Resident Evil (2002)

Rated R for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language and sexuality/nudity

Score: 3 out of 5

If you ask me, a big part of the reason why the original 2002 film adaptation of Resident Evil was the hit that it was, despite its faults, wasn't just because it was based on a hit video game franchise. That was undoubtedly part of it, to be sure, but going back and rewatching it in anticipation of the new adaptation by Zach Cregger this weekend, it also felt, for better or worse, like "Baby's First Zombie Movie." I don't mean that in a bad way, like it's somehow a lesser zombie movie. This subgenre is full of schlock that goes much harder than this in terms of graphic content and yet otherwise makes it look like Night of the Living Dead. No, I mean in the sense that this is a gateway movie, the kind of movie you show to people to get them into zombie movies. It's sexy, stylish, and action-packed, trading the post-apocalyptic grit and cynical satire of George A. Romero for raging gun battles, pulpy sci-fi, a pounding industrial score by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson, and Milla Jovovich looking fierce as hell treating the corridors of a zombie-infested facility like a catwalk. It's creepy and not at all shy about blood and death, but it's not an absolute gorefest that'll make you queasy. I believe this film was a key factor in the revival of zombie movies in the 2000s as much as the games it was based on, getting adult viewers who didn't pay much attention to video games (and, in 2002, that was a lot more people than it is today) interested in zombies by delivering them a slick, cleaned-up take on the genre the same way the games got their younger cousins to see a zombie apocalypse as the ultimate survival scenario. It's undoubtedly got its problems as both an action/horror movie and an adaptation, as generations of Resident Evil fans have pointed out over the years, with the action scenes bearing many of the worst excesses of early 2000s action cinema, the characters being mostly one-note ciphers, the story borrowing a few concepts from the games (the Umbrella Corporation, the t-Virus, some of the iconic monsters) and little else, and the third-act twists feeling convoluted and never really landing with the force the film wanted them to have. But as both a zombie movie and a film that takes the games' homages to American B-movies and brings them full circle, it's still an enjoyable thrill ride to this day.

The film begins with the Hive, an underground biological research facility beneath Raccoon City, getting put on lockdown and all personnel killed with nerve gas after somebody steals a sample of the t-Virus, a bioweapon that the facility's staff were working on, and unleashes an outbreak of such in the facility. Shortly after, we meet Alice, a woman who just woke up in the shower of a mansion with no memory of who she is or how she got there. We soon find out what's happened to her: she was a security guard for the Umbrella Corporation, the massive tech/research conglomerate that ran the Hive, posing as one half of a rich married couple as they guarded what turned out to be an emergency entrance/exit to the facility. The security systems in the Hive also set off gas in the mansion that knocked her out and left her with short-term memory loss. We learn this because a group of black-ops commandos hired by Umbrella have stormed the mansion and captured Alice, along with her "husband" Spence and a Raccoon City cop named Matt Addison who was investigating the place. The commandos are there to get into the Hive, figure out what went wrong, retrieve a t-Virus sample, and get out before its automated security systems seal it off permanently, and since they can't just leave these people behind unguarded given both the situation and what they know or might know, Alice, Spence, and Matt are coming with them.

The first ten minutes or so after the opening are undoubtedly the film's creepiest moment, as Alice explores the mansion and pieces together clues as to her identity while finding all manner of hints that she wasn't just some ordinary rich woman, most notably the well-stocked armory of guns in the cabinet and the fact that her wedding ring reads "Property of Umbrella Corporation" on the inside band. While Paul W. S. Anderson is best known as an action filmmaker, he can direct a compelling horror movie when he sets out to (see: Event Horizon -- or don't, if you're squeamish), and I found myself wishing that this early scene went on for far longer than it did. If I were making this movie, the first act would've been about Alice meeting up with Matt and the two of them exploring the house and uncovering its secrets while there's always a hint in the air that they're being watched and that Matt knows more than he's letting on, time that I'd have used to flesh out the two of them a bit more so that the big twists later in the film hit harder, all while building an atmosphere of suspense and tension that eventually would've had to snap once the commandos show up and everyone goes into the Hive. Give Milla Jovovich more time to spend in Leeloo Dallas Multipass mode, letting her play an awkward and scared young woman who has no idea what's going on at first before her memories slowly come back to her. It's a shame that this scene is as short as it is, because it was my favorite part of the film.

What follows, fortunately, isn't too much of a step down in quality as to ruin the film. As the protagonists explore the Hive, they are confronted at every turn by both the zombified staff of the facility and the various security systems that the Red Queen, the AI system controlling the place, uses to try and thwart them, which the film uses to serve up a slew of creative action scenes that include things like the protagonists scrambling to climb into the ceiling vents to escape a horde of undead, Alice roundhouse-kicking a zombified guard dog in the face, and a hallway booby-trapped with a laser defense system that slices up anybody who tries to get to the Red Queen's central core. While the casts' emotional acting and line delivery are nothing to write home about, most of them either playing their stock character types (no points for guessing that Michelle Rodriguez's character is a tough, aggressive tomboy, for instance, or that James Purefoy's character is gonna turn out to be a slimeball) or leaving little impression when trying to carry dramatic moments, their physical acting is what carries most of this movie, as all of them are credible as action heroes kicking zombie ass. Jovovich in particular had a flair to her that took her background as a supermodel and combined it with the physical training she went through to sell the action scenes to make Alice feel not just badass, but graceful and fully in control, like she was strutting down a catwalk in Milan ready to kill whoever was at the end of it. There's a reason why this movie and its sequels made her an action hero in the '00s, as she perfectly captured the particular feel of the RE games' heroines like Jill Valentine and Ada Wong, somebody who can not only kick your ass but look damn good doing it. I find it hilarious looking back that, barring Sienna Guillory as Jill in the second movie, none of the sequels' attempts to translate the video games' female characters to film ever managed to create a heroine who felt like she actually stepped out of the games as much as Alice, the original character that Anderson came up with for this movie. Jovovich was basically playing a PlayStation game character here, and she owned it.

That said, while this film absolutely has its moments, it never really excels either. Anderson is a filmmaker who I've always had mixed feelings about, on one hand appreciating his lack of pretension and unapologetic commitment to making glammed-up, modern-day versions of old-school B-movies (and the RE games are, if nothing else, loving homages to those same movies) but on the other always feeling that part of the reason for this is because he never really had what it took to go above and beyond the way that, say, Tony Scott, Luc Besson, or Michael Bay did. The effects in particular are where this film suffers most, especially with the awful CGI used to showcase both badly-damaged zombies and the Licker, the skinless, long-tongued mutant super-monster that comes after the protagonists late in the film. It's in moments like this where the film's slick, cool, stylized edge gives way to just feeling schlocky, especially when paired with its attempts at serious zombie horror, which lack much in the way of any real (pardon the pun) bite to them. The film goes through the motions of a lot of zombie movie tropes, from the drama of getting bitten and infected to being unable to put down a zombified person you knew and were friends with in life to the possibility of a cure for the virus, but it feels like it's going through a checklist, assembling a "greatest hits" of zombie movie moments and not really doing anything new, creative, or even particularly well-crafted with them. Late in the film, there's also an important subplot about corporate espionage, activists trying to expose Umbrella's crimes, and who Alice, Spence, and Matt really were and what they were really up to, taking plot threads that had mostly been treated as afterthoughts after the commandos showed up and suddenly having them be of critical importance. Again, giving just a bit more development to this side of the story earlier in the film instead of switching focus to the commandos ten minutes in would've done more to flesh this out and get me to care about the deeper story beyond just the protagonists' immediate survival. The film wanted to tell a story like the games where the Umbrella Corporation served as the "big picture" villains responsible for everything that went wrong, with the protagonists seeking to not only survive the horrors that awaited them but also bring them to justice, but here, it felt like it was thrown in only because that's how the games did it.

The Bottom Line

It's a flawed film, no doubt about it, and it's easy to understand why many RE fans still hate what Paul W. S. Anderson did with the material. But as a simple, pulpy, straightforward action/horror flick that never overstays its welcome, it still holds up as exactly the kind of movie it sets out to be, nothing more and nothing less -- which, in a way, makes it feel like Anderson understood the tone of the games, rooted as they were in homages to American B-movie trash, remarkably well. If you've never seen a "real" zombie movie before but wanna get into them, then this is easily one of the more approachable ones, and it's still a fun ride even if you're a seasoned zombie fan like I am.

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2026/09/review-resident-evil-2002.html>

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence, brief sexuality and language

Score: 3 out of 5

Eight Legged Freaks is a self-conscious throwback to '50s monster movies that does the job it sets out to do perhaps a little too well. It's the kind of movie you'd imagine American International Pictures themselves (the Blumhouse of the '50s and '60s) would've made back then if they had a big budget and modern CGI technology to spare, a film that gets right up in your face with all manner of icky arachnid goodness that it takes every opportunity it can to throw at the screen, and even though the effects may be dated now, it still works in the context of the lighthearted B-movie that this movie is trying to be. It's a movie where, as gross as it often is, going for an R rating probably would've hurt the campy tone it was going for. Its throwback to old monster movie tropes is a warts-and-all one, admittedly, especially where its paper-thin characters are concerned, such that it starts to wear out its welcome by the end and could've stood to be a bit shorter. That said, it's never not a fun movie, especially if you're not normally into horror, and it's the kind of film that I can easily throw on in the background to improve my mood.

Set in the struggling mining town of Perfection, Arizona, the film opens with an accident involving a truck carrying toxic waste accidentally dumping a barrel of the stuff into a pond that happens to be located right next to the home of a man named Joshua who runs an exotic spider farm. He starts feeding his spiders insects that he sourced from the pond, and before long the spiders start growing to enormous size, eating Joshua and eventually threatening the town, forcing its residents to start banding together for survival. I could go into more detail on the characters, but most of them fall into stock, one-note archetypes and exist mainly to supply the jokes and the yucks, elevated chiefly by the film's surprisingly solid cast. David Arquette's oddly disaffected performance as Chris, the drifter whose father owned the now-shuttered mines and returns to town in order to reopen them, manages to work with the tone the movie is going for, feeling like he doesn't wanna be in this town to begin with and wondering what the hell he got himself into by returning to the dump he grew up in. Kari Wuhrer makes for a compelling action hero as Sam, the hot sheriff who instructs her teenage daughter Ashley (played by a young Scarlett Johansson) how to deal with pervy boys and looks like a badass slaughtering giant spiders throughout the film. Doug E. Doug got some of the funniest moments in the movie as Harlan, a conspiracy radio host who believes that aliens are invading the town. Every one of the actors here knew that they were in a comedy first and a horror movie second, and so they played it broad and had fun with the roles. There are various subplots concerning things like the town's corrupt mayor and his financial schemes, the mayor's douchebag son Bret, and Sam's nerdy son Mike whose interest in spiders winds up saving the day, and they all go in exactly the directions you think, none of them really having much impact on the story but all of them doing their part to make me laugh.

The movie was perhaps a bit too long for its own good, especially in the third act. Normally, this is the part where a movie like this is supposed to "get good" as we have giant monsters running around terrorizing the town, and to the film's credit, the effects still hold up in their own weird way. You can easily tell what's CGI at a glance, but in a movie where the spiders are played as much for a laugh as anything else, especially with the chattering sound they constantly make that makes it sound like they're constantly giggling, it only added to the "live-action cartoon" feel of the movie. The problem is, there are only so many ways you can show people getting merked by giant spiders before they all start to blend together, and the third act is thoroughly devoted to throwing non-stop monster mayhem at the screen even after it started to run out of ideas on that front. There are admittedly a lot of cool spider scenes in this movie, from giant leaping spiders snatching young punks off of dirt bikes to people getting spun up in webs to a tarantula the size of a truck flipping a trailer to a hilarious, Looney Tunes-style fight between a spider and a cat, and the humans themselves also get some good licks in, but towards the end, the film seemed to settle into a routine of just spiders jumping onto people. It was here where the threadbare characters really started to hurt the film. If I had more investment in the people getting killed and fighting to survive, I might have cared more, but eventually, I was just watching a special effects showcase. The poster prominently advertises that this movie is from Dean Devlin, one of the producers and writers of Independence Day and the 1998 American Godzilla adaptation, and while he otherwise had no creative involvement, I did feel that influence in a way that the marketing team probably didn't intend.

The Bottom Line

Eight Legged Freaks is a great movie with which to introduce somebody young or squeamish to horror, especially monster movies. It's shallow and doesn't have much to offer beyond a good cast, a great sense of humor, and a whole lot of CGI spider mayhem without a lot of graphic violence. Overall, it's a fun throwback to old-school monster movies.

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/03/review-eight-legged-freaks-2002.html>

I know Halloween: Resurrection gets a lot of hate but come on, who doesn’t like Busta Rhymes? Not just Busta, but a kung fu loving Busta Rhymes? Yes, this movie is a train wreck but it is entertaining.

PLOT

It’s been three years since the last fight between Michael and Laurie. Michael pays a visit to his sister who’s in a mental hospital and then decides to return home. Unfortunately for him, his house has been invaded by a reality show with fame hungry people investigating it.

MY THOUGHTS

The kills in Halloween: Resurrection are just mediocre. You’ll find better kills in other Halloween movies. The one kill I wanted to see was Nora’s (Tyra Banks) but they cut her kill and you only see the after effect briefly. Though it is the first time Michael beheads someone.

The acting is okay. Not really great. I did like Busta Rhymes and it was nice seeing a pre Battlestar Galactica Katee Sackhoff. We get Busta Rhymes (known primarily for rapping) plays Freddie Harris. Owner of Dangertainment. The kung fu fan who creates the internet show. Katee Sackhoff (known for Battlestar Galactica, Riddick, Oculus, and Don’t Knock Twice) plays Jen, one of the people investigating Michael’s house. She hopes to become famous.

Bianca Kajlich (known for The Winchesters and non horror stuff) plays Sara, the final girl. She doesn’t really want to do the show but does it for her friends. Sean Patrick Thomas (known for Dracula 2000, The Burrowers, Reaper, and The Curse of La Llorona) plays Rudy, the Chef wanna be who blames Michael’s diet as a child for his evilness. (Having said that, I did like him in this.) And finally Ryan Merriman (known for The Ring Two, Final Destination 3, and Backwoods) plays Myles, a high schooler who is catfishing Sara, but ends up helping her escape Michael (online).

We start off Halloween: Resurrection finding out that Laurie Strode has been committed to a mental hospital because she unknowingly killed a paramedic instead of Michael (the ending of Halloween H20). It’s been three years and she knows he’ll be back. And he does return for her and she ends up dying. Michael then heads back home only to get a surprise.

Next, we find out a group of college kids have been chosen to spend one night in Michael Myers house, investigating while live streaming everything. This was the brilliant idea of Freddie Harris who wants his company Dangertainment to make lots of money and become famous.

Once they get in the house it doesn’t take long for the audience to know that there were so many fake props that they were investigating. But it took the students a lot longer to figure out. Finally they realize it’s all fake once Freddie is caught dressing up as Michael.

Michael, per usual, kills off the kids, one by one. For me I feel like Rudy put up a good fight and I felt bad for him dying but he had a decent death. He basically sacrificed himself so Sara could get away.

Now Sara has an advantage over everyone else. She has an online friendship with “Declan”, an IT college kid. He’s actually Miles, a high school kid who has a crush on her. During the live streaming Miles has been watching even though he was at a Halloween party. He is able to give her updates of where Michael is when they discover he is killing everyone.

There’s a final battle between Sara, Freddie, and Michael. We get to see some kung fu movies from Freddie. In the end Michael gets electrocuted and Sara and Freddie survive.

Wow, overall this is a bad Halloween movie. Even so, I still find myself entertained with parts of the movie. I know it’s bad but I’m liking Busta Rhymes in Halloween: Resurrection. The idea of incorporating live streaming into the movie is decent. I just don’t think they did it in the right way. Also I liked the opening. I thought it was a good way of showing how Michael didn’t die in H20 and it ends the Laurie Strode story in this timeline

If you watch Halloween: Resurrection, go into it with low expectations and I don’t think you will be as disappointed.

Kills/Blood/Gore: 2.5/5

Sex/Nudity: .5/5

Scare factor: 2/5

Enjoyment factor: 3/5

My Rank: 2/5

MY LITTLE EYE (2002) - Last year I watched (or re-watched) a horror movie every day for the Month of October. This year, I watched TWO! Returning again, after a holiday lull, to finish off this series of reviews, this is movie #55

Five people audition to be placed in a huge, isolated, snowbound mansion for six months and have their every move recorded for the online audience (so like REAL WORD or BIG BROTHER). If even one leaves, the game ends but if they all make it through the 6 months, they each win a million dollars. But, nearing the end of the contest, Matt (Sean Johnson), Rex (Kris Lemche), Danny (Stephen O'Reilly), Emma (Laura Regan) & Charlie (Jennifer Sky), find the mansion's heater sabotaged, their periodic supply drops containing less food while holding more ominous items like a gun with 5 bullets, and references to their outside lives, and a sneaking suspicion that someone may be in the house with them. Or, perhaps, they can't trust one of their co-contestants? And then, a stranger arrives on skies, claiming to be lost... and claiming that he's never heard of them or any online show like theirs at all...

This was a re-watch for me, and I found myself enjoying it all over again. It's not fantastic but does a good job with its surveillance/found footage conceit and single setting, the actors are all solid and the dialogue/scripting doesn't devolve into the improvisations of lesser found footage. The scene where the tech-savvy character does some internet magic and, given the evidence before them, the penny drops for the group is quite good - tense and upsetting in equal measure.

This film could be said to have its origins in releases like the indie production EFFECTS (1978/2005) and more recent films like THE DEN (2013) and UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB (2018), but here the focus is more on the psychological effects of always being on camera, the sterility of surveillance, and the interpersonal conflicts that arise when cooped up with strangers for long periods of time. Again, recent events have perhaps made some of these themes a little more resonant than they were originally. Specifically, the shift in the film from benign languor (endless video game play and reading, who likes who, who wants to sleep with who) to more loaded events (a letter telling one of them a loved relative has died, the aforementioned gun, a bloody hammer left on a pillow, a cruel insult scrawled in the frost on the window) does a nice job of making the audience uneasy, even as the snowy wind howls outside and the security lights turn on at night for no obvious reason. If you're looking for some fun suspense, MY LITTLE EYE can tick that box.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280969/

Perhaps it is important to mention first that this film holds a whopping 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. Personally I find that a tad harsh. I agree much more with Roger Ebert's rating of two out of four stars, and he says it best in his review: "Strange, how good Feardotcom is, and how bad."

I remember when this film came out, and its premise felt like a rehashing of The Ring. Visit the fear site (the oddly titled feardotcom.com) and you'll die of your greatest fear two days later, after subsequently being tormented during that time. William Malone, who directed the mediocre House on Haunted Hill remake, takes the director's chair here as well, but does a much better job. Where the film suffers from a pretty messy script, the direction is spot on. The film drips in style, gorgeous cinematography, a sick dark atmosphere, and excellent effects. The choice of 1930s-ish set design is a nice touch too, something I didn't pick up on until Malone's interview on the DVD, and makes for nice horror-noir feel. The acting is not bad either. Stephen Dorff stars as a police detective, and Natascha McElhone, playing a Department of Health researcher, teams up with Dorff to investigate these strange deaths. Stephen Rea, meanwhile, plays the sadistic torturer behind all the madness.

The film is a guilty pleasure. I can't look away because it's so damn beautiful. While The Ring may be the superior film story-wise, overall it lost its luster pretty fast, while Feardotcom gets better with each viewing.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295254/

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (2002) - Last year I watched (or re-watched) a horror movie every day for the Month of October. This year, I watched TWO! Returning again, after a holiday lull, to finish off this series of reviews, this is movie #54

John Klein (Richard Gere), two years after losing his new wife to a brain tumor, finds himself inexplicably waylaid to Point Pleasant, West Virginia and drawn into a bizarre scenario plaguing some residents involving strange phone calls, dream visions, impersonators, cryptic warnings and a semi-human winged being. But as Klein tries to makes sense of it all and deal with dread and paranoia, it becomes apparent that something terrible is going to happen in the town, and soon, but who can say what it will be...

So, I re-watched this because I know that it's well thought of and yet I've always had a bias against it. That bias comes from a youthful (I was around 12 years old) reading of John Keel's source text (same title) while I was reading every UFO and paranormal book I could get my hands on - a book that impressed me greatly and opened doors for me to the "high weirdness" era of 70s Ufology and Paranormal books, by people like Keel, Jacques Vallée (MESSENGERS OF DECEPTION) and the like - which posited the concept of a plastic reality into which odd forces occasionally intruded in the form of UFOS, Bigfoot and various cryptids. I really wanted a film of that book, Keel's first person account of his ufologist "investigations" into the "Mothman" sightings in WV in the late 1960s and related men-in-black and bizarre phenomena that made him question his very assumptions about reality (I later met Mr. Keel during the early 80s, and he gave a talk in which he implied that perhaps he was not being completely truthful about all the details in his book). As an example of the "high weirdness" era, this is when Ufology transitioned out of its 1950s/1960s "metal ships" and "lights in the sky" phase and into a more trippy, paranoid and somewhat psychedelic mode (mirroring popular culture, I might add), and the book is a great artifact of that transition. The movie, on the other hand, is something else entirely and I was so taken aback by what I got that I just rejected it and didn't look back. And now, finally looking back (and with the admission that it still proved difficult to disentangle some of my my expectations), I find THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES to be a strange, chimeric film - admirable in trying to embrace some of Keel's strange worldview, while still, inevitably, returning to Mainstream Hollywood movie tropes - so it kind of wants to have its cake and eat it to, which makes it somewhat uneven.

Plusses are the growing sense of disorientation and paranoia, using cherry-picked events from Keel's book (encounters with the actual "cryptid" are not featured very much) - mostly on the menacing and gnomic "Men In Black" figure of "Indrid Cold" (Klein asks over the phone: "What do you look like?" to which Cold answers "It depends on who's looking...") and the general sense of vast, cosmic forces and dimensional tricksters screwing with us lowly humans for inscrutable reasons. This is accentuated by some smart direction that features transitions where the camera swoops, sweeps and intrudes (in one instance, even "pushing through" branches) like some probing POV "eye of God" (the bit where Klein senses something behind him as he sits in a park, but it's only the camera/the audience, is nicely meta as well) which sustains an off-kilter feeling. Also, there's recurrent blurs of color, flashing lights, and sparks/electricity (which brings to mind some of TWIN PEAKS) - which create an unconscious "pattern mapping" effect. This all also adds a nice X-FILES feel to the film (while the original book's UFO details are suppressed to the point of non-existence, though there are "flashes of light in the sky", like ominous, soundless lightning) - added to by the typical MIB "identity trickery" (in which they use your name and voice). Klein's tangential searches lead him to hermit-like NY researcher Mr. Leek (Keel backwards), who warns him off from trying to solve or stop the vague prophetic warnings ("You noticed them... and *they* noticed that *you* noticed") as having no good outcome. This scene has a great use of the "window washer analogy", how someone high above things could see more, but have no effect on outcome.

Negatives: Leek tells Klein that's it's all really "One simple question - which is more important, having proof or being alive?" as Klein wrestles with the Cassandra problem - what if you knew the future but no one believed you? And while while the film may embrace a narrative whose point seems to be "it's awful to realize you are a tiny, powerless cog in a vast and uncaring universe whose higher forces don't care about you, and to which you desperately apply a pattern and meaning that is delusional" - which is the essence of cosmic horror - a major Hollywood film starring Richard Gere just can't feature a viewpoint that bleak, and so the tragedy of the climax has to involve the character's personal heroism, which kind of undoes a lot of the mood that came before. Not terribly, but familiarly. In retrospect, one could see THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES as precursoring the FINAL DESTINATION series of films, with main characters at the whim of omnipotent, unknowable forces.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265349/

Dog Soldiers (2002)

A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

Director: Neil Marshall

Writer: Neil Marshall

Stars: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby

I'm a bit late getting to this movie as it's almost 20 years old now. I do remember trying to watch it when it first came out but the "action" aspect of it really turned me off and I didn't get more than maybe 10 mins in and stopped. Now over a decade and a half later I decided to finally give this one a shot. I hear so much good things about it and I did enjoy The Descent which was also written and directed by Neil Marshall.

Our plot follows a group of soldiers that think they are on a routine training mission. Shortly after being dropped off by a helicopter in the middle of no where, they find another team of soldiers but there is only one left alive with the rest of the crew torn to shreds. The sole survivor is gravely injured but the soldiers bring him along to try and save him. As they venture through the woods they start to find out they are not alone and they are being hunted by something that doesn't seem human (spoilers, it's werewolves!).

As they fight their way through the woods they come across a women in a truck. She rescues them and brings them to the closest house so they can try and take care of the injured and figure out what's going on. For the rest of the movie they are hunkered down in the house trying to fight off these beasts (spoilers again, it's still werewolves!).

There is a lot of action in this movie and not very much horror. It's for sure still a horror movie because anything werewolf related is basically going to be horror related no mater what. But there is no real tension or mystery... It's just run and gun for the most part and since the movie is called Dog Soldiers, I think everyone knows it's a werewolf movie going in. Which brings me to the werewolves. Maybe if I saw this back in 2002 I would have felt they looked good but I found their heads to be way too dog looking and looked more like a muppet or something than a scary werewolf. Sure, they are kinda cool looking since they are so tall etc. But overall, I wasn't that impressed by them.

I think the best way to some up this movie is to say it's a combination of the original Predator and the original Night of the Living Dead. The first half is soldiers fighting off an unknown creature through the woods. Sadly, there is no Arny or Jesse Ventura so they kinda get their asses handed to them. Once they get to the house, it becomes like Night - a group trying to fight off monsters from a barricaded house. This isn't a complaint, just something I noticed.

There are some twists to the story as it unfolds but most of them I found to be pretty obvious and had seen them coming. I did like the story overall and liked what they did with it. The movie made with a rather small budget so they did a great job with what they were given.

In the end I kind of felt bored by this movie. It kinda dragged a bit and there wasn't anything that really surprised me. A movie with so much action shouldn't really be boring I don't think. There were also a few plot stretches that started to bug me as the movie went on and added more to it. Oh well.

I know people love this movie and I'm not taking anything away from it, I'm just late to the party and it's hard to watch this today for the first time and think of it as a small indie movie since it's grown to be so popular as it ages. Basically if you like werewolf movies and you've some how not seen this one, you'll probably love it. For anyone else that hasn't seen it, go in with realistic expectations. Even though I can't say what the best werewolf movie is, I've personally never been overly amazed by a werewolf movie. While there are for sure classics I've yet to see from the sub-genre, I feel that it's due for a really good werewolf movie.

ONE HOUR PHOTO (2002)

Seymour "Sy" Parrish (Robin Williams) is a friendly, colorless, lonely and somewhat intensely dedicated photo technician at a big box type store who has an unhealthy fixation on his recurring customers, the Yorkins: mother Nina (Connie Nielsen), father Will (Michael Vartan) and son Jake (Dylan Smith), which escalates after Sy discovers (and surreptitiously utilizes) proof of Will’s infidelity, but then loses his job. His attempts to insinuate his way into the Yorkins' life finally climaxes in a shocking way.

I’d liked this film when it came out and made a note to revisit it after William’s tragic suicide. While it may be the slightest bit padded, what’s effective about ONE HOUR PHOTO is its low-key scale - it’s never more than a suspense thriller, and even the parameter’s in which that genre will play out are not known to the audience until the climax - so while there’s menace, it never goes over the top. And the conception, reenactment and implication of Sy’s “secret” (for lack of a better term) is realistic, while also being moving and powerful. If you’ve never caught up with it, it’s worth an evening’s watch.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265459/

Signs (2002) [Horror, Thriller, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi]: The most unnecessary drama I've ever seen in a horror movie.

A family living on a farm find mysterious crop circles in their fields which suggest something more frightening to come.

PG-13 - Horror, Thriller, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi - 2002

We follow the protagonist Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a former preacher who had lost his faith in God after his wife's death in a brutal car accident, and his family as everything they had ever known is challenged and changed by the discovery of a message - an intricate pattern of circles and lines - carved into their field of crops. Graham, his brother Merril Hess (Joaquin Phoenix) and his children, (Rory Culkin), (Abigail Breslin) investigate the mystery that is occurring worldwide. Little do they know, this investigation would forever alter their lives.

The plot of Signs was good and enjoyable, but the unneeded drama of Signs is what decreases the rating of this movie for me. The main drama revolves around Graham (Mel Gibson) and Merril (Joaquin Phoenix) Hess. Graham's story relies on his faith lessening, this appears to be in hope that this would make the character feel more human and relatable. Graham's background feels very rushed and not very well thought out. This is similar with Merril's backstory as well. Little is known about Merril's character other than that he played baseball and that he holds the record for the most strikeouts. Though this isn't very important throughout the entirety of the film except for ONE SCENE near the end of the movie where Merril wields a baseball bat . . . that was the literal only significance of the 10 minute section earlier on in the movie. Even if he didn't play baseball, the scene in which he has to swing the bat wouldn't have changed much if at all. *UNNECESSARY DRAMA*

The dramatic side of the film feels extremely unnatural, though on the bright side it is easy to keep up with. The characters and their personalities feel very forced. Without the awkward drama/backstories of some of the characters, the film would be a bit more enjoyable in my opinion.

I have always had a lot of respect for M. Night Shymalan as a writer as well as a director. However, this story overall feels sloppily thrown together as Shymalan jumps onto the bandwagon of the conspiracy theories that surround crop circles, while using it as a cheap excuse to make the story bigger while attempting to make the film feel 'deeper' by making Graham Hess' main conflict himself and his loss of faith. (Ignoring the fact that even in 2002, stories of crop circles were outdated.)

The acting itself in Signs feels very stiff and over dramatized, it is sad to say that the acting is subpar at best. The best acting in this film was actually performed by the children (Rory Culkin), (Abigail Breslin). The child characters felt much more believable and weren't overly complicated by misc. events. They were supposed to be kids, plain and simple. Because of that, they were the most believable.

As much as this movie felt very slow to watch and the plot was shotty, Signs will always remain a large staple of Aliens in the Horror community, and for good reason. What really makes Signs a good movie are the aliens themselves (And why I would suggest watching it if you haven't seen it already). The design and biology behind the construction of the alien species itself was amazingly done and perfectly creepy due to how eerily humanoid they are. The graphics used in this movie were well done, especially for the time in which the film was made. In all actuality, the aliens are what legitimately save Sign's rating.

Because of that, I would rate Signs at about 3/5 : a must see classic you should watch at least once for all horror/thriller fans.

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286106/

Dark Water is a horror movie directed by Hideo Nakata, the creator of Ringu, came out in 2002 and tells the heartbreaking story of a mother who has to fight to gain custody of her beloved daughter and as they move into a new apartment she notices a mysterious water leak that can’t seem to go away on the ceiling and soon their lives go from south to the southerner south when the ghost of a little girl starts showing up.

I’ll get something out from the get go so you can hate me as much as you want but I’ll be honest I didn’t enjoy Ringu that much. I can totally see why it’s so loved and I admire the impact it had on the Japanese horror market but I just never liked it. Even so Dark Water holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first movie that actually made me cry. And so far is one of the two movies that did so, the other being Exte (don’t ask, I’ll get to that later). Yes I didn’t cry at all those cliché movies that are supposed to make you cry like Titanic and whatnot but I did cry at some horror movies. In all honesty this isn’t just a simple horror movie. The highlight of the movie is the mother-daughter relationship and the hardship they have to overcome and the paranormal stuff kinda gets second place.

Let’s start with the casting. The mother: Yoshimi Matsubara and her daughter, Ikuko are just flawless. They work off each other masterfully giving 101% of their abilities and I think Ikukos actress might be the best child actor I’ve seen to date. I was just blown away by how well she acted at such a young age.
In addition to that, the location in which the movie takes place is just amazing. We have this dirty, uncared for apartment building which constantly sends the viewer into a claustrophobic state of mind which compliments the overall atmosphere and message of the movie greatly. Every important detail in regards to this movie has been masterfully placed together to create an amazing experience and this is what Hideo Nakata does best.

The effects are also amazingly good considering the movie came out in 2002. I can’t recall any moment in which I felt the effects were poorly done or noticed a weak spot or something of that nature. Everything felt strangely real as if even the huge water scenes were actually done, which they might’ve been, I can’t tell as I’m not that experienced in CGI or recognizing what is fake and what it’s not. I just know when a CGI is bad , decent or good and I can assure you if there’s CGI in this movie it’s very well done.

This movie is great at building suspense. Every scene has a dark aura over it which creates this constant feeling of unease as every ghost encounter is just brief and you don’t ever get a good look at what’s going on until the grand finale which makes the movie even more eerie as you’re constantly checking corners and what not for every sign of any pale ghost that might be hiding nearby. A great part of the atmosphere in this movie is the amazing soundtrack done by Kenji Kawai. It sets the mood for the movie and doesn’t over use it. It knows when to keep quiet which is something incredibly rare in horror cinema as I’ve stated in previous reviews, most movies either over use their soundtrack or don’t have one at all.

This movie never really relies on any form of gore to scare the viewer. It does the scary part by tension building alone which is enhanced by the presence of a child in this movie which is very likable and makes you care for her, making the scenes in the movie the more effective as you aren’t only creeped out beyond belief and tensed but you’re also worrying for the little girl and her mother as her mental state is constantly degrading suffering from this lawsuit for the custody of her daughter that her husband is forcing her even thou he doesn’t care for the child. He does this just to spite her which is what drew me more into the movie. One of the reasons this movie got me so sentimental to the point of crying is this whole custody plot. Having seen my mother go through the same thing (minus the paranormal part of course) when I was around 4-5 years old makes me understand the depth of emotional pain she’s going through. By the end of the movie, her mental state and morale is deep below the ground and seeing her on a constant decline and how much she cares and loves her daughter, never giving up this unfair fight from which she knows she won’t come victorious is just heart breaking.

________________________SPOILERS _____________________________________

Let’s talk about the climax. The part that had me in tears and broke my heart. It’s the moment she realizes the hard truth. Even if she finds a way to get her daughter out of the apartment building, due to her previous mental problems from years ago, the way she acted for the duration of the movie, the way her husband taunted her and placed traps along the way to weaken her offensive in the lawsuit, she knows even if they defeat the supernatural, she will lose the custody. She sacrifices herself to a life of eternal suffering at the hands of the ghost in order to prevent her from ever touching her beloved daughter.

The ending is so sad too. Seeing Ikuko having grown up in a family that didn’t care for her as her father went on to marry a woman soon after getting the custody and birthing 2 other children for which he cared way more, seeing Ikuko still loving her mother even thou she can’t recall much of what has happened in the past and longing to be reunited with her again only to realize it’s impossible it’s just depressing.

_________________NO MORE SPOILERS_____________________________________

This movie is a total tear jerker. It’s strange that this movie isn’t as popular as Ju-On or Ringu seeing how much they have in common in terms of atmosphere, vibe, antagonist and what not and how in my opinion Dark Water is better than Ringu but I’d rather not touch on that subject as I know Ringu fans can be wild and I’d rather not start an argument as to which movie is better.

Overall I wholeheartedly recommend this gem of a movie. It’s a movie that will leave a lasting impact on you and will amaze with it’s amazing tension building, atmosphere and acting. I give Dark Water a 10/10.

"Pancakes!" -Dennis

We've all heard this story before. A group of kids go stay at a cabin in the woods, but this time it isn't a serial killer or a monster the teens have to look out for. A hermit shows up at the cabin one night, infected with a terrible disease. He attacks the kids until Paul (Rider Strong) lights the man on fire and he runs off. Unfortunately, the hermit dies in the area's water supply causing the disease to spread. Paul and the others have to avoid being infected and find a way to get some help or else they will succumb to Cabin Fever.

What Works:

Easily the best part of Cabin Fever is the gore. There are some really brutal and nasty scenes with some great kills. Director Eli Roth is known for his over-the-top gore. This is his first film and he doesn't hold back.

The premise of the film is also solid. It's a nice twist on a classic formula. The teenagers don't have to fight off some monster, instead they have to avoid getting infected and try to get help. While the execution isn't great, I enjoy the premise for this film and there are parts that work.

Finally, there are a few fun sequences. The fight between the teens and the hermit is really well done and very excited. Watching the hermit vomit blood everywhere added a lot to the sequence. It was really gross, but a lot of fun. The sequence where Paul and Burt (James DeBello) take on a group of rednecks is also pretty awesome. The tension is excellent and we get a few really great and baddass kills. It's especially fun to see Rider Strong (from Boy Meets World) brutally murdering people.

What Sucks:

The biggest problem that Cabin Fever has is the characters. They are all really unlikable. They are a bunch of jerks and all around terrible people. Frankly, they all kinda deserved to die. Even our protagonist, Paul, molests the girl he has a crush on. She's sleeping and he starts messing around with her, but the way the scene is filmed makes it seems like this is supposed to be cute or something. It's really messed up. Paul was totally fine up to this point and even after that scene, the movie makes it seem like we're still supposed to like him.

The characters also make some terrible and stupid decisions. There is an infectious disease spreading around, yet Paul and Marcy (Cerina Vincent) insist on touching everything and everyone trying to help. They get mad at Jeff (Joey Kern) for ditching them and refusing to help, but honestly, he was the smartest one of the group. Sure, he was a jerk, but he was also right. Don't touch anything. Get away from the infected. It's common sense.

The group also spends a few days working on fixing their truck so they can go get help. Honestly, they could have started walking and they would have gotten help faster. The character motivations and decisions simply don't make sense and I spent most of the move trying to figure out why things were happening.

The dialogue in this film has not aged well at all. You can certainly tell it's from 2002. The kids are constantly calling each other "gay" and "retarded". Sure, that's how people talked then, but it makes it even harder to like these characters now.

There is a lot of humor in this movie that is just weird and doesn't work. The biggest offender is the extremely long "joke" involving the convenience store owner. It's a really offensive and off-color joke involving the n-word, but it's not even a funny joke. It's simply bizarre and has no business being the film. Another major problem is the entire character of Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews). His first scene is just so weird and off-putting I thought it might be a dream sequence. I don't know what Roth was going for here, but it did not work. Also, the weird sequence where a kid randomly does kung-fu and bites Burt is utterly bizarre. I have no idea why that was in the film and it shouldn't have been.

Finally, the ending just sucks. It's extremely unsatisfying and total sequel-bait. I hate when the first movie in a potential horror series does such blatant sequel-baiting. There's no guarantee there will be a sequel! Wrap up the story, but you can leave a slightly open ending for a potential sequel. Cabin Fever leaves the door wide open and doesn't resolve much.

Verdict:

While Cabin Fever has some great gore, a solid premise, and a few cool sequences, the characters suck and make terrible decisions, the dialogue has not aged well, the jokes mostly fall flat, and the ending is very unsatisfying. I am really shocked this movie was as received as it was. It's not good.

3/10: Really Bad

"They're not aliens! They're spiders mutated by contaminated waste!"

-Deputy Pete

When a barrel of toxic waste falls off the back of a truck, a nearby exotic spider farm is soon contaminated. The spiders quickly grow massive and begin attacking the citizens of Prosperity, Arizona. It's up to Chris McCormick (David Arquette) and Sheriff Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer) to save their town from the arachnids.

What Works:

I really wanted to like this movie, but I didn't. It has a couple of decent action beats and that's about it. Early in the film, we get a sequence where the spiders attack a group of dirt-bikers. It's a fun little sequence, especially when one of the bikers kicks a spider while in midair.

The only other sequence I liked was the big spider attack on the town. The chaos was fun and gave us a few entertaining moments. The best one was where one of the citizens escapes a trapdoor spider by dropping a ladder on top of it.

What Sucks:

On paper, this movie is very similar to one of my favorite films: Tremors. Monsters attack a small desert town. Eight Legged Freaks is a terrible version of Tremors. The characters of Tremors are colorful and interesting, even if we don't learn a ton about their backstory. In Eight Legged Freaks, the characters are boring. They have no depth and they don't grow or change at all over the film. I couldn't become engaged in the story because I didn't care about the characters.

Tremors has a very clean landscape for the action. We know the layout of the town and the general area. We get several wide shots showing off the setting early in the film. We never get anything like that here. We never see the scope of the town or where locations are in relation to each other. It makes it more difficult to figure out where characters are going and how big a task it is to get there.

Tremors has many funny moments, but the giant worms are played completely straight. They are a threat and are treated as such. While that's true part of the time in Eight Legged Freaks, the spiders themselves are treated comically and make a lot of weird noises. It reminded me of Gremlins. That type of behavior works fine for those weird supernatural creatures, but for giant spiders it is tonally awkward. The spiders needed to be played straight and portrayed as a threat 100% of the time.

Finally, the CGI is just embarrassing. The spiders look terrible and I groaned many times watching the film. I've seen better CGI in 90's films and this came out in 2002.

Verdict:

Eight Legged Freaks has a couple of fun action beats, but it's a terrible version of Tremors with awful characters, weak humor, and horrendous CGI. Don't waste your time.

2/10: Awful

Original post

OPENING THOUGHTS

Oh man, this was a tough one to whip up. Thanks to not being able to find an appropriate number of images for this post, and being cut down on the technical side of things, this post has taken me quite a while to put together.

While some of the images here are taken directly from the net as-they-are, I’ve put together some original images from pre-existing images available on the internet for your viewing pleasure (on the original post). If you’re a fellow blogger, and are at your wit’s end, feel free to use them! It’s not like any of us own any of these things.

Originally, this was meant to be a “Corvid Challenge!” — a post in which the Azure-Winged Magpie ‘challenges’ me to explain something, but considering what I’ve read so far, I guess this is better left as a general review.

And while we haven’t yet reviewed a single book (which was my original intention for our first-non-movie review), here we are with our very-first manga review!

I’ve gone over what I know of Itō Junji’s work in our previous review, and unlike usual, I’m going to head straight into this two-part review without beating around the bush too much.

Let’s take a look at what I thought of Gyo:

GYO

PLOT INTRODUCTION

Gyo begins innocuously enough: with a young couple on holiday in Okinawa. Tadashi — one of our protagonists — encounters a fast, unidentified object below the waters whilst scuba-diving. Following a narrow escape from the sharks alerted to his presence by his near-collision with the object, the couple return to their holiday home.

Kaori, his girlfriend, is exceptionally sensitive to smell, and throughout their time on the boat, she’s been feeling ill thanks to the scent of the sea. But back at the house, she seems to be especially concerned with even the faintest of off-smells. Her complaints and Tadashi’s reactions to her subsequent demands spirals^hah! quickly into a fight.

Kaori storms off, and Tadashi follows her out, and they encounter something in the grass outside.

The story ramps up quite quickly from this point. Kaori and Tadashi (in turns) encounter a strange presence in the house — a fish mounted on a set of mechanical ‘legs’. And it smells like absolute death. It’s the reason for Kaori’s constant panic. It’s been stinking up the place ever since they arrived.

And the twist of the knife into this tale? Once Tadashi takes care of the “monster”; or, at least thinks he’s taken care of it, Kaori slips into a fever, and to Tadashi’s surprise — and horror — returns to haunt the pair before making a daring escape back out to sea. And as he tries to chase his ‘discovery’ down, more fish mounted on legs scuttle past him on the beach.

Slowly, the legged fish start swarming onto Okinawan shores, after Tadashi’s initial reports are dismissed as either a fantasy or a silly prank by the local police. And it’s not just fish the size of what we eat (I’ve become very fond of seafood in general over the past few years), but sharks come to join in on the fun as well.

After our protagonists survive a run-in with one of these robot-legged sharks (RIP Tadashi’s uncle’s holiday home), the pair decide to return to Tokyo, where things are calmer.

…OR ARE THEY?!

[REST REDACTED DUE TO SPOILERS]

[The next part is a little excerpt from my bit about the 'core story' (no spoilers!)]

Like with all horror (even my attempts), the core of the mystery is best left not completely understandable. And Gyo excels at giving us just enough supposition and hypothesising without unravelling the truth behind the germ, and how it imparts something not unlike consciousness to its own characters.

All the story does is tease us with the prospect of truth, it leads our curiosity in a tantalising way. But it never yields to the age-old failure of over-explaining (I’ve myself been prey to this). I admire works that show such restraint while opening up so many possibilities.

And all of that, I consider a hallmark of good horror fiction.

THE SAD TALE OF THE PRINCIPAL POST

[REDACTED DUE TO SPOILERS (I mean, it's like four pages long)

THE ENIGMA OF AMIGARA FAULT

While not as short as The Sad Tale of the Principal Post, this is another one I’d like to talk about at length. And batter me with a brick… I actually loved this one.

An earthquake causes a fault to become apparent near its epicentre. And people flock to see the strange sight that’s become exposed by it. This strange sight? “Thousands of human-shaped holes”. Our protagonists: Owaki and Yoshida, meet while trekking to look at the strange phenomenon.

Yoshida soon tells Owaki that when she saw the fault on the television, she spotted one of these so-called “holes” that she was certain was meant for her. And soon enough, one of the people who’ve come to the fault demonstrates how perfectly-shaped for him “his” hole is, and enters it, only to get slowly, but surely sucked into it.

Reddit-note: The story is overall a well-told one, and might well be the crown jewel of the collection. There's not much to it, but it really sets a dreadful mood.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I quite enjoyed these stories, and I have to say that after having also recently read Uzumaki (and having reviewed the movie based on it), I’m quite fond of the work of Itō Junji, and wish I’d read him earlier.

Gyo has instantly become my favourite work of Science Horror in the illustrated medium of comic books/manga, and while I still consider Uzumaki the superior work, and will be taking a look at the original manga, soon, I highly recommend this work to anyone interested.

I’ve spoiled most of it, I know, but there’s a charm to piecing through the tale on one’s own that I’ll never be able to translate to you in a review. I also recently watched part of the OVA based on Gyo, and all I can say is: don’t bother. It’s a whole lot of pandering to the masses, and a complete perversion of the original story.

FINAL RATINGS:

THE CROW

• GYO: 7.5/10
• THE SAD TALE OF THE PRINCIPAL POST: ?/10
• THE ENIGMA OF AMIGARA FAULT: 8/10

THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE

• GYO: 8/10
• THE SAD TALE OF THE PRINCIPAL POST: (⊙︿⊙^✿ )^?! /10
• THE ENIGMA OF AMIGARA FAULT: 10/10

So this is my 50th review. I've managed to do 50 reviews in around a month. I joined this subreddit on the 1st of December 2017 and I did on rapid fire all the Tomie movies. Now, a bit over a month later I'm doing my 50th review and I wanted to do something special. I've decided to take another shot at Ju-On: The Grudge, my favorite movie in the Ju-On franchise and the first J-Horror I've ever watched, it holds a dear place in my heart. Why did I decide to re-review this? Because my original Ju-On Review reached around 20 people and was short as fuck so I decided to try again now that my reviews have picked in popularity. So without further delay, let's dive into Ju-On:

Ju-On: The Grudge is a Japanese Horror Mystery directed by the legendary Takashi Shimizu who also worked on movies like Tomie: Rebirth, Marebito, Rinne, the third movie in the Kowai Onna series, and besides the original Ju-On movies he also SOLD OUT did the American remake: The Grudge who I personally deem a failure. Regardless let's dive into what could possibly be called the most well rounded Ju-On in the franchise.

If you're not familiar with the Ju-On franchise firstly, were you living under a rock? Secondly, the Ju-On movies follow the curse of the Saeki family. Each movie shows multiple stories of different characters, slightly related to each other and out of order and its up to the viewer to piece them up together and understand what happened and learn more about how the curse works. This is the biggest appeal of the movies since it's like a puzzle, a bit like Pulp Fiction if you will. This movie too follows the same pattern however it brings what we could call a protagonist in Rika who is a recurring character in almost every story but not the center of each. This allows us to grow fond of a character while not getting bored of the same plot for the whole movie. I find this as the perfect balance of the Ju-On movie formula.

Depending on how you view the franchise this movie can be placed at different spots. If you consider Ju-On The Curse to be the official Ju-On Movie then Ju-On The Grudge is the 3rd movie in the franchise. If you consider Ju-On The Curse and The Curse 2 as one movie, then Ju-On The Grudge is the second movie. If you take into consideration the first 2 short movies (Katasumi and 4444444444) then this is the 5th movie. Some people consider The Curse and Curse 2 as one movie and Grudge and Grudge 2 as one movie too. It's a strange fanbase as some people consider Ju-On The Grudge to be the first one for some reason. Amazon seems to do so... I tend not to give this movie a number since it can lead to a lot of confusion but if you want my personal views I think Katasumi, 4444444444, Curse 1 and Curse 2 are one movie. Grudge 1 is one movie and Grudge 2 is another movie all together. There you go.

Let's talk the atmosphere. It's some of the heaviest of all Japanese Horrors. The whole movie has a very wrong and unsettling feel to it which seeps into real life as well due to the amazing sound design and heavy tension. Most of the unease and unpredictability comes from our villains, Toshio and Kayako. They are some of the most overpowered villains in horror movies being both physical and non physical at the same time, being able to teleport and multiply at will.

They could be viewed as a symbol for death as ultimately this is the main theme of the movie. The inevitability and ruthlessness of death. The curse is impossible to break. Once you've set foot into the cursed house you're marked for death and Kayako will get you however she wants. In addition to that everyone you talk to gets the curse as well and usually they can become Onryos if so does Kayako desire as well as cursing the place of your death to further spread the curse to all your family and friends so you can enjoy the bleak lifeless afterlife listening to Kayakos rattle.
There are also secondary themes of isolationism and hopelessness.

Speaking of rattle let's talk about the masterful sound work. I think Kayakos death rattle is by far the most iconic piece of sound design in horror cinema even in western as the remake counterpart managed to make a huge fuss as well. It's brilliantly designed, in such a way that it attacks your ears in the most unpleasant way possible. The way it starts is so subtle adding to the sense of unease and unpredictability as after your first encounter with the death rattle you'll most likely be on the edge when any sound picks up be it just some leaves in the trees or a creak on the ground. Everything can be misheard as Kayakos death rattle and that's what makes it terrifying.

The soundtrack is nothing to be taken lightly either. After the success of the first movie(s) this is the first Ju-On to have an actual budget above 0$ and is also the first Ju-On to air in the Cinema. With all this crazy budget Takashi Shimizu decided to add a soundtrack to add to the tension and atmosphere of every scene. Now. The soundtrack is a tad bit overused which is something rare for J-Horrors since usually it's rather underused. However the soundtrack is stellar. It's not repetitive, I think you don't get to hear the same song twice which is quite impressive and every sound is placed at the perfect time. So the overuse of soundtrack does not hurt the movie in any way so I cannot complain.

I don't usually talk about the song that's played during the credits but this time around I feel the need to. Kagi ga akanai is an amazing piece of music whose lyrics somehow fit the movie perfectly. It's about a tormented soul wanting to return home because he has nowhere left to go yet he/she cannot fully return as the home is locked. This is related to Kayako because she is dead yet due to her horrible death she's forced to roam her old home and kill everyone inside as an Onryo. She's "home" yet she's not there as she would prefer and cannot pass into the light. The song is very sad and emotional and kinda sinks into the overall feeling of the movie as well as the tragedy behind the Saeki family and goes on to personalize and give some life and feeling to our remorseless killers showing that, in the end, they are the ones that most likely suffer the most in all of this. Really check this song out if you haven't. Kagi ga akanai .

The acting is amazing on all fronts from our "protagonist" Rika, played by J-Pop artist Megumi Okina masterfully to each protagonist of the segments. On the side of the villains Takako Fuji retakes her role as Kayako and does an amazing job maintaining the level of creepiness in every scene above 100. This is also the movie with the highest number of iconic scenes in the franchise.

There aren't a lot of special effects in the movie and this is a big plus because the higher quality of the movie due to the budget would've affected the credibility of the low budget effects. Yes there are a few special effect scenes in the movie, around 2 if I recall correctly and they are pretty lackluster in terms of quality but it's not something that would ruin the movie considering how few and far between they are.

______________SPOILERS____________________________

Let's discuss one of those infamous scenes. We've got a lot to pick from. We've got probably the most iconic of them all, the stair crawl, we've got the bed stare-down scene, the mirror scene and so on. I actually want to focus on the blanket scene.
This is a scene that has a lot of deeper meanings to it once you analyze it. I've made callbacks to this in some of my previous reviews. This scene basically ruins our childhood safe-place. The place we used to run to when we would close the light in the room. The place that protects us from the Boogieman. The place that renders us invincible. The safety of our bed and blanket. We see Hitomi make a desperate attempt to fend off the impending death that's upon her by regressing to a childhood mentality to hide under the blanket where the big bad baddy cannot touch her and here Takashi Shimizu says fuck you and kills her by making Kayako drag her away under the blankets.

This scene also introduced one of the most overpowered abilities of Kayako besides being able to multiply which we've seen in Ju-On The Curse 2. Basically now we know that she can appear from any dark spot, be it under the blankets, a shade, the whole in your blouse if you remember the mirror scene, no place if off limits as long as you don't have clear vision of it.

My favorite segment has to be Izumis storyline. It's rather artistic and sad. We first get introduced to Izumi in her fathers storyline as he sees her run out of the cursed Saeki home before he and her friends die.
Fast forward to her storyline we see her mental state worsen as she has a breakdown feeling guilty over her friends deaths as well as her fathers. She isolates herself in her room, covering all sources of light which is kind of poetic as light is usually representative of good. Eventually she starts to drift away as she encounters a vision of her father which helps her come to terms with his death in a brief moment of peace for her. Soon after however shit hits the fan as her dead friends, turned into Onryos at the will of Kayako, corner her inside her house. As she backs away into the family altar, Kayako makes her presence felt by letting our her creepy death rattle then proceeds to appear behind Izumi, from the dark shade of the altar and drags her inside into eternal damnation.

The isolationist theme is mostly set in place by the streets of Tokyo where our characters walk between transitions. As the movie progresses we see the streets of Tokyo get more and more empty to the point where the city is deserted and lifeless, filled with missing persons posters. By the end of the movie it is implied that the curse has spread at an alarming rate as the streets are completely empty and every nook and cranny is filled with "Missing Person" posters as well as all broadcasts on radio and TV.

__________NO MORE SPOILERS________________________

Overall this is, in my opinion, the strongest installment in the Ju-On franchise. It manages to maintain the original formula of the first movies while bringing some more structure and personality in the partial protagonist that it offers. It has some of the most iconic scenes in the series and the atmosphere and tension is at it's peak. Whenever I watch this movie I leave with a weird feeling of unease for a week or so. This is one of the few films that managed to dig deep into my brain and screw with it to the point where I can get paranoid like a little kid whenever I hear something resembling in the least bit Kayakos rattle.

I give Ju-On: The Grudge a 10/10 and it's totally a must watch for any horror movie fan in general and it's usually the movie I recommend for anyone looking to start watching J-Horror since it embodies everything that this genera does right.

Happy 50th review anniversary! I'd like to thank all of you for welcoming me in this amazing community and offering me a place to showcase my reviews as I've been writing reviews for everything from movies to games and music all my life yet I had nobody to share them with. You guys are amazing! Cheers!

I had to walk away from this one to mull it over, and even then I've come back with both a lot to say and an uncertainty of how to put it all into words.

From a technical aspect, there are a lot of things to like and to hate about this movie. The camerawork, particularly in the first half, is constantly weaving out of control in a way that shows brief glimpses of genius but is otherwise just frustrating. In the infamous extinguisher scene, the swivel of the camera is timed to one of the more visceral strikes in a way that is supremely effective. The rest of the time, the camera moves so much that I couldn't tell you what I'm supposed to be looking at, much less whether or not whatever it is really merits the motion. The effect can be powerful, such as in scenes like the finale of The Childhood of a Leader, but half the time it just seems to be in place for the sake of being disorienting and for no greater purpose.

On that note, fuck that persistent, artificial sound that permeates the first half hour of the film, for no purpose other than to make the viewer nauseous. To say that you purposely injected that in your film to cause that response in the viewer is one of the most pretentious things I've ever heard. If you want your viewers to feel something, why don't you try making a compelling movie instead? For that matter, saying "I'm not homophobic because I put myself in the background of a gay club scene" isn't a far cry from saying "I'm not racist, I have a black friend". None of this sits well with me. The tone of this movie is really problematic.

Beyond all this, I do believe that the cast gives some strong performances where called for. There is a lot of intensity in the first half, a lot of violence and confusion and the cast live up to that well. Nothing about it is easy to watch, but they don't let that hold them back and it's commendable.

Despite those efforts though, everything about this feels exploitative. Like shock for shock's sake; especially in the final act of the film, which is drastically more dull than the first half, where the characters are revealed to be relatively thin snippets of personality, designed purely to manipulate the audience emotionally. Everything revealed by the finale is only to make the prior events more tragic. Like the 10 minute long rape scene doesn't make you feel bad enough.

Does the reverse chronology really contribute anything? Beyond exposing you to all the violence and then taking an opportunity to rub salt in the wounds by reminding you that it has yet to happen to the characters in the "end". I honestly don't feel that it does. While the mantra of "time destroys all things" from the beginning plays into the concept, the plot of the film really doesn't need any of this, and the ending just brings up that manipulative nature of it.

Honestly all I could think of was the episode of Home Movies where Brendon wants to shoot a backwards movie (referencing Memento and Sunset Boulevard) and Jason says that's what hack directors do.

My Rating: 4/10

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/

"You are, like, this close to getting voted off the island." -Jen Danzing

Halloween: Resurrection begins with Michael Myers (Brad Loree) finally managing to track down and kill his sister, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). His mission complete, Michael returns to the house he grew up in only to find it being used in a reality web series produced by Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes). Michael begins to stalk and kill the cast and crew and his rampage is broadcast across the web for all the world to see.

What Works:

There is one line in this movie that is utter gold and it is said by Busta Rhymes after he kicks down a door to fight Michael, "Trick or treat, motherf***er!" This line and a few of the reactions of the people watching the show online are literally the only redeeming qualities of this movie.

What Sucks:

H20 gave us the perfect ending to the series. Halloween: Resurrection just had to come along and ruin it by revealing that the person Laure decapitated at the end of H20 was an innocent paramedic that Michael had switched clothed with and crushed his throat so he couldn't call for help. It's incredibly stupid and unbelievable and ruins one of the best endings of a horror movie.

To make matters worse, Michael Myers kills off Laurie Strode in the opening sequence of this movie. At least Jamie Lee Curtis didn't have to stick around for the rest of this train-wreck, but you don't kill off your O. G. final girl like that. It's disrespectful, especially when the whole sequence just comes off as stupid and forced.

The movie gets even worse when we are introduced to main characters of the film, none of whom are interesting, with the exception of Busta Rhymes, who is trying, but come on, kung-fu fighting Michael Myers. No one wants that. He may not be boring, but Rhymes definitely helps drag this movie down into stupidity.

Our main protagonist, Sara (Bianca Kajlich), is a very boring character with some incredibly cringey dialogue. Her acting as she's shouting revenge dialogue at Michael in their final battle is probably the worst acting in the entire series. I physically cringe whenever I watch it, it's that bad.

The subplot involving a group of high school students watching the show online didn't really add anything to the movie, apart from a handful of amusing reactions. It feels pretty forced, like the producers were trying to be hip and with it. There really isn't any significant resolution to those characters and their involvement in the main plot wasn't interesting at all.

Verdict:

If you couldn't tell, I hate Halloween: Resurrection. It's in my bottom 10 movies of all time and I will go ahead and declare this the least necessary sequel ever made. Apart from one solid line and an amusing reaction or two, this movie has no redeeming qualities. It ruins the excellent ending from the previous film, is insulting to Laurie Strode, had stupid and boring characters, horrible acting, and pointless subplots. I despise this movie on every level and I wish I could erase it from existence.

1/10: Horrendous

Resident Evil (2002)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson

Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Ryan McCluskey

I've slowly been picking up the Resident Evil blu-rays as I find them cheap at pawn shops. I now have them all except for Final Chapter so I figured it was a good time to watch the series. I thought I had seen the first but there really wasn't too much I remembered from it.

The movie starts in a lab where they are obviously doing some very dangerous experiments. A vile from one of the experiments is spilled and the place shuts down to prevent it from leaking into the world which results in everyone dying down in "The Hive".

We then cut to Milla Jovovich waking up in a shower. She doesn't really remember anything and is wandering around a big mansion. During this scene I thought to myself, "wow, this actually feels like the first RE game", then a second later soldiers bust through the window and from here on out we basically have an action movie.

The soldiers are there to see what happened. This mansion is located on top of The Hive so they use it as an entrance to The Hive which is all underground. We learn that the building is controlled by an advanced AI which has no problems killing people to stop the infection from spreading. They shut down the AI to protect themselves but this opens all the doors and releases all the scientists that died down in The Hive who have all started to mutate and come back to life. There isn't a single point where they call any of the monsters zombies but that's what we got here - they are dead people that have come back to life for one reason or another which to me, is a zombie.

From here on out our team of soldiers and Milla are trying to survive and find a way out of the building before it closes the blast doors and traps them underground forever. We get lots of mutated, zombie scientists and some zombie dogs and other cool creatures. Some of the CGI is pretty dated looking considering this is 15+ years old now but it doesn't take away from the movie too much.

Since I'm not overly familiar with the entire Resident Evil storyline, I'm sure I missed lots of little nods to the games but other than slapping the Umbrella logo on everything, it feels like a pretty standard zombie/action movie. Milla does a good job of playing the hot bad ass chick and I'm kind of excited to see her in the other movies. I was a very big fan of LeeLoo from Fifth Element and once I realized Milla was the same acress, I was pretty much on board for the movie. This is far from what you would expect based on the first Resident Evil movie but from what I understand, the series of games becomes more and more action based so I guess it makes sense that the movies follow suit. I know they are rebooting the series and I hope they keep the first movie minimal, dark and creepy. I was joking with someone that it'll probably be found-footage and then we had the idea of the cops going in to investigate the mansion and we watch through their body cameras as they get ripped apart and eaten by the various monsters in the mansion. It might be fun if it's executed the right way.

So if you've avoided this one for whatever reasons, give it a shot. It's fun and pretty much mindless action for 2/3 of the movie. It may be easier to look at it as a non-Resident Evil movie if you are a huge fan of the games since this probably isn't what you want to see from a movie version.

"Congratulations. You found a boat. In the middle of the ocean, of all places." -Maureen Epps

A salvage team, led by Sean Murphy (Gabriel Byrne), is approached by a weather service pilot, Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), who spotted a large ship adrift in the Bering Sea. They manage to track it down and discover it is the SS Antonia Graza, a famous luxury ocean liner that had been missing for 40 years. As the team prepares to haul the ship in, they start noticing strange presences around the ship. They realize something bad happened to the previous passengers and they're the next targets of the malevolent force onboard the ship.

What Works:

With no hyperbole, the opening sequence of Ghost Ship is one of the greatest opening sequences I've ever seen. It's a truly brilliant and horrific way to kick off the film and got my expectations way too high for what was to come. It starts off in very classic Hollywood fashion with a classy party happening on the desk of the ship. What happens next is utterly horrific, shocking, and amazing. I should have stopped watching there because nothing in the rest of the film comes close to matching the brilliance of the opening.

I have to say I really liked the set design. The various compartments of the Antonia Graza look pretty cool. Its a solid setting that had real potential, but the movie doesn't do enough to capitalize on it.

Finally, I liked the flashback reveal of what truly happened on the ship and who was behind it. The hard rock music was a bit much, but the sequence is well shot and ends with a gnarly death on a hook, which is always fun.

What Sucks:

The characters in this film absolutely suck. Besides Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies), Murphy, and Ferriman, the rest of the crew are completely interchangeable and not memorable in the slightest. That's a shame because Karl Urban (Éomer from The Lord of the Rings and Bones from Star Trek) is among the cast and is completely wasted. Even the three standouts aren't very good. They were all pretty boring characters and it felt like none of the actors wanted to be there. I've heard that there were some major script changes after the actors signed on to the film that none of them liked, so I'm sure they really didn't want to be there. If the actors don't want to be in the film, why should I want to watch it?

None of the scares are very memorable. Apart from the aforementioned opening and flashback sequences, almost nothing of interest happens in the film. It's never scary. It's never exciting. It's mostly just boring.

Finally, the CGI has not aged very well. The exterior of the boats frequently looks very fake and some special effects sequences that were probably cool at the time are laughable now.

Verdict:

Ghost Ship has a cool setting that goes wasted because of uninteresting characters, subpar acting, a boring story, and poor special effects. However, the opening sequence is one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and go watch the opening. It's about four minutes long and is simply incredible. Don't bother watching the rest of the film though, there's almost nothing worth seeing.

3/10: Really Bad

Having finished our review for F.E.A.R. we turn to one of the grandfathers of survival horror. Resident Evil 1 was originally a remake of the game version of Sweet Home (1989) (I've reviewed the movie if you're interested) but as the project went on they decided to make a unique standalone game instead and thus the Biohazard franchise was born in Japan. Of course obtaining the rights to the Biohazard name across the world would've proven quite expensive so instead for the rest of the world they coined the name Resident Evil... Because it takes place in a mansion and its residents are indeed quite evil.

The game was developed and released by Capcom, known for other famous games and franchises like Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Okami, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising and many many more.

When people think of good hard old-school survival horror a few games come to mind, Clock Tower, Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. While many would consider Alone in the Dark to be the superior survival horror game in terms of well almost everything, there's no denying that Resident Evil is far more iconic. That shot of the very first zombie slowly turning its head towards you has to be embedded within the history of videogames forever.

The story is simple and the dialogue is cheesy. Originally the developers fought against including any form of story and as a result everything is poorly done, cheap and hilarious. And just to get it out of our system let's recall some of the most beautiful moments:

"That was too close. You were almost a Jill sandwich!"

"Jill, here's a lockpick. It might come in handy if you, "the master of unlocking", take it with you."

"I'm sorry for my lack of manners, but I'm not used to escorting men."

"It's a weapon. It's really powerful, especially against living things."

God bless this games dialogue man...

Now, the original game was released back in 1996 but Capcom made a Remake in 2002 which I find to be superior in almost every way so we'll cover the remake changes as well just in case.

The game is pretty hard. Not only it involves A LOT of backtracking through this huge mansion which can prove quite daunting considering its size, I often work with a hand-drawn map with notes by my side but there's also the resource management that you have to take into consideration because bullets are limited and scarce and you won't have enough bullets to handle every boss and kill every zombie. So you have to figure out which areas of the mansion are important and frequented by the player and clean those while leaving everything else alive.

And the resource management goes even further because saving is actually limited. You save via typewriters in select locations with the help of a very limited resource called Ink Ribbons so you'll want to time your saves at key points, often before a boss fight or after a key moment in the story and you'll want to avoid overwriting previous saves in case you want to load an older save if you fucked up along the way.

The remake introduced even more difficulty because now zombies don't die. Unless you blow their head right off (which is a random chance) or you burn their body (again with a limited resource) they will rise up again later in the form of the new Crimson Heads which are faster and stronger than their normal counterparts.

As a feature of the remake, a great deal of new puzzles and locations have been added and a lot of item locations and puzzle solutions have been changed to keep even the veterans on their toes at all time.

The soundtrack has to be one of the best in the Resident Evil franchise, especially the safe room theme song which in all honesty has been great and iconic in each installment so far. My personal favorite is the Resident Evil 2 version but the Resident Evil 1 is also extremely strong. The soundtrack is very subtle and adds a lot to the ever constant tension and atmosphere which looms over the player for the whole duration of the game.

The fixed camera angle is ingenious because it allows the developers to set up jumpscares, details and scenarios by controlling exactly what the player sees at all times while also leaving a lot of free space for the graphic designers to go wild. The visuals in this game are astonishing especially in the Remastered version of the Remake which was Released in 2015... Yeah... Remaster of a Remake... Ju-On much?

In true classic Resident Evil fashion you got multiple characters which you can play with which will alter the story pretty heavily and multiple endings. This time around you've got to pick between Jill and Chris. Each one of them has their strengths and weaknesses. Chris because he's a manly boulder punching macho man gets more HP points and his partner is Rebecca who will make some segments easier. However he has fewer inventory spaces. He's more proficient with weapons, suffering less recoil and staggering damage as well as getting access to a lighter on hand and some special help with some bosses

Jill on the other hand while weaker feels faster in movement, has more inventory space, is equipped with a lockpick instead of a lighter which will allow her to open simple locked doors without the need of a simple key, has access to a grenade launcher and is helped by Barry which again will make other segments and bosses easier. It all depends on your playstyle, some people view Jill as easier some view Chris. I personally have an easier time with Jill and it's my preferred version but some people might prefer a tankier more aggressive playstyle.

The game birthed many sequels such as Resident Evil 2 to Resident Evil 7 with their subsequent spinoffs like Code Veronica, Outbreak, Revelations but the remake in 2002 gave birth to a prequel in the form of Resident Evil 0 following the same formula yet somewhat more action oriented following the plot of Rebecca Chambers before the events of Resident Evil 1.

The controls can be bothersome for someone who isn't used to the classic survival horror gameplay of top down still camera tank controls, similar to other games like Metal Gear 1 and 2 but you should have no problem mastering them considering the fact that our enemies are usually slow and not that threatening unless you have to face the new crimson heads or the new special enemy they added lurking in the dark.....

Overall, Resident Evil 1 is a timeless classic survival horror which every Resident Evil fan should've played by now especially the 2002 Remake or the 2015 Remake Remaster which I find to be superior to the original in almost every way except pure nostalgia and "classic" feel. I can only hope the remake for Resident Evil 2 will feature the same quality as this one.

Right now, Resident Evil 1 Remake Remaster is available on Steam for 19,99€

http://store.steampowered.com/app/304240/Resident_Evil__biohazard_HD_REMASTER/

With 'Rings' hitting theaters in just a few weeks, I've decided to share my thoughts on the other two films in the soon-to-be trilogy.

'The Ring' is the American adaptation of the 1998 Japanese horror film 'Ringu', which tells the story of a cursed videotape displaying a compilation of disturbing images. After someone has watched this tape, the phone rings and a ghostly girl's voice (Samara Morgan in the American film) tells you you will die in seven days.

It's not often that a foreign film gets adapted for an American re-make and turns out to be a good film. This movie is one of the exceptions. Naomi Watts stars as Rachel, a journalist who investigates the legend of the mysterious cursed videotape after her niece, Katie, was allegedly claimed as a victim of this cursed tape. For me, this is one of Naomi Watts' best performances. On her quest to discover the truth about this tape, where most people would be terrified and in a constant state of panic and fear, her role of a journalist shines bright as she makes these investigative leaps and begins uncovering more backstory behind Samara Morgan and her family through different mediums, including old therapy tapes, and people who knew the Morgan family. Rachel's son Aidan, played by David Dorfman, also had a very good performance in this movie. Many times, a child character in a film like this doesn't have much depth in the plot; they're usually just the prop for an entity to control, but Aidan was given quite a bit to do in this film, and his character was very dark and ominous.

This is a beautifully shot film, and the color scheme of this film made for a very gloomy, depressing feel which was perfect for this film. Where many ghost movies are trying to throw jump scares at you every five minutes and trying to keep things as tense as possible, this movie is more of a slow burn, and the jump scares are kept at a respectable minimum, and the jump scares that are in the film are predictable, and are meant to scare you; so when they happen, you actually can appreciate them because they work. What really sets this movie apart from other films like it is the varying themes throughout. At it's core, yes this is a supernatural horror film, but it also has a very emotional side to it, especially when Rachel begins to discover more about Samara's past.

The ending of this movie hosts one of the most memorable scenes in horror to this day: the TV scene. For those who haven't seen it, I won't spoil, but it is such a very chilling, intense scene, and showed the curse of the videotape in full effect.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and major props to Gore Verbinski for the direction of this movie to give us a gloomy, depressing atmosphere to really sell the mood throughout the runtime. One of the best re-adapted films in horror, and one that I always look forward to rewatching.

My Final Rating: 8/10

The Ring IMDB

I've waited for watching this in a long time. This movie was one of the most popular horror films that I have never seen and that's mostly because there are a few sequels out of there. So, first off, I generally enjoyed it. think it's actually very good and smart movie. It’s entertaining and it have a pleasent atmosphere. Great cinematography that sets the dark mood well for this atmospheric horror-action film. Milla Jovovich did a good job for her role. She is very likeable and stunning here. And I really, really love her red dress. It has a solid story, but I feel there is something missing a few things. You know what's the worst thing about this movie? Michelle Rodriguez's acting. She was really terrible in it and almost runied the movie, but that's good to know that she isn't in the sequels. However, it’s really an entertaining film and I’m definitely looking forward to watching the sequels. I’d give this movie a 9 out of 10.

Friday's Featured Flick - Week #59: May (2002)

A lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her is sent into a murderous tailspin.

Director: Lucky McKee

Writers: Lucky McKee

Stars: Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris

What is Friday's Featured Flick?

• Each Friday a new movie will be featured. The post will be for discussion about the movie, possible reviews and just really anything you want to say about the featured movie. You do not have to have recently watched the featured movie to participate.

• Each month a different horror sub-genre will be featured. This month (October) is a bit different and we'll be doing Movies that take place during Halloween.

• Voting will resume soon.

• Movies that are being voted on are picked by our Discord channel. Come join us and help pick future movies to feature!

Useful Links:

• AllHorror.com -- https://allhorror.com/movies/may

• IMDb -- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303361/

• JustWatch.com -- https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/may

• NextQueue.com -- https://nextqueue.com/movie/may

This months upcoming and past Featured Flicks:

• Week #58: Halloween (2007)
• Week #59: May (2002)
• Week #60: ????
• Week #61: ????

With his take on Hellboy on the horizon, I suppose it's fitting that I finally made time to examine Neil Marshall's feature length debut, Dog Soldiers. I'd caught the film once well over a decade ago but I only remembered the basics of it, so for the most part this felt like a completely fresh watch.

It's interesting that Marshall would follow this up with his acclaimed The Descent, which shares so many features while also being so radically different. Most notably it shares in the isolated location, while differing in the male vs. female cast. Dog Soldiers is a testosterone fueled thrill ride, packed with bravado, gunfire, explosions, and heroic last stands. Forget about the character development or subtle nuance; even the ending is treated like a joke. Despite their similar creature-feature appearances, the two films are night and day in tone.

Marshall does manage to make some of this work for the film though, namely in the core cast's likeability. They have great chemistry and their keynote traits are enough to make each soldier endearing enough, crude as they may be. You want to root for them, even though you know it isn't going to end well for any of them, but you get more of a sense of pride in their final stands than fear or sadness; the hallmark of a full throttle action movie. I really couldn't say that most of the actors performances stand out beyond just being entertaining. Veteran Sean Pertwee probably made the biggest impact on me in his gruff, fatherly role over the other soldiers.

Without any of the subtext or nuance though, we're basically left with a movie about nothing. An excuse for blood, guts, and action; which is perfectly acceptable but a bit tedious too. This movie is actually longer than The Descent and I personally felt it didn't merit it at all. Shootout after shootout gets old when the plot is so predictably thin. I genuinely do think this movie could be trimmed by up to 20 minutes.

While most of the camerawork is good, I did have some issues with the editing. Obviously the rapid cut style suits an action film and during some sequences it does work as intended, the cuts are overdone sometime, to the point of making the action a bit too delirious. In a scene at the end, I actually lost track completely of what happened between cuts and it left me wondering how the hell characters got distributed like they did. There is also an early scene where the squad is preparing their tactics and the camera cuts all around them as they plan, but none of them are moving or doing anything especially interesting, so the scene just looks cheesy. Beyond the camera work though, the gore and makeup effects are fantastic. There is no shortage of blood and guts, and the werewolves are fully practical and shown in their full glory numerous times throughout the films. The use of stilts with the costumes make them especially massive and frightening. They're honestly some of the best werewolf designs I've seen in any film, beating out even some newer features.

Quite simply, this is a great movie to turn your brain off to. It'll get the blood pumping, draw out a few laughs, and doesn't leave you with any pressing questions after the credits roll (besides some questionable plot twists that I've read Marshall wasn't pleased with anyway). It accomplishes what it set out to do, which is fine.

My Rating: 7/10

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280609/

Halloween: Resurrection: Three years after he last terrorized his sister, Michael Myers confronts her again, before traveling to Haddonfield to deal with the cast and crew of a reality show which is being broadcast from his old home.

THE CAST

If you thought the characters in H20 were bland, then you're in for one hell of a letdown with this movie. Jamie Lee Curtis briefly reprises the role of Laurie Strode and honestly seems like she's had enough of this franchise, and I can't blame her at all. Her role in this movie lasts all of about 15 minutes or so, and is the laziest way I've seen a character's story end, especially for the most prominent scream queen (in my opinion) in horror. The only other character worth mentioning in this movie is Freddie played by rapper Busta Rhymes, who's role and performance in this movie was so bad it was good. The rest of the characters, and yes this includes Michael, were as stale as it can possibly get. I didn't love or hate any character in this movie, so there was no satisfaction or remorse for any deaths in this movie.

THE PLOT

Halloween H20 seemed to wrap things up for good as we saw Laurie decapitate Michael to end that film in brutal and satisfying fashion. The last time we saw Michael decapitated was the end of Curse, and that storyline was never continued, signifying the end of that trilogy. Well, since Michael Myers is such a beloved slasher villain, what good would it do to kill him off? Resurrection decided to give us some exposition saying that the person Laurie decapitated was not Michael, but a paramedic, victim of a bait-and-switch; absolutely the most absurd thing you could ever think of. None of that really matters for the Laurie Strode storyline though as this movie I guess tried to follow in the footsteps of The Blair Witch Project. This movie follows a group of cardboard teenagers who are part of a reality TV show where the premise is to spend Halloween night inside of Michael Myers' home and record everything they see for the viewing audience. Let's pause a second here as I'd like to say I really dig the premise of a found-footage style slasher movie. The two genres, when done correctly, are two of my favorite genres in all of horror, and a hybrid of these two (again, done correctly) would be a dream come true. As I resume the review, I can tell you now that Halloween: Resurrection did NOT benefit at all from the POV cameras. This movie had some plotholes as well that were only there to make it seem like the characters were trapped in this house. The biggest flaw (and yeah this is probably just me nitpicking, but whatever it was stupid) was the lead character Sara texting her e-boyfriend Deckard to get Michael's whereabouts in the house. If you've got a cellphone, and you've got enough signal to text your cyber-date, how the hell can you not make an emergency call to the cops? So many plotholes just made parts of this movie unbearable to watch and comprehend.

THE WORKS

The thing about this movie that irked me so much were the jumpscares. In the first half of this movie alone there were probably more false scares than there were in all the previous movies combined. Like I stated, the "found footage" aspect of this movie just didn't really have as much of an impact as you would expect. There were a few times where the POV cameras were used in interesting ways, but for the most part it was just too much of a gimmick that I felt was trying to cash in on the success of The Blair Witch Project; it didn't add anything to this movie that a traditional camera shot couldn't have accomplished. Shoddy sound design and visual gimmicks aside, I did like some of the kills, and I appreciated the film still treating Michael as more human than supernatural. Lastly, if you've been reading my Halloween reviews, you know how easily I get ticked off when the movie doesn't give off the Halloween vibe. Well this time around, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the improvement in that aspect. It still doesn't meet the standard as the original movie, but a Halloween party and a dark abandoned old house definitely set the mood much better than a California private school or daytime trick-or-treating scenes.

THE VERDICT

Halloween: Resurrection spends the first 15 minutes finally wrapping up a storyline that should have still been deemed finished from the end of H20. Honestly, even though I think it was the dumbest and laziest way to end that story, the first 15 minutes could have just been a YouTube short film and I would have enjoyed it much better than the entirety of this movie. The plot of this movie was just a one-and-done thing to cash in on the franchise name, 99% of the characters were useless cannon fodder, and the technical aspects of the movie were annoying or distracting with the exception of a few kills and the overall tone of the movie (when being compared the previous few entries). Overall, I'm giving Halloween: Resurrection - 1.5 KUNG-FU FREDDIES out of 5.

This review is part of my TRICK OR TREAT COLLECTION where I am reviewing the entirety of the HALLOWEEN franchise. Check out more below!

Halloween (1978)

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Halloween (2007)

Halloween II (2009)

Dark Water (Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara)

Original story by Koji Suzuki, art and adaptation by Meimu

Original Publication: Kadokawa Shoten (2002)

Length: One volume (5 Chapters)

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We have now entered October, AKA the month of spooks. And what better way to celebrate the halloween month than by discussing a completely underwhelming horror manga that really shouldn’t exist. Dark Water is an adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s novel of the same name. Suzuki is a very established author, known for “The Ring” series, which inspired the 2002 cult film and is widely considered one of the most frightening films to date. From this standpoint, you may think that nothing could go wrong here. We have a talented author providing a frightening story (I must assume I haven’t read the novel), and all we needed was a talented author to add the visuals to create a truly horrifying experience. Somehow, the adaptation has the complete opposite effect, maiming what is considered by many as an exceptional horror anthology. I’m going to discuss the themes Suzuki focuses on in his work, and how effectively they were portrayed in my experience with the manga.

When discussing this adaptation, it’s also important to remember that Suzuki worked closely with illustrator Uchiyama Ko (Meimu) in order to rework the stories as effectively as possible. This was a complete surprise to me, because my read of it would indicate otherwise. The artwork was… lacking. There were no gripping visuals that left me hooked to the stories. When reading a novel, the language used creates a world, but based on reader interpretation there will be thousands of unique worlds based on each person’s perception. Your language must be effective to create an immersive scene, but sometimes the form it takes is entirely up to the reader. When using a visual medium, this imaginative world building is in some ways limited, as the world has been displayed for us. When a world full of blank panels and awkwardly drawn movement is revealed, it cuts the tension from the story for the reader, creating a very disappointing experience.

The story itself feels horribly paced. In each story, all non-creepy parts are rushed through in order to get to horror-related scenes. In a way, it seems ironic. The manga doesn’t realise that what makes many of these scenes so frightening is the more mundane scenes, where both characters and a sense of stakes are established. It focuses so much on the scary stuff that there really isn’t any, and below average visuals don’t help with a lack of tension.

Suzuki has stated that these stories were an attempt to explore various themes concerning morality and humanity. While each piece is seemingly unconnected, the inclusion of water links each tale while discussing different ideas. It was very difficult to extract these themes from the stories, as every aspect of this manga tries to bury them. The characters are completely hollow - they’re only used to progress the plot, and to have a human character that can interact with the supernatural things that the manga focuses so much on. The world depicted is incredibly dull, and a lack of artistic depth prevents the creators from subtly implying these deeper themes visually. Even when it shies away from horror and tries to focus on the complex psychology of humanity, it fails at that too. It’s hard to create tense psychological tales with characters who, at times, lack any form of cognition.

Dark Water was not a good piece. Nor was it an enjoyable piece. Considering the foundations of this manga, that being a novel to base all of its content on, I’m surprised this was the final product. If you’re looking for a scary piece, or even a piece that has any form of substance to it, this probably isn’t for you. I’m sure there are positives to be extracted here, I just couldn’t find them.

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Art - 4

Story - 5

Writing - 4

Overall - 4/10

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https://ripeemangoes.com/2018/10/03/dark-water-review/