20150610: Horror Review--Human Centipede 2

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)
2. IMDb:  3.9/10 from 22,780 viewers
3. Rotten Tomatoes:
   30% on the tomatometer, from 77 critics
   23% from 10,651 viewer ratings
   Critics Consensus: The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) attempts to weave in social commentary but as the movie wears on, it loses its ability to repulse and shock and ends up obnoxious and annoying.


4. Status: Released
5. Release date: 2011-10-07
6. Production Companies: Six Entertainment
7. Tagline: 100% medically INaccurate.


8. Budget:  Budget estimate not available at review time.
9. Revenue: (US market) 141,877 USD. (International) unknown at time of review.
10. Runtime: 91 minutes.
11. Genres: Crime, Drama, Horror


12. Written and directed by: Tom Six.


13. Starring: Laurence R. Harvey as Martin, Ashlynn Yennie as Miss Yennie, Dominic Borrelli as Paul, Georgia Goodrick as Valerie, Maddi Black as Candy, Kandace Caine as Karrie, Lucas Hansen as Ian, Lee Nicholas Harris as Dick, Dan Burman as Greg, Daniel Jude Gennis as Tim


14. TMDb overview: Inspired by the fictional Dr. Heiter, disturbed loner Martin dreams of creating a 12-person centipede and sets out to realize his sick fantasy.


2. Setup and Plot


1. The protagonist Martin is quite short, morbidly obese, and seemingly without friends of any sort.  His job is as security at a dreary parking garage.  During his copious free time, he obsesses on the first Human Centipede film.  How is that for self-referential?


2. Martin's goal is to create a centipede from 12 people rather than 3.  The first big block of the film is about Martin's acquisition of enough live bodies. 


3. There is a parallel sideshow about his being sexually abused by his father, verbally abused by his mother (since father is in jail for the abuse), and his shrink's desire to bring him new abuse.  Sigh.  His mother tries to kill him herself.  She also sets the psychotic neighbor (biker with loud music, lives above them) on him; he beats the daylights out of Martin with boots and fists.  The list goes on well past these points.


4. A bit over halfway through the film, Martin meets Miss Yennie (the actress, not the character) from the first film.  There is a clash of worlds.  She expects to discuss a role in a new film.  She gets to see Martin's handiwork instead.


5. Does anyone get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: More gross than the original, but even less engrossing.
2. Two of ten.  One blackhole for screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 It's in greyscale ('black and white') which I do not care for in the least.  I like a few (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) and Manhattan (1979)) greyscale films, but they have to be otherwise exceptionally good.  This film does not qualify.


2. Sound: 3/10 The background music supplies some creepiness, but not a lot.  The film is short on dialog (Martin speaks zero words during the movie), so sound is not a big contributor to quality.


3. Acting: 4/10  As in the first film, the protagonist was fairly good, but the other cast members were either not put to good effect or just not strong in acting.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 As a film about crushing the marginalised, this is fairly effective.  As an extreme horror film, this is a complete failure.  The endless use of the first film destroys any sense of engaging the viewers: it is all explicitly fakery.

20150609: Horror Review--Human Centipede 1

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
2. IMDb: 4.5/10 from 50,184 viewer ratings
3. Rotten Tomatoes:
   49% (91 critics' ratings)
   26% liked it; 16,895 user ratings
   Critics Consensus: Grotesque, visceral, and (ahem) hard to swallow, this surgical horror does not quite earn its stripes because the gross-outs overwhelm and devalue everything else.


4. Status: Released
5. Release date: 2010-08-30
6. Production Companies: Six Entertainment
7. Tagline: Their flesh is his fantasy


8. Budget:  2,011,799 USD
9. Revenue: ticket sales, 181,467 USD (72%); international, 70,740 USD (28%)
10. Runtime: 92 minutes.
11. Genres: Horror


12. Written and directed by: Tom Six.


13. Starring: Dieter Laser as Dr. Heiter, Ashley C. Williams as Lindsay, Ashlynn Yennie as Jenny, Akihiro Kitamura as Katsuro, Andreas Leupold as Detective Kranz, Peter Blankenstein as Detective Voller


14. TMDb overview: During a stopover in Germany in the middle of a carefree road trip through Europe, two American girls find themselves alone at night when their car breaks down in the woods. Searching for help at a nearby villa, they are wooed into the clutches of a deranged retired surgeon who explains his mad scientific vision to his captives' utter horror. They are to be the subjects of his sick lifetime fantasy: to be the first to connect people, one to the next, and in doing so bring to life "the human centipede."


2. Setup and Plot


1. Dr. Heiter, an older man who is thin as a rail, drugs and abducts a truck driver.  Two young women (Lindsay and Jenny) on a road trip through Germany get a flat near his house.  Unfortunately, they accept his offer to get out of the rain.  He drugs them as well.


2. They awaken to find themselves secured (tied-up) in the surgeon's basement with the poor truck driver.  Dr Heiter furthers his explanation of his plans for them.  His renown more or less explains his artwork: he became famous by successfully separating conjoined twins.  After his retirement, he attempted an inverse experiment: joining three dogs together, end to end, so that they would have one digestive tract.  This failed, but Heiter wishes to try again, this time with humans. Sadly, Heiter did not investigate why the first experiment failed.


3. Heiter's plans go forward with some bumps in the road.  For instance, he is rather cavalier about leaving sit the vehicles of the people he has kidnapped, all near his home.


4. So, will Heiter succeed, or will the victims find a way to escape?


3. Conclusions


1. For longer, detailed descriptions of some plot problems with this script, try the user reviews on IMDb.  Several people were glad to list them out.


2. One line summary: Gross but not engrossing.


3. Two of ten; one black hole for screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Well done; this is a good-looking film.  Some of the blood effects are non-convincing, but at least they did not look like CGI.


2. Sound: 8/10 The actors' words are easy enough to hear.  Of course,  many of them are in German and Japanese, so the subtitles were essential.  Mood music helped mildly.


3. Acting: 2/10 Well, they tried.  However, I do not think that this film will help the careers of any of the cast. 


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Fraught with logical problems and holes in the plot to the point where little if any of it made any sense.  Also, the subject matter was disgusting without being horrifying.  Suspense?  None.  Could one identify or empathise with any of the characters?  Not really; the whole mess was just too unbelievable.  

20141106: Horror Review--Stag Night

Stag Night

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2008, rated R, 84 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 2,313 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 1.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No tomatometer score yet,' 15% liked it from 490 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on Showtime.
5. Written and directed by: Peter A. Dowling.
6. Starring: Kip Pardue as Mike, Vinessa Shaw as Brita, Breckin Meyer as Tony, Scott Adkins as Carl, Karl Geary as Joe, Sarah Barrand as Michele, Rachel Oliva as Claire.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In New York City, four men warm up for a bachelor party at a dive.  One of the single men irritated a woman at the bar enough for her to leave with her friend.  Coupled with a near brawl, the four men get booted from the bar.  They decide to head to another venue uptown via subway.


2. On the subway, they meet the two women who had exited the bar.  The earlier offender resumes his bad behaviour, and one of the women pepper sprays him.  The train stops to let another roll by.  The six young idiots exit the train to get out of the pepper spray, but do not get back in before the train takes off.


3. They are locked out from the stairs to the surface.  Four of them enter the tunnel (where the electric rails are) to find a telephone or another (unlocked) portal to the surface.  There is a lot of bickering along the way.


4. Surprise!  They do not have cell reception, of course.  They are not alone.  There are unfriendly people (well, cannibals) in the tunnels.


5. Will any of them get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Elimination derby: cannibals vs twenty-somethings.
2. One star of five; one black hole for screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Grainy, jumpy, out of focus, too often hand-held.  Absurdly bad blood effects.


2. Sound: 2/10 Sound does not always match lip movements, for instance.


3. Acting: 4/10 Actors read their lines, it seemed.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Very little content, just dissension and hard brutality, plus illogical setups and cliches.

20140319: Horror Review--Infected

Infected

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 94 minutes, action, horror, zombies.
2. IMDB: 2.9/10.0 from 756 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 12% liked it from 72 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 78,433 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Glenn Ciano.
6. Starring: Christy Romano as Kelly, Michael Madsen as Louis, William Forsythe as Dr. Dennehey, Tom DeNucci as Andrew, Johnny Cicco as Seth, Jeanine Kane as Angela, Tracey Sheldon as Hooker.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Louis and son Andrew attempt some bonding centered around deer hunting.  Dr. Dennehy is the local sawbones.  He's doing the same thing with his son Seth.


2. Things start to go to hell after one of Dennehey's patients (a friend's grandmother) bites him; the wound starts getting nasty.  Seth and Andrew bond over being embarrassed by their respective fathers, and over loving illegal firearms.


3. After granny goes missing, Louis, Dennehey, Andrew, and Kelly (the granddaughter) go looking for her.  The other youngsters get plowed, and Seth gets attacked by granny.


4. Things go downhill from there.


5. Will the authorities arrive and fix all this viral outbreak?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Terrible zombie film; two actors wasted.
2. One star of five.  Black hole for screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Not so good.  There is too much fuzzy focus and failures with zooming.  Camera rotation I can always do without.  Zombie effects were on the poor side.


2. Sound: 3/10 The actors were usually miked OK, but not always.  The score/incidental sound varied between irrelevant to counterproductive.


3. Acting: 2/10 I've seen Michael Madsen give wonderful performances in several movies, but this was not one of them.  William Forsythe was a bit better (accounting for the two points).  The lesser players were just horrible.  Tracey Sheldon was pneumatic and decorative, but did not deliver lines well.


4. Screenplay: 0/10  Talking zombies?  Thinking zombies? A zombie who wins an argument with a normal healthy human being?  Zombies having telephone calls about uncashed checks and child custody?  ---  Horrible dialog.  Little internal logic.  A new Lyme disease that accounts for zombie behaviour?  I doubt it.

20140221: Horror Review--Zombie Night

Zombie Night

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, TV14, 88 minutes, horror, zombies.
2. IMDB: 3.4/10.0 from 351 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 1 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No scores yet,' and 8% liked it from 441 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 30,269 audience ratings.
5. Saw this on SyFy originally, and thought it set a low water mark for zombie films.
6. Directed by: John Gulager.
7. Starring: Anthony Michael Hall as Patrick, Darryl Hannah as Birdy, Alan Ruck as Joseph, Shirley Jones as Nana, Jennifer Taylor as Karin, Rachel G. Fox as Tracie Jackson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The zombie apocalypse erupts in Pasadena, CA.  At least that is where this was filmed.  Supposedly it erupts everywhere else as well.


2. With a certain amount of courage, and ten times as much cowardice, some non-zombies try to survive the night.  One of the conceits of the film is that the zombies will go inactive come sunrise.


3. The humans proceed with variable success, but mostly failure, to live until sun up.  One wonders what will happen the next night.


4. How many will survive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Gore aplenty, and five actors trapped in a terrible script.
2. One star of five.  One black hole for screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Reasonable for a night picture.


2. Sound: 5/10 OK for the most part, but the anti-relevant sound track did not help.


3. Acting: 3/10 Shirley Jones was OK as an infirm old woman whose wailing caused another death, but her role was short.  Anthony Michael Hall, Darryl Hanna, Alan Ruck, and Jennifer Taylor were reasonable; given the script, that is.  With a decent script and an experienced director, any of these actors can give a nice performance.  In contrast, the other people who were filmed were not recognizable as actors.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Wall to wall nonsense, and one of the worst zombie films I've ever seen.

20131028: Horror Review--Vampire Diary

Vampire Diary

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British live action feature length film, 2006, rated R, 89 minutes, horror, aspect 1.85; spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 4.2/10.0 from 492 user ratings.  Estimated budget, 650,000 pounds.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 38% liked it from 1,375 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.4/5.0 from 43,494 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Mark James, Phil O'Shea; screenplay by Phil O'Shea.
6. Starring: Anna Walton as Vicki, Morven MacBeth as Holly, Jamie Thomas King as Adam, Kate Sissons as Haze, Justin MacDonald as Brad.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Holly is doing a low-budget documentary about the Goth scene in London, UK, and in particular about faux vampires.  She meets Vicki, who claims to be a supernatural being, a 'real' vampire.


2. On that note, is Vicki just another Goth cosplay enthusiast?  If so, this looks like a psychological drama, not horror.  If not, then how much of reality are we expected to ignore to embrace the film?


3. Someone (who else...) kills Eddie early on. Holly and Vicki record the reactions to his death by substantial exsanguination.


4. Holly and Vicki start their lesbian relationship, which is, not surprisingly, neither believable nor interesting nor titillating.  It is, however, out of focus, out of frame, low on contrast, low on color saturation.  It is rather emblematic of the film as a whole: dreary and non-engaging.


5. Brad disappears from the Goth scene; some weak indicators point to Vicki.  Vicki shows Holly a tape of her killing Brad.  Holly helps Vicki with the problem.


6. The discussion of what 'real' vampires are like was boring, over long, and not believable.


7. Holly tries to find a way for Vicki to survive without killing people.  Surprise.  This fails.


8. Vicki came to Holly already pregnant by a male vampire.  The gestation and the police investigation consume the rest of the film.


3. Conclusions
1. Skip this one.  It's ugly to look at, is short on plot, and has little to redeem it.
2. One line summary: Documentary film maker goes looking for Goths also finds a vampire.
3. One star of five; one blackhole for cinematography.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Hand-held badness in the style of Blair Witch.  Almost everything that can be done wrong with a video camera was done in this film.  The dueling feeds from two different very-low-quality hand-held cameras (Holly's and Vicki's) was amusing for a good 8 or 9 seconds.  After that, it was just one more constant nuisance in this train wreck.


2. Sound: 4/10 Mixed bag.  Sometimes in sync with visuals, other times not.  Horrid incidental music.


3. Acting: 4/10 Not too bad on the face of it. Actors hit their marks and read their lines. Still, nothing is memorable about it because no actors were engaging.  This is more about delusional idiots posturing for one another, not about character motivation, or exposition of why certain events happened.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Twenty minutes of plot stretched out to 89 minutes.  This film has the indie look of keeping whatever footage is recorded, then putting it together in post.  A lot of the footage (particularly at club scenes and some party scenes) does nothing to advance the narrative and does nothing toward explaining character actions.

20131001: Horror Review--Dark Town

Dark Town

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2004, rated R, 88 minutes, horror
2. IMDB: 3.4/10.0 from 328 users; filmed in Los Angeles, CA, USA; estimated budget, one million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 11% liked it from 97 audience ratings.
4. Netflix claimed 17,575 ratings with an average of 2.5 stars of five.
5. Directed by Desi Scarpone; screenplay by David Birke.
6. Starring: Janet Martin as Jen Armstrong, Delpaneaux Wills as Rakeem, Joel King as Curtis Armstrong Sr, Meghan Stansfield as Lisa, Claire Mills as Ellen, Curtis Nysmith as Curtis Armstrong Jr, Ariana Fronti as Monique, Sarah Horvath as Heather.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Slumlord Curtis Armstrong Sr goes to collect from his properties.  He gets more than he bargained for from his tenants.  He returns to his calm, safe, suburban home for his birthday.  Then he starts the blood bath after being very creepy.  He bites Heather, which turns her.


2. Heather has a Latino gangster boyfriend, Cinque, who is a drug dealer.  Some black youth decide to liberate Cinque's money stash, which he keeps in Heather's room.  Rakeem gets two men and Kisha to go with him to do the theft.


3. The neighborhood watch stops the black group, but Rakeem pulls a pistol on them when they were distracted.  One of their party gets shot by the watch; they hide at the Armstrong house.  Cinque shows up too, to get his cash.  Heather kills him.


4. The vampire monster status transfers in perhaps 20 minutes, which accelerates all the proceedings.


5. The gang violence just serves as feeding sources for the new vampires, or whatever they are.  There's a small amount of drama in whether a person can fight off the change or not.


6. Jen and Rakeem fight if off somewhat, and try to kill all the other vampires.  When that does not work too well, they take another exit.  That they survived at all is just ridiculous.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  Suburban dysfunction plus vampirism meets inner city gang violence.
2. One star of five. One blackhole for acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Soft focus.  Too much darkness.  Too many home movies that are total garbage in terms of visuals. 


2. Sound: 6/10 OK, but not great. The loud parts are way too loud, and the soft parts too soft.


3. Acting: 1/10 Would someone please stay in the same accent?  How did Rakeem go from being low on courage to being able to fight off being a vampire?


4. Screenplay: 2/10  The first 25 minutes were almost opaque in terms of motivation.  The rules for dealing with the supernatural seemed to change every so many minutes.  Some consistency might have been nice.  The ending was unlikely at best.


5. Special Effects: 3/10 Horribly bad.  Cheap, poor, stupid.

20130920: Comedy Review--A Guy Thing

A Guy Thing

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 2003, rated R, comedy of errors.
2. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 10,310 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 24% on the meter; 37% from 72,885 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Chris Koch; written by Greg Glienna.
5. Starring: Julia Stiles as Becky, Jason Lee as Paul, Selma Blair as Karen, Lochlyn Munro as Ray, Thomas Lennon as Pete.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Paul and Karen are to be married.  Paul drinks too much at the bachelor party, and wakes up with someone not his fiancee.  He jumps to conclusions.  Their timing is off, and it is a while before she gets to tell him that they did not have sex.  In the mean time, he keeps encountering her because she's always changing jobs, and it's in the screenplay.


2. Paul has various misadventures with his prospective in-laws, and spins lies to keep the incident with Becky quiet.


3. Then he finds out Becky is Karen's cousin.


4. Fifty seven minutes in, the useless actor Lochlyn Munro is beating the crap out of Paul, then intimidating him, then threatening him. Throwing Paul to the ground when he has two armloads of groceries was bad enough; then he jams a french fry up Paul's nose.  Why?  Munro had his girlfriend Becky followed, and Paul kept showing up.  This movie is an irredeemable piece of bovine scatology.  The shark was jumped.


5. Earlier on, Munro was shown beating up suspects in a police precinct.  Munro seems to be typecast to play testosterone challenged throwbacks who think that they are entitled to break the law as well as other people's faces.  He's a failed hockey player, so no surprise there.  Later on, he breaks in to Paul's apartment, makes a sandwich, and eats it while roughing up Paul.  Breaking and entering, theft, what else?  More intimidation, more physical abuse, more verbal abuse.  Fortunately, by this time, Paul had already started taping the interactions for the other cops.  Ray gets hauled away in cuffs.


6. The scene where Paul and Becky are trapped temporarily in the shower because Ray's dog keeps baring its teeth at them--was mercifully short. 


7. I could have lived without the 2003-style marijuana humor.
8. Despite all sorts of gaffes, the wedding goes on.  When asked for objections, no one says anything.  Then Paul speaks up.  Then Pete, who was attracted to Karen (as pointed out so many times in the film) sings to her.  Pete and Karen run off together.  Paul gets the bouquet.  Eventually he runs after Becky.  She's in a car, he's on foot. What an ending.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Avoid this comedy of errors.
2. One star of five, one blackhole for having Lochlyn Munro in the cast.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 OK.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.


3. Acting: 2/10 The actors hit their marks and spoke their lines, but oh, goodness, why did I have to listen to them?  Why would Karen still want to marry Paul after being around any of his friends?  Why would the police department keep a psycho like Ray on the force when everyday he is just a lawsuit waiting to happen?  I usually like Julia Stiles, but the movie is mostly about Jason Lee's character.  Yep, that Jason Lee, the one who went on to give us the memorable (and terrible) My Name Is Earl and Alvin and the Chipmunks.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Neither clever, nor witty, nor funny, nor genuine, nor believable.  It's easy to see why the IMDb and RT ratings were so low.

20130807: Updated Review--Alien Hunter.

Alien Hunter

1. Released 2003, American live action theatrical film, 92 minutes, rated R for language and some violence.
2. IMDB: rated 4.9/10.0 from 2,734 viewers.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet' from critical reviewers; 22% from audience 1,233 audience ratings.
4. Starring James Spader, Keir Dullea, Roy Dotrice, and Carl Lewis.
5. Spader's character is a womanizer and brilliant code breaker whose career mostly crashed after the shutdown of SETI.
6. An artifact found under the Antarctic ice near an American research site is recovered after emitting a signal tracked by the US government.  The signal resembled remarkably a signal sent from near Roswell in 1947.  Spader wrangles passage to the site.
7. The usual perfect storm of instances of Murphy's Law culminates in the alien getting lose, research staff dying from alien disease vectors and from shooting each other.  The Russians bomb the site at the behest of Washington, obliterating evidence.
8. Similar to The Abyss, the aliens break into the proceedings with their superior technology.  Quite differently than The Abyss, no humans notice this, except the four who were saved.
9. Slow moving, neither compelling nor funny.  The ending was a bit novel, but not much.
10. This was probably my least favorite James Spader film.
11. One star of five.  20130927: one blackhole for screenplay.

One line summary: Presence of good actors does not salvage bad SciFi script.


Cinematography: 4/10 Very often dark, with cameras insufficient to the challenge.  Lots of grainy video.  The film never looks great, and seldom looks good.  I've gotten spoiled by HD, I guess.

Sound:  7/10 Never bad, but never crystal clear either.

Acting: 5/10 The actors I named above were OK, but the others were between dull and incompetent.

Screenplay:  2/10 The Russians use nuclear weapons on Antarctica at Washington's request?  I doubt this.  The movie was often plodding, short on motivational framework, long on bad decisions, and heavy on bad luck.