20160315: Thriller Review--The Traveler

Name: The Traveler (2010)
IMDb: link to The Traveler page

Genres: Thriller, Supernatural.   Country of origin: Canada.

Cast: Val Kilmer as Mr Nobody/Drifter, Dylan Neal as Detective Alexander Black, Paul McGillion as Deputy Jerry Pine, Camille Sullivan as Deputy Jane Hollows, Nels Lennarson as Deputy Toby Sherwood, John Cassini as Deputy Jack Hawkins, Chris Gauthier as Desk Sergeant Gulloy.

Directed by: Michael Oblowitz.  Written by: Joseph C. Muscat.

image courtesy of TMDb

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
The film starts with a short depiction of the abduction of a young girl by an out-of-focus kidnapper.

We jump forward a year to the present day on a rainy Christmas Eve night.

Desk Sargeant Gulloy is a fussy man who is the omega male of the group at the Sheriff's station.  He  does not care for the loud, foul, disgusting speech of his coworkers at the station, or their generally inconsiderate actions, like leaving the door open for the cold and rain to flow in, cancelling the central heating.   His passive aggressive approach clashes with the classless alphas early and often.

The interactions of the four deputies are primitive and adolescent.  Evidently psych tests were not required to obtain their jobs.  Detective Black is the father of Mary, the girl abducted in the first scene.

To complete the initial scenery, Mr Nobody enters the station, and tells Gulloy that he would like to confess to murder.  The state cops come by to tell them that they are going to close down the off ramp from the Interstate due to a major accident.  The station will be more isolated than usual, and many things are not working due to the holiday.  That's where we are when the action of the story begins.

Delineation of conflicts:
The deputies and the desk sergeant despise each other.  The detective's wife is phasing into a breakup with him.  The detective is held in contempt by the deputies since he was promoted over them to detective.  The detective is in a depressed phase since he has not been able to solve his daughter's disappearance.

Mr Nobody is not especially compliant with the orders of the cops.  Clearly, he holds them in contempt, and the cops are not happy with his lack of obedience.

Have they already met Mr Nobody?  Will any of them get a bit of closure about their failed pursuit of Mary's murderer?

Resolution: The police think they have a confessed murderer.  Only late in the film do they realise that his confessions are to their detriment.

One line summary: Cops pay for guilty secret.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 6/10  The visuals were in the VHS range most of the time.  The reduced palette and the dominance of dark regions over light contributed to the overall tone of depression and hopelessness.  The lighting choices involved a great deal of fluorescent lamps, whose colour output contributed heavily to the grey-green of the interiors, where most of the film is shot.  The peeling paint, rusted metal, and flickering lighting contribute to the feeling of gloom and decay.

Sound: 5/10 I could hear the dialog.  The background music was alternately creepy and irrelevant.

Acting: 5/10 I recognise Val Kilmer from many works, of course.  Otherwise, I'm familiar only with Paul McGillion (Stargate Atlantis, 2004-2009).  The acting was OK, but not great.  Kilmer's performance was not one of his best, but he still outshone the others.

Screenplay: 3/10 The dialog was hardly sparkling, and the f-word was used to the point of numbness.  I would rate the script low on originality. The theme of supernatural retribution is hardly new, and elimination derbies are common in horror films.  The ending was a bit better than I expected.

Final rating: 4/10

Elimination order: spoiler alert

As Mr Nobody confesses, the deaths of the guilty cops happen.  Hawkins first, Gulloy second, Sherwood and Hollows third and fourth, then Pine.  The order related to the manner of violence the cops had visited on an unidentified drifter the year before while looking for Mary Black's killer.

20150907: Horror Review--The Pact II

The Pact II

1. Fundamentals.
1. Title: The Pact II
2. IMDb: Users rated this 4.3/10 (1,711 votes)
3. Rotten Tomatoes:
   25% of critics liked it of 8 critical reviews posted
   15% of viewers liked it from 227 viewer ratings
   Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.


4. Status: Released
5. Release date: 2014-09-05
6. Production Companies: Preferred Film & TV
7. Tagline: It's Starting Again...


8. Budget:  Budget estimate not available at review time.
9. Revenue: Revenue figures not available at review time.
10. Runtime: 96 minutes.
11. Genres: Mystery, Horror, Thriller


12. Written and directed by: Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath.


13. Starring: Camilla Luddington as June Abbott, Caity Lotz as Annie Barlow, Scott Michael Foster as Officer Daniel Meyer, Haley Hudson as Stevie, Amy Pietz as Maggie Abbott, Patrick Fischler as FBI agent Terrence Ballard, Nicki Micheaux as Lt. Eileen Carver


14. TMDb overview: The sequel is set just weeks after Annie Barlow's deadly confrontation with the Judas Killer. In this elevated sequel, we meet June, a woman whose carefully constructed life is beginning to unravel due to lucid nightmares so awful they disturb her waking life.



2. The three acts.


1. Setting the initial tableau: June is an artist who illustrates the dark visions she has.  She is also a crime scene cleaner for hire.  The film opens to her scrubbing up the mess in Annie's apartment after the first film.  Some weeks later, there is a semi-copycat killing.  June's boyfriend is Officer Meyer from the local police force.  Early on, they squabble about June's spending time with her mother Maggie.  He tells her about the latest bloody crime, and the arrival of FBI agent Ballard.  He agrees to recommend her as the cleaner for this latest mess.


2. Delineation of conflicts:  Maggie has many needs, and expects daughter June to fulfill them, but she is not that good at notification in regards to scheduling.  June gets tired of her professional schedule being squeezed.  Officer Meyer thinks the FBI agent Ballard is a high-handed pain; Ballard thinks Daniel is a low level factotum.  June keeps venting her dark visions through illustration, and lets Ballard know her low opinion of him.  Ballard has plenty of demands for Lt Carver, but little to offer in return.
   
   Ballard delivers some information bombshells to June about her mother and her connection to the original crimes of the Judas Killer. This increases June's distress, and everyone's hard feelings in general.  As one might expect from such films, more bad things start to happen.
   
   As the second act deepens, the petty irritations are still there, but pale in comparison to the quest to identify and stop the murderer.  Is June the murderer, or perhaps Ballard?  Is the supernatural truly involved, or do we have odd behaviour due to stress?  Will it actually help to bring Annie and Stevie (both from the first film) back to consult?


3. Resolution: Well, watch the film.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Murders continue in the sequel.
2. Three of ten.  Early on I thought 6/10, but the jump scares, shaky cam, the back biting, and the screenplay in general wore me down to 4/10.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 The film has the TV movie-of-the-week look.  This is not a compliment.  It has a few passages of shaky cam, which never fares well with me. 


2. Sound: 3/10 I can hear the actors, which is sometimes a good thing.  The background music does contribute some creepiness.  However, jump scares are what I consider cheap jack stupid tricks: the viewer is shocked by slamming into a sudden upward facing cliff of sound.  Worse yet, the residue of each such collision is that the protagonist looks like a weakling or a fool; neither of these makes me more interested in the film.


3. Acting: 4/10 I predict that this film will receive no award nominations for good acting.  None of the players were terribly bad, but the director did not get good performances either.


4. Screenplay: 2/10  On the one hand, there was nothing inventive or new.  On the other hand, there were plenty of cliches, irritation instead of suspense, unexplained phenomena, and unconcluded conversations.

20140803: Horror Review--Patrick Evil Awakens

Patrick: Evil Awakens

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Australian live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 96 minutes,
2. IMDB: 5.0/10.0 from 1,318 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 83% on the meter; 38% liked it from 2,026 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Mark Hartley.
5. Starring:  Sharni Vinson as Nurse Kathy Jacquard, Charles Dance as Doctor Roget, Rachel Griffiths as Matron Cassidy, Peta Sargeant as Nurse Williams, Martin Crewes as Doctor Brian Wright, Ed Penhaligon as Damon Gameau, Eliza Taylor as Nurse Panicale.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The Roget Clinic houses comatose patients who show little sign of possible recovery.  The main effort of the clinic is to find a way to wake these patients up and bring them back into the world.


2. In the opening sequence, a young nurse follows her ears around the place, takes a few pictures, and is killed for it.  This is followed up by the hiring of the replacement, Kathy Jacquard, the protagonist.


3. Soon enough, she's involved with the research aspect.  Dr. Roget has her assist while he tries to resuscitate some neural pathways in Patrick.  As time goes by, Patrick communicates, but with only Kathy.  Doctor Roget exposes more of his work to her.  Patrick keeps interrupting Kathy's relationship with Brian, then with Damon.


4. Patrick eventually starts typing telekinetically, and lets Kathy know what he's up to, somewhat.  Kathy tries to get Roget to stop torturing Patrick, but Doctor Roget will have none of that.


5. Will someone put a stop to the madness before Patrick gets his complete revenge?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Well-crafted supernatural thriller.
2. Four stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Well done, with a component of noir techniques.


2. Sound: 8/10 Rather good: often added to the suspense and sense of danger.


3. Acting: 8/10 Charles Dance, Rachel Griffiths, Sharni Vinson, and Martin Crewes were all rather fine.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Better than I expected on exposition of motivations.  This was central to the resolution of the film's plot drivers.

20140724: Action Review--Dead in Tombstone

Dead in Tombstone

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length video, 2013, NR, 99 minutes, action, Western, supernatural.
2. IMDB: 4.8/10.0 from 2,699 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 5.2 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet..' and 30% liked it from 337 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 37,160 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Mike Elliott.
6. Starring: Danny Trejo as Guerrero, Mickey Rourke as Blacksmith/Lucifer, Anthony Michael Hall as Red Cavanaugh, Dina Meyer as Calathea Massey.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Red Cavanaugh is about to be hung, but the rest of the Blackwater Gang rescue him.  Red sells them a plan to liberate some gold.  His half-brother and co-leader of the gang, Guerraro, agrees as long as they make it a quick and relatively clean operation.


2. Once the plan is in motion, though, Red bloodies the town and kills his brother, as well as the sheriff.  Red takes over the town with the remaining Blackwater Gang as his fellow enforcers.  He joins forces with an English business man to keep a choke hold on the town and the mining of the gold.


3. Meanwhile, Guerrero has a long chat with Lucifer, and strikes a deal with him.  If Guerrero can snuff his old gang, Lucifer will restore him to life above ground.


4. The bloodletting increases.  One might expect that, given the cast and the setup of the screenplay.


5. Does Guerrero re-gain his life, or does Red foul up his plans again?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Deals with Lucifer sometimes take longer than expected.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Nicely atmospheric, but had some terrible hand-held moments.


2. Sound: 6/10 I could hear the dialog, which was fine, but the sound did not add much to the mood of the piece.


3. Acting: 8/10 I liked the four principal actors in this property.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 This video would have been better at 75 minutes rather than 99.  The script was a bit short on ideas, and long on torture, murder, forced labor, revenge, and betrayals. 

20140506: Horror Review--Here Comes the Devil

Here Comes the Devil

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Mexican live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 97 minutes, horror, thriller.
2. IMDB: 5.7/10.0 from 1,128 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 41% on the meter; 34% liked it from 2,609 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.7/5.0 from 19,665 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Adrian Garcia Bogliano.
6. Starring: Francisco Barreiro as Felix, Laura Caro as Sol, Michele Garcia as Sara, Alan Martinez as Adolfo, Giancarlo Ruiz as Sgt. Flores.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Parents Felix and Sol take children Sara and Adolfo on a trip.  Sara starts her first period, which is a temporary alarm.  After visiting a medic, they return to their motel, and the kids want to go exploring again.  While waiting, the parents get interested in each other, and the time gets away from them.  The sun goes down and the children have not returned from their trek to a steep, rocky hill.  The police wisely advise to restart the search in the morning.  The next morning, the police return the kids.


2. However, not all is well.  Sara draws some disturbing art.  Both Sol and Felix get unexplained bruises on their bodies.  Sara has an unexplained seizure when she sees a man who was around just before the kids went missing.  The parents do a dastardly violent crime at night.  The babysitter has an horrific blackout.  That is just the beginning of the family's descent.


3. Is the family doomed, or will they find a way back to sanity?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Neither scary, nor suspenseful, nor gory, nor interesting.
2. Two stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Good, but not great.


2. Sound: 7/10 The actors were well-miked, but I was paying more attention to the sub-titles.  The music was only mildly helpful for setting mood.


3. Acting: 3/10 Some people were in front of cameras while they hit their marks and said their lines.  I would not call any of this good acting, however.  There was way too much time spent with the camera on Laura Caro's stone face while someone off camera spoke.  Francisco Barreiro was quite unconvincing.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The film does tell a story, but it is neither interesting nor well told. The SFX and the hallucinations were not convincing at all.

20140503: Horror Review--House

House

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2008, rated R, 88 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.7/10.0 from 4,628 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 2.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 0% on the meter, but no consensus yet; 27% liked it from 16,658 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.1/5.0 from 334,100 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Robby Henson.
6. Starring: Michael Madsen as Tin Man/Officer, Reynaldo Rosales as Jack Singleton, Heide Dippold as Stephanie Singleton, Julie Ann Emory as Leslie Taylor, J. P. Davis as Randy Messsarue, Lew Temple as Pete, Leslie Easterbrook as Betty, Bill Moseley as Stewart, Alanna Bale as Susan.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Jack and Stephanie (a writer and a singer) drive in Alabama.  Jack is driving too fast, and a cop passes him.  The cop had gone ahead to block off part of the road next to an accident.  Jack runs over some of the cop's cones, so they have a conversation.  Jack asks for the quickest way back to the Interstate, and the cop gives them a shortcut.  This turns out very badly: there is a car partially blocking the dirt road, and a do-it-yourself spike strip over the rest of the path.  So, they are in the middle of nowhere with two flat tires and one spare.


2. Jack and Stephanie find a house with lights on inside, which looks promising. There is a guest register.  Randy and Leslie (grad student in psychology, and a real estate developer) are the other involuntary 'guests,' who also ran over the same sharp iron and got flats on their BMW.  Shortly after the two couples start exploring, the electricity goes out, and the men go looking for the generator.


3. The owners, Stewart and Betty, plus son Pete, greet them and give them some so-so news, like indifferent telephone service, no likelihood of tow trucks coming in the night, and 20 USD/person to stay the night.  Pete does fix the electricity, and Betty sets a nice table.


4. At the dinner, the weirdness starts.  The ice is impossibly cold, visions start showing up, the owners are rather menacing.  When Leslie tries to leave, a menacing figure shows up at the front lawn.  Betty is rather discouraged, and asks them what they did in order to bring forth the Tin Man.  Leslie starts reading newspaper clippings glued to a wall, recounting an accident some years past.


5. Betty identifies the figure as the Tin Man.  She says that he comes only for the guilty.  The Tin Man drops in a tin can with rules on it.  They need to deliver a body to the Tin Man by morning, or else he will kill all of them.  Stewart and Betty attempt to lock the quartet in the meat locker, but they fight back.


6. So, do any of the protagonists survive?  Just who are Stewart, Betty, Pete, and Tin Man, anyway?  Do the guilty secrets of the young quartet surface?  What secrets are contained in the house?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Extended guilt trips for two couples with ugly secrets.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Too dark, with focus a bit too soft.


2. Sound: 5/10 A bit hollow at times.  Also, the synchronisation between actors' lips and spoken words is off, giving the impression that the whole thing is dubbed without sub-titles.


3. Acting: 6/10 Not great, but better than in many similar films.  Lew Temple, Leslie Easterbrook, Bill Moseley, and Michael Madsen were fine, though Madsen's role was rather short.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 Familiar themes with not much original, though the ending did seem to be borrowed from another genre.  The story does move right along.

20140322: Horror Review--Buried Alive

Buried Alive

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2007, UR, 94 minutes, horror, supernatural.
2. IMDB: 4.0/10.0 from 1,549 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet..' and 13% liked it from 685 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 30,239 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Robert Kurtzman.
6. Starring: Terence Jay as Zane, Leah Rachel as Rene, Tobin Bell as Lester, Erin Reese as Laura, Steve Sandvoss as Danny, Lindsey Scott as Julie, Germaine Scott Grimes as Phil.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The protagonists are in their late teens or early twenties and in some college somewhere in New Mexico, USA.  The characters are Rene, who seems to have a lot of bad dreams; Zane (Rene's cousin), who's looking for a lost fortune from his family's history; Phil, the nerd who's helping Zane; Danny, who's cool for some unseen reason;  Julie (dressed as cow) and Laura (dressed as dog), two sorority pledges who try to make Rene happy.


2. The six of them head out to the desert to find the 'treasure.'  In parallel, Lester has been digging for gold out in the sticks, and seems to find some early on.


3. Zane starts seeing things.  He does a panic stop at freeway speed to avoid running over someone; no one else sees anything.  Oi.  The group meets Lester, who is the caretaker for Zane's family's deserted house.  There is friction there from the beginning.


4. Rene makes Phil tell the rest of the group about Zane's request for  research on the family history.  This is a bit troubled, but also seems a bit hard to have documented.  The common great grandfather of Rene and Zane had two wives. When Phil goes outside for a better signal, someone kills him.


5. The group gets into a discussion of ancient totems and symbols.  They find pictures of the great-grandfather's two wives; both of them wore the necklace which Rene currently wears. Laura has the symbol on the necklace tattooed on the back of her neck.


6. Rene sends Laura (dressed in boots) to bring back something from Lester's trailer.  She gets there, selects a stuffed rabbit, and returns.  Julie (dressed in jeans, poor choice; her feet suffer) makes the run to Lester's next.  Zane carries Julie back after the ankle injury.


7. Still, no one checks on Phil, who is dead, but propped up in the car.  After so many hours one might think they would notice something.


8. Looks like an elimination derby.   How many of the remaining five will survive?  Do Rene and Zane figure out the knot in their ancestors' history in time for it to do anyone any good?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Good visuals, but not much of a story in this teen slasher film.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Well done, no complaints.


2. Sound: 5/10 Leveling problems, conversation versus 'music.'  The music during the credits was really hideous.


3. Acting: 4/10 Germaine Scott Grimes, Steve Sandvoss: useless. Lindsey Scott, Leah Rachel, Erin Reese: not that good.  Terence Jay: almost OK.  Tobin Bell: rather good in an extended cameo.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The central threat, the motivation for the revenge, and the ending did not make a lick of sense.  What was the point of the Danny character, except to supply drugs?  What was the point of the Phil character, except to slam people with computer skills?  What was the point of the Julie character except her pneumatic figure?  The characters Rene, Zane, and Laura were not interesting enough to make up for the general lack of story.

20140320: Horror Review--War of the Dead

War of the Dead

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American/Lithuanian/Italian live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 86 minutes, horror, zombies, supernatural.  Spoken word is English with lots of dubbing.  Straight to video.
2. IMDB: 4.1/10.0 from 1,753 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 1 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 11% liked it from 185 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.1/5.0 from 95,684 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Marco Maekilaakso.
6. Starring: Andrew Tierman as Captain Martin Stone, Jouko Ahola as Captain Niemi, Samual Vaurama as Kolya, Mikko Leppilampi as Lieutenant Laakso, Andreas Wilson as Assistant, Antti Reini as Sergeant Halonen.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In World War II, Finnish troops and American troops attempt to investigate a Nazi bunker that lies inside Germany.


2. After spending some time with Wikipedia, I see that there was little historical support for the idea of American and Finnish troops to be operating together against the Germans.  America was the ally of the Soviet Union.  Finland had been fighting the Russians off and on for about 150 years.  During most of World War II, the Finns were allied with the Nazis based in Norway and Germany against their longtime enemy, Russia.


3. So, the setup of the film is nonsense.


4. The 'action' scenes are boring or inept.


5. As a zombie film (the bunker in Germany supposedly contained experiments to re-animate the dead), this is a bust.  The main clue that a walking biped was a zombie was 'did we not already kill that one?' or words to that effect.  A few zombies had glazed over eyes.  The gloomy, heart wrenching threat one expects from the Zombie Apocalypse environment was absent.


3. Conclusions
1. Cheap jack zombie film with historical inaccuracy.
2. One line summary: Avoid this ersatz zombie film plus poor action film.
3. 1/10


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 Dark.  Poor camera angles.  Colour palettes so reduced as to be only slightly different than greyscale.


2. Sound: 4/10 Horrible accents.  Background music was not an asset.


3. Acting: 0/10 Terrible performances.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 There was a screenplay?  Where was the exposition of motivations?  There was a lot of stilted dialog that generated confusion.  The joint group just drifted from one disaster to the next.  The film seemed more of an elimination derby of nameless characters that were impossible to care anything about.

20140316: Horror Review--Darkwolf

Darkwolf

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2003, rated R, 93 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 2.8/10.0 from 1,305 audience ratings.  Approximate budget: 2.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 20% liked it from 1,619 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 27,868 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Richard Friedman.
6. Starring: Samaire Armstrong as Josie, Ryan Alosio as Steve Turley, Andrea Bogart as Stacey, Sasha Craig as Anna, Aaron van Wagner as Tom, Jamie Bergman as McGowan, Alexis Cruz as Miguel, Beau Clark as Wayne, Rick McCallum as DarkWolf, Steven Williams as Hartigan, Tippi Hedren as Mary.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Hartigan and a plainclothesman apprehend a suspect and load him into a paddy wagon to get him to jail.  That does not work well.  Both policemen are killed.  Hartigan's partner Steve gets a new partner, McGowan, who gets ravaged soon after by the same suspect.


2. While investigating near the pub where the murders occurred, Steve meets the old lady Mary, and the waitress Josie.  Mary tells Steve about the DarkWolf and about the DarkWolf's designated mate.  So, Josie is the mate that DarkWolf is looking for, and she will be going through some changes that very night.


3. Soon after DarkWolf wounds McGowan, he wounds Mary mortally.  Before she dies, she tells Steve that he needs to read this giant book that she has with her.  When the ambulance arrives, Steve forgets the book and attends to McGowan.  One of the  dancers, Stacey, snags the book and takes it to a photo shoot.  Josie was to be at the shoot.  While waiting for her, Stacey shows the book to the makeup guy Miguel and photographer, Tom.  There are lots of illustrations.  They paint Stacey and Anna (full body) in the style of the book, and start taking photos of the two models as they dance.


4. The book, of course, should have been in Steve's hands to study, so that he could help Josie through the troubles she was about to experience.  Instead we get a lot footage of gratuitous painted naked ladies.


5. The DarkWolf is also attracted to the book, so the people at the photo shoot are in danger as well.


6. Will Josie make it through the transformations?  Will the DarkWolf attain his goal? 


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Poor cinematography and sound complement bad acting and screenplay.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Some very bad SFX.  Odd camera angles, sudden switches to closeups of very bad werewolf masks, some shaky camera.  The SFX of the DarkWolf in four-footed mode are particularly poor.


2. Sound: 4/10 The actors are often poorly miked; the voices are often hollow or overdriven. In some segments, the music is looped with an overlay of moans, gasps, and groans.  One might as well be watching an adult film.


3. Acting: 2/10 The two leads, Samaire Armstrong and Ryan Alosio, are particularly poor at delivering lines.  When Samaire Armstrong tries to sound authoritative and commanding, she sounds screechy and ineffective instead.  It was nice to see Tippi Hedren again, but her role was rather abbreviated.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Awkward dialog.  Strange story told in an odd, unconvincing way.  Lots of gratuitous skin that has little to do with the main plot lines.  Way too many poor werewolf jokes.

20140304: Horror Review--Hellraiser 9 2011

Hellraiser IX: Revelations

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 75 minutes, horror, supernatural.
2. IMDB: 2.8/10.0 from 3,196 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 350,000 USD.  Spoken word is in English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' 5% liked it from 615 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 161,216 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Victor Garcia; screenplay by Gary J. Tunnicliffe.
6. Starring:  Tracey Fairaway as Emma Craven, Nick Eversman as Steven Craven, Steven Brand as Dr. Ross Craven, Devon Sorvari as Sarah Craven, Sebastien Roberts as Peter Bradley, Ross Gillespie as Nico Bradley, Sanny van Heteren as Kate Bradley, Stephan Smith Collins as Pinhead. 


2. Setup, Plot
1. Filmed in LA, supposedly takes place in Mexico.  Right.  Smallest budget of the nine films.  The six year gap between HR 8 and HR 9 comes from the Weinstein company Miramax losing rights to the series and Puzzlebox Films picking up the rights.  The film was shot on a short schedule, and Doug Bradley did not return to reprise his role as Pinhead.


2. Nico and Steven bid farewell to Los Angeles on their way to Tijuana, MX.  Their aims are to get wasted or connect with sex workers.  We jump to Tijuana.  Nico is fooling about with a puzzle cube.  He succeeds in opening it.  Pinhead and two cenobites appear.


3. The Cravens and the Bradleys (parents of the doomed idiots, Steven and Nico) get together to have an evening together.  Emma is upset that no one talks about the sons, since Steven was her brother and Nico was her boyfriend.  She wonders why her mother spends time in Steven's room watching the tape the boys made over and over again.  Peter supports her in wanting to discuss it.


4. After a time, Emma watches some of the video, and starts playing with the puzzle cube.  The level of anxiety rises when this is revealed.  The anxiety ratchets up when Steven returns.  When they try to call 911, they find that their telephones are not working.  They decide to transport Steven, but their vehicles go missing.  It just keeps getting better.


5. As 'Steven' recovers a bit, secrets come out, many of them quite nasty, and blood starts to flow.  Will anyone get out of this alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Easily the worst of the nine films in the series.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Shaky cam, minus 4 points, immediately.  Terrible contrast, terrible framing, terrible focus.  Some of the film looks OK.


2. Sound: 4/10 Not very effective.


3. Acting: 0/10 Stephan Smith Collins is a terrible replacement for Doug Bradley as Pinhead. Whoever wrote Pinhead's lines was even worse.  From the beginning, the dialog is very bad.  A young woman playing a Mexican native speaks Spanish with a very American accent.  I did not like the performance of any of the actors.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Bad dialog to go with the wretched acting.  There is a story of sorts, but it develops slowly, and still seems muddled at the end.  The fractured time lines did not help all that much.


5. SFX: 2/10 Poor compared to the earlier films, even though this one was released in 2011.  The credits ran long, still mention the Weinsteins, and had better production values than the rest of the film.

20140304: Horror Review--Hellraiser 8 2005

Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. American/Romanian live action feature length film, 2005, rated R, 89 minutes, horror, gore.
2. IMDB: 4.2/10.0 from 5,165 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 20% on the meter; 24% liked it from 17,470 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 326,738 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Rick Bota, screenplay by Joel Soisson and Carl V. DuPre.
6. Starring: Doug Bradley as Pinhead, Lance Henriksen as The Host, Katheryn Winnick as Chelsea, Henry Cavill as Mike, Christopher Jacot as Jake, Khary Payton as Derrick, Anna Tolputt as Allison, Victor McGuire as first policeman, Stelian Urian as Adam.


2. Setup, Plot
1. The picture begins in the Roman Catholic setting: nuns, so-so sculpture, churches, services for the dead, dreary music, and stained glass windows.  Coincident and discordant with that, we have young adults (well, children in adult bodies) who look all correct in their level of solemnity, which they will soon enough chuck off as just another aspect of their hypocrisy.  These are the folk headed for the grinder.


2. The protagonist group (Chelsea, Mike, Allison, Derrick, Jake, Adam) were all addicted to the MMORPG video game 'Hellworld,' and have come to the funeral of Adam.  Adam apparently committed suicide after a period of instability.  Jake is a bit stand-offish at the funeral because he thought the other four spent too much time at the game while Adam was in trouble.


3. If the titles are to be believed, two years go by.  The sub-group (Chelsea, Mike, Allison, Derrick) get tickets to the 5th annual secret Hellworld party at a large semi-secluded mansion. They meet Jake there, somewhat to their surprise.


4. Since they are first time party attendees, The Host shows them around his collection of Hellworld memorabilia.  All of them are quite impressed. The building is called Leviathan House, and supposedly was designed by Phillip Lemarchand. The house was originally a nunnery until 80 nuns went missing.  Then it became a house for the criminally insane, and developed a history of paranormal violence.  The staff took a bit of a wrong turn when they all took local anesthetics and proceeded to dismember each other.


5. Chelsea shows open skepticism to The Host.  He shows her a powerful hallucination in which he introduces himself as Pinhead.  All this is shrugged off, and they go to the party for getting drunk with masks on.


6. After that, we get down to divide and conquer.  The protagonists have some rather bad experiences, and the elimination derby is on.


7. Allison walks into a room marked 'Keep out.'  She should have done that.  Chelsea thinks she sees Adam, and pursues.  Jake goes exploring too, and meets Pinhead.  Then he notices that no one acknowledges him, except someone who has been dead for years.  Derrick goes looking for love, but needs his inhaler.  He just cannot get to it on the dance floor, and has to search hard to find it.  Mike finds a young woman who gives him some physical attention. Chelsea calls him, but he cannot be bothered.  Then his hallucinations start.


8. Chelsea stays a bit aloof, and resists the goings-on the best.  Will she survive the party?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Grieving father plays elimination derby with Hellworld gamers.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 A lot of VHS quality, which is disappointing.  Then again, this picture was straight-to-video.


2. Sound: 4/10 Music by Lars Anderson was not effective.


3. Acting: 3/10 Lance Henriksen seemed a touch not involved, but still delivered his lines professionally. Doug Bradley was good, as usual, in his short role.  The other actors just sucked rocks.  This definitely includes Henry Cavill, who later played Superman in Man of Steel (2013).


4. Screenplay: 4/10 There is some very terrible dialog, followed by more. "Like a bad horror movie, isn't it?" The Host asked Chelsea.  Motivations were often unclear.  The story seemed merely an elimination derby for twenty somethings with a Hellraiser setting.  The double reverse at the end was moderately interesting, and was the basic reason for 2/5 instead of 1/5.


5. SFX: 4/10 Not many SFX, and none of them were all that interesting.

20140303: Horror Review--Hellraiser 7 2004

Hellraiser: Deader

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. American/Romanian live action feature length film, 2004, rated R, 88 minutes, horror. Spoken word is in English.
2. IMDB: 4.6/10.0 from 4,897 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 4 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 17% on the meter; 24% liked it from 13,474 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 220,241 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Rick Bota.
6. Starring: Doug Bradley as Pinhead, Kari Wuhrer as Amy Klein, Paul Rhys as Winter, Simon Kunz as Charles Richmond, Marc Warren as Joey, Georgina Raylance as Marla.


2. Setup, Plot
1. The picture starts out in a large, run down flat in London which contains several abusers of alcohol and drugs.  The mostly blocked daylight slowly stimulates wakening.  Amy takes a few last snaps, and turns off her sound recorder.  She leaves to go to the offices of a publication, 'London Underground'...after some considerable cleanup, that is.  When she goes to meet her boss, Charles Richmond, the scent of patchouli oil precedes her. Amy and Charles have known each other for quite some time.  Charles shows her a tape about 'deaders,' then gives her a new assignment concerning the accuracy of the tape.


2. The tape has what at first seems to be a snuff film.  A young woman shoots herself in the head with a heavy pistol.  She seems quite dead.  Winter, the leader of the forsaken-looking 'youth' that watched the head shot gives her mouth-to-mouth and the stricken woman revives.


3. The envelope containing the tape had a return address.  Charles sends Amy to Bucharest, Romania, where all the 'cool' Euro trash go for thrills.  ('Amsterdam is so 90s.')  Amy finds the return address in Bucharest.  She finds the exact flat, discovers a body dead by suicide, a scrapbook of disturbing photographs, a puzzle cube, next steps to investigate, and a plea for help.  Later, when she is in private, she runs her hands over the puzzle cube, and gets her first (hallucinatory) encounter with Pinhead after opening it partially.  She keeps looking, then runs afoul of the local gendarmes.  Charles bails her out, then exhorts her to keep after the story, again back in Bucharest.


4. When she continues the investigation, her hallucinations get much worse.  She manages to witness the act of 'resurrection.'  She has her first chilling conversation with Winter, and gives him the puzzle cube.  Winter claims he is trying to recover his inheritance.  He attempts to recruit her in his war against Pinhead since she can open the puzzle cube.


5. Pinhead, on the other hand, sees Winter (a descendant of the puzzle box's creator) as an interloper in his domain.  Pinhead exhorts Amy to help him against Winter, since Pinhead is her only way out of her current mess.


6. Can Amy find her way back to stability and reality in this metaphysical war?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Amy investigates the war between Pinhead and Winter, plus her own demons.
2. Eight of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Well shot in daylight and in the dim night scenes.


2. Sound: 10/10 Strong and effective.


3. Acting: 10/10 This is, hands down, the best performance I've ever seen from Kari Wuhrer. Simon Kunz, Paul Rhys, Marc Warren, Georgina Raylance, and Doug Bradley were all quite good.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 A little weak on exposition, but not by much.  On the whole, well-told.


5. SFX: 8/10 Best in the series so far.

20140302: Horror Review--Hellraiser 5 2000

Hellraiser V: Inferno

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2000, rated R, 99 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 5.6/10.0 from 8,307 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 2 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No scores yet,' and 'No score yet' from audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 221,998 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Kevin Yagher, screenplay by Peter Atkins.
6. Starring: Craig Sheffer as Det Joseph Thorne, Nicolas Turturro as Det Tony Nenonen, James Remar as Dr. Paul Gregory, Noelle Evans as Melanie Thorne, Doug Bradley as Pinhead, Nicholas Sadler as Bernie, Carmen Argenziano as the Captain.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Det Thorne is a hypocritical cop.   He has a wife and child and an above board appearance, but also consorts with hookers and beats the crap out of 'suspects' or whoever bothers him.  He finds a puzzle cube in the course of his investigations.  Then the dreams start, and he finds the latest hooker he has been with dead in the shower in the place where they last met.


2. He enlists (with a bit of blackmail) his straight-shooting partner Det Nenonen to help him cover up the hooker's murder.  The two of them descend deeper and deeper into the seedier side of life in Denver.  After one of his confidential informants is killed, Thorne receives a tape showing the CI being killed by a cenobite.  When he shows the tape to his boss, his partner, and a tech specialist, the content is gone.  Ouch.  They investigate the scene, and everything is as Thorne described it from the tape.


3. Since Thorne cannot substantiate his sightings of the cenobites, his boss recommends that he spend time with a shrink, Dr Gregory.  The shrink turns out to be Pinhead in disguise.  His wife starts to object to his unexplained lengthy absences.


4. How well does Thorne deal with his demons?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  The series returns to 'take responsibility for your own actions,' Twilight Zone style.
2. Seven of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Good-looking film until that jumpy nonsense towards the end.


2. Sound: 6/10 Nothing special.  Sound was not all that important to the film, which could have been quite an asset.


3. Acting: 8/10 Nicholas Turturro is as bad as ever.  Craig Sheffer gave one of his better performances.  James Remar and Carmen Argenziano gave their usual competent plus performances.  Doug Bradley was quite good as expected.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 Not nearly as complex as HR4, but tremendously better executed.


5. SFX: 9/10 The SFX are much better in HR5.  Most of them concern Thorne's hallucinations, and most of them are rather good.

20140219: Horror Review--YellowBrickRoad

YellowBrickRoad

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2010, rated R, 98 minutes, horror, thriller.
2. IMDB: 4.7/10.0 from 3,466 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 500,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 44% on the meter; 30% liked it from 1,871 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.7/5.0 from 189,828 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton.
6. Starring: Cassidy Freeman as Erin Luger, Anessa Ramsey as Melissa Barnes, Laura Heisler as Liv McCann, Lee Wilkof as Clerk, Daryl Freeman as Daryl Luger.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In 1940, the residents of Friar, New Hampshire walked up a mountain road.  They were not seen again.  The film starts with a recreation of part of the Army's subsequent investigation. In 2008, the coordinates of the trail head are declassified.  A group bands together to investigate the incident.


2. The group is well equipped.  They bring a six wheeled vehicle of some sort, multiple cameras, a high-quality sextant, GPS, compasses, maps, tents, and all manner of other things.


3. After the music and the noise starts, things start to go downhill.  About the same time, the compasses start to wobble or spin.  The GPS gives wildly variable and always false readings.  The noise is intermittent and so loud that hands-over-the-ears is not enough to keep it from being debilitating.  Their two-way radios become unreliable.


4. After one of the men kills Erin over a hat, the sanity of the group just drops off a cliff.  They cannot agree on a way back, since their travel notes are gibberish.  They split into smaller groups.  One character jumps to her death.  One character implores a woman companion to kill him; she eventually snaps his neck after he tells her how to do it.  A man kills himself after filming a good-bye.  Early on, there is a scene about the dangers of nightshade.  Later a character commits suicide using nightshade.


5. Does anyone survive?  Does anyone figure out the mystery that instigated the trek?  Watch for the final seconds after the closing credits; a few images (supposedly) from the Army investigation are shown.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary:  Well-appointed modern twenty-somethings follow the path of a doomed march made in 1940.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Often OK, but has shaky cam now and then.


2. Sound: 0/10 Huge dynamic range, which is quite irritating. Make that worse than irritating.  To hear its meaningless conversations, one needs to turn the sound up.  A lot.  To avoid breaking the speakers, or getting a visit from the cops, one needs to turn the sound down, down, down.  The sound alone renders this film a failure.


3. Acting: 3/10 I liked Cassidy Freeman's (Smallville) performance fairly well.  I cannot say the same for the rest of the cast.  The +3 is for Ms Freeman alone.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Pointless.  Was the original purpose of the expedition achieved?  Not even remotely.  Did the dead characters gain any enlightenment before death?  No.  The ending was just one more fall into insanity.

20140130: Horror Review--Toad Road

Toad Road

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, NR, 75 minutes, horror, thriller.
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 242 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 67% on the meter; 52% liked it from 118 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 15,103 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Jason Banker.
6. Starring: James Davidson as James, Sara Anne Jones as Sara, Whitleigh Higuera as Whitleigh, Jamie Siebold as Jamie, Scott Rader as Scott.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film opens to a group of drug addicts having fun with each other while getting high or coming down.  That's about the first 45 minutes worth of 75 minutes total.


2. James and Sara go to Toad Road to see what's there.  Supposedly there are seven gates, and if one goes through all seven, one gets entrance to hell.


3. At the first gate, one can feel something pulling at you, and wanting you gone, but you cannot see them.  At the second gate, one starts to hear things.  Just after the third gate, one starts to see things; the voices become visible.  Just after the fourth gate, things around you start to die; leaves start to fall and the like.  Just after the fifth gate, everything gets cold, but you feel warm and powerful.


4. At this point in the description by Sara, it had started snowing, and a CGI gate was visible.  James catches up to Sara.  The narration describing the gates continues.  Time supposedly changes after passing through the fifth gate.


5. At this point, James is separated from Sara.  He looks for her a bit, and calls her name repeatedly.  He gives up and takes a long walk home.  His keys do not work.  After some time he gets in touch with two of his druggie friends.  They tell him that he has been gone for months.  No one cares that he has been gone that long, but Sara is a different matter since she has roots with people and institutions that care about her.


6. Do we see Sara again?  Does James do anything to find her?


3. Conclusions
1. The characters in this mess are the best argument for birth control that I have ever seen.
2. One line summary:  Drug user investigates a path to hell, but does not remember it.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 Bipolar, to say the least.  On the one hand, some long stretches are hideously bad: fuzzy, poorly lit, poorly framed, overexposed and alternately underexposed, shaky.  On the better side, sections of the film have fine focus, good depth of field, nice framing and no camera shake.


2. Sound: 3/10 A real detriment.


3. Acting: 0/10 Non-existent.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Next to worthless.  There is about 90 seconds of plot here, yet the film drags on endlessly for 75 minutes.  Filming drug addicts putting out their cigarettes in vomit is of no value whatsoever.

20131202: Horror Review--Twixt

Twixt

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 88 minutes, horror, thriller, supernatural.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 5343 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 7 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 31% on the meter; 22% liked it from 1099 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 72,341 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
6. Starring: Val Kilmer as Hall Baltimore, Bruce Dern as Sheriff Bobby LaGrange, Elle Fanning as V, Ben Chaplin as Poe, Joanne Whalley as Denise, David Paymer as Sam.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Hall Baltimore is a writer whose career is on the decline.  He is on a book tour in a small town ('Swann Valley') in California when the weirdness starts.  The narration tell us that there was an unspeakable murder some years past, and the camera shows us a huge, old, creepy, decrepit old house.  The narration goes on to describe an encampment of youths whose habits mystify the other inhabitants; perhaps they were Satan worshippers?  The visuals indicate a mix of Goths, bikers, tattoo aficionados, and metal music fans.  Into this mix comes Hall Baltimore, a 'third rate writer' of a series of novels mostly concerned with witchcraft.


2. Hall sets up in the local hardware store since there is no bookstore.  He gets a lukecold reception.  His first sale is to Sheriff Bobby LaGrange, who tells Hall that he also writes horror stories.  Hall is not too interested in the tale of a mass murder, but Bobby talks him into it.  Bobby hopes to cooperate on a new Hall Baltimore novel.  Hall finds out that Edgar Allen Poe once slept at the Chickering Hotel in town, so he has to check that out.  He decides to stay a day at the local motel.  Hall pulls out the copy of his first novel that he signed for his dead daughter Vicky.  Hall is not a happy man by any stretch.


3. He's on the hook for another witch story.  His wife Denise tells him in no uncertain terms to quit drinking, finish the contracted work, and bring in some dollars for both of them.  At this stage, the establishment of the movie's premise in complete.  He's in a creepy town; the Sheriff, who knows so much about the local colour, wants to cooperate on a new novel, and he needs the money for compelling reasons.


4. That very night, Hall's interactions with the supernatural start.  He meets V and talks to her.  The Chickering Hotel is open, and he talks to a couple who run it.  They tell him of the twelve dead children buried beneath the floor.  Hall gets to see them 'alive' and trusting the man who should have protected them.  He consciously thinks that this is what he needs.  He meets the ghost of Poe.


5. The next morning, Denise lets him know that she is going to sell an extremely rare book that Hall owns unless he does something to supplement their income.  In the daylight, Hall breaks into the hotel and finds much of what he saw in the last night's dream.  He visits the library next to research the Chickering Hotel and the mass murder there in 1955.


6. Hall tries to talk to the Sheriff, and talks to the Sheriff's assistant Arbus, who tells him that the corpse Bobby showed him needs to have the stake left in its heart.  Hall finally gets through to the Bobby.  Hall agrees to do the book with Bobby.  They negotiate; the Sheriff supplies information; Hall tries to fit it into a book that his publisher can accept.  


7. Hall gets started.  Unfortunately, he starts drinking at the same time.  The publisher had said 'no fog on the lake' but Hall of course starts with fog on the lake, and degenerates from there.  Worst of all, Hall acts like he wants to disturb the corpse in the morgue.  


8. To advance the story, Hall takes over the counter sleeping potions to help him talk to Poe about getting a good, 'bullet proof' ending for his editor.  Poe speaks eloquently about the structure of writing, and applies it to the present case.  Poe tells him of another layer of the truth of the 1955 killings.  This included a colony of vampires across the lake from the orphanage where the killings occurred.  Where the vampires were then, the young rebels are now.  


9. The sheriff suggests a ouija board experience in the morgue.  This does not exactly go well.  The corpse with the stake moves, and the sheriff brings up vampires again.


10. Hall visits the current encampment across the lake.  He meets Circe, and talks to Flamingo, who is a huge fan of Baudelaire.  He's also worried about a missing girl, as well as the colour of the moon.


11. Hall makes his way into the locked bell tower, where he asks the owner, 'what's that smell?'  The reply was that the tower is haunted.  Hall meets his dead daughter, who enjoins him to come with her.  The bells increase monumentally in volume; Hall escapes, but falls many feet into unconsciousness.  In this state, he meets Poe, who tells him how the vicar killed the orphaned children.  Bobby pushes for a bigger role in the novel.  Hall implores Poe to tell him the rest of the story.


12. Will Hall be able to put together a good story before the undead decide to have him join them?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Not a gore fest; well-constructed ghost plus vampire story.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Exceptional, beautiful, well thought out.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 10/10 What's not to like?  Kilmer, Dern, Chaplin, Fanning, plus a deeply skilled director.  Compared to most of the 'horror' films I review, the acting here is more like 37/10.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Loved it.


5. SFX: 8/10 Good.  No let downs.

20131127: Horror Review--A Haunting at Silver Falls

A Haunting at Silver Falls

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 96 minutes, horror, supernatural.
2. IMDB: 4.6/10.0 from 1000 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 2.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' 38% liked it from 140 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 291,674 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Brett Donowho.
6. Starring: Steve Bacic as Kevin Sanders, Tara Westwood as Anne Sanders, Erick Avari as Dr. Parrish, Alix Elizabeth Gitter as Jordan, Jade Ramsey as Heather Dahl, Nikita Ramsey as Holly Dahl, James Cavlo as Larry Parrish, James Ralph as Sheriff O'Leary, Tadhg Kelly as Robbie O'Leary.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Jordan's father died, so she comes to live with her aunt Anne, her deceased mother's twin sister, and her uncle Kevin.  She goes on a date with Larry Parrish; Larry ends up being arrested for drug possession, and Jordan gets a ride home from Robbie.  Larry is in line to be the school valedictorian, and Dr Parrish (Larry's father, a psychologist) is not amused.


2. Jordan starts getting nocturnal visitors; one leaves candy wrappers, the other tries to pull off the ring she found in the woods while fleeing the cops after the 'date.'


3. Larry tries to help Jordan get the ring off.  It seems to work, but then the ring gets back on, somehow.  Jordan's new parents bring up the things (an Hermes scarf, money from Kevin's wallet) found in her underwear drawer.  The lock her in the bathroom using pennies while they have a night out by themselves.   Then the ghosts try to drown her.  Good planning there.  She's soaking wet but the bathroom is not.  Hm.  They give her some haloperidol, an anti-psychotic.  Oh, great.  She sees the one ghost in daylight now.


4. Her first visit with Dr. Parrish on a professional level does not go well.  She sees the ghost in his office, cannot take her eyes off of it, and cannot tell him about it.  The doctor knows she is lying and concealing.  Sigh.  At school, Larry and Robbie are competing over her.  Larry and Jordan ditch school and follow Jordan's ghost.  Larry calls her parents and the Sheriff, who then stage an intervention.


5. Jordan gets to meet Mr. Dahl, the father and the condemned killer of the twins, Heather and Holly Dahl.  These are the ghosts Jordan has been seeing.  Mr. Dahl gives her another ring, the second third of what used to be one ring.  After she gets home, Jordan puts it on as well.  She has quite the dream after that, featuring both twins.  They warn her that she is next.


6. Jordan finds the third part of the ring, and information that she did not expect.


7. Will Jordan make it out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Foster parents sometimes be very, very bad.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Fairly good, but had a few problems, at least on Netflix.


2. Sound: 8/10 No particular problems.


3. Acting: 8/10 Steve Bacic was great; Erick Avari, an enduring favourite, was even better.  James Cavlo was beyond bad.  Except for him, I might have given this film a five of five. Alix Elizabeth Gitter was fine as Jordan.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Liked the story.

20130922: Horror Review--Dylan Dog

Dylan Dog

1. Production Fundamentals; reception
1. American live action feature length film, horror, comedy, mystery, PG-13, 107 minutes, 2010.
2. IMDB: 5.1/10.0 from 10,368 users. Estimated budget, 20 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 8% on the meter; 30% liked it from 14,853 audience ratings.
4. Directed by Kevin Munroe; screenplay by Thomas Dean Donelly.
5. Starring: Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) as Dylan Dog, Anita Briem (The Tudors) as Elizabeth, Sam Huntington (Being Human, US version) as Marcus, Taye Diggs (Private Practice) as Vargas, Kurt Angle (River of Darkness) as Wolfgang, Peter Stormare (Fargo) as Gabriel.


2. Setup, Plot
1. In previous years, Dylan Dog was an arbiter of all issues among undead parties; he was respected by all, and he helped keep the peace.  Something went badly wrong, though, and now he is a private detective who investigates infidelity for the most part.


2. A killing by a werewolf draws him back into the fray.  The victim is Elizabeth's father, an importer (well, smuggler) of rare items.  He is rumoured to have an object of rare power which will change the balances among the undead factions.


3. Elizabeth hires Dylan to find her father's killer, but the movie is about Dylan trying to circumvent an all out war among the undead.  Along the way, we meet werewolves, vampires, zombies, and ghouls (humans who mainline on vampire blood for strength and youth).


4. Much of the action is about finding the Heart of Belial, which is sufficient to bring back Belial himself, a  demon of unsurpassed strength.  Vargas wants to use Belial to put down all the other undead factions.  Then again, so does someone else, which is an interesting twist.


3. Conclusions
1. The IMDB and RT ratings were impressively bad; see the technical scores below.
2. One line summary: This is an enjoyable supernatural action film if you don't read the comic first.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Always good.


2. Sound: 10/10 Fine. The actors were well-miked, and the incidental music was good.


3. Acting: 7/10 Anita Briem was really weak, but I enjoyed most of the other characters as played by Routh, Stormare, Angle, Huntington.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The story has a well-defined beginning, a long middle, and a conclusive ending.  Exposition of motivation was fine.  I read other reviews after seeing the film, and I'm glad I never looked at the comic of the same name.  Most of the negative energy against the film seemed to arise from the fans of the comic.


5. Special Effects: 8/10 Mostly good.

20130921: Action Review--Drive Angry

Drive Angry

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 101 minutes,
2. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 62,304 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 45% on the meter; 37% liked it from 38,804 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Patrick Lussier.  Written by: Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier.
5. Starring: Nicolas Cage as Milton, Amber Heard as Piper, William Fichtner as the Accountant, Billy Burke as Jonah King, David Morse as Webster.


2. Setup and Plot
1. From IMDB, 'A vengeful father escapes from hell and chases after the men who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter.'


2. The vengeful father is Milton.  The Accountant is from hell, and is following Milton.  Milton picks up Piper along the way, first to hitch a ride, then to save her life, then for a variety of other reasons.


3. There are instances of demonic domination, car explosions, murders, vehicle chases, with horribly maimed and injured bodies rising to fight again.


4. Milton catches up with the kidnapper and more violence results.


5. There's the initial failure stage, then the second assault.


6. Liked the ending.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: If you are in the mood for explosions, revenge, violence, and end-of-the-world festivities, this is the film for you.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 No problems.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.


3. Acting: 8/10  I liked David Fichtner's performance as the Accountant.  I usually despise anything David Morse does, but this one was much better than average.  Nicolas Cage's performances vary from excellent (Lord of War) to ho-hum (The Sorcerer's Apprentice); this one was toward the plus side.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 Has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The middle is rather long, punctuated by the violence and explosions.  Motivation is very clear for the protagonist, and reasonably well portrayed for the other players.
   

20130802_b: Horror Film Review--Shutter (Thailand)

Shutter

1. Context
1. Hulu had the 2004 version, not the 2008 version with Joshua Jackson.
2. Produced in Thailand, live action theatrical film, 97 minutes, horror, mystery.
3. IMDB rated this one at  7.0/10.0 aggregate from ratings of 21,992 users.
4. Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 56%, 'no consensus yet.'
5. The spoken word is in Thai, with English subtitles.  Hulu streamed the film in 'high' quality.


2. Initial tableaux
1. Early in the film, Jane and Tun drive home from a drinking bout with some of his friends.  The road is mostly empty.  When Jane takes her eyes off the road for a few seconds, she runs over a woman.  When a truck approaches, Tun convinces Jane to drive off.
2. It would seem that was their first mistake.
3. Afterwards, Tun's photos tend to have light streaks in them.  Both of them start to have horrifying dreams.  They start to get more information.  They check where the accident occurred; apparently there was no accident.  They check the local expert on photography, who claims it's just double exposure, and shows Tun similar effects in his own photos.  They push on to a magazine that specialises in 'supernatural' ghost images.  The editor explains how most of the fakes are made.  Then he recommends that they try to check using a Polaroid camera, which might be harder to create fakes with.  As they continue to investigate, they keep picking up ghostly images, mirages, and dreams.


3. Conflicts, resolution
1. By half way through the film, three of the men who were at the initial drinking party have committed suicide.  The mystery deepens.  Jane finds a photo of Tun with an earlier lover, Natre.  Jane pries the details out of him.  The details are not pretty, involve the dead men and Natre, and provide a start for resolving the mystery.
2. They visit Natre's mother, who keeps Natre's corpse in her old bedroom.  They convince the mother to hold a formal funeral for her.  That was not enough to bring peace to the principal characters.
3. A new level of weirdness starts around 70 minutes into the film.  Tun's torment accelerates.  Natre is cremated, and that seems to end the problems.  Later, Jane gets back some new photo prints, including ghost images, and more old truths surface.
4. Tun does not escape the consequences of past actions after all.


4. I rate this one as 8/10.
1. The camera work was a bit fuzzy 7/10
2. sound was good 8/10
3. the acting fine 9/10
4. the screenplay was good: bringing the mystery home was well done. 10/10
5. One line summary: Ghost contacts guilty parties through photography.