 offers us exactly what the original did only with a lot less action and a lot more filler.

    The plot is almost identical to the original except that the lead characters have been changed from male to female. A group of girls backpacking through Europe are lured to a Slovakian hostel where they are kidnapped in order for rich business men to pay to torture and kill them. We are also teased with the prospect of getting inside the heads of two people that pay to kill our girls but unfortunately it never really happens.

    It’s simply not enough to change the sex of your leading characters in order to justify a sequel. There is just nothing new to be seen here and in fact everything we do get was done much better in the far superior original. It’s clear that Roth did have some interesting ideas; it would have made for a far better film if the focus had been put on the two characters that paid to kill the girls. Instead we get only snippets featuring the two and a twist that is blatantly obvious from the off. The gore is far tamer than the first and there is no action packed final act which was the best thing about the original. There is far too much filler leading to large stretches of boredom and just about everything is mediocre which is a real disappointment.

    Roth has failed to capitalise on the entertaining original and has instead made a sequel that’s inferior in every aspect.

    5/10


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Buried

    The premise couldn’t be simpler; Paul Conroy, a US truck driver stationed in Iraq, wakes up in a coffin buried in the ground with only a lighter and a mobile phone to help him escape his ordeal. He must first figure out why he has been put in the situation and then desperately try to contact the right people and do the right things in order to gain his freedom.

    The most amazing thing is that the entire running time of Buried is based inside the coffin; there is not a single shot of the outside world. This is what gives the film it’s extraordinarily claustrophobic feel and will undoubtedly make a lot of people extremely uncomfortable. The on screen cast is just one man; that man is Ryan Reynolds who puts in a brilliant performance ranging from confusion, to anger and fear. If it wasn’t his performance was even slightly off then the film wouldn’t have worked at all. The script and dialogue are all excellent, the plot is masterly revealed and will have you hooked right from the off. Cortés even manages to put in an action scene for good measure, that’s an action scene inside a coffin! The film’s ending is excellent which again Cortés has to be congratulated for.

    Buried is a wonderful film that will have you hooked from start to finish. It has some strong messages about war and is surprisingly sympathetic towards Iraqi terrorists and scathing on American policies. Cortés and Reynolds have crafted a truly unique film that deserves to been seen by all.

    9/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Fragile

    Calista Flockhart a nurse who gets herself a new job covering the night shift in a children’s hospital on the Isle of Wight that’s in the process of being shutdown. She starts hearing some mysterious noises which prompts the remaining child patients tell her of a mechanical girl called Charlotte who they believe is evil and lives on the deserted second floor. Charlotte begins the attack and hurt the children she leads to Flockhart trying to find out who she is and why she is haunting the hospital.

    Everything about Fragile is extremely derivative as it offers the same tired formula and methods to try and scare as countless other films of the same ilk. Being unoriginal is ok if the film itself is done well but after an interesting opening, Fragile almost grounds to a halt for the next 40 minutes as almost nothing happens bar the odd predictable jump scene. It does pick up in the last half hour but by that stage you will have lost interest and will have figured out the twist well before it happens. Hospitals are naturally scary places but the director largely failed to take advantage of the setting and the lighting was far too dreary to hold your attention. Flockhart does her best in a limited role and the child actors are all decent but it’s the poor script that drags the production down leading to yet PG-13 borefest.

    There is no point in watching Fragile because you will have seen it all before.

    4/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    30 Days Of Night: Dark Days

    The story reads as if it should make for a decent follow up; Stella has relocated to LA where she spends her time trying to convince people that what happened in Barrow was caused by vampires and they really do exist. Just when she is about to give up, she is recruited by a group of vampire hunters who claim that a vampire queen called Lilith is responsible for her husband’s death and the massacre in Barrow. They set out to kill the queen and this thwart any future vampire massacres.

    What made the original so good was its simple but action packed story that never let up until the end. What we are given here is a story so slow and almost entirely devoid of action that it’s a real feat to keep your eyes open until the end. Nothing interesting happens; there are no good fights, no real insight into the world of the vampires, and a downright ludicrous ending. The acting is poor from all bar Kiele Sanchez who has taken over from Melissa George as Stella. What little gore effects and vampire action we are treated too is actually done well which is all the more frustrating due to the sever lack of it. Queen Lilith is an awful villain and is taken care of far too easily.

    Everything about this sequel is so slow and boring that you really have to wonder why they bothered. Don’t waste your time.

    3/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Human Centipede: The First Sequence

    Every now and again a film comes along surrounded by an incredible amount of hype and doesn’t even slightly live up to it. This year’s entry to that particular category is The Human Centipede, a so called horror film that was hyped up to be an incredibly sick and horrific film that needed to be seen by all. In reality it’s an atrocious film that’s incredibly boring and needs to be seen by precisely no one.

    The entire plot consists of a crazy German scientist who kidnaps three people with the intention of performing surgery to attach the mouths and anuses of his victims to form a human centipede. That’s it.

    What makes it such a poor film is that almost nothing happens. Our three are kidnapped, drugged and then the experiment is carried out. Bar a couple of half hearted escape attempts and a final ten minutes involving some German police officers the entire film is incredibly boring. The actual surgical procedure isn’t even slightly disturbing and bandages cover up what would have been the most gruesome part of the centipede. The entire basis of the film was around this so called incredibly disturbing procedure but it’s so tame on screen you will wonder why you bothered.

    There is simply nothing to recommend here bar a remotely interesting final ten minutes. It’s definitely the worst horror film I have seen so far this year. Avoid like the plague.

    2/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Frozen

    Writer and director Adam Green has come up with a simple but terrifying premise and executed it perfectly. Three skiers, one a couple of the best friend of the guy, become stranded on a ski-lift high above the ground as they are forgotten about by the operator. Knowing that the lift will not be open again for another 5 days, they must think of a way to escape the lift before they freeze to death.

    Green wastes no time getting into the guts of the film as barely ten minutes have passed before our three are stuck on the lift. This isn’t to say that he forgets about character development, we quickly learn that the girlfriend is a tag along and there is tension between her and the best friend. The acting from the three main cast members is top notch and it needs to be as they are pretty much the only characters in the film. Once they become trapped in the lift, we are treated to a wonderfully suspenseful film that is without doubt many people’s worst nightmare. Green has kept his film as realistic as possible by making sure characters never make any stupid decisions, every attempt they make to save their lives is wholly plausible. There are a couple of scenes that are quite hard to watch with excellent gore effects but these scenes are never the focus is the film. The dialogue throughout is excellent and the pace of the film is spot on which all lead to a satisfying conclusion.

    Frozen is one of the better horror films of the year but somehow didn’t garner a cinema release. There is no doubt that many people will find it extremely hard to watch due to its premise but if you do then you are in for an excellent horror film.

    8/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Black Death

    The film takes place during the first outbreak of the bubonic plague in England. A young monk learns of a village that is yet to be touched by the plague with rumours suggesting it’s protected by a witch. A group of religious warriors arrive at his monastery looking for a man who knows the land in order to investigate the town and hunt down a necromancer who is rumoured to have the power to bring people back to life to which the young monk volunteers. When the reach the town, they find a utopia run by a woman who doesn’t take lightly to them being there and which leads to many revelations about the town.

    For a film with a reasonably small budget, Black Death looks great. The sets, costumes and acting are all very good and the cast includes Sean Bean as the head of the warrior group. The story is quite good and has a strong religious message which warns of the dangers of believing in something blindly. The start and climax are both excellent but there is a large section in the middle where the pace lets up considerably leading to moments of boredom. There isn’t an awful lot of action but when it comes it’s very good and quite gory, particularly one scene involving Sean Bean’s character. If it wasn’t for the lackluster midsection, Black Death would have been a very good film but there is too much padding which leads to being an average one.

    Plenty of excellent ideas, good action, good production and a strong religious message make Black Death well worth a look but be prepared for a slow second act. It’s yet another film that deserved to be seen on the big screen.

    6/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Lake Placid 3

    ** Only fans of rubbish B-Movies should watch this film :D

    The plot is identical to that of the second entry except that instead of an old woman feeding the crocs, it’s the son of the old woman’s nephew who decides to feed them until they grow to twice the size of the biggest croc ever recorded. Four college students who are out on the lake camping quickly become croc fodder, a couple of hunters, a poacher and another college student are also targeted as are the sheriff and the feeding boy’s family. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how Lake Placid 3 plays out.

    Yes the effects still look like they were rendered on a Commodore 64, the acting is mostly terrible, the dialogue laughable and the plot ridiculous but it still somehow manages to provide some silly entertainment. Perhaps it was my rock bottom expectations but there were some nice kills, some good tense scenes, better characters and Michael Ironside which all added up to a good time. The croc action gets underway early and the pace never lets up allowing the film to zip along and always hold your attention. The action is quite good and the climax is done well but of course it’s all set up for a fourth entry in the series.

    Lake Placid 3 is surprisingly entertaining and is a huge improvement on the terrible second entry. If you watch it with low expectations and an understanding of what the film will be like then you will most likely come away entertained.

    6/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    The Collector

    Desperate to pay off his wife’s debts before a midnight deadline, an ex-con decides to steal a diamond from his employer’s house. Unfortunately for him, someone has beat him to it and as rigged up countless gory traps in various parts of the house and taken the man’s employer and his family hostage. It’s up to our ex-con hero to try and save the family members while avoiding his own bloody demise.

    Really the plot is only an excuse for the director to show various people being caught and mangled in the many booby traps around the house. I must admit that the some of the traps are ingenious and the all of the gore scenes are excellently done but when the film is populated by characters that haven’t even been slightly developed then you really couldn’t care less what happens to them. If a little more time was spent on the films back story then The Collector really would have been a very good film but in the end it’s a slightly entertaining one that’s certainly worth watching for very clever booby traps. Oh and watch out for the utterly ridiculous ending.

    6/10


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Altitude

    Five friends, two couples and the token hanger on, decide to take advantage of the pilot skills of one the female friends and fly to a rock concert in order to save time. Once up in the air, a series of strange happenings occur, including a malfunction stopping the plane from descending, which lead to it being trapped and lost in a sort of twilight zone where none of the instruments work. To make matters worse there may be a supernatural force in the air that is attracted to the plane.

    To put it simply, Altitude is a plane versus an airborne Cthulhu with an incredibly bizarre ending that effectively ruins all of the good things that happened before it. It’s a very well produced film with above average effects and acting. Yes it is populated by the usual annoying characters but this actually works in favour of the film as it creates excellent tension once the five friends become trapped in the plane. The first hour of the film is almost like and episode of the twilight zone as the plane becomes trapped in a strange storm which gives the first two acts and excellent sense of mystery. It’s when the Cthulhu turns up that things start to go downhill and then we are treated to a completely nonsensical ending that will have you scratching your head for days. If it had played out as a simple monster film that it would have been very good as the first hour really was gripping stuff. Sadly the director tried to far too clever for his own good.

    Altitude is a film with an excellent first hour that will have you gripped to the screen but a strange ending will most likely ruin it for you. It’s definitely worth a look though and who knows, the ending may even work for you.

    5/10


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,236 Mod ✭✭✭✭Kingp35


    Night of the Demons (2009)

    The basic plot is similar to the original but not much else; a group of people head to a Halloween party in a house where, in 1922, five people went missing and a woman committed suicide. Needless to say there is a supernatural aspect to the happenings and the group unwittingly unleashes a group of demons who are hell bent on killing them all. Cue terrible attempts at horror comedy and all around rubbish entertainment.

    Director Adam Gierasch has tried to create a fun Halloween film with plenty of horror comedy, the only problem is that he failed miserably. Every single joke is painfully unfunny and the visual comedy is equally as bad. The entire film plays out like a bad Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode complete with cheap looking make up effects but with more boobs, drugs and drinking. The plot is not even slightly engaging and the sight of a fat Edward Furlong running around is enough to make anyone want to turn the film off. There really is very little to recommend here, even the soundtrack is annoying and I dare anyone to try and not laugh at the incredibly silly final few shots.

    Horror comedies can be brilliantly when done right but awful when done wrong, sadly this pointless remake is very much a part of the latter category.

    3/10


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