20150521: Horror Review--The Ouija Experiment

The Ouija Experiment

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Ouija Experiment
2. IMDb: Users rated this 3.6/10 (831 votes)
3. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 187,564 viewer ratings.
4. Rotten Tomatoes:
   critics rating not found number of reviews too low
   17% of users liked it from 132 recorded ratings
   Critics Consensus: not enough responses.


5. Status: Released
6. Release date: 2011-05-05
7. Production Companies: La Luna Entertainment, Out of Body Films
8. Tagline: Cross Her Heart and Hope to Die


9. Budget:  1,200 USD (estimate; source, IMDb)
10. Revenue: Revenue figures not available at review time.
11. Runtime: 88 minutes.
12. Genres: Horror


13. Written and directed by: Israel Luna.


14. Starring: Justin Armstrong as Michael, Swisyzinna Moore as La'Nette, Carson Underwood as Brandon, Eric Window as Calvin, David Clark as Joseph Wheeler, Leah Diaz as Gracie Mendoza, Miranda Martinez as Lisa Mendoza, Belmarie Huynh as Shay.


15. TMDb overview: Based on true events, five friends who fall prey to the evil entities of the Ouija board. As they set about filming their experimental session, what starts out as bit of fun, soon escalates into a terrifying series of events as paranoia and personal demons are revealed…. and recorded.


2. Setup and Plot


1. Calvin and Michael are long-time friends. Calvin and Shay are boyfriend/girlfriend.  Michael and Brandon are more recent friends.  Calvin and La'Nette are siblings.  Michael has moved to new digs that still contain many of the old tenants belongings, including a ouija board.  Brandon is interested in filming some sessions using the board.


2. Most of the five leads think that talking louder helps communicate with the departed spirits.  There is an early laying down of rules about the use of the board.  The only one that seems to count is, 'say goodbye to the spirit' before ending a session.  Of course, this is violated multiple times.  Reading off a laptop screen to the camera does not add much for me about believability or acceptance of context.


3. There's a subplot about Calvin and Shay breaking up.  This was aided by the spirits, who told Shay of Calvin's cheating.  Calvin blames Michael for the breakup and takes the ouija board at one point.  The camera is Brandon's, but ends up in the hands of various characters.  This makes the plot even more disjointed.


4. At 50 minutes in, I have yet to see anything dangerous or interesting or paranormal. How about that?  That's when the mayhem and Internet 'discoveries' about the past begin.


5. After such a slow start, will there be anything that redeems this effort as a horror film?


3. Conclusions
1. Apparently this one did not make it to the theatres.  I'm not sure how this got to Netflix.


2. Perhaps one should view this as comedy only, of the unintentional kind. Laugh with the foolishness, the lack of awareness, the pointless fits of pique.


3. One line summary:  The worst side of amateur efforts at making horror films.


4. One star of five.  Two black holes for acting and screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 Better than many sloppy-cam efforts, but not great.


2. Sound: 3/10 Not well controlled.


3. Acting: 0/10  Terrible.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Terrible.

20150501: Horror Review--The Purge

The Purge

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Purge
2. IMDb: Users rated this 5.6/10 (110,311 votes)
3. Rotten Tomatoes:
   38% of critics liked it of 136 critical reviews posted
   36% of movie goes liked it, from 93,551 user ratings
   Critics Consensus:  Half social allegory, half home-invasion thriller, The Purge attempts to make an intelligent point, but ultimately devolves into numbing violence and tired clichés.


4. Status: Released
5. Release date: 2013-06-06
6. Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes, Why Not Productions
7. Tagline: One night a year, all crime is legal.


8. Budget:  3 million USD
9. Revenue: 64 million USD
10. Runtime: 86 minutes.
11. Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller


12. Directed by: James DeMonaco; written by James DeMonaco


13. Starring: Lena Headey as Mary Sandin, Ethan Hawke as James Sandin, Max Burkholder as Charlie Sandin, Adelaide Kane as Zoey Sandin, Rhys Wakefield as Polite Leader, Tony Oller as Henry, Edwin Hodge as Bloody Stranger, Tom Yi as Mr. Cali, Arija Bareikis as Mrs. Grace Ferrin, Chris Mulkey as Mr. Halverson


14. TMDb overview: Given the country's overcrowded prisons, the U.S. government begins to allow 12-hour periods of time in which all illegal activity is legal. During one of these free-for-alls, a family must protect themselves from a home invasion.


2. Setup and Plot


1. Father James Sandin, mother Mary, daughter Zoey, and son Charlie are a nuclear family who are quite well-to-do.  They live in year is 2022, after the actions of the 'New Founding Fathers,' who revamped the failed United States.  One of their innovations is the 12 hour periods, once a year, when nothing is illegal.  These periods are The Purge, when pent up anger results in massive loss of life, especially among the poor or the disconnected.


2. James sells security systems that work 99% of the time.  Great.  The biggest threats to the family's safety are (1) Charlie, who lets in a wounded victim and (2) Zoey, whose boyfriend stows away in the home/fortress just before the Purge starts.  Giving sanctuary to the victim results in the organised attack on the household by well-to-do marauders who want the victim so they can finish killing him.


3. The film is about the outside attackers assailing the household, and the family's decisions on how to deal with it.  Their target is not the family, but the family's stupidity turns the family into an additional target.  Will the attackers break in?  That's easy to guess.  Will they leave anyone alive?  Are they the only threat?


3. Conclusions
1. RT got it right, but they were not nearly harsh enough.
2. One line summary: Yet another elimination derby, this time among the wealthy.
3. One stars of five.  Two black holes for cinematography and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Some of it is absolutely beautiful.  Then there are the long segments filmed versus flashlight, some using shaky cam.  Unfortunately, I am mostly reminded of the dreadful film The Blair Witch Project.


2. Sound: 8/10 The music was useful for building tensions.  I could usually make out the dialog.


3. Acting: 0/10 The story and horrible camera work are so bad that acting is not all that noticeable.  My already weak esteem for Ethan Hawke's work took another hit.


4. Screenplay: 3/10 There are some interesting ideas here, but the execution just sucked.  The only bright spot for me (the reason I gave it a 1/5 instead of 0/5) was watching Ethan Hawke murder half a dozen or so home invaders.  That gave a few moments of feeling of righteous revenge, which was rather fleeting.

20141112: Comedy Review--The Coalition

The Coalition

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013 (video), rated R, 95 minutes, comedy, romance.
2. IMDB: 4.3/10.0 from 384 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 1 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No critic reviews yet...',  53% liked it from 64 audience ratings.
4. I saw this on Showtime.
5. Directed by, Monica Mingo; written by Monica Mingo and Terrell Suggs.
6. Starring: Denyce Lawton as Skylar Hathaway, Eddie Goines as Prime Alexander, Adrienne Bailon as Katilina Santiago, J. R. Ramirez as Lonzo Ramirez, Ingrid Clay as Autumn Singletary, Sant'e Andrews as Dallas, Nadine Ellis as Kennedy Lorenze', Shanti Lowry as Dylan Singletary, Nicole Garza as Carnegie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Prime is a sports hero who enjoys time with his male posse, Dallas, Kalif, and Lonzo.  The quartet enjoy publicly and privately embarrassing the women that they date.  Some of these women include Autumn, Carnegie, Skylar, and Katalina; these four have their women allies in tow.


2. The four men seem to think that the wronged women will never meet and talk to each other.  Of course, that does happen, and the women eventually find common cause for revenge.  The tipping point came when Autumn took Skylar to a park where Prime was with his wife and kids.


3. Will the ladies break up the pack?  Will the men defend themselves?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Chick flick cliche extravaganza, plus foibles of the idle rich.
2. One star of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 No problems. Looks like very high end video.


2. Sound: 4/10 Unfortunately, I could hear the sound track.  I could hear the dialog, which was a mixed blessing.


3. Acting: 0/10


4. Screenplay: 2/10 It has a plot of sorts, but there is nothing new, nothing interesting, nothing engaging, nothing touching.

20141108: SciFi Review--Mutant World

Mutant World

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2014, not rated, two hours with commercials, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 6.6/10.0 from 10 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no entries yet.
4. I watched this on the SyFy Channel.
5. Directed by: David Winning.
6. Starring: Kim Coates as Marcus King, Holly Deveaux as Melissa King, Ashanti as The Preacher, Amber Marshall as Nicole, Jason Cermak as Geoff King,


2. Setup and Plot
1. A meteor kilometers wide strikes Earth.  A survivalist group goes underground and survives the impact.  Ten years later, the group's solar array gets damaged.  Volunteers go up to fix it.  The fix does not quite do the job, so the group goes out looking for other energy sources.  They encounter radiation and an aggressive mutant.


2. Then they find some normal-looking humans, but they turn out to be mutants at night.  Great.


3. They meet The Preacher, who hopes to return to Haven after finding more survivors.  Preacher helps out, but gets killed by the mutants.  Will the group make contact with Haven?  Will anyone find a way to be safe from the mutants?  Will any group find a stable solution in energy or weaponry?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Post-apocalyptic mutants versus normal humans.
2. One star of five; two black holes for acting and screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 OK in some stretches, downright poor in others.


2. Sound: 5/10 I could make out the dialog most of the time.  The background sound track was not a positive factor.


3. Acting: 0/10 Uniformly worthless.  Kim Coates gave a few good moments toward the end of the film, but that did not even balance the long stretches of the film when he was not around.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 There are about twenty minutes of story stretched thinly to about 88 minutes with 32 minutes of commercials.  The film has an extra dose of terrible in the dialog.  The protagonist, Melissa, is so anti-effective as a leader than I was surprised that her followers did not frag her with extreme prejudice.

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.

20141005: Thriller Review--The Cell 2

The Cell 2

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action straight-to-video film, 2009, rated R, 94 minutes.
2. IMDB: 2.9/10.0 from 1,987 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No consensus yet,' 8% liked it from 16,642 audience ratings.
4. I saw this on HBO.
5. Directed by: Tim Iacofano.
6. Starring: Tessie Santiago as Maya Casteneda, Chris Bruno as Harris, Frank Whaley as Duncan, Amee Walden as Penelope, Michael Flynn as Kassel, Bart Johnson as Skylar.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film shares some of the set up as The Cell from 2000, which starred Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and Vincent D'Onofrio.  Maya was taken by a serial criminal 'The Cusp' who kidnaps women, then brings them to the edge of death, only revive them.  He does this again and again, until the victim begs for final death.  Maya escaped somehow.  Afterwards she can touch objects and connect with the perpetrator.  In the original film, the connection was much harder to achieve, but also tremendously more convincing.


2. The story of Cell 2 is not as good, the writing not as good, the acting not as good, and the cinematography nowhere near as good as the original.  The Cell 2 has a decidedly low budget look-and-feel to it and went straight to video.


3. Most of the story concerns Maya's working with Harris to find his niece Penelope, whom The Cusp has kidnapped.  Doing this weakens her connection with the FBI, and given Harris' actions, the pair are basically on the run.


4. Will Tessie figure out who The Cusp is?  Will Harris clear his name?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: More torture porn than anything else.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Fairly good.  The SFX were not all that interesting.


2. Sound: 5/10 Not much of an issue, but not much of an asset.


3. Acting: 1/10 Frank Whaley had a couple of good moments, but much of the film looked amateurish.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 The actors were not that convincing, but the screenplay gave them little to work with.

20140713: Animation Review--Marksmen

Marksmen

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American animated television mini-series, 2013, NR, 85 minutes, action, animation.
2. IMDB: Under 5 ratings.  Estimated budget, 500,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no records at all.
4. Netflix: 2.2/5.0 from 3,253 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Michael Benaroya.
6. Voice actors: Bruce Barker, Tom Kennedy.


2. Setup and Plot
1. A post-apocalyptic war breaks out between two cities (New San Diego and Lone Star, TX) following the collapse of the old US government.


2. New San Diego has some high tech, drones, satellites (the few remaining), and uses solar for energy.  Lone Star uses oil and guns.  Lone Star appears to be running out of oil, and so decides to conquer NSD.


3. Lone Star's treachery gains them an early advantage, but NSD's tech superiority catches them up.  Maintenance problems (post apocalypse, after all) foul up both sides.


4. Who comes out on top, or do both sides lose?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Poor animation meets Pyrrhic victory in post-apocalyptic Southwest.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 2/10 Horrible.  Panning over still layers with clumsy assembly.  Character faces never move.  Uninteresting, uninspired, ugly, and primitive.


2. Sound: 4/10 Sometimes adds to the story.


3. Voice Acting: 4/10  Some of it was OK, but most was not worth listening to.


4. Story: 2/10 A good 8 minutes of story stretched well past breaking to 85 minutes.  Fighting, betrayal, destroy scarce resources, repeat.

20140712: SciFi Review--Asteroid vs Earth

Asteroid vs Earth

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2014, NR, 91 minutes, scifi, action, adventure.
2. IMDB: 3.2/10.0 from 137 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Critic Reviews,' and no audience ratings either.
4. Directed by: Christopher Ray.
5. Starring: Tia Carrere as Marissa Knox, Robert Davi as General Masterson, Tim Russ as Captain Rogers, Jason Brooks as Lt. Commander Chase Seward, Darin Cooper as Chief of the Boat (COB), Charles Byun as  Kitsias.


2. Setup and Plot
1. A group of enormous asteroids heads toward earth.  The young intern Kitsias does some projections, and discovers a projected impact in around ten days that will end life of earth.  Kitsias determines that deflecting the asteroids will fail, while moving the earth from its current orbit might succeed.


2. The US military, led by General Masterson, dragoons Marissa Knox, an expert in the Yap Trench, to implement Kitsias' plan.  USS Polk takes her toward the trench, but the submarine encounters all sorts of difficulties, most of which were caused by the crew itself.


3. Masterson continues to work with European and Russian space representatives to monitor how the deflection attempt is going.  The short answer is that it made things worse than before.


4. Just how bad do things get before the ultimate crisis?  Will anyone survive it?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Another bad disaster film from Asylum.
2. One stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 The camera work was excellent, but the CGI sucked rocks.


2. Sound: 5/10 Neither good nor bad, nor interesting, nor relevant.


3. Acting: 4/10 I still like Tia Carrere and Robert Davi, but what were they doing with these other actors?


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Very discouraging in its depth of badness.  Much of the dialog as nonsensical, and the internal contradictions seemed endless.  Aside from those two discouraging issues, the film was not engaging.

20140624: Horror Review--Paranormal Asylum

Paranormal Asylum: the Revenge of Typhoid Mary

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 88 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 2.3/10.0 from 325 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 60% liked it from 105 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.7/5.0 from 120,779 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Nimrod Zalmanowitz
6. Starring: Nathan Spiteri as Andy, Cameron Chiusano as Dan, Laura Gilreath as Michelle, Rosalind Ashford as Ghost, Jenny Lee Mitchell as Typhoid Mary, Paul Bright as Dr. Brooks, Boomer Tibbs as George Sheffield, Aaron Mathias as Mark Goodwin, Grace Evans as Evelin.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Dan, Andy, and Michelle (Andy's girlfriend), decide to make a documentary about the real-life Typhoid Mary, and the final months of her life.  They find some of the places where she stayed and met descendents of some of the people who knew her.  They set up equipment to record events.


2. Michelle, while alone, tries a seance, and this does not go well.  Dan keeps seeing ghostly figures.  At least at first Andy does not see them.


3. There's a thread about the origin of modern psychotropic drugs; the film makers pursue this for their documentary.  There is a thread about Michelle being possessed, and the consequences of this.


4. Will any of the protagonists survive this encounter?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Poor ghost story, poor as found film, poor as paranormal.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 There were handheld problems here and there.  The fakery with the ghosts was just plain bad, and there was so much of it.  Even the day light 'normal' scenes were de-colorized to look faked.


2. Sound: 3/10 Annoying from beginning to end.  It sounds dubbed.


3. Acting: 0/10


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Hm, the usual for this type of film: no resolution in any thread.  No 'moving on' for any of the ghosts, or whatever they are.  No toe hold for logic or rational processes.  Lack of exposition of motivations.  No humour of any sort.

20140623: Review--Codependent Lesbian Space Alien

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, unrated, 76 minutes.  Comedy.  Fail.
2. IMDB: 5.9/10.0 from 158 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 89% on the meter; 62% liked it from 491 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.2/5.0 from 1,369 audience ratings.
5. Written, directed, produced by: Madeleine Olnek.
6. Starring: Lisa Haas as Jane, Susan Zeigler as Zoinx, Dennis Davis as Senior Agent, Alex Karpovsky as Rookie Agent, Jackie Monahan as Zylar, Cynthia Kaplan as Barr.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Inhabitants of an alien planet decide that their ozone depletion can only be solved by one or two of their race having their hearts broken.  Zoinx and Zylar are dispatched to Earth to have their hearts broken.  Zoinx meets Jane and eventually gets to know her somewhat.


2. Two men-in-black types observe this process, and attempt to blur the memories of any sightings.  It seems, though, that no intervention is needed; nobody notices anything in this film.


3. Jokes are made about new foods: alcoholic beverages, coffee, desserts.  Jokes are made about culture clashes.  All jokes failed.


4. The aliens go home by means that challenge the lower bounds of all SFX.  This was one of the worst SFX films ever made.  In the right hands, that might have been funny.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Seventy-six minutes of not funny.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Greyscale, so-so in quality.  The quality dropped off when the camera work switched to shaky cam.


2. Sound: 2/10 Irritating electronic music.  Irritating alien voices.  Irritating background rap music.


3. Acting: 0/10


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Nothing comedic, nothing engaging, nothing informative, nothing touching.

20140621: Horror Review--Sin Reaper

Sin Reaper

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. German live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 94 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 3.1/10.0 from 151 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 1.2 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 25% liked it from 5 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.5/5.0 from 7,726 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Sebastian Bartolitius.
6. Starring: Helen Mutch as Samantha Walker, Lance Henriksen as Dr. Douglas Hoffman, Hazuki Kato as Jenny Kaylin, Patrick J. Thomas as Sasha Jones, Paulina Bachmann as Melanie Pregler, Andrew James Porter as R. J. Williams, Alexander Kirsch as Daniel Yulin.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film opens to a dream, then the writing down of the dream, then the discussion of the dream between the young woman Helen, and her analyst, Dr. Hoffman.  Helen also does automatic drawing now and then, including after vivid dream.  The opening dream concerned a young woman in the time of the Crusades being murdered by a Knight's Templar in armour.  Helen's discussions with Hoffman are as vague and inconclusive as one might expect from a man who prescribes mind-numbing drugs.


2. One thing definite from Hoffman was a set of photographs that match some of Helen's automatic drawings.  Based on this match, Helen accepts tickets from Hoffman to travel to the castle depicted in the photographs.  Hoffman's hope is that Helen finds the sources of Helen's dreams.


3. The castle that Helen seeks has become a museum maintained by Yulin and a colleague.  Yulin kicks out Helen, whose curiosity is instantly engaged that much more.  She hires some of the locals to break into the place.  As it turns out, the museum is in financial troubles, and insurance fraud is contemplated to bail out the museum.  Helen's escapade gets resistance from those about to commit the fraud.


4. Just to tie up the whole story, someone dresses up in Templar armour (and weapon, the 'sin reaper') from the museum exhibits and starts killing people involved in the double break in.  So, will an explanation emerge from the carnage of the opening sequence?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bad dubbing, bad screenplay, neither scary nor suspenseful.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Some of it is fine, a lot of it is just plain poorly done, particularly the night photography.


2. Sound: 3/10 The voice track to the audio sucked rocks.  Lance Henriksen's voice and accent were fine, for instance, but not so much in sync with the movements of his face.  The accents were to shudder at.  Helen was supposedly an American, but her accent was broad and English.  The English sub-titles for the German sentences looked more or less OK, but the dubbed English for the German speakers was between unintentionally humourous and stupid.


3. Acting: 2/10 Lance Henriksen's performance was OK, but the lip-sync editing failure rather spoiled that.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Oh, goodness.  The three threads I noted did not mesh up all that well.  The dream of a past life seemed at first just the delusions of an ill mind.  The unification at the end seemed a bit weak.  With a good director at the helm, this should have been chilling or hard-core scary.  As it was, it seemed boring and tedious; I could barely wait for the film to end.  The thread of a troubled mind trying to be made healthy was just lost.  The thread of insurance fraud seemed a red herring at best, and seemed to have little to do the rest of the film.

20140609: Movie Review--Evidence

Evidence

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 93 minutes, crime-thriller, drama, failure.
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 3,121 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 6% on the meter; 25% liked it from 475 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from  65,218 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi; written by John Swetman.
6. Starring: Steven Moyer as Detective Reese, Radha Mitchell as Detective Burquez, Torrey DeVitto as Leanne, Caitlin Stasey as Rachel, Nolan Gerard Funk as Tyler Norris, Dale Dickey as Katrina Fleishman, Aml Ameen as Officer Jenson, Svetlana Metkina as Vicki, Barak Hardley as Gabe Wright, Harry Lennix as Ben.


2. Setup and Plot


1. The film opens to an overview of a crime scene.  The visuals are impressive, in a way; that is, a lot of effort was taken to produce an amateurish result.  In this director's approach, good visuals have to be accompanied by plodding boredom, while shaky cam, cell phone footage, and pixelated, blurred images are where the action and interest should be kept.


2. We segue to a police department, where the evidence has been collected and sorted to a degree. The personnel to evaluate the evidence gets picked.


3. The investigatory group consists of Detectives Reese and Burquez, Officer Jensen, and AV specialist Gabe Wright. They set about analysing the 'found film' from Rachel's camera, plus the visuals recorded by cell phones, plus the overviews from the beginning of the film.  Close consideration yields some clues for the Detectives to pursue.


4. Amateur director Rachel likes to film 'incredibly uncomfortable things.'  Indeed.  Leanne is in a troubled relationship with Tyler Norris, who is a mediocre singer and less than good guitar player.  Rachel decides to film Leanne 'before she was a big star.'  We also have the badness of hand-held cameras.  This includes horrible framing, rotten sound leveling, extraneous sounds, and large time gaps.


5. Rachel, Leanne, Tyler, Vicki, and a young entertainer are scheduled to take a trip to Las Vegas.  Though not on the passenger manifest, Katrina gets on the tour bus as well.  She has a huge amount of cash on her, and might be a fugitive.  When Tyler and Rachel notice that they are on a side road, Rachel goes to talk to the driver.  Things go decidedly bad after that, including the bus crashing.


6. The film progresses to the retelling of the deaths and the unveiling of the perpetrators.  How does that play out?


3. Conclusions
1. Rotten Tomatoes got the rating correct; Netflix missed by a mile.
2. One line summary: Two movies in one; neither one very good.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 1/10 Shaky camera work.  Stupid framing angles.  Dropped frames, severe pixelation.  Insufficient light, heat-damaged memory chips.


2. Sound: 4/10 Speech is mostly comprehensible, but there is plenty of raw microphone noise, such as when cell phones are dragged on the floor while recording.


3. Acting: 2/10 Stephen Moyer had a couple of good moments in this film; Harry Lennix is his usual reliable self.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 After watching this, I will avoid properties directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, or written by John Swetman.  For a better film about lesbian criminals, see Breaking the Girls (2013), Monster (2003), or Bound (1996).  The 'twist' at the end is cliche, done before and done better.

20140605: Horror Review--Abandoned Mine

Abandoned Mine (The Mine)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, PG13, 95 minutes, horror, thriller.
2. IMDB: 3.7/10.0 from 422 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 38% on the meter; 43% liked it from 33,606 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Jeff Chamberlain; written by Jeff Chamberlain and Scott Woldman.
5. Starring: Alexa Pena as Sharon, Reilly McClendon as Brad, Saige Thompson as Laurie, Charan Prabhakar as Ethan, Adam Hendershot as Jim.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Five school friends (Sharon, Brad, Laurie, Ethan, Jim) organize to spend Halloween in or near the Jarvis Mine.  The abandoned mine is said to be haunted by the ghosts of the Jarvis family, who were murdered so that greedy parties could steal the mine.  They bring miner's hats and some climbing supplies (ropes, matches, food) to stay overnight.


2. They make a short descent down a fairly shallow shaft.  They find the Jarvis daughters' toys, plus dynamite, tarantulas, and all sorts of stuff.  Things are going fine until someone burns through the heavy rope tied to their base at the level of the mine opening.  They try to climb out the way that they came, but fail.  So they try alternate routes.


3. Jim is too large for some of the passages the group attempts, plus he is claustrophobic.  So the party separates.  Clever.  Jim is stuck where he is until someone can extricate him from above, that is, the place where they came in.


4. The remaining four push on and find more artifacts from the Jarvis family.  They follow fresh air. At one juncture, Brad leaves his backpack behind, and goes back to get it.  He falls (well, perhaps is pushed) to his apparent death.  Sharon, Laurie, and Ethan rush on a bit too quickly.


5. How many of the scares are Halloween pranks, how many are something unexpected?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Ineffective mostly kid-safe horror film.
2. One star of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Varies considerably, from crisp and nicely shot to full-on shaky cam found-film nonsense.


2. Sound: 4/10 There is a whole lot of mumbling going on, punctuated by loudness.


3. Acting: z/10 I hate to fault the actors when the script is so bad.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Scary?  No.  Thrilling?  No.  Engaging?  No.  Were any of the characters ones that I could identify with? empathise with?  care about?  No, no, no.

20140604: Comedy Review--The Starving Games

The Starving Games

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated PG, 87 minutes, comedy, satire.
2. IMDB: 3.2/10.0 from 8,287 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 4.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 0% on the meter; 22% liked it from 1,950 audience ratings.
4. Written and directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.
5. Starring: Maiara Walsh as Kantmiss Evershot, Cody Christian as Peter Malarkey, Brant Daugherty as Dale, Diedrich Bader as President Snowballs, Lauren Bowles as Effoff.


2. Setup and Plot


1. The overall level of the humor is really low.  The pinata sequence, for instance, was stupid beyond belief.  The multiple references to excrement were not all that clever, nor were the endless product placements, nor were the face slaps to other movie franchises.  The obnoxious 12-year-old competitor who wanted to form an alliance with Kantmiss seemed more like a target.  The clip where the unarmed Kantmiss kills five armed opponents was ludicrous.


2. 'When are they going to kill each other? I'm getting bored,' was the line that summarised the film for me.


3. Will there be a sequel to this satire?  Let us hope not.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Brings new depth of meaning to the word inappropriate.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 Hand-held sequences were irritating as always, but most of the camera work was fine.


2. Sound: 3/10 Besides the many leveling problems, the musical accompaniment was odd at best. 


3. Acting: 2/10 


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Well, it was a satire, so there was not much to expect.  I suppose the hundreds of continuity errors were intentional.  Finishing the film with a long set of bloopers just completed the implementation of 'who cares?'

20140603: Thriller Review--20 Feet Below

20 Ft Below: Darkness Descending

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2014, rated R, 96 minutes, thriller, crime.
2. IMDB: 2.8/10.0 from 175 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 'no score yet.'
4. Directed by: Marc Clebanoff.  Screenplay by Frank Krueger.
5. Starring: Danny Trejo as Angel, Frank Krueger as Jake, Kinga Phillips as Chelsea, John Hennigan as Razor, Tiffany Adams as Gabriel, Kristoff St. John as Smitty, Louis Mandylor as Lockeheed.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Naive documentary film maker Chelsea goes into the underground of NYC to investigate the homeless people living in abandoned subway tunnels.  She encounters senile former military, a strange artist, teen run aways, crazed former drug addicts, a disgraced ex-cop (Jake), and a self-righteous gang (the Chosen) of violent cretins led by Angel.


2. Chelsea interviews a few of the cops (whose leaders want some action against the Chosen), Angel himself, the artist, two teen runaways, and Jake.  The Chosen have it out for Jake and the teens.


3. So, what happens in the inevitable show down?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Vanity film sinks despite Danny Trejo's presence.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Usually clear enough.


2. Sound: 3/10 Bad leveling.  The music played during intervals often seemed irrelevant.


3. Acting: 3/10 Danny Trejo showed his usual screen presence.  Louis Mandylor was competent with the few lines he was given.  The rest, not so good.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Were there any points to this film?  Not that I saw.  Also, the clothes worn were too clean, the people looked way too clean and too healthy.  How is it that Jake has a new, spotless bottle of expensive looking booze?  How does he have brand new candles in perfectly clean holders?  One of the women in the tunnels has a new looking guitar; what are the chances that would not be stolen?  The preaching (from Angel and from the group who hang with the artist) seemed out of place, as did the spouting of statistics.

20140601: Comedy Review--Best Night Ever

Best Night Ever

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 90 minutes.
2. IMDB: 3.6/10.0 from 812 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 0% on the meter; 32% liked it from 435 audience ratings.
4. Written and directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.
5. Starring: Desiree Hall as Claire, Eddie Ritchard as Zoe, Samantha Colburn as Leslie, Crista Flanagan as Janet, plus a host of others.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Claire goes to Las Vegas for a bachelorette night before she gets married.   She is accompanied by her sister Leslie and friends Zoe and Janet.  Zoe is Claire's best friend, and does most of the filming using a hand-held camera.  Janet is the rude and barbaric friend.


2. The trip starts out somewhat normally, but the plans crash when Zoe discovers that her credit cards have been stopped, and her reservations have been cancelled.  The evening gets worse after that.  They get robbed at gunpoint by a valet; they lose money, identification, shoes, engagement ring, and so on.


3. After some binge drinking, they steal a car, kidnap the wrong valet to get the engagement ring back, and get screwed over in a drug deal.  They manage to elude the police.  They use drugs and go to a bachelor party after being mistaken for hookers.


4. By some magic, the quartet fails to get arrested or be killed for the multiple felonies they commit.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Zero laughs, zero chuckles, zero smiles; derivative feel-bad comedy.
2. One star of five.  Two black holes for screenplay and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Hand-held.


2. Sound: 2/10 Terrible leveling.  During one interval, the editor inserted sub-titles because the words were indecipherable versus the background noise.


3. Acting: 0/10


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Completely derivative.  If you have seen a Hangover film, or Bridesmaids, then you have pretty much seen the content of this one.

20140515: Horror Review--The Secret Village

The Secret Village

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 89 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 2.5/10.0 from 567 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 1,950,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 42% liked it from 142 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 19,665 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Swami M. Kandan.  Written by: Jason B. Whittier, Swami M. Kandan.
6. Starring: Jonathan Bennett as Greg, Ali Faulkner as Rachel, Stelio Savante as Joe, Richard Riehle as Paul, Toby Gadison as Jim.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Rachel is a reporter of sorts, and Greg is a screenwriter.  Both of them become interested in reports of mass hysteria in a small town in Massachusetts.  By some circumstance, they end up being roommates in a large house in the area.


2. The locals vary between not forthcoming and outright hostile.  Rachel takes a job at a local eatery.  Rachel keeps in touch with her boss by telephone.  Greg floats around looking for information to help his creative process.  Paul and Jim help Rachel with clues as they can.  Greg's position turns out to be ambiguous; he steals some of Rachel's research materials and gives them to the villagers.  Max, Rachel's boss, is glad to help her, but needs some sort of supporting facts before bringing in authorities to deal with the evil-doers.


3. Will Rachel get to the bottom of this?  Will Greg's position become clear?  Will the secrets be revealed?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Murky horror/mystery set in a village in Massachusetts.
2. One star of five.  Two blackholes for acting and screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly clear and sharp; only occasionally falls into shaky camera mode.


2. Sound: 6/10 The music is reasonably creepy, but is often over the top compared to the story and visuals.


3. Acting: 1/10 I have nothing good to say here.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Where do I begin?  Editing is a clear weakness; some clips are out of sequence.  Exposition of motivations is not good; I saw only a pinch of that on two characters.  Too many of the short conversations in the film seemed context free.  The historical flashbacks seemed to have little or nothing to do with the main storyline.  The ending may have been meant to be as wonderful as the ending of The Sixth Sense, but it fell flat instead.

20140503: SciFi Review--500 MPH Storm

500 MPH Storm

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated NR, 86 minutes, SciFi, action.
2. IMDB: 2.1/10.0 from 592 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 300,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 9% liked it from 83 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 211,507 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Daniel Lusko.
6. Starring: Casper van Dien as Nathan Sims, Sarah Lieving as Mona Sims, Bryan Head as Johnny Sims, Keith Meriweather as Captain Wright, Dale O'Malley as Tech Oxenberg, James Lawrence Sicard as Specialist Tudor, Michael Beach as Simon Caprisi,


2. Setup and Plot
1. Simon's group starts a energy production project.  The beam generated is a lot stronger than expected, and it starts hosing the weather in the TX/NM/AZ region.  Nathan wrote much of the theory underlying the project, but has been absent from it for a while.  When the problems start, Simon tries to contact Nathan.  The Sims family is on the run from the storms, and eventually Nathan needs to get with Simon to correct things...such as getting the core of the project's reactor cooled off.


2. Most of the film is about getting Nathan to the project, keeping the Sims family safe, and fixing the project.


3. Nathan gets information to Simon to stop the beam.  Then the bigger problems show up.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: There is not much to recommend this nonsensical disaster film.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 The parts with no FX were nicely shot.  The SFX were on the cheesy side.  The model for the project's main site looked like 1960s SciFi props.  Some of the matte paintings were not well done at all.


2. Sound: 3/10 The actors were miked OK.  Some of the background music was OK, but a lot of it sounded like it was generated from an automatic system.  That irritated me quite a bit.


3. Acting: 2/10 Sarah Lieving is always easy on the eye and the ear, but this is another film like Mega Shark and Super Shark; I wish she would move to better films.  Casper van Dien has done better work, and he helps keep this project from being absolutely terrible.  Similarly, this is about the worst property I've seen Michael Beach in.  The other actors were rather bad, Bryan Head in particular.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The dialog and the plot were both simplistic and nonsensical.  The film tries to convey a sense of urgency.  However, the repetitions, the mistakes, and the poor delivery by many of the actors negated much the urgency. 

20140427: Horror Review--Frankenstein's Army

Frankenstein's Army

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Dutch/American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 84 minutes, horror.  Spoken word is English.
2. IMDB: 5.3/10.0 from 3,816 audience ratings.  Aspect: 1.78
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 71% on the meter, but 'no consensus yet'; 39% liked it from 3,878 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 44,840 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Richard Raaphorst.
6. Starring: Karel Roden as Viktor, Alexander Mercury as Dimitri, Joshua Sasse as Sergei, Robert Gwilym as Novikov, Luke Newbury as Sacha.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Set in late World War II, on the front between Germany and Russia.  There is a lot of 'found footage' style shaky camera, shot by a young soldier on the Russian side.


2. They come upon a village where the population is mostly missing, but there are plenty of corpses.  In a nearby factory, they find a stitched together something that is connected by cables to the main electrical lines.  When the squad's flunky starts the generator, the thing animates and kills the squad's commanding officer.


3. They find some rabbits, which looked good for food, but they also found more constructed monsters.  These have more impressive armament, and the squad loses a couple of more men.  They find some German civilians who try to be helpful, but the whole situation is close to irredeemable.  More armed monsters show up and do more killing.


4. Dmitri's underlings (Dmitri is a captain, and has always outranked everyone in the squad) find out about his treason that kept them in the factory to die.  He led them indirectly to the place, and jammed their radio once they were there.  Dmitri claims it's orders, and had a document to back him up.  Anyway, they are expected to figure out what the Nazi scientists have been up to.  Dmitri's squad mates are upset with him, and they shove him down a chute so he can find out better.  He does find out quite a bit more, but it is not clear how he will get out.  Then he meets Victor, whose last name comes from the title.


5. Does anyone get out of this alive?  Are all the constructed Nazi warriors put down?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Clever ideas wasted by bad execution and found footage style.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Hand held cameras.  Bad everything.


2. Sound: 5/10 So-so.  What would one expect from hand helds?


3. Acting: 1/10 There was acting?  Well, Karel Roden did a bit.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The steampunk Frankenstein monsters were often cleverly constructed.  The ideas were fairly well realised visually, but the story did not make all that much sense.

20140416: Horror Review--Contracted

Contracted

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 84 minutes.
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 3,231 audience ratings.  Spoken word is English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 50% on the meter; 32% liked it from 1,293 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 240,535 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Eric England.
6. Starring: Najarra Townsend as Samantha, Caroline Williams as Sam's Mom, Alice Macdonald as Alice, Katie Stegeman as Nikki, Matt Mercer as Riley, Charley Koontz as Zain, Ruben Pia as Doctor.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Samantha, a lesbian coming off of drugs and out of a relationship with Nikki, gets drunk enough at a party to accept a drink from a stranger.  Ouch, not a good idea.  She has an anonymous one night stand with a man.


2. Her hangover lasts quite a while, and she gets some unexplained bruising and bleeding.  She tries to go back to her waitress job at a posh restaurant, but hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, and more bleeding interrupt this.  She gets to a doctor, who prescribes a few things for her ear and vaginal problems.


3. Her condition continues to degenerate.  Alice from the party gets visits from the police, who are asking many questions about the party.  Her doctor switches theories, from a head cold and a mild sexual area irritation, to hardcore STD.  Plus, "we'll have to wait for the lab results."


4. Samantha's mother thinks Sam's problems come from a return to drug usage.  Sam shows her otherwise.  Sam gets the art grant she wanted; soon after, she throws that away.  She tries to get back with Nikki, but she's too ugly for Nikki to give her anything but contempt.


5. Things continue to get worse for anyone near Sam, including Sam.


3. Conclusions
1. Subgenre: body horror.  No supernatural anything.  No techno anything.
2. One line summary: Strong vorticity in this personal down-the-toilet film.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 The film looked like the equipment used for filming was quite good, but the skill of the operator was, to be charitable, incomplete.  An alternate view of the bad visuals is that this is a failed attempt at an 'art' film.


2. Sound: 7/10 Good for reinforcing creepiness and paranoia.


3. Acting: 0/10 What acting?


4. Screenplay: 1/10 The scenes with the physician were unbelievable: a pelvic exam with jeans fastened?  The worm-like things dropping out of Sam's vaginal area were some sort of clue, perhaps.  In terms of story, Sam's life was bad, then she had a one night stand after being drugged, then her life got worse.  The primary failure here was that none of the characters were engaging, and the plot was simple, monotonous, and boring.