20131212: Horror Review--Zombie Hunter

Zombie Hunter

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 92 minutes, horror, zombies.
2. IMDB: 3.3/10.0 from 748 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Reviews Yet...' and 8% liked it from 99 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.6/5.0 from 4,198 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: K. King
6. Starring: Danny Trejo as Father Jesus, Martin Copping as Hunter, Clare Niederpruem as Alison, Terry Guthrie as Jerry, Jade Reiger as Debbie, Jarrod Phillips as Bill, Jason K. Wixom as Ricky.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film starts with a newscast about Natas, or sin, which is the new 'it' drug.  The government is taking steps.  The viewer watches the newscast being looked at by Natas users.


2. A year later, Hunter is out in the desert, killing the occasional zombie.  His Camaro breaks down from the blood and guts blocking his air intake.  Sigh.  He stops for gas, and ends up killing 8 zombies.  He has not seen another non-zombie ('survivor') for six months. Then someone shoots him while he's driving.  He and the car look pretty bad, but they drag him back to camp.


3. The small group gets to know one another.   Hunter and one of his new mates go out to assess the damage on his Camaro; they encounter zombies.  Soon the compound is attacked by zombies, including some sort of full-on mutant that looks like it was never a human.  This was a disaster.  Jesus dies taking out the lead monster.


4. Down the road, they run out of gas.  They all get sick from looking into a non-operational freezer.  Someone steals their truck, which sets up an ambush by a crazy with a chainsaw.  What was the setup for this?


5. Hunter, Alison, Ricky, and Jerry make it to the airfield, which is supposed to help them out, somehow.  Just where can they fly to that will be safe?


6. Do any of them get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bad acting plus a bad script; zombies were uninteresting.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Endless, stupid, in-your-face filters.  Pink was my least favourite filter, but others were bad as well.  Otherwise, the picture was rather low in quality, say mid-range VHS. 


2. Sound: 6/10  Not too bad, but with wretched incidental music.


3. Acting: 2/10 Much to my disappointment, Danny Trejo's role was rather small, but that's where the +2 comes from.  The main character is played by Martin Copping, who is more than a little boring, irrelevant, out of tune with the other actors.  Clare Niederpruem was not a plus.  Jade Reiger was decorative, but not a great actress.  Jarrod Phillips gave one of the worst performances I've seen.  Terry Guthrie barely seemed present.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Not much of a story, but it does have a beginning, middle, and an end.  The dialog is horrible, as is the internal logic of the story.  They stop because they are out of gas.  Someone steals the truck (how?).  Hunter recovers the truck; now it has gas.  Right.  Alison and Ricky are being chased by a fast guy with a chainsaw.  Alison: we've got to get going!  Ricky: I'm tired.


5. SFX: 2/10 Second/third rate. Bad zombie makeup, splatter effects, vomiting effects.  Blood shows up as pink, purple, orange, dark, and occasionally red.

20131212: Horror Review--Zonbi asu

Zonbi asu (Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 85 minutes, zombies, horror. The spoken word is in Japanese; subtitles in English.  Aspect, 1.85
2. IMDB: 5.0/10.0 from 538 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 100% liked it from 44 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 2,974 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Noboru Iguchi.  Written by Noboru Iguchi and Tadayoshi Kubo.
6. Starring: Arisa Nakamura as Megumi, Mayu Sugano as Aya, Asana Mamoru as Maki.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Five Japanese teens go on a day trip in the woods in the mountains. Maki wants to find a tapeworm so she can stay thin for modeling purposes.  The others catch a trout which contains a tapeworm. Maki grosses everyone out by eating the tapeworm.  They encounter a zombie, who bites off a finger of Tak's hand.  They lose their van to a thief soon after.


2. They happen upon some old buildings, and Maki decides to use the outhouse.  While about her business, she is attacked from below by zombies.  Maki gets lost in the crowd.  Megumi leads the others to relative safety.  They fight the zombies, and ultimately get help from Dr Tanaka with a sick daughter Sachi.  He explains the transmission method, fish to animal to humans.  Tak is infected more directly by the zombie who bit his finger off.  The hatching eggs plus Tak's drug use cause the parasite to be quite upset; in this case, Tak's head explodes.  


3. Later, Megumi witnesses Tanaka beating a zombie to get him to throw up a parasite so that Sachi can take it down her throat.  Then the previous parasite exits.  Megumi lets out a startled sound in the middle of this.  Megumi and Tanaka have a talk; Megumi's friends walk in during this.  Tanaka explains that Sachi has leukemia, and that the parasites keep the disease in check.  In return, Tanaka supplies the parasites with hosts.  To further that end, he laced the spaghetti he fed them earlier with parasite eggs.


4. Will any of our heroes emerge alive from this nest of horrors?  Will Naoi (the nerdy boy of the group) ever get his courage?




3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Yet another (quite gross) explanation of zombie origins.
2. One star of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 Too bright and washed out; sometimes soft focus and low contrast.


2. Sound/subtitles: 4/10 There are several sections where there are no subtitles.  This does not aid the understanding of the action of the film.


3. Acting: 2/10 Not much was required, and less was delivered.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Floor sweepings.


5. Grossness: 10/10 This is from Tokyo Shock, after all.  Flatulence, tentacle penetration, excrement, vomiting, zombies, exchange of bodily fluids with zombies, ingestion of parasites.  Did I mention zombies?  Consumption of human flesh, dismemberment, gore, blood fountains; ugly, rotting, dead zombies; flies on zombies.  Alien parasites entering the beginning of the alimentary tract, and exiting the lower end.  Exploding heads, and flying via flatulence.

20131211: Action Review--Killing Season

Killing Season

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Belgian live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 90 minutes, action.  Spoken word is in English and Serbian.  Subtitles in English.  Aspect: 2.35
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 15,319 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 10% on the meter; 29% liked it from 4,212 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 350,319 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson.
6. Starring: Robert DeNiro as Benjamin Ford, John Travolta as Emil Kovac, Milo Ventimiglio as Chris Ford, Elizabeth Olin as Sarah Ford.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The move opens in sepia depicting events in Bosnia circa 1992 to 1995, when NATO forces intervened.  NATO forces are shown executing Serbian prisoners; all but one, that is.  Flash forward to 2013 (release year); Emil buys some confidential files about NATO officers in 1995, including Colonel Benjamin Ford.  We switch geography to the Appalachian mountains in the USA.


2. Ben's having pain from an old war wound.  He's having emotional problems with dealing with his son, who wants to meet for a family event.  Ben goes for a drive; his vehicle gives out.  Emil and Ben meet then; this is clearly no coincidence.  Emil helps Ben get the vehicle running again.  When it starts raining heavily, Ben invites Emil to his cabin to wait it out in a dry, warm place.  They get to know each other over hunting stories and discussions of weapons.  Ben admits that he has not killed anything since Bosnia; the hunting trophies in his lodge came with the place.  Emil talks Ben into going hunting using bows and arrows.


3. Emil tries to get Ben to kill a deer, but Ben just does not have the heart for it.  Then Emil sets about telling Ben bit by bit about how he knew Ben was in Bosnia, how Emil was in the same place at the same time.  He shoots Ben in the leg.  Then Emil starts to continue the discussion after he's strung up Ben by the wounded leg.  Emil was the one that Ben shot in the back, and left alive.  That is what Emil is upset about.  Amazingly, Ben gets free, fights Emil for a bit, then escapes into a river.


4. The discussion of the horrors of war, Ben's issues, and Emil's issues goes on, and on. Ben's son and daughter-in-law come up to visit.  Emil promises not to kill them if Ben agrees to continue.  More issues come out; Emil did things that were despicable.  The two combatants do considerable physical damage to each other.


5. Will Ben survive?  Will Emil survive?  Will Emil drag Ben's family into this?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Two survivors of the Bosnian conflict fight it out deep in the woods.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 No problems; beautifully done.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 10/10 The two principal actors gave fine performances.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 The reversals of fortune were interesting to a point, but were not quite satisfying.  I would think that Colonel Ford, at least, would have terminated the action as soon as possible, rather than allow the 'game' to keep going.  Still, the ending was rather good.

20131210: Movie Review--Abduction of Eden

Abduction of Eden

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 98 minutes, crime, drama.
2. IMDB: 6.6/10.0 from 3,290 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 82% on the meter; 71% liked it from 2,212 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.7/5.0 from 172,622 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Megan Griffiths.
6. Starring: Jamie Chung as Eden, Matt O'Leary as Vaughan, Beau Bridges as Marshall Bob Gault, Scott Mechlowicz as Jesse, Eddie Martinez as Mario, Mariana Klaveno as unacknowledged.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Film opens to rap music played with a black screen.  Not a good start.  Hyun Jae is tied up with her mouth duct-taped in the truck of the kidnapper who plays the rap music. It is clear that this is not going to go well for Jae.


2. Then we backtrack to one day earlier to Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1994.  Hyun-Jae, teen daughter of Korean immigrants who own 'Gifts and Taxonomy.'  Jae let herself be vulnerable: smoking, getting a false ID, going drinking while out against her parents wishes.  Picking up men in bars turns out to be a very bad idea.  The fireman who sends over two whiskeys to Jae and her friend turns out to be part of the machinery in finding and kidnapping at risk young teen-aged virgins.  Also, he has many badges, not just a fireman's.  He stops, talks to a comrade, then they take her.  The comrade drives her to Arizona.  He dumps her in a ravine at a man's ranch.


3. Bob Gault is part of law enforcement, but he also works with the kidnappers.  They had left a transmitter on Jae's ankle, and Bob zeroed in on that.  After making sure there were no witnesses, Bob kills the deputy the man had called, then the man.  Bob takes Jae to the next part of the pipeline.  She wakes up in a clinic; she's drugged and the old woman there removes her metal braces.  When Jae wakes next, she's with other young women, all scantily clad in a make-shift barracks.  Bob has each young woman pick out a kitten to centre their attentions.  Then he turns to Jae.  He has intercepted the missing persons report that her father had filled out. He makes it clear that nothing is going to come of it.


4. Bob renames her Eden from "Eden's Garden," the trailer park where her parents live.  He makes it clear that she will be a prostitute, and that she is expected to bathe in the morning, in the evening, and after sexual congress.  Bob reminds her that he knows where her parents live, that he's part of law enforcement, and he will cause trouble for the parents if she gets out of line.  End of setup, 22 minutes in.


5. Eden attempts to escape early on, but is severely disciplined.  She bides her time for a year, then attempts to gain Vaughan's confidence.  That starts to go well, but Vaughan does his best to make her a fellow drug addict. He also teaches her to man the telephones, and to drive a truck.  At one of the seminars that Bob gives, he is approached by an investigators for the two murders he committed when picking up Jae.


6. Will her new approach work?  Will Vaughan's drug use hurt her chances?  Will Bob or Vaughan be exposed for their criminal activity?




3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Human trafficking victim attempts to escape life of crime and prostitution.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Fine.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 8/10 Quite good.  Beau Bridges is excellent as the equally affable and menacing Bob.  Matt O'Leary was a bit off.  Jamie Chung's performance as Eden was a solid portrayal of intelligence, courage, and discipline in the face of a grim situation.


4. Screenplay: 8/10  Definitely an engaging story, and quite a scary one.

20131209: Drama Review--Ambrosia

Ambrosia

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2012, NR, 79 minutes, drama.  Spoken word is in English.
2. IMDB: 7.3/10.0 from 28 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: Not even a stub page.  No search results for the 2012 film. Update: 'No reviews yet...' and 'No score yet....'
4. Netflix: 2.1/5.0 from 2,492 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Baharak Saeid Monir.
6. Starring: Sahir Biniaz as Leila, Heather Doerkson as Sarah, Camyar Chai as Ali, Pauline Egan as Monica.


2. Setup and Plot
1. In 2012, the film depicts a man ordering pizza and writing on a piece of paper while driving.  Nice.  Perhaps distracted driving is not as serious in Canada.


2. Leila is an immigrant of Iranian descent in Canada.  Leila is taking a class in which she makes designer clothing.  She helps make pizzas with her husband Ali at his shop Canadian Pizza now and then.  At a party, she gets a job offer through her connections from class.  Ali is happy for her success.  Early on, her boss Sarah invites her for a drink at a lesbian bar.  Leila and Sarah discuss their cultural differences.


3. Ali's business fortunes start to decline along with that of the local economy.  Leila is doing well, but her boss is coming on to her.  Ali fires two of his staff; Leila is at the pizza shop more often after work, but she's not happy with it.  Ali is a hothead who does not suffer gladly racial lies and insults from Anglo Canadians.  Leila gets more discouraged while Ali spirals downward.


4. Leila's boss renews her romantic approaches to Leila, who slowly gets more receptive.  In the middle of all this, Leila finds that she is pregnant.  She decides to terminate without mentioning this to Ali.  Ali put the house on the market without mentioning this to Leila.  These two choices were not good, possibly terminal, to the marriage.  Leila leaves in a huff.  She makes arrangements to live elsewhere, and Ali wonders where she is and what's going on.  After meeting Ali at the office, Sarah dismisses him as too simple for Leila.


5. Will Leila go through with the termination?  Will Ali and Leila get back together?  Will Ali keep his business?  Will Sarah get what she wants?


3. Conclusions
1. This film was not well noticed by the public.  The barefoot and pregnant cliche at the end was a bit of a surprise.
2. One line summary: Culture clash in Canada, the short version.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 No problems; looks fine.


2. Sound: 9/10 Good, clear.


3. Acting: 5/10 Camyar Chai and Sahir Biniaz were solid enough as Ali and Leila.  Pauline Egan was not all that convincing as Monica.  The supporting actors were OK but not great.  Heather Doerkson was the least believable as Leila's boss. 


4. Screenplay: 5/10 Plays like a soap opera, without much intricacy or depth.

20131209: Comedy Review--The Art of Seduction

The Art of Seduction (Jakeob-ui jeongseok)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Korean live action feature length film, 2005, NR, 100 minutes, comedy, romance.  Spoken word is Korean, subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.2/10.0 from 848 audience ratings. 
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 51% liked it from 1,132 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 63,977 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Ki-hwan Oh.
6. Starring: Song Il-guk as Seo Min-jun, Son Yi-jin as Han Ji-won, No Ju-Hyeon as Min-jun's father.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The male protagonist Min-jun, and the female protagonist Ji-won, are both manipulative, lying opportunists who use strangers for their own gains.  Judging from the first few minutes of the film, I would hope that both of them get the lengthy jail sentences that they so richly deserve. Neither of them succeeds by merit, unless one counts their skills in identifying the weaknesses of their targets and exploiting those weaknesses.  They are parasites who regularly commit felonies.


2. In early part of the narrative, we see the depredations of the pair as they act separately on their marks.  Eventually they meet one another.  She likes to ram stopped cars with single drivers then victimize the person she hit.  She pulls that on the male protagonist, and is surprised when he does not fall for her bovine scatology.  They lie to each other, then lie some more, then lie some more.  The music indicates that this is supposed to be humorous.


3. As the story continues, they have to deal with their previous targets.  They also get to like each other, even though they continue constructing plausible lies.


4. Do the protagonists get together and stay together?  Does one get the upper hand and crush the other?  Stay tuned (if you can stand it) to find out.




3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: An almost clever film glorifying the lives of grifters in Korea.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent with very few exceptions.


2. Sound: y/10 Moot, I suppose.  The voiced Korean seemed quite soft.  I had to trust the subtitles.


3. Acting: 5/10 More like mugging.  There must have been over 100 instances of 'oh, did that idiot believe me?'


4. Screenplay: 5/10 It is a story of (ethically) ugly people doing ugly things to people whom they hold in contempt.  When the protagonists get to know one another, they sharpen each other; that is, improve their 'A' game.  There is neither redemption nor punishment in this collection of vignettes about con artists.

20131208: Horror Review--Antiviral

Antiviral

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, horror, science fiction.
2. IMDB: 5.6/10.0 from 5,462 audience ratings.  Estimated budget 3.2 million CAD, aspect 1.85
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 65% on the meter; 41% liked it from 4,293 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 92,618 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Brandon Cronenberg.
6. Starring: Caleb Landry Jones as Syd March, Sara Gadon as Hannah Geist, Joe Pingue as Arvid, James Cade as Levine, Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Abendroth.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Edward Porris reports to a clinic to get infected with the same disease that celebrity Hannah Geist has.  Syd is his handler and the protagonist of the film.  He reassures people to keep going with their stated choices.


2. Syd is also a part of the celebrity meat market.  Cells from celebrities are used to reproduce (in relatively large quantities) muscle tissue that is sold as steaks and the like. Arvid is his contact in the meat sales.


3. Syd gets a new sample from Hannah Geist, and gives it to himself.  He's knocked out for a while.  When he wakes up, Hannah is dead, and Syd was one of the last people to see her alive.  Arvid would like Syd to give him a sample of this, since Arvid could make a huge profit on it.  Syd claims not to have any knowledge of what killed her.


4. Everyone is up in arms about Hannah's passing, especially at the Lucas Clinic, the company where Syd works.  Syd stays ill, and consults with Arvid, who takes him to Levine.  Levine forcibly takes a sample of the Hannah Geist pathogens.  Syd tries to escape, but he is way too weak.  They dump him on the street later.  Nice.  Thugs from another group kidnap him.  They take him to Dr. Abendroth, who has come from Germany to do an autopsy on Hannah.  First, though, the doctor wishes to see what is happening with the living specimen, Syd.


5. Doctor Abendroth tells him that the virus he has was designed to deflect diagnosis, but that he had gotten around the viruses protections.  Hannah is still alive, but further along in the disease.  They talk.  Hannah's family has traced the disease back to Lucas Clinic, and hope that Syd will find out who at Lucas designed it.  Syd has to retrace his steps, this time with an entirely different purpose.


6. Something sinister is afoot.  Will Syd be able to help Hannah?  Will he survive the effort?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Future horror thriller: diseases are big business, lucrative crime, and silent weapons.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Bad in a few spots (jerky camera and the like), but mostly fine quality.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 8/10 Much better than I expected.  Caleb Landry Jones and Malcolm McDowell were quite good.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 Good story, well developed in the narration of deep corruption.

20131208: Comedy Review--Paranormal Whacktivity

Paranormal Whacktivity

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 89 minutes, comedy, horror.  Spoken word is in English.
2. IMDB: 2.5/10.0 from 229 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 360,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 0% liked it from 21 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.0/5.0 from 457 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Roger Roth.
6. Starring: Sasha Formoso as Kasey, William Patrick Riley as Michael, Aneliese Roettger as Annabelle, Melinda Y. Cohen as The Professional, Chanel Ryan as Bride of Dracula, Stephanie Danielson as Emilie Rose/Fatin.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Michael and Kasey move into an uncle's house.  Michael tries to make a sex film with Kasey, and does not do all that well. Then there is the film over the film aspect: Michael hires a professional porn crew to make the sex film.  These people re-enter and leave every so often.


2. Things go bump in the night, and they film some of it, usually ineffectively.  Their attempts to get rid of the demon are pitiful.


3. The film mimics various parts of the Paranormal Activity series, for comic effect, supposedly.  'There was something in this bed giving you head.'  Oh, my. Other parts of the film parody other films, such as Ghost Busters, or any number of soft porn shows.


4. The Ernie Hudson impersonator was not at all funny or entertaining.  This describes all of the vignettes that compose the film.  The fake Inception bit was the worst.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: A bad soft porn parody of the terrible Paranormal Activity films.
2. One star of five.  Two black holes for acting and screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent camera work throughout.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 0/10 Zero.  None present.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 The primary question about parodies is, 'did it make me laugh?'  The answer is no, not once, not at all.

20131207: Movie Review--Scenic Route

Scenic Route

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 86 minutes, thriller.  Aspect 1.85
2. IMDB: 6.4/10.0 from 3,471 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 62% on the meter; 55% liked it from 2,763 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 44,979 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Kevin Goetz, Michael Goetz.
6. Starring: Josh Duhamel as Mitchell, Dan Fogler as Carter, Miracle Laurie as Joanne, Christie Burson as Joanne.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film opens with Mitchell and Carter beating the nonsense out of each other.  Mitchell prevails, and Carter looks either knocked out or possibly dead.


2. We jump back in time, and I'm quite ready to stop watching, given what I know will happen.  So, in the real opening of the film, Mitchell is sleeping, and Carter is driving an old truck through Death Valley, California.  The truck is old, and it breaks down; unfortunately, this turns out to be by design.  At least they are not sweating initially.  Mitchell has a broken foot and uses crutches.  Neither of them has a cell phone signal.  It's not that cool: one hundred and fifteen degrees.


3. They are in the middle of nowhere, sixty miles from the last town, one hundred miles to the next.  Mitchell has a wife and child, but still thinks about another woman named Karen.  Carter met Karen lately, and she wanted to talk about Mitchell.  Mitchell is tall and athletic; Carter is middle height and heavy.  From their consternation with each other, I do not see why they are ever doing anything together for a single moment.


4. There is a lot of talk which uncovers issues.  These issues make the two characters angry at each other, and explains the violence shown in the opening sequence.  One of the issues is that Carter sabotages every possibility of their getting rescued.  This is mortally stupid.  How can anyone care about such a character who betrays his friend to the point of death?  How can anyone care about the friend who allows the betrayal?


5. The pile of incidences of bonehead stupidity mount.  Carter talks Mitchell into getting a Mohawk haircut in the dark using a hand tool.  They drink windshield wiper fluid because it's wet; later they are puking while possible help drives by.  The next day, an elderly lady stops to see how they are doing, but drives away after seeing Mitchell's Mohawk with accompanying long cuts and blood stains.  Carter gives him hell for scaring her away.  A day or so later, they miss a tow truck that stopped next to the truck to render assistance.


6.  If this is your cup of tea, be sure to watch the entire film.  The pile continues to grow.


3. Conclusions
1. Kyle Killen wrote the horrid The Beaver, and this effort is horrible as well. The ending was a good hard shattering of illusions, and about the only almost competent part of the film.
2. One line summary: Darwinian selection at its best: two clods value bickering more than retaining life.
3. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 The scenery is ugly, whereas Death Valley showed me a number of lovely sights in the short time I spent there.  Looks like ugly by choice.


2. Sound: 8/10 Not bad.


3. Acting: 4/10 Josh Duhamel was OK, but not great.  Dan Fogler was totally useless.  I had never heard of him before; now he's on my deal-breaker list.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 Why would anyone care about either character in this two man film?  They are painted as traitor and fool with nothing interesting about either of them.

20131206: Thriller Review--Lizzie

Lizzie

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film 2013, NR, 86 minutes, thriller.
2. IMDB: 2.7/10.0 from 487 audience ratings. Aspect 1.78
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Reviews Yet...' 0% liked it from 56 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.5/5.0 from 88,301 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: David Dunn Jr
6. Starring: Caitlin Carmichael as Young Lizzy, Amanda Baker as Lizzie Allen, Corbin Benson as Dr. Fredricks, Don Swayze as Daniel Allen, Leif Holt as Jason, Cindy Baer as Lizzie Borden, Shawna Waldron as Maggie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film starts with back story told in voice over narration with period 1892 articles such as newspapers and photographs.  It then shifts to the present, say 2013, with what is going on with Lizzie Allen, both now and when she was much younger, say six years old.  She has a therapist, Dr Fredericks, who uses hypnosis, not always with good results.


2. Lizzie lives again in the house where she lived when she was a child.  Dr Fredericks thinks something traumatic happened there when she was young.  She's seeing daydreams and night dreams that are rather horrible.  She has trouble remembering her childhood clearly.


3. Ah, she used to have tea parties with a doll that survived the original Lizzie Borden era.  She drinks a lot of wine and watches scary movies with the boy friend, and does not seem able to get her meds right.  Then she sees (hallucinates) herself introducing the doll, Lucy, to her.  Even worse, she sees the Lizzie Borden figure use an axe to kill her younger self.


4. Dr Fredericks of course associates this with childhood memories and an attempt to resolve them in adulthood.  The next day she goes off on the cable guy, has trouble shaving her legs safely, and hears things go bump in the night.  Jason comes in as a masked burglar, and Lizzie does not take it well. Who would?  Jason starts hearing the bump in the night; he gets out his stashed pistol and barely hides it in the living room.


5. Maggie is Lizzie's new neighbor.  She tries to help Lizzie break into part of the basement that the cable guy could not get to.  They fail, but it gets Lizzie more comfortable swinging the axe that Maggie picked out.  Jason manages to get into the basement, where he experiences more bump in the night phenomena.  Dr Fredericks drops Lizzie as a patient, since she demands stronger meds, but will not confront her childhood issues.


6. Maggie turns out not to be what she first said she was.  Jason takes a turn for the worse, and Lizzie feels more and more alone.  That is not the worst of it all.


7. Will Lizze resolve her issues?  Is there something supernatural going on here?


3. Conclusions
1. This film was clearly not well received by the public.  Also, for all the scenes of sharpening an axe on a motorised grinder, they might have tried to get it right.  What was depicted every time was how to dull an axe completely.
2. One line summary: Retelling of the Lizzie Borden story is incoherent and badly assembled.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10  Dark, generally with low contrast, or slightly out of focus.  There's a bit of camera jump as well.  SFX were laughable.


2. Sound: 9/10 Fine. 


3. Acting: 2/10 Most of the minutes of the show have Amanda Baker alone or in frame.  So the movie sinks or swims with her, and I don't believe her performance.  Leif Holt is pretty bad as well.  Corbin Bernson was fine, but he was not onscreen all that much.  Gary Busey has done much better in other movies.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 The past and the present did not blend well here.  For the movie to work, they did need to resolve clearly and effectively.  The retelling of the 1892 story was not put together well either.  The absurd ending was just too much.

20131205: Horror Review--The Moth Diaries

The Moth Diaries

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian/Irish live action feature length film, 2011, rated R, 82 minutes, horror.  Spoken word is in English.  Aspect is 1.85
2. IMDB: 4.8/10.0 from 3,410 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 15% on the meter; 22% liked it from 5,339 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 114,435 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Mary Harron.
6. Starring: Sarah Bolger as Rebecca, Sara Gadon as Lucy, Valerie Tian as Charley, Lily Cole as Ernessa, Anne Day-Jones as Rebecca's mother, Julian Casey as Rebecca's father, Scott Speedman as Mr. Davies, Judy Parfitt as Mrs. Rood.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Rebecca is at a boarding school with dress codes, early morning meetings, prayers, and the like.  Her friend Charlie gets kicked out for breaking a window, for instance; students get detention for being late for morning meetings.


2. Rebecca and Lucy were best friends until Ernessa came along.  Rebecca suspects that Ernessa is a vampire, but no one want to hear anything negative about Ernessa.  Rebecca's attempts to straighten this out only backfire as Lucy gets sick, then weaker, then dead.  Her attempt to confide in Mr. Davies results in his hitting on her; later, he reports her 'troubled' behaviour to Mrs. Rood to get ahead of any child molestation charges, one guesses.


3. Rebecca's own problems (her poet father committed suicide) are brought up frequently.  The school is concerned for her.  Some of her daydreams are ridiculous.


4. Will Rebecca stay in school?  Will she expose Ernessa?  Is the school complicit in Ernessa's actions?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Short script short on ideas, light on acting.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 A bit dark and fuzzy in some passages, but mostly fine.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 4/10 This film might appeal to teen girls; others, perhaps not so much.  The adults are all imperious or criminal.  Most of the teens are portrayed as short sighted.  Sarah Bolger portrays a deeply flawed individual, but is not all that believable.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The story was short on ideas, and the few it had were not executed all that well.  Rebecca gets to do all sorts of things at the school with no detection, no reprimands, or even discussion.  It seems like she would have been expelled for any number of her actions.

20131205: Comedy Review--The Brass Teapot

The Brass Teapot

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 101 minutes, comedy, fantasy, thriller.  Spoken word is in English.  Estimated budget, 900,000 USD.
2. IMDB: 6.3/10.0 from 5,704 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 26% on the meter; 50% liked it from 1,636 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 from 182,890 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Ramaa Mosley.
6. Starring: Juno Temple as Alice, Michael Angarano as John, Alexis Bledel as Peyton, Alia Shawkat as Louise, Bobby Moynihan as Chuck.


2. Setup and Plot
1. John goes to work at the Laurel Springs Office Building.  Alice goes to a job interview.  He gets a reprimand from the boss, she does not get the job. Their funds are already short.  So they go to a party and get drunk. They get T-boned by a truck.  It's amazing she was still alive, much less untouched.  Alice spots an antiques shop, and runs into it.  She steals a rather nice looking teapot.  The next day, she accidently burns herself (slightly); the teapot jiggles.  She looks inside and finds 200 USD.  She tries to replicate this, but hurt herself more. The pot gives her 700 USD.  She trips and falls; more money comes from the teapot.  About the same time, John gets fired.


2. John comes home to find the place messed up, and Alice bloodied in multiple places.  She eventually convinces him of the conceit of the film.  A harsh knee slam to his crotch was initially worth quite a bit of money.  John goes back to the place where Alice stole the teapot.  It is marked 'Closed' and is boarded up.  Very unfortunately, John goes on Antiques Roadshow and gets an appraisal.  A man of long Chinese heritage sees the show, and makes a new notation on a wall map.  He was not the only one who watched.  Clearly, they are screwed. 


3. They get into mainlining pain: tattoos, whipping, dental work without pain killers, burning flesh, and so on.  They have no explanations for getting out of debt without jobs. Two large Hasidic Jewish fellows drop by and beat the nonsense out of John, telling them that it was a family heirloom, and their relative had died.  They paid these folks off from the cash that John's beating generated.  The Chinese man tries to warn them, but they rebuff him.


4. They make investments that fail, and splurge on all sorts of things: a huge new house, clothes, restaurants.  An old acquaintence tries to steal it; the Jewish fellows break in to steal it.  Alice tries to beat up the Jewish guys who are buff and about six feet two.  She keeps the pot, but they do her some damage.


5. The diminishing returns start.  The same amount of pain endured results in less reward. Then they discover that if the teapot is near someone else's pain, they also get money.  Unfortunately, Alice tries hit and run to generate money.  They also discover that emotional pain generates cash.


6. Does the moral descent ever end?




3. Conclusions
1. I could have done without the endless river of PC hatred of men.  Major demerits to the director for the unnecessary contempt.
2. One line summary: Magic allows exchanging pain for money; how far will the protagonists go?
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 The introductory credits were absolutely beautiful.  Then there was the rest of the film, which was quite nicely shot.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.


3. Acting: 2/10 Terrible.  Alexis Bledel was okay, but Juno Temple, Michael Angarano, and most of the supporting actors were indeed bad.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 A fairly sound story gets told through poor actors.

20131204: Thriller Review--Elevator

Elevator

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 80 minutes, thriller.  Spoken word is in English. Aspect, 2.35
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 2,887 audience ratings. Estimated budget: 500,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 24% liked it from 368 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 197,114 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Stig Svendsen.
6. Starring: Christopher Backus as Don Handley, Anita Briem as Celine Fouquet, John Getz as Henry Barton, Shirley Knight as Jane Redding, Michael Mercurio as The Bombmaker, (Amanda,Rachel) Pace as Madeline Barton, Devin Ratray as Martin Gossling, Joey Slotnik as George Axelrod, Tehmina Sunny as Maureen Asana, Waleed Zuaiter as Mohammed, Gary Ambrosia as Lt. Carson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film opens to someone making a bomb which he tells an unseen guest will kill anyone within five meters.  Then we have a variety of shots of a rich city in twilight.  Various people get ready to go to the Barton Building in New York City.  They end up in the same elevator A.


2. Donald Handley (tall Anglo executive; entitled to the hilt) and his fiancee Maureen Asana (reporter), Jane Redding (older lady, drinks hard liquor before leaving),  Martin Gossling (middle aged, Anglo, heavy set), Don's assistant, George Axelrod (comedian, immediately attacks Don's assistant with racist humour; claustrophobe), Henry and Madeline (Henry's grandfather) Barton, and Celine Fouquet.


3. Because George is claustrophobic, Madeline pushes the STOP button.  She calls him a liar, he calls her an evil bitch.  There's the starting point of the film.  The elevator will not start up again.


4. Building security has no idea what to do.  Barton talks to his wife on his cell; he tells her he's stuck.  They call security again; a variety of excuses are offered up.  Barton asks for the security man's name; he hangs up and cannot be reached again.


5. Celine is pregnant, by Don; this takes a while to come out openly. They work in the same department, so Maureen wonders why Don did not greet her.  A bit later, Celine has to urinate, much to everyone else's consternation.


6. George is Jewish; Don's assistant is Muslim as George suspected.  He manages to insult Maureen (Indian heritage) directly as well.  The battle lines are drawn, verbally at least.


7. Jane's son died in Iraq.  The emotional fallout depressed her husband Neal, and they hoped to start sailing with their savings. However,  'Barton Investments lost all our money.'  Don was the one who suggested the loser investments.  Barton himself more or less shrugged it off.  "I don't mean to sound callous," says Barton, "it's always the investor's decision."  That did not go over well.  Jane sees that her bomb will not quite go off as expected because the elevator stopped.  She dies of heart failure.


8. Maureen starts a newscast from the elevator via her cell phone.  Barton keeps saying losses are the client's responsibility.  Great stuff.  Celine gets stuck with patting down Jane's corpse for bomb paraphernalia; sure enough, Jane had strapped on a bomb. Martin helps Don see if they can egress via the ceiling.  Barton gets a call from his wife, who has heard the news through the television broadcasts.


9. Do they all make it out safely?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Nine people trapped in an elevator find a bomb with them.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Great looking exteriors.  Excellent interiors.  Most of the film is interior.


2. Sound: 9/10 Mostly fine.


3. Acting: 10/10  Shirley Knight, John Getz, and Devin Ratray are veterans who know how to act.  Joey Slotnik is a veteran as well, and served as a very abrasive thorn.  The rest were competent or better.  The twins did reasonably well as the villain the piece, the incredibly rotten grand daughter.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 The story moves along well, and does not show internal contradictions.  The human interactions were often touching.

20131204: Comedy Review--City Under Siege

City under Siege (Chun sing gai bei)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Hong Kong live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 111 minutes, horror, comedy, action, scifi.  Spoken word is Mandarin and Cantonese.  In the dubbed version, it's English; however, the dubbing is horrible.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 509 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 16% liked it from 230 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 13,827 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Benny Chan.
6. Starring: Aaron Kwok as Sunny, Qi Shu as Angel Chan.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film opens in a Japanese prison camp in Maylaysia, 1945.  The Japanese experiment with chemistry to artificially produce a super soldier class so as to turn the tide in World War II.  This fails and the bad stuff seems to be lost.


2. In the present, Sunny is a buffoon in a traveling circus troupe, the Thundering Daggers. He fails at knife throwing, and does better as a clown.  One night he goes with fellow troupe members to check whether a small group has found some gold.  Sunny's fellow circus members knock out the gold hunters. Sunny falls down in the middle of the fight. When he gets his bearings, they recruit him for doing all the dangerous steps first.  The find a bit of gold, but also release the chemicals that the Japanese experimented with.


3. The thieves hop a boat for Hong Kong.  Sunny falls into a fishing boat; he gets very hungry, eats some of the catch, and grows quite fat.  The crew discover him and throw him overboard while out at sea near Hong Kong.  In return for changing her tire, Sunny gets a ride home with Angel, who is a star reporter on CSS News on television. 


4. The mutated thieves stage a violent, showy, and very public attack.  Two expert researchers (Suen Ho and Tai) are brought in by the police.  Angel loses her job because her producer found a younger woman to sleep with.  Sunny regains his usual shape the next morning.  His Uncle Tak thinks Sunny is trouble.  The Malaysian police blame the thieves in the troupe; Tak gets most of his possessions appropriated in recompense.


5. Sunny goes to straighten all this out with the police.  By chance he meets Angel outside the police station where a robber is holding a policewoman hostage.  Sunny throws a stick through glass, then through the robber's hand.  Sunny is lionized, and Angel helps him get away from the crowds.  The mutated thieves see Sunny on TV, and are really angry, since Sunny recovered his normal shape, whereas they stay messed up.  In fact, they are moving to a second stage.  The attack soon enough, and Sunny is both quite skilled at fighting them, but sometimes also quite bad since he is unfamiliar with his mutant powers.


6. The two researchers intervene.  They also have usual abilities, but perhaps not enough to match the thieves.  Sunny and the researchers eventually prevail.  Sunny becomes the hero, and then a media star with Angel's help.  The 'researchers' are just using Sunny as bait.  More confrontations are to come, especially since the lead mutant wants to drink Sunny's blood to return to normal.  In a major confrontation, Tai is killed.  Sunny convinces Suen Ho to train him.  Meanwhile, the mutants continue to evolve and unleash a reign of terror across the defenseless city.  Angel has no idea whether Sunny is alive or dead.


7. Who will win the final confrontation?  Will Sunny find himself before the city is burned down?  Will Sunny and Angel become more than business partners?


3. Conclusions
1. I noticed 'Funimation' in the early credits, and sure enough, some of the voices used for dubbing are veterans from anime titles.
2. One line summary: Fairly good as action-comedy; Funimation did not do well on the dub.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Almost always good-looking and well-shot.


2. Sound: 5/10 The incidental music was reasonable for increasing tension.  Unfortunately, in the dubbed version I watched, the translation was terrible.  The subtitles did not match the spoken dubs most of the time.  The sound of the voice was disinformation.


3. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of the two principals, Aaron Kwok and Qi Shu in this film.  However, compared to his performance in the glorious Floating City, Kwok was using less than 10% of his craft.  It was like watching a master chef conducting a wienie roast.  I did not believe the acting of much of the supporting cast.  Hearing the dubs by anime voice actors made this much worse.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 As an action comedy, this should have been quite good.  However, the war between the subtitles and the dubbed text was a major detriment.  The director's intentions were much harder to see when the voice said one thing while the subtitle said something contrary or even contradictory.  When my sons were younger, I watched many hours of anime with them; this was usually the North American version of the anime.  I recognize some of the anime voice actors used in this live action film.  This added another layer of dissonance.


5. SFX: 6/10 Mixed bag here.  Some FX are well done and fit well with the fight choreography.  Others look just plain stupid.  There is also the recurrent matter of explosions that seem to have no cause at all.  I found those the most annoying.

20131203: Adventure Review--Kon-Tiki

Kon-Tiki

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British/Norwegian/Danish live action feature length film, 2012, PG13, (96 Netflix, 118 IMDB) minutes in length.  Spoken word is in Norwegian, English, French; subtitles in English.  Aspect is 2.35
2. IMDB: 7.2/10.0 from 19,759 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 16.6 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 84% on the meter; 78% liked it from 10,326 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.9/5.0 from 105,602 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg.
6. Starring: Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen as Thor Heyerdahl, Anders Baasmo Christiansen as Herman Watzinger, Tobias Santelmann as Knut Haugland, Gustaf Skarsgard as Bengt Danielsson, Odd Magnus Williamson as Erik Hesselberg, Agnes Kittelson as Liv Heyerdahl.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Watch this in High Def if at all possible.


2. Heyerdahl visits Polynesia in 1937, and hears the natives claim that their ancestors came from the east, which would be South America.  While canoing with Liv, she imagines how hard it would be to paddle all those miles against the current.  A light goes on in his eyes.  Back in Norway, though, his theories about Polynesian origins are not well received.  He intends to build a raft in the style that the Polynesians might used as proof of concept.  Sailors in New York tell them that the ropes holding the raft together will break, and the raft will disintegrate.  In contrast, a Scandinavian veteran sailor, who lost the use of a leg to frost bite, convinces Thor to use the closest possible materials and building techniques compared to the original sailors.


3. He gets the rest of the funding he needs in Peru, and building takes a while.  Things are a bit strained with Liv, but Thor sees a bright future after the voyage.  They do a sea trial, then set off in 1947.  Things go smoothly for a few days, then they get hit by a strong thunderstorm.  They have to repair the sail.  New readings indicate they need to correct their course, or else they will go through the Galapagos Maelstrom, which is contraindicated.  They use a balloon to increase their antenna effectiveness, but their pet parrot eats through the line.  They lose contact with Los Angeles.


4. Their encounter with the whale shark was a bit scary.  Fortunately, the mooring of the harpoon that a scared member threw into it gave way before the whale took them too far off course or tipped them over.  The ropes look a little loose, and the old concerns come back.  The encounter with the first great white gave another good scare.  They notice that the raft is absorbing water, and thus getting heavier.  They send via Morse code, which has greater range than voice transmission.  A short time filming from an inflatable raft gives another shark scare.  The pet parrot Lorita tries to nab something from the surface of the water; a small shark swims up like a rocket and eats him.  The owner of the parrot, unfortunately, catches the shark then stabs it to death.  More sharks appear, of course, from the quarts of blood released.  Herman falls into the water with blood on his leg; the sharks are still there.  They rush to recover him.


5. After a lot of effort, they manage to correct course to miss the Galapagos Maelstrom and to make it to Polynesia.  They pass the point of no return, and radio their location repeatedly.


6. Their arrival in Raroia Reef, they attempt a surfing maneuver to get over the sharpness of the reef.  The overhead shot of the reef and the Kon-Tiki was amazing.  Unfortunately the reef cuts the rope too soon.  The big wave comes in behind them, and Thor is thrown overboard.  The raft makes it in one piece, and Thor manages to get to shore first, despite his lack of swimming ability.


7. Thor makes eye contact with his lifelong friend Erik who saved him from drowning as a child. Erik carries his guitar and a dripping suitcase.  The moment when Thor starts laughing afterward is priceless.


8. The world receives the news with great interest, and Thor's life does change greatly, as he predicted to Liv.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Excellent retelling of the 1950 film, using modern cinematography.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent from beginning to end.


2. Sound: 10/10 Also excellent, with wonderful incidental music.


3. Acting: 10/10 Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen (Thor), Anders Baasmo Christiansen (Herman), and Odd Magnus Williamson (Erik) were just great, and I had no complaints about any of the other actors.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Solid, well developed, wonderful mix of powerful imagery, good acting, and direction.

20131203: Horror Review--The Expelled

The Expelled (F, original title)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British live action feature length film, 2010, rated R, 78 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.7/10.0 from 2,656 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 150,000 UK pounds.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 51% wanted to see it from 248 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 30,736 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Johannes Roberts.
6. Starring: David Schofield as Robert Anderson, Eliza Bennett as Kate Anderson, Ruth Gemmell as Sarah Balham, Finlay Robertson as James, Roxanne McKee as Nicky, Juliet Aubrey as Helen Anderson.


2. Setup and Plot
1. At a public school (Wittering College in the UK) Robert Anderson, a tough teacher, is rather direct about how horrible a student's work is.  The student slugs the teacher in the nose, drawing a lot of blood. Instead of standing up for him, the school asks him to go on leave until the student graduates.  The student's parents were threatening to sue the teacher for belittling remarks, claiming that more than justified physical assault and battery.


2. Robert does indeed come back.  He falls behind in posting marks, and other teachers complain about too much noise and too much cursing emanating from his class.  His boss Sarah warns him about rumours concerning his bringing alcohol to school.  The unions protect him somewhat.  Sarah also warns him about sending e-mails. The one he wrote was merely a statement of publicly available crime statistics.  .He finally gets provoked enough that he assigns a student detention. It was his own daughter Kate, and he's in a separated state.  Perhaps this was not the best idea. Perhaps worst of all, it's night and someone wants to spread some fear.  Robert makes a large error by being provoked by Kate during detention, and he slaps her.  She takes off.


3. Somebody attacks and kills one of the security guards.  Kate discovers that the telephones are down when she tries to call for a ride.  Robert gets a milkshake thrown at him from someone outside while he's inside.  They leave the message 'Ur dead' on the wall outside.  Robert advises the librarian to leave, but she ignores him.  The intruder starts giving her some uncertainty.  Kate hangs out in the toilet, and her boy friend catches up with her.


4. Sarah tells Robert to go home after Kate tells her that Robert hit her.  Everything else wrong is just ignored, such as Kate's boyfriend being in the girls' toilet with Kate.  James meets Sarah and both of them agree on ignoring Robert.  Nicky gets attacked in the women's change area by two faceless (hooded) attackers.  Robert's at his car when he sees the security guard's abandoned flashlight with blood on it.  Sarah instructs James not to let Robert comes back in.  Nice.  Sarah calls Helen and asks her to come get Kate.  Immediately thereafter Sarah hears breaking glass and goes to investigate.  The hooded intruders get close to her and she runs, but cannot hide.  They kill her.  That was certainly an expected outcome. Robert gets in, finds Sarah dead, then calls the police.  They studiously lecture him and ignore anything he has to say.


5. Kate decides not to wait for her mother.  She goes to Jake's car, then sees the hooded figure.  Jake's listening to rap, and does not notice her.  She runs; he eventually goes inside the school to find her.  A male teacher in his prime finds Kate, and tries to get some truth out of her.  Then he goes looking for the miscreants.  Poor guy; he realises they have flanked him, and he is going to get at best a big load of pain.  Jake's whimpering leads him to one place where he is attacked and killed.


6. Robert goes to James and eventually convinces him that Sarah is dead.  James keeps calling his security mate Brian, but he was the first one murdered by the rampaging teens.  When they find what's left of Nicky, James freaks out; Robert barely keeps James calm.  They find one of the murderers in the art room; James runs and locks himself in nearby.  This leaves Robert in with the bad guys.  The cops finally arrive, but do not believe that students can be all that menacing.  This puts them at a terrible disadvantage.


7. Who comes out of this alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Teen bullies murder teachers and students alike.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 A bit dim, with the wretched colour from flourescent lighting.  That's probably accurate, though.  The occasional blurriness and jerky motion do not help.


2. Sound: 10/10 Quite effective.


3. Acting: 5/10 Robert Anderson and Ruth Gemmell were fairly convincing.  Eliza Bennett, Finlay Robertson, and Juliet Aubrey I could have done without.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Brillant.  Suspenseful to the end, with no supernatural elements.  We never actually see the faces of the mass murderers, for instance.

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.

20131202: Horror Review--131313

13/13/13

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 86 minutes, horror.  Spoken word is mostly in English.  Aspect is 1.78
2. IMDB: 3.8/10.0 from 554 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 0% liked it from 34 audience ratings. Impressive.
4. Netflix: x/5.0 from 3,193 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: James Cullen Bressack. Production House: Asylum Pictures.
6. Starring: Trae Ireland as Jack, Jody Barton as Quentin, Bill Voorhees as Trevor, Erin Coker as Candace, Tiffany Martinez as Kendra, Calico Cooper as Marcy.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The Mayan calendar did not have leap days, so we've been miscalculating.  Anyway, the 13th month of the 13th year after the beginning of the third millennium is upon us (exact date, who knows?) It is to laugh.


2. Quentin, Jack, Joe, and Trevor are out in the wild, doing some drinking.  I'm not sure what else is going on for them to be out there.  I did not see hunting gear, fishing gear, anything to eat, or hiking shoes.  Jack, a former policeman, thinks one of the others has been fooling with his watch since the time is wrong.  We get to see the military time 13:13:13 (1pm plus a bit) in the year 13 (short for 2013, I suppose) in Jack's watch.


3. As they drive, the SUV's clock starts showing 13:13.  Jack checks on his daughter Kendra.  (Dad is African American, Mom is Anglo, their 'natural' daughter is Latina; go figure, it's set in LA).  Kendra is non-responsive; Marcy is tearing all the skin off her left forearm.  The hospital where they take Marcy is a madhouse of bad manners and incompetence.  Kendra kills Trevor, which was unexpected.  Joe and Quentin kill two people in Kendra's neighborhood by running them over.  After failing to kill Jack, Marcy jumps out the third floor window to her death.  Quentin stabs Joe, and both of them think it's funny as they play with the blood.


4. At the hospital, the walls are covered with blood.  Jack finds Candace, who is also not infected.  Candace and Jack were both born on February 29th; Candace figures that is why both of them were not affected.  Jack decides to go back to check on Kendra.  Candace objects, but Jack goes through with it.  She does convince him to make a plan.  I did not see his accomplishing that.  They decide to fight their way out to get to where Kendra is, and perhaps any other non-crazy people.  This works for a while, but neither of them got there in a car to get to Kendra.  They make it to the car park with keys, but have to match some keys with a car.  They encounter large, still healthy bullies intent on killing them.  They emerge OK, and head for Jack's home.


5. Quentin and Joe have armed themselves with Jack's guns and ammo.  They get in each other's road, of course, but decide to kill off the other crazies first.  They survive for a bit, but Joe starts to bleed out.  Jack and Candace join them, but the house is under siege.


6. The emergency radio says the outbreak has affected all 50 states.


7. Will anyone get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Recalculate the dates: the Mayan apocalypse is on!
2. One star of five.  Black holes for screenplay, SFX, and acting.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Daylight scenes should be sharp and good to look at. The film starts in washed out, low contrast mode.  I felt like I was watching VHS output from a tape player with dirty heads. Color contrast was low as well.


2. Sound: 5/10 Too much maniacal laughter.  Some of the incidental music is poor.


3. Acting: 0/10 Some of the worst I have ever seen.  Enough fake laughing to last twenty years.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Stupid dialog plus terminally stupid dialog.  Very little in the way of natural motivation.


5. SFX: 2/10 Poor. 

20131201: Horror Review--Hypothermia

Hypothermia

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, horror, 2010, rated R, 73 minutes, aspect 1.78.
2. IMDB: 4.0/10.0 from 765 audience ratings.  Spoken word is in English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' 8% liked it from 85 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.9/5.0 from 130,437 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: James Felix McKenney.
6. Starring: Michael Rooker as Ray Pelletier, Blanche Baker as Helen, Benjamin Forster as David, Amy Chang as Gina, Don Wood as Steve Cote Sr, Greg Finley as Steve Jr, Larry Fessenden as Fishing Host, Asa Liebmann as Monster.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Ray, his wife Helen, their son David, and daughter-in-law Gina are setup in a cabin by a frozen lake.  Ray scouts the lake in the twilight for a good fishing spot for the next morning.  He spies a dead coyote, and goes to investigate.  Something goes bump in the evening, and Ray falls through the ice.  Ray is a man of considerable strength and stamina; he is able to pull himself out in the dark with no tools, but the effort leaves him flat on top of the ice.  The rest of the family soon think he's been out too long.  David finds him and walks him back to the cabin.  They are still going ahead with the next day's fishing; they will just have to be more careful about weak spots in the ice.


2. The setup for fishing goes without a hitch.  On the other hand, there are no fish.  Another family drives a truck and a trailer out onto the ice.  The Pelletiers are a bit skeptical of all that weight even further out on the ice.  Later they drive the truck away in a rush, leaving the trailer behind on the ice.  The idiots return on ice-mobiles of some sort.  The large whatever moves through and catches all of their hooks, but they do not bring it in.


3. The new people are Steve Cote and Steve Jr, who are intent on catching the big whatever.  The initial guess is that it might be a sturgeon of some sort.  Steve Jr. gets pulled in, and the monster cuts him.  Steve cleans him up, and lets him sleep.  He offers the Pelletiers steak dinners.  During the meal, Steve Junior starts feeling some sort of effects from his cut.  Definitely an infection, but it looks like an infestation as well.  The Pelletiers think Steve Jr needs to go to the hospital; Steve insists not.


4. Steve and Ray go out to catch the beast.  Steve starts a generator to charge batteries, provide light, and hopefully attract the beast.  Steve Jr. gets up instead of resting; the beast comes back, and drags Steve Jr. away.  Steve Sr. takes a shot at the beast, misses, but manages to fall into the drink.  The beast manages to cut Steve Sr, not as deep, but a long laceration.  Steve Sr also gets an infection.  Steve Sr is determined that something is going to die before the night is over.  He gets his wish.


5. The Pelletiers wait for the dawn to go back to their cabin.  Unfortunately, the monster gains partial access through the capped fishing holes in the trailer; David gets a fatal cut on the neck.


6. Will anyone make it out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Take the safest route when dealing with a monster.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 Several of the long shots were rather poor: fuzzy, low contrast, too dim.  There was a fair amount of camera shake on the closeups in the interiors.


2. Sound: 7/10  Pretty good.


3. Acting: 5/10 Michael Rooker, Blanche Baker, and Amy Chang were fine.  Don Wood, Greg Finley, and Benjamin Forster I could have done without.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 The story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the exposition from one to the next is not that bad.  However, there were so many opportunities for the fate of the family members to come out much better.  The case for all decisions to be bad ones was rather weak.  The ending sucked rocks and made no sense at all.


5. SFX: 0/10 The monster is the only SFX, and it looks really cheesy.  This was a major detriment to the film.  Its silly appearance shut down the suspense.

20131201: Horror Review--Devil Seed

The Devil in Me (Devil Seed)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2012, NR, 98 minutes, horror.  Aspect is 2.35
2. IMDB: 4.1/10.0 from 1,430 audience ratings. Spoken word is in English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 71% on the meter; 46% liked it from 4,630 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 113,019 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Greg A. Sager.  Written by: Geoff Hart, Greg A. Sager.
6. Starring: Michell Argyris as Alex Froshiber, Shantelle Canzanese as Jessica Martin, Vanessa Broze as Breanne Whitaker, Kevin Jake Walker as Brian Wolski, Wayne Conroy as Professor Madison, Louise Hollingsworth as Old Psychic Woman.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The introduction suggests a possession in 1972 terminated by the killing of the possessed young woman by a Catholic priest. Then we shoot forward to the present, say 2012, the year of the film's release.


2. Alex rides home from an airport with Jessica; they arrive at the new house where they meet Breanne, and soon Brian.  Brian was Alex's boyfriend, but he had been intimate with Brianne when Alex arrived.  Alex's grandmother has been ill, which was why she was gone most of the summer.  Brian acts like things are still good between them.


3. That night they go to a party.  Brian makes an excuse about needing to be with his father, and leaves the party early.  As Jessica and Alex walk home a bit drunk, Jessica insists on stopping at a psychic's shop to check out whatever is needed to see the future.


4. Sigh.  So let's see, we've got sexual infidelity, drunkenness, and messing about with occult implements.  In the setting of Catholic mythos, this means there has to be at least one bad consequence coming up.


5. Jessica is incredibly insulting to the psychic, referring to her as a gypsy to hippie crossbreed, a 'gyppie.' This fits in with the plot, but what a terrible thing to say to someone you are going to for a service.  The psychic asks for cash; Jessica supplies some for Alex to get a reading.  The psychic guesses that Alex is an Aries, then asks which kind of cancer it was.  Alex takes that to refer to her grandmother.  The psychic goes on to say that Alex's mother has passed; the mother is worried for Alex.  The psychic sees someone with Alex, and commands them to show themselves.  The whatever takes possession, or at least a toe-hold with Alex then.


6. Alex gets home OK, which seems unlikely.  Then the signs start showing up: electrical appliances start of their own accord; things go bump in the night; whispering voices; the next day, unexplained partially healed lacerations.


7. This is 30 minutes in.  Bump in the night goes on for quite a while.  Brian continues to cheat on Alex with Breanne.  Alex starts to sleepwalk, in a creepy way.  Alex and Jessica discuss this the next morning.  Alex starts researching possession in the library and online.  She does not seem to have the tools to get out of her situation.


8. People start to notice.  She meets with a mixed bag of effective and ineffective advice and help.  The cheating boyfriend is not all that helpful, nor is the well-intended professor at first.  Soon enough, Brian just blames the whole thing on her so he can break off the relationship.  Jessica, at least, is able to produce calm for short periods.


9. Things get much worse for Alex.


10. Will Alex seek help?  If so, does she get help?  Will Alex be freed from the possession?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Don't give your psychic a hard time before a reading.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 The introductory sequence mixed with the credits just stank on ice.  The closing credits were hideous as well.  The actual movie, with these black holes removed, was not that bad.


2. Sound: 5/10 Over-driven and unhelpful, in places; nicely tension building in others.


3. Acting: 4/10 Most of the performances were amateurish.  Shantelle Canzanese was fairly good as Jessica.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The writing establishes context quickly, which was nice.  After the establishing phase, the action moves quite slowly.  Much of the dialog is incredibly bad, which makes it worse.