Hostel 2

Hostel: Part II

Jackass: The Movie

Why did I watch this?
Did anyone ask "why" before the first people sat down to preview Eraserhead?
Did anyone ask "why" before they saw the unveiling of the Mona Lisa?
Did they ask it when first they stepped into the Sistine Chapel to witness Michaelangelo's magnificence? Did they ponder on the purpose behind The Resurrection Of Christ and interrogate Raphael about it's meanings, until he could take it no more?
Did they ask Donatello why, of all the turtles, he spent so much time creating dumbass machines instead of eating pizza and being awesome like the rest of them? I mean, C'mon, even Leonardo could chill out once in a while, guy!
Did they ask Isaac Newton why he was going off to sit under a tree "till something inspirational happens"?!
Did they ask Einstein why he was remembered more for being a little bit crazy than being a little bit of a genius? I guess not since he'd be dead by then...
Did they ask why before Martin Luther King stepped before a vast audience gathered to hear him and delivered his "I have a dream" speech?

They probably did, I guess...

Wrong Turn 2

If you...














Are thinking...














Of Watching...














This film...














DON'T!



It doesn't even deserve a genuine clip or even a clip pretending it's from the film.
Seriously. This film was fucking aweful.

Zombie Town

Gotta make a move to a town that's right for me.
Town to keep me movin',
keep me groovin' with some energy.
Well, I talk about it, talk about it,
talk about it, talk about it.
Talk about, talk about, talk about movin'.
Gotta move on.
Gotta move on.
Gotta move on.
Won't you take me to Zombie Town.
Won't you take me to Zombie Town.

Zombies + Small Town = Killing People You Know!

This review sucks...
Zombie Town is a small independent film, which seems to have been made and is set in Vermont.
It has a great small-town feel that other zombie films don't which almost makes you reflect on the difficulties which might be faced if you had to fight zombies that you know, but instead makes you think "Oh my God I could totally kill my boss and that dick from across the street!"
The soundtrack sucked, but I don't like many horror soundtracks so I'll let that slide, especially considering this had a fair amount of gore.

Uh... um... HI OH!

Six String Samurai

Imagine if you will, a movie in which a character named "Buddy" represents all that is Rock And Roll after the death of Elvis Presley. Sounds simple and endearing? Yes, now let me add a few things to the equation here...

Imagine that the Americans lost the Cold War, very early on, and were nuked by the Russians in 1957. In the following years, Las Vegas becomes "Lost Vegas" and Elvis Presley is crowned King. Lost Vegas becomes a safe haven for all things American but when Elvis dies Vegas needs a new king, as the tagline implies. Here is where we meet Buddy, fully representing post-Elvis Rock 'n Roll. Here we also meet the Red Elvis' (or is it Elvi?), a group of Communist Elvis Presleys (the nerve!) who we find are out to kill our buddy Buddy! Probably because he's all-American and they're... well I'm not sure what they are.

Still following me?

Well what if instead of the Red Elvis' trying to kill Buddy, along come a group of synchronized bald bowlers who carry hunking maces in their bowling bags and have blades disguised as skittles who decide they have to kill Buddy instead? Why are they concealing weapons in conventional objects? Why are they bowlers? I think they represent the hum-drum pass-times of America that attempted to destroy the way Rock 'n Roll oughta be, man! Anyhow it's lucky that inside his '57 Hollow body Guitar our buddy Buddy conceals... a Samurai sword! And just happens to be the most kickin'est ass-est kung-fu fighting Rock 'n Roll guy you ever did see... and easily stops the bowling guys...

Then enter 4 dark strangers who look like rejects from Motley Crue, besides the leader who looks like Slash from Guns N Posers. They clearly have their eyes set on killing Buddy too! And clearly represent that demon of all demons, Heavy Metal.

Anyway, they stalk Buddy on his travels to Lost Vegas and along the way we find that the Heavy Metal hordes plan to also become king of Lost Vegas!

Along the way Buddy encounters and kills a host of bizarre people, a family who despite the post-apocalyptic wasteland they live in, are still putting on a facade of the American dream. A wannabe rock n' roller, who Buddy tells to "Go get a picket fence somewhere", kick ass! A bunch of guys in moon-suits, who I think represented "the man", boy did Buddy ever do one over on them. And eventually a Russian General, who had a penchant for folk music and polka. I'm not sure if he represented Communism, Bod Dylan, Hippies or all three...

Anyway, the point is I had a dream last night in which I met Ellen DeGeneres and not only did she turn out to be a very pleasant person, but in fact become some what of a mentor of mine teaching me how to deal with day to day struggles and helping me learn true meaning in life. That was up until I was tragically killed in a car accident! But I was still among everyone as a ghost, and I kept flipping things around to haunt them, then Ray Barone (Because obviously, by this point I was on the set of Everybody Loves Raymond) suggests that it would be far funnier to haunt his mom, and so I did (I assume I did anyway, at this point my dream stayed on the people that weren't me while I went of to "haunt") until Ray's mom comes running in with her night mask on in a hilarious scene of American sit-comedy!
Then it turns out I wasn't really dead, everyone was just pretending they couldn't see me "for a laugh".
Then I woke up and mused about how the dream was more coherent than Six String Samurai.

And it's true!

Here's a trailer that confirms that what I said about this movie is true...

28 Weeks Later

The movie 28 Days Later was the first horror film I actually took the time to sit down and enjoy, before that I was of the opinion that horror films were kind of lame and zombie films were especially so (having never seen any but being put of by the dull premise), that all changed when I went to see 28 Days Later by chance... this may make it sound like I'm in complete awe of 28 Days Later but that's only marginally true, I think it's an awesome movie. Well acted, well directed, well written, great soundtrack... I'm indebted to it for getting me into the genre I now enjoy frequently. Anyway, for this reason I was quite looking forward to the DVD release of

28 WEEKS LATER

I was waiting for the DVD release because it's a lot of effort to go to the cinema and unless we really need to see a movie (like Grindhouse! duh!) then it isn't worth it, and although 28 Days Later was such a great movie in my eyes, I didn't expect as much from a sequel. I'm thankful that I didn't expect too much because really it just followed the same theme outlines as the first one, which I'll explain in the rest of my review which will, as usualy, contain spoilers: The sequence of events was identical to the first movie in that first everyone's in danger, and more importantly, most people are dead, mid-way into the movie we are shown that everyone's safe thanks to the military guys! Soon after that we find that "Oh no, the military are actually the ones to be afraid of!". The only difference is that in this one you expected everything to go wrong despite the strong military presence, whereas in the first one there wasn't any real indication of what was going to go wrong and you didn't necessarily think it was going to go wrong for sure... is this review followable or am I just typing to myself here? I'm pretty sure I'm just incoherently typing nonsense... oh well, moving on to the soundtrack then I'll finish. I've heard a few people commend this movie on an excellent soundtrack! I'd agree if it were not for the fact that as far as I could tell it was the exact same music as the first film! Not that there's anything wrong with that, it is a sequel after all, but it's not like I watched Halloween 3 and thought "Oh what an original and fitting soundtrack!", no! Because it's the same as the first one! Anyway, the only gripes I have about this film are to do with it just being a run-of-the-mill sequel to the first film. I guess I had hoped the 28 Days Later sequel would be one of those rare sequels that in some ways surpasses the original in many ways, but it did not. The one thing I thought stood out as good about this movie is that in all the trailers we see that Robert Carlyle is the main character and it's a genuine shock when he's infected pretty early on! Bam! That's all.

Movie Related News Article

Saw this featured in The Onion recently and thought it very fitting...

New Wes Anderson Film Features Deadpan Delivery, Meticulous Art Direction, Characters With Father Issues

September 24, 2007 | Issue 43•39

LOS ANGELES—Fans who attended a sneak preview Monday of critically acclaimed director Wes Anderson's newest project, The Darjeeling Limited, were surprised to learn that the film features a deadpan comedic tone, highly stylized production design, and a plot centering around unresolved family issues.

"What will he think of next?" audience member Michael Cauley said. "And who could have foreseen the elaborately crafted '60s-era aesthetic, melancholy subtext, and quirky nomenclature—to say nothing of the unexpected curveball of casting Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray?"

In a recent review, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott also expressed surprise at the film's cutting-edge soundtrack, which features a Rolling Stones song and three different tracks by the Kinks.

I thought it very fitting...
I mean... 4 movies with the same basic plot-line, that's one thing but 5! I think he just pushed it a little too far and can't get away with just changing the setting to something quirkier each time he makes a movie. I was going to say that perhaps he should take someone else's story and direct it, forcing him to drop the quirks of his usual plot but when I look at imdb I see that his next work seems to be The Fantastic Mr Fox so I am compelled to shut my whining pie-hole.

Halloween III

Hey, did you know this film shares nothing in common with the rest of the Halloween series (the ones I've seen so far anyway) at all? Because I sure didn't... I have a plan to watch all the Halloween films before Halloween since I've only seen the first 2 (first 3 now) so I got this little gem off NetFlix. So, this film does not have Michael Myers in it. It does not have Jamie Lee Curtis in it (except a brief phone message cameo, maybe) It does not follow the plot of the previous two movies In fact, the only things linking this to the first two Halloween movies are:

• It's title

• It has a clip from the first Halloween in it on TV

Yes, that's right, the plot of this movie is so far removed from the original Halloween that the original Halloween can be seen to be a work of fiction even within it. Did some idiot director think "Hey, the first Friday the 13th didn't even have Jason in it, maybe I can make a Halloween sequel that not only doesn't have Michael Myers in it but has absolutely no relation to it's predecessors!" or is it a case of a writer who had an idea for a story but when he went to a production company the following conversation happened: Writer: I have an idea for a movie! It takes place on Halloween... Producer: Great! We're looking for a sequel to Halloween! Writer: No... uh... my movie is only based on the day Halloween, not the movie... Producer: I'm pretty sure that makes it a sequel... Writer: But my movie is called "Revenge Of The Irish Mobsters Who Sell Cryptic Masks To People And Send Weird Men In Plain Suits To Kill People And Spark An Investigation By An Alcoholic Doctor And A Dipshit Looking Girl"? Producer: Sounds like a subtitle. How does "Halloween III" sound? Writer: Well... I guess... as long as it's still a subtitle... Producer: Yes, but instead of "Revenge Of The Irish Mobsters Who Sell Cryptic Masks To People And Send Weird Men In Plain Suits To Kill People And Spark An Investigation By An Alcoholic Doctor And A Dipshit Looking Girl", we'll call it"Season Of The Witch"! Writer: What? Seriously! If this movie has been a standalone movie, it would have been poor. But as a sequel to Halloween, it's a real fucking disaster.

Snake People

If you haven't seen Snake People then you haven't lived!

There's a line in the remake of the Hills Have Eyes (sorry to keep harping on about that film, but whatever!) that goes something like: "I think Freud would have a few things to say about your fascination with snakes!", and there's a good 20 minutes of continuous footage and about an hours worth of overall footage in this film that really makes you think the same thing about the director of this film... it's hardly implied either... at first there's a woman in her bed and some deranged midget voodoo guy comes in brandishing a snake and an idiotic grin, his assistant with the dumb hair removes the woman's top, and presumably all her clothes.
The midgets at the foot of her bed with the snake, then we cut to the woman's face and... is she making "that" kind of face?... surely not!
At this point you think, well... that was implied and harmless. In fact you almost curse the director for not having the balls to imply it a little more, and at least turn this film into a really grizzly film that's difficult to watch...
But then we're whisked away into some dream world where the woman wakes up to find her evil twin is there brandishing (and stroking) an enormous snake, as she clutches it towards her face like... well... you know

The woman is horrified by this and makes a run for it only to be encountered by her evil twin, only this time she's holding the snakes head in her mouth... uhh... awkward?

Then she has it tied around her waist and is holding out it's head like...well... you know

There's still no nudity though! So... well done on managing to make a long drawn out porn sequence without actually showing anything at all, I guess?

I'm supposing that this sequence was some sort of arty way of reflecting the innocent character's inner turmoil as she struggles with her own deep seeded desires and urges, will she continue to run from the penis, I mean snake, or embrace it?
And by embrace it I mean start making out with her own evil twin?!

What?

Seriously, then we see the main character (who I swear sounded Spanish right up until the last 5 minutes when he became French, but there was some plot going on that might have implied he had to pretend to be French... even though everyone on the island knew him... uh...) and he's just waking up to find what else but a snake in his bed and all the while you're thinking "Is this going to turn into homo-erotic snake non-porn???" as he looks fearful at this snake that keeps manifesting itself... but before the guy has any disturbing dream sequences the director shows his closet homophobic nature by whisking us away to a scene where a zombie lady is seducing a man at the bar...

Oh yeah! This film was about zombies, what was all that snake nonsense then, Mr Director?

And who told him that he should even try and make zombies hot? It's a well established fact that one of the key things about zombies is that they are never ever hot. No matter how Return Of The Living Dead tries to spin it.



Worth noting: there were only a few moments where I could really tell this film was poorly dubbed, so... well done there

Cannibal: The Musical

I just finished watching...

CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL

... and it was just as awesome as I remember it being!




Cannibal: The Musical's Website

300

It's about time I reviewed this

I wasn't expecting much from this film, it's not really the kind of film I tend to hold in too high a regard but I was expecting at least was epic battles and gimpy epic lines, which this film delivered to some degree. However, in all honesty, I felt it was too short... seriously, when I think 300, I was expecting something so epically engaging that it would be a three hour long battle sequence with about 15 minutes of plot! When I saw the cover, and saw it wasn't even 2 hours long I was seriously dissapointed! (It was like the reverse feeling from when I looked at King Kong's runtime)

Anyway, so no big deal, they surely just cut out the plot and opted for (almost) 2 hours of straight battle?

I wish!

Unfortunately it seems the film had some unnecessary plot, love story, struggle and some sort of glorious message to tell. It seemed to imply that if it weren't for this raving band of closet homosexuals the world would be without all that I hold dear today, too. Interesting perspective on life Mr Snyder, but couldn't we have gotten Michael Bay to direct this film? No substance, all action, slow motion sequences and just make sure he knows he's not aiming for PG-13 this time so he remembers not to leave out the blood!

Actually scratch that... the fight with all the explosions in 300 was the least enjoyable, and Michael Bay would only amplify that... and set the whole thing in space...
Ok ok, so Michael Bay would have made this film worse but the point is that what I wanted from this film was non-stop blood, gore, screaming, fighting and such as... Africa and the Iraq and such as...

What I got was some of that with a bunch of jibba-jabba in the middle that I couldn't hear because my brain was set to All-Gore-Mode (not Al-Gore-Mode) and I couldn't respond to English.

And don't even get me started on the historcal innacuracies!!!

Mainly because I have no idea what they are...



The 300 At Yahoo! Movies

Fracture

Fracture brings to my attention the fact that the more reviews I do, the more likely it is that I'll have to point out which Fracture I'm talking about, since there is seemingly about 4 dozen of them... however I know nothing of these other ones so I'm unsure how to accurately seperate the Fracture I saw from these ones except to say that the Fracture I'm reviewing had Anthony Hopkins in it... but what if the other ones did too? I'm forever at a loss... whichever Fracture you're thinking of right now, this review is for it.
Umm... damn, I've forgotten what I was going to say now






Fracture's Website (Detailing which film it is I'm talking about)

Cabin Fever

The only problem with Cabin Fever is that Eli Roth directed it!

No, I don't mean it sucked... I liked it.

No! Seriously I thought it was a good film, I was merely trying to...

No hold on I just felt that if I didn't know that Eli...
No, I'm not saying the film sucked on every level!

Yes.... yes, I'm aware that Mr Roth was in the film too... yes, I thought that was extraordinarily lame too but...
No, just listen for a second, that doesn't mean I thought the whole film sucked!!

No it doesn't, man!
Look... I was just trying to say... wait, where are you going!?

Alright fine, fuck you too...

Cabin Fever's Website

The Number 23

The Number 23 is precisely 13.0434782608695217391304347826 less intense than 300. Take away all the Spartans, the blood, the swords and divide the epicness (Not a word! Why not? What word would be correct?) by 13.0434782608695217391304347826 and what's left?

Jim Carrey getting intensely confused and agitated for a couple hours!

The basic premise is that Jim Carrey's character reads a book that has striking resemblances to his own life, this makes him look deeper into it and eventually he's spotting similarities between the books key theme (The number 23) and everything from the letters in his name to the number of pairs of shoes his wife owns, making him have a complete meltdown and become obsessed with the number 23 to devastating ends! But a number can't really be dangerous! Or can it?
Who cares!
This was a pretty damn good film but in all honesty I had it so hyped up in my mind that I thought it was going to be my next favorite. The whole film is pretty amazing, the plot is inventive, Jim Carrey's acting is once again surprisingly gripping (Just like in The Mask) and the directing gets the feeling of paranoia down. Overall a great film but I feel the ending felt slapped together a little bit... the ending, as far as being in a story sense, is flawless but it's more the execution of it in the film that I feel wasn't as gripping as it could have been... maybe I'm just getting tired of twist endings (Don't give me that "Oh my God! I didn't know it had a twist ending! Thanks a lot, asshole!", every film in existence has a twist ending these days, it's a prerequisite before a script is even looked at by a director) or maybe this film just executed it wrong...

Here's my opinion on films with good twist endings (Look away now if you don't want to know what films have twists)

Sixth Sense
Twelve Monkeys
The Others (Awesome!)
Film Geek (Awesomer!)
Saw
Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
Fight Club
The Machinist

Here's my opinion on films that demonstrate fucking awful (or at least, they display twist ending that seem forced or there just for the sake of having a twist) twist endings

Saw 3 (This is top of the list because it was the worst execution of a twist ending I have ever had the misfortune to witness)
High Tension
The Village (Great film otherwise, and actually had a good mid-film twist, maybe the ending twist was unnecessary because of it)
The Number 23
Star Wars III: Revenge Of The Sith (Ok, not a twist because you know it's going to happen but my God what a fucking atrocious film this was!)

I Wasn't The Only One To Wittily Connect The Number 23 and 300

And here's a clip of Jim Carrey trying to scare you!



Anyway, this is a great film that was let down by a twist ending, unlike some of those movies which were terrible films that had a twist ending to try and make them good. So in spite of that major complaint, the number 23 still gets:

The Number 23's Website

Moon Of The Wolf

"Did The Wild Dogs Do It To Her? Depends What You Mean By "Do It"."

This was a TV movie made in 1972, but we had the good fortune to find it in Wal-mart (or possibly the dollar store) on a double feature disc, coupled with "Dr Jekyl Vs The Werewolf", which, if it turns out to be as good as "Moon Of The Wolf" will make it well worth the $1 we spent on the DVD!

When you pay $1 for a movie (Never mind 2) you expect a pile of turd that's worth the buck just to laugh at the atrocious nature of the film-making and more or less have your own version of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in your living room as you pick at holes and mock the cheesy special effects and piss-poor acting! So when a movie turns out to be watchable, well scripted and reasonable it's almost a dissapointment.
"Moon Of The Wolf" is like a brilliant blend of the two! It has enough poor acted moments and cheesy lines to inspire a few sneaky jabs at the writer's expense but it has enough of a plot (plot by werewolf movie standards, let's not get carried away here!) and is together enough to be enjoyed as a film in itself and not just a giant freak show of a movie!
The movie basically follows the same plot as about a million other werewolf movies where some scared townsfolk don't know what's going on while a hapless hero slowly puts things together just in time to save a woman who he just met and started to like during the movie.
The special effects are lame, the acting is sub-standard but hey, it only cost 50 cents!?
We'll see if Dr Jekyl Vs The Werewolf lives up to it's 50 cents...

Moon Of The Wolf's Wikipedia article

The Cave

Creature Feature x (Fair CGI + Poor Acting) / PG-13 Rating + (Predictable Plot x Overly Menacing Monsters)/Vague Implications Of A Poor Sequel =

THE CAVE

The Cave = Fairly Decent Horror Film - (R-Rating + Gore)

The bad news is I couldn't find a trailer for this film (I didn't look very hard)
The good news is I found this music video featuring the film instead!
Don't let the music put you off seeing the film , it wasn't too bad, just as cheesey as you might expect a creature feature to be.

The Cave's Shitty Website

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

This was, obviously, a sequel to the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. It was not, as far as I can tell, a remake of The Hills Have Eyes Part II from 1985, which was a sequel to the original Hills Have Eyes, but followed a different story (From what I read, I haven't seen The Hills Have Eyes part II (1985)). The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007) follows a group of morons who decide to wander into the desert because the army told them to, or something. Despite having a very similar title to The Hills Have Eyes (Similar to both the 1977 title and the 2006 title, which were both very similar to each other also) The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Not part II) differs from it's predecessor(s?) in a few key ways.

First my thoughts on the original (remake. The original remake from 2006, not 77, k?)
Upon watching The Hills Have Eyes I was fairly surprised at what a good remake it was, in this day and age it's common to see a film that's a rendition or remake or sequel to something fairly awesome only to discover the filmmakers have taken it in a ridiculous and vomitous direction away from the original ideas and into a steaming pile of turd. The Hills Have Eyes did a great job remaking the classic '77 version, keeping most of the elements that made it both brutal and entertaining, while changing just enough to make it also likable by a modern audience. Note that I say "also", the filmmakers seemed to make sure that it also appealed greatly to fans of the original.

Upon watching The Hills Have Eyes 2 I realized it sucked ass

The Hills Have Eyes wisely chose a director who had at least shown once (with Haute Tension) how grizzly he could make on screen violence

The Hills Have Eyes 2 chose someone who sucked ass (Directed a KoRn video)

The Hills Have Eyes was gripping enough to keep you in a fairly tense mood throughout and actually managed to make you feel some sort of empathy for the main characters much like older horror films so that the audience is, to some degree, genuinely fearful for what may become of them, not just hoping they all snuff it in interesting ways. Indeed, I do believe that it was far more empowering when the good guys were taking out the bad guys than the other way round, which is something I think is important, but sadly almost always lacking, in horror films but seems to be common in Wes Craven's works (Wes Craven wrote and directed the original Hills Have Eyes).

The Hills Have Eyes 2 sucked ass

Look at this trailer!

I remember seeing it and thinking: "Awesome, they're making a new one and it looks like they're trying to make it creepy and cool"
But hey! That scene isn't in the film
Those people aren't in the film
That music isn't in the film
Unlike the first one, they didn't even attempt to use vaguely cool (different, new, interesting) music, opting instead for a nu-metal sound track
Fuck this film
Fuck it right in the ear

The Hills Have Eyes Official Website (Includes the sequel)

V For Vendetta

V for Vendetta was a sweet magic carpet ride over the Arabian desert of conscious being

It was a sucker punch from the artistic bowels of Muhammad Ali
It was a single wrapped up golden present in the bottom of my Christmas stocking
It was a fire blazing deep in the night with no origin and the fuel of a million matches
It was a giraffe in a movie-forest full of zebra
It was a heat seeking panther
It was cold soothing rain on a warm summer evening: refreshing and longed for
It was a blank canvas in which all my thoughts and feeling could be painted
It was
Fucking awesome!

V For Vendetta's Website

Hard Candy

We are immediately confronted with the controversial subject of pedophilia. Coupled with that dark and evil container for all that is evil: the internet
As far as I know this is the most mainstream film to deal with such issues. The basic premise of the film is that the young girl who is sought out by the older man online turns out to be the one who was doing the hunting, as she seeks to take out her anger and vengeance on the man she suspects to be a pedophile.
It is a subject matter which could have potentially had audiences the world over gritting teeth, anxiously hushing each other and scurrying out of the cinema and caused someone at some poor censorship committee to lose their job when an angry British mob got out of control. I don't mean that it could have been perverse, I just mean that it could have been forcing a subject which we all know happens in real life into our faces, which most people get pretty gritty about and prefer not to think of these things actually happening...
Such a film would have had many people talking but would have been gut wrenching and no-one would have actually enjoyed seeing it.
Thankfully, Hard Candy is not a film resembling any of that.
The director did a good job of making the subject matter prominent without taking it a crucial step into painstaking reality, and thus made a film that can be watched and enjoyed without the awkward nagging that can often come after seeing a film that points out something quite horrible that's actually happening in the world but we'd rather not think about (Like "Hostel" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Just kidding. Fuck you Eli Roth! Seriously though... Like an Inconvenient Truth: The Film That Makes You Think That Maybe You Should Do Something).
So, thanks to a well placed director and some extremely well played acting, Hard Candy is an enjoyable film, the greatness only multiplied by the fact that there are only two actors and one set for about 95% of the film.
A perfect film?
Not at all.
In fact, not close, here comes the criticism!
I feel that, because the director made sure to tip-toe around making the film too controversial, since it would have been very easy to do so, the film manages to evoke no thoughts or feelings whatsoever... there are moments when you think something very wrong has happened or is happening such as a particular scene when the pedophile is being brutally tortured by the young girl.
The initial reaction is almost to cheer on the girl as she sticks it to the perverted fucker.
But so as not to make the film have an extreme bias we are quickly made to think that maybe this little girl is just nuts and maybe is going too far against a man she has no evidence over.
Then we're quickly flip flopped back to remembering that this guy clearly is a fucktard and deserves everything he's getting.
Then you're reminded that the girl is a bit of a psychopath.
Then you're reminded that the guy is sick.
She's a psycho
He's a cunt
And so the movie goes on, flip flopping around thoughts so much that it's impossible to stick to one or even think about any sort of point the movie might be making, which I'm not sure it does...
I think the director sort of chickened out of trying to make any point because to do so would be to enrage someone or other out there...
So, I'll give this one 3/5 mainly due to some good acting, and some credit does go to the director for taking the subject matter and making it completely unpreachy. I just feel that it could have been some preachy about something.

Hard Candy's IMDb Page

Dark Water

Most creepy 'what's going on?!?' type horror films (The Ring, The Others, The Grudge, The Waterboy) follow a basic pattern whereby the character development in the film is limited only to information that's relevant, such as finding out a character has a deep abandonment issue from their childhood which comes into play later in the movie when they're left alone in an empty cardboard box, leaving the bulk of the film to be used to develop a plot and to have all sorts of creepy things happen, such as photographs melting, Japanese girls gibbering to themselves about a curse, televisions mysteriously switching off and on when no-one is accidentally sitting on the remote or little boys who 'meow' when they open their mouths (It's amazing how tame that seems when it's typed...).

Dark Water is like the exact opposite of this idea... it was marketed, as far as I remember, as being part of this wave of creepy ghost story horror films that was at it's peak a few years ago and yet for the first hour of this film you'd think it had been written by Charlie Kaufman (before being swiftly censored and edited by some asshole from Fox, resulting in a long drawn out romantic drama with a few slightly odd characters who managed to slip through the net when the evil whore-hounds at Fox tried to turn Mr Kaufman's work into an all-encompassing feel good romance movie... this movie has nothing to do with Charlie Kaufman or Fox...) and it's not till far too late into the film that we are given even the slightest of slight creepy feelings.
Alas it is too late...
Had the entire film contained the spooky elements that were present in the last half hour this film would have been a moderate to poor horror film.
Instead it was a poor to poor horror film.
And the use of the term 'horror' is questionable.
On the positive side, the characters in the film are quirky, realistically odd and well played. Down to characters who only play a really small part in the film (Such as the lawyer, the school teacher and the landlord).
Unfortunately this is not a film in which I should be pondering over the complexities of such small parts, I should be wondering why there is a constant creepy drip coming from the floor above.
Why there are endless demonic carol type singing of children's nursery rhymes eminating throughout the elevator shaft.
Why the stains on the ceiling resemble a creepy little girl.
WHY DOES THE CARETAKER REFUSE TO SPEAK TO THE LITTLE GIRL AND WHY DOES HE ALWAYS SHAKE WHEN SHE'S AROUND AS IF TO IMPLY THAT SOMETHING VAGUELY CREEPY IS GOING ON BUT WE
JUST
DON'T
KNOW
WHAT?!
I should be concerned as to why the child has dissapeared and no-one seems to recall where she is, who she is, if she even had a daughter when she entered the building.

Why, if she had no daughter, is there a love-heart squeaked onto the glass of the window which Jodie Foster only finds when she breathes on the glass?

Why is it that only Jodie Foster can remember her child in one film and Julianne Moore in another? Thus furthering her career in which she will eventually become Jodie Foster??

None of this happens in Dark Water
None of it.
Something creepy should have happened
But it didn't
Something should have made me jump
But it didn't
Godamnit, you'd think this film had some sort of impact on my life the way I'm going on about it


But it didn't

Dark Water's Official Site

Scanners

Scanners is a movie

In which some people die
Their heads go kablooie
When the evil scanner tries!

Scanners IMDb Page

Movie Related News Story

Just a little article about movies that my wife just sent me, not a review and not my words but I felt it was relevant to movies and deserved a spot here.
I put this post in a different font so that it sticks out to the casual scroller and is easily recognisable as not being a review...

Films target kids to push limits of violence

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Once it was risky to have a child die in the movies, particularly in violent fashion. Now they're dropping like flies.

Whether it's for art or shock value, a recent spate of films has been rubbing out children, prompting an outcry among some parents and critics.

(Warning: The examples cited may be spoilers for those who haven't see the films.)

•A child's hanging begins Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

•In Hostel: Part II, a killer orders a child to pick one of his playmates to die, then executes that boy.

•In Grindhouse, a boy played by director Robert Rodriguez's son Rebel shoots himself (off camera).

•Last year's Pan's Labyrinth ends with the shooting of the heroine, a young girl.

The carnage even has studio executives wondering whether filmmakers are straining boundaries to shock audiences.

"It certainly seems like the envelope is getting pushed further and further," says Steve Rothenberg, president of domestic distribution for Lionsgate Films, which released the sequel to Hostel. "Whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know."

Others are less equivocal.

"What's next, killing infants?" asks Nell Minow, aka Movie Mom, a film critic and columnist for Yahoo!

Minow says in some instances, such as Labyrinth, "you can reluctantly excuse it for the story. But many of these others are just for cheap thrills, to push audiences who have been numbed by all the violence they're seeing."

Not that killing kids is unheard of in Hollywood. Frankenstein's monster accidentally killed a girl in the 1931 classic. Anakin Skywalker mowed down young Jedis in 2005's Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

But in Frankenstein, villagers hunted down the monster for the death. And Anakin's rampage was the final straw in his becoming the most reviled guy in the universe.

This year, "it seems like we're getting it more for shock value," says Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com. "You have to wonder how long people will take it. It's easy for people to say they aren't going to see a movie."

Filmmakers say it's not all about pushing the limits of taste. At the time of Grindhouse's release, Rodriguez told USA TODAY he was aiming for true terror.

"I wrote it thinking, 'What would be the scariest thing that could happen to me?' And I thought, 'My God, me losing my child.' "

But where does it end?

"It's gotten pretty dull seeing a 25-year-old get killed," Pandya says. "Maybe the senior citizens are next."

Color Me Kubrick

John Malkovich proves once again that he's the only one properly capable of playing a man who pretended to be a director who pretended to the world that he directed films that made any sense.

The basic plot is based loosely on true events where one Alan Conway pretended to be the fiercely reclusive film director Stanley Kubrick to his own ends and ruins a bunch of hopeless wannabes on the way.

It's a nice little take on the idea that many people have that they know as much, or more, than most famous people do about their own professions, and also the idea that most people will do almost anything a famous person says, if the promise of being famous or rich themselves is given.
Alan Conway (In the film anyway) seems to take that conversation we've all had in a pub on a dark and lonely drunken Saturday evening about how "'Ken that bastard Kubrick (or any famous director musician actor writer whatever) ?That cunt disnae 'ken shite aboot nuthin' man! Ah could make a fuckin' film better than that fuck... aye!" and bams it up a notch, into living a whole life of being the man himself...

It's also littered with a host of Kubrick film references.

At least, I assume it's littered with them... I've only been able to force myself to drudge through a handful of Kubrick films so I only noticed the tune from 2001: A Space Oddysey (Which I recognised from a Simpson's episode) and a line or two from Clockwork Orange (Which I was obliged to watch before getting into punk music). The whole film is probably actually a series of Kubrick films cut-and-pasted together into one coherent film...

As I type this I'm watching the special feature on the DVD "Being Alan Conway" which is a little witty take on the extremely brilliant movie Being John Malkovich. Did you ever see that film? I saw it in the cinema back in 1999. I didn't really know what to expect of it but I often find that's the best way to see films, to not know a thing about it or anyone involved.
Being John Malkovich was a cinematic delight! The basic plot is a gentleman by the name of Schwartz gets a job in a bizarre little (literally) office and as often happens in these situations, finds a portal into the mind of John Malkovich. On the way he tries to find love, riches and power and succeeds! It's a classic tale of rags to riches to rags again and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone! Definitely, in my opinion, one of my favourite movies of all time!

Being John Malkovich gets:


Color Me Kubrick:

Offical Color Me Kubrick Website

Haute Tension/High Tension

Fuck you!




High Tension's Official Internetwebs Location

The Mad

"Does Anyone Have Anymore Questions Or Comments On The Subject Of Zombies?"

Ever wonder what would happen if a plain old mundane ordinary run-of-the-mill dullsville disease like, oh I don't know, Mad Cow Disease was in any way interesting and turned people into awesome blood eating Zombies?
Well... wonder no longer because there's...

THE MAD

In "The Mad" a family trip to middle-of-nowhere-ville turns into a relatively ridiculous frolic filled with zombies created by people unknowingly eating tainted toxic beef from a local crackpot's farm, gun toting locals, mindless references to 80's electronic music and one unnecessary blow job scene.

As far as regular horror films go, it's pretty tame, but if you're a zombie film fan it's probably worth a look (If you can find it, I imagine it's not the easiest one to come across by conventional methods...). Definitely gives a comedic and alternative look at a group of people dealing with a zombie uprising similar to Shaun Of The Dead in that respect (Though The Mad is slightly more retarded. I'm sorry, I mean The Mad is slightly more Intellectually Challenged, and not nearly as awesome as Shaun Of The Dead)
It boasts the best scene explaining zombies I've seen in a zombie film to date. Most films have them, at that point when people realise it's zombies, not people, they're dealing with but The Mad's take on that scene was one step above par. Or is it below par? In golf, below par is good, right? But if I said "The Mad is one step below par" it'd sound derogatory, right?? right?!

Whatever, answers on a postcard, here's a trailer.

The Mad's IMDb Page

Short Circuit

Watched this little treasure last night. And I should stress very carefully that I wasn't in the mood for it. As soon as that tape started rolling (Or rather, as soon as those little electrical signals started sending, as we watched it on NetFlix - Watch It Now)I was launched into the mood! This movie is every bit as awesome as I remember, with the added bonus that you suddenly realise that the Indian (As in, next to Pakistan) Doctor guy is fairly racist! Ah the joys of the dark gloomy doomed racist era of the 80's before anyone really thought we were all born equal! Hold on, that sounded like communist propoganda! It also sounded like I supported racism! This film was a blatant exercise in neo-nazi inflammatory evil mind-washing and should have all copies burned and destroyed save for one copy, which should be kept in a glass case in a museum in Auschwitz to serve as an example. Years from now people can pass through and see the darkness that once, many decades ago, fueled enough racial hatred and radical ideas about machines having minds of their own to send the world toppling into the greatest depression it has ever seen. Not to mention the great "Short Circuit Wars" of '91. It's a little known fact that both conflicts in and around Iraq were a direct result of Presidents' viewing this very film. This clip is actually only referencing Short Circuit 2, in which Johnny 5 learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Johnny 5 Fan Site

The Aviator

Today's review is of...

THE AVIATOR

The Aviator was about 2 hours too long but contained at least 30 minutes of really excellent scenes that make you think it's worth sitting through all the nonsense in between them.

Footnote: Replace "The Aviator" with any other film by Martin Scorsese and you have a relatively accurate review of every movie he ever made

The Aviator's Official Site

El Laberinto Del Fauno/Pan's Labyrinth

Two of these facts are false, see if you can guess which ones!

Pan's Labyrinth is entirely in Spanish.
Pan's Labyrinth features a Faun.
Pan's Labyrinth has fascists.
Pan's Labyrinth features Guerrilla warfare.
Pan's Labyrinth created the International House of Pancakes as a replacement for the League of Nations.
Pan's Labyrinth features some torture scenes that shit all over Eli Roth's Hostel.
Pan's Labyrinth includes one scene where someone gets their face beaten in with a bottle.
Pan's Labyrinth has the coolest walking death scene I ever saw.
Pan's Labyrinth features a freaky thing with long fingernails that reminds me of Voldo from Soul Caliber.
Pan's Labyrinth has no problem with removing the last chip from a Pringles can.
Pan's Labyrinth reminded me of Vandal Hearts, though I'm not sure why.
Pan's Labyrinth is the best movie I saw yesterday.





Official Pan's Labyrinth Site

Batman Begins

Why do all the films I review of late not have taglines? The nerve! Mostly I assumed it was because they were just episodes of Masters Of Horror, but Batman Begins? Why doesn't Batman Begins have a tagline that I can easily find? It surely had one so if anyone knows it, please let me know... Anyhow... Today's review is of...

Batman Begins

Batman Begins follows the life of Bruce Wayne, multi-millionaire whiner who's parents were both killed as a child (as he was a child, not them, the film isn't that bizarre) and as a result he turns himself into a scary looking crime fighting freak show. In this particular installment, he must do battle with the sinister Dr. Crane while also dealing with some inner turmoil or something.
Dr. Crane is a psyholagtrist though, and perhaps could have helped ol' Brucey with his problems, in another life... the irony!
This movie is a vast improvement for Batman, as a character. The previous films about the caped loony really failed to get to grips with the deep underlying psychotic behavior that really drives a man to get all dressed up in leather and leap around town scaring children.
This installment of Batman, however, truly gets to the darker side of the dark knight that we haven't really seen since Adam West portrayed him in 1966... Christian Bale does an excellent job of playing Bruce Wayne, but his portrayal of Batman is a little off.
Hey, did anyone notice that Batman is only one letter shy from Bateman?
Hows about I spend the rest of this review making ridiculous comparisons to American Psycho?
No?
Not even a little?
Not even just to make you imagine...

"I just wondered what the Joker's head would look like on a stick! haha!!"

Shit.
Alright then... moving on to the more crucial points of the film...

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...Michael Caine!
It seems you can't go anywhere these days without bumping into this lively cockney tosser! He's everywhere, from this film with Christian Bale to another film with Christian Bale!
I have to admit that I thought Alfred should have a slightly more upper class "I beg your pardon sir, but do you have any grey poupon?" sort of feel. I find it hard to imagine how this film was a success to any degree in America with all the jibberish he was spouting throughout! Once you get past the layers upon layers of Cockney Rhyming slang you can almost decipher some sort of sense, but that takes a while, believe me. Here's a little extract from the script. (translations in parentheses)

Alfred: Look, you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off, Batman.

Batman:Eh?

Alfred: Sorry matey, what oi meant ta say was you betta be gettin' down the "Nat King Cole" (Batpole) before the whole of "Washing Shitty" (Gotham City) is submerged under a ruddy great pile o' "Siberian Tiger Piss" (Persian tiger piss)

Batman: Alfred, I could kiss you.

Alfred: Now 'old on son! Just because you don't have your "Faithful Mule Dobbin" (Robin) don't mean you should be going all "Queer" (gay) on me! Now get out there before the "Texas 'Old Em Poker" (Joker) has turned everyone into "Members Of The Brotherhood Of Man" (zombies)

See? Indecipherable nonsense!
Anyhow, if you want a movie about heroism and bravery, go watch Spiderman 3, wimp! If you want a movie about... other stuff, like bats and Katie Holmes. Rent this!

Batman Begins get's a healthy 4/5!

Batman Begin's official site

Homecoming

I can't resist making an entry about this little piece of genius.
This is another episode of Masters Of Horror, a TV show where different horror directors get a shot at making a 1 hour episode, this time from director Joe Dante, who directed Gremlins and The Howling. Sounds awesome so far and only gets better!
It follows the political struggles of members of the Republican party as they try and get some president who's quite clearly George W. Bush into office for four more years. It takes completely blunt stabs at the back stabbing tactics and mis-informing that it is my, and apparently this film-makers, belief that the Republican party is guilty of.
Sounds ok so far, but this plot is missing something.
You guessed it, Zombies!
In a careless televised error, one of the republicans (the morale, likable one, who's the lead role) inadvertantly wishes all the dead from the war could come back.
His idea was that, hypothetically, they would come back and say how honoured they were to have fought and died for the cause! But he's way wrong, because they all come back as zombies who hate the current administartion and want to see it destroyed! Brilliant!
And how will they destroy it?!
Ripping off heads?!
Tearing out throats?!
Spreading the undead love like only a horde of corpses can do?!
No!
They're going to vote motherfucker!
This film is as brilliant as it is ridiculous!
If you like the political messages that are apparent thorughout such Zombie films as Romero's bunch, then you'll probably be amused by the way this one has absolutely no tact in it's blatant political messages throughout, mainly direct stabs at Bush and his misleading of the public and mishandling of the war in Iraq. Like we really needed it spelled out to us... nonetheless, this movie does it without tippy toeing around the subject! Pow!
It's a must-see and I'm going to give it 5/5 before quickly retracting that score and giving it a more honest, 4/5.
Here's a trailer, by gum!




IMDb Page For Homecoming

Incident on and Off a Mountain Road

"Incident On And Off A Mountain Road" isn't so much a movie as a TV movie.

And it isn't so much a TV movie as a TV series.

And it isn't so much a TV series as an episode of a TV series.

And it isn't so much "an" episode of "a" TV series as the first episode of the ongoing TV series Masters OF Horror, which involves a director who is acclaimed in the horror/thriller genre coming in with a very limited budget and time frame and making a 50 minute or so long movie.

The results, from what we've seen, are fairly respectable although the obvious limitations have the potential to hinder the writer/directors ability to tell a story and also means that the writer/director of each episode is probably going to choose to do a story that they don't think is going to work as a movie of their own... I think though, that these slight (They are slight, I'm not trying to bad-mouth the great directors, and John Carpenter (haha! just kidding John!), who've worked on these) format problems are more apparent in other episodes of the series and are not present in "Incident On And Off A Mountain Road". Don Coscarelli, who wrote and directed this particular episode, actually did a great job in using the shorter time frame he was given to make a film which could only have really worked in the time frame given, and probablyw ouldn't have in a full length film!

If you don't know Don (as I didn't) , he wrote, directed, co-directed, produced, starred in, did the voices for, operated the camera, animated and composed the score for Bubba Hotep! He also had a cameo.

This particluar movie/short/series/film/cartoon/bi-epic involved a young girl who found herself wishing for a better life and boy did she get it!
One stormy night as she's driving along a pleasant piece of road named "There ain't shit for 75 miles sucka!" she crashes into a stationary car (Women drivers, eh?! haha, just kidding John!) and subsequently ends up lost in the middle of the woods.



As so often happens in these situations she is chased by an unamed assailant who, judging by the snarling and drooling, would like her dead! The horror! The poor defenseless woman is quickly in over her head and ends up captured by the beast!
In captivity she is welcomed by some friendly drunk old man...

... who we quickly learn is a complete pratt.
The film does a generally good job of being a film where the lead character is a female who doesn't get walked all over and just screams all the way through, only to "somehow" defy the evil. She's believably tough in a way many films fail at portraying. Strike one for the feminists, eh John! haha!

Anyhow, from the episodes of Masters Of Horror I've seen so far this one is at least in my top 20! Good work guys! Less of the yapping next time, John! haha! just kidding!



I give "Incident On And Off A Mountain Road" 3/5!

Here's a genuine trailer, not liek those fake ones I sometimes post...




IMDB Page for Incident On And Off A Mountain Road

The Prestige The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but felt the magic tricks were a little too "realistic" and fathomable?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but felt the accents were a bit too "genuine" and would rather have an American fake them?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but felt like David Bowie shouldn't have been in it and Michael Caine's character should have been played by some guy who you vaguely recognise but can't quite put your finger on (as well as 90% of the rest of the cast)?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but felt it lacked FANCY HOLLYWOOD EFFECTS?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but couldn't stand seeing Hugh Jackman in a film with little-to-no slicing and dicing?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Liked The Prestige but just weren't quite bored enough watching it?

Then I suggest - The Illusionist!

Here is a clip from - The Illusionist!



In spite of the accuracy of this review, I thought this movie was pretty good in many ways. I'd like to give it 3/5

It just wasn't as good as - The Prestige!



The Illusionist's Offical Website

The Prestige on DVD's website

The Wicker Man (2006)

It seems the world is full of remakes these days, everything from age old classic horror like the Hills Have Eyes to not-really-remake-so-much-as-a-new-version-of-a-character-that's-
already-been-in-a-bunch-of-films-but-it'll-sell-better-as-a-new-film-than-a-remake like Spiderman. I even hear that Al Gore remade his entire home from reconstituted toiler paper he stole from people's septic tanks. Love them or hate them, remakes are here to stay and not only that, many of them are outshadowing their original versions! Some are going way out there and making sequels that didn't exist in the original series... while others merely totter along the same plot as the original version with a slightly altered script and leave the audience with a feeling not disimalar to diarreah of the mind.
Fortunately this review is of one of the former...

The WICKER MAN

While Hollywood was busy wondering how to handle remaking the age-old classic Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy in 1973, without creating a major international incident with Great Britain for blaspheming and malicious degradation, Nicholas Cage stormed the offices of Millenium films and demanded they cast him in the lead role of whatever their next project was!
Unable to resist his southern charm (And his nice sized AK-47 he was brandishing) they accepted and cast him in the leading role of The Wicker Man.
This greatly dissapointed Edward Woodward who had been set to reprise his role as the bumbling virgin copper and bring his tally of acting roles to at least 2!



As you can see from this picture taken at the time, he was a bit miffed.

It is possibly because of this critical change in pace from the start that made The Wicker Man remake divulge so brilliantly from the original.
For those of you unfamiliar with the happenings in the Wicker Man, the plot goes something like this:
Bumbling British Bobby, Sergenat Howie, sets off to the island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. He finds the island quite pleasant as it is filled with naked singing women having orgies all day and singing while girating vigourously against walls. Everything is peaceful and nice until the inevitable happens and he ends up burning to death along with a half a dozen chickens and a goat.
In the remake, Nicholas Cage refused to play any sort of "virgin" or "bumbling copper" and also refused to allow his character to be seen "anywhere near a god-damned motherfucking bi-plane, you British piece of shit!", so instead his character dons a leather jacket, motorcycle and a cigar and spends the first ten minutes of the film boasting about how much slack he has between his legs.

Instead of going to Summerisle to look for a missing girl, he's going there to stop a band of international drug lords from creating a chemical weapons plant that could wipe out the entire west coast of America.


"If you can't tell me where the plant is, I swear to God, I'll rip all of your god-damned mother-fucking pagan son-of-a-whore heads off with my teeth!"

Although many of the scenes are greatly "Nicolas Cage-ized", much of the plot remains the same. Cage's character, for example, is still out to end the corrupt and vaguely pagan ways that happen on Summerisle and the character named summerisle still exists although in this version Summerisle is a woman, the idea being that there could be a bit more of a love-hate-love relationship between Cage's character and Summerisle. Unfortunately for the film makers (and Nicolas Cage) Christopher Lee refused to let anyone else play the role and so the whole movie has Christopher Lee prancing about in high heels, speaking in a high pitched voice and hitting on Nicolas Cage.


I think I prefer sacrificing virgins WHILE boosting cars!

The scenes following the dramatic and (far far far) too long love scene between Cage and Lee are confusing to say the least. Here is just one such scene...



The rest of the film from this moment on takes a strange turn and before the audience gets a chance to comprehend anything the gigantic mechanised Wicker Man is taking down Tokyo with Nicolas Cage screaming for mercy, caged up inside it's head as he tries to halt the onslaught of Japanese fighter pilots scrambling to take down the enromous monstrosity!
Needless to say, it all works out in the end and a well placed poultry makes short work of the Wicker Man and leaves Cage free to return to Summerisle where he makes short work of all it's inhabitants...


"Wicker this!"

In conclusion, I give the Wicker Man remake 2/5

The Wicker Man's Official Website

Grindhouse - Planet Terror and Some Film By Quentin Tanartino

Grindhouse

This, for those of you who are unaware, is a double feature movie. The first half, Planet Terror, directed and written by Robert Rodriguez and the second half, Death Proof, by Quentin Tarantino. The film opens with a fake trailer for a film called Machete which kicks your ass! It stars Danny Trejo as a bad-ass Mexican immigrant who's all about killing many people with kick-ass weapons with a kick-ass bike and stuff...It's an obvious parody of Rodriguez's films and is done hilariously! You could maybe search for it online and maybe watch it. This one is hilarious from start to finish in my opinion and seems like it'd make an awesome Rodriguez film. Luckily for us, he's making it into one! Huzzah! Moving on... I think that was followed by the first feature: Planet Terror! This film was shot in a way that made it seem like a B-movie in every way except the effects are realistic, which gives it an odd new-old B-movie modernised feel. It's hilarious in how it pokes fun at itself and the whole genre all at the same time as being an awesome zombie-esque film. There's more guns and shooting and explosions than you can shake a stick at, and even the most ridiculous of events is met with such seriousness that the whole audience can't help but piss their panties from giggling so hard. So let's see. there's explsoions... there's guns... there's blood... there's zombie-esqueness... there's car crashes... there's boobies... what could be missing?! Bruce Willis, that's what! And he's right there and he's awesome and this whole movie kicks everyone's ass in a way I thought nothing ever could. From there, I believe we go to more fake trailers? I think next was something about werewolves and nazi ss troops and stuff. It was fairly random but just fell short of being hilarious (despite the part at the end of the trailer that I laughed harder than I've laughed at anything in my life about because I'm awesome). It was directed by Rob Zombie, and uhh... there isn't much to say about it without giving away the hilarious 'twist'! So I won't... Then there was the gripping thriller "Don't" which treaded on the fine line between making you want to tear the arms off your cinema seats from frustration and absolute hilarity. It starts off by being overly 'gripping' and tense and ends being loud and obnoxious. I spotted the guy from League Of Gentlemen in it too. It was pretty damn funny but compared to the other blood-and-guts themed trailers and movie before it, it stood out as being a little odd. It was directed by Edgar Wright though, what daya think about that motherfucker!? To conclude the fake trailer section we had a rather amusing spoof of the slasher genre by Eli Roth (Who, by the way, I think is a total asslicker) called Thanksgiving, a play on how many horror films take their names from holidays though I think it was hard for that fact to be conveyed in the trailer. This one is possibly the best trailer from the set, though 'Machete' either beats it or is a close second. It mocks a genre which is, I think, far better and easier to mock than the other trailers did (I dunno what Werewolf Nazi Bastard Zombie Fest SS whatever was spooofing though...)and I think that plays to it's advantage. Eli Roth managed to get a tally on my good side! As a writer I think Eli Roth stands out as being relatively awesome but as a director and a person I pretty much think he sucks ass... but I think he's still on the positive side of my rating bar after 'Thanksgiving' (And will probably remain there until I throw up watching Hostel: part II, and I won't be throwing up in disgust at the gore, it'll be because because it'll suck). In conclusion, I give Grindhouse 5/5 Oh, I forgot After Thanksgiving, Quentin Tarantino concluded this 3 hour blood, guts, guns n' explosions fest with an hour and a half of people sitting round talking. In conclusion, The end! Grindhousemovie.net

The Mangler

We watched this thing over t'internet because aparently you can do that these days! What will they come up with next... anyway, the film was called:

THE MANGLER!

and it was about...

A MANGLER!

If you're not entirely sure what a mangler is, it's aparently a huge machine that folds up sheets in industrial sized laundry places... I didn't know, and I wasn't sure how common a piece of knowledge it was...
Anyhoo... the basic plot is thus:

The Mangler machine down at Blue Ribbon laundry is out of control with the possession and the killing people.

THAT'S IT!

I'm not sure there's alot more to say about the plot really, and I don't want to give away any of the gripping plot twists and character development.
I will say though that the guy who played Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs does a damn good job of playing a drunk, angry cop. Also starring is good ol' Robert Englund who does a good job of playing a senile perverted old crazy guy... another chalk mark on his tally of fine roles!
Anyway, in spite of the poor plot and lack of a role played by Samuel L. Jackson, the actors in the film seem to tackle the fairly meaningless script with as much enthusiasm as seems to remain in their bones and it's only half-way through the film that you realise that Ted Levine's character probably wasn't in the script as a pissed off drunkard, but working on a film about the possesion of industrial machinery (not just the Mangler gets possessed, oh no!) probably drove him to alcoholism during production...

I give The Mangler 1/5... but I feel bad about it and feel that I'd like to give it more, if that counts for anything...

Incidentally the tagline (which is my subject line) refers to Tobe Hooper, who not only directed this classic cut but also... TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE! and Stephen King who wrote the short story it's based on as well as 5000 other books about something relatively harmless becoming an unspeakable nightmare.
The third "master of horror" is apparently Harry Alan Towers, who wrote... *Scans down IMDB page*... The Brides Of Fu Manchu!?
I feel he may have been slightly misplaced... or maybe I'm just a nobody who doesn't understand movies or the fact that The Mangler is actually one of the greatest film classics of our time! Or ALL time!
I'm so lame

still.

Here's a clip from:

THE MANGLER!

(May contain nuts... and "spoilers")

IMDB Page for The Mangler