Just Watched Movie (2011)

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Psychosis-After moving to a new house in the country, a writer begins to believe the strange visions and hallucinations around the house are all in her head and meant to drive her crazy, but she discovers a history of death and mayhem in the area that may prove to be the actual culprit. An admittedly decent film in concept, this one here just doesn't really do enough to really differentiate itself from the hordes of similarly-themed films and in the end comes across merely as decent. The fact that this one tends to just meander on about different ideas and topics that aren't in the slightest bit scary, from the constant scenes of the young boy playing soccer to the freak-outs over the gardener and the endless scenes of her breaking down and crying needing to be comforted, it just grows old and never once creates an atmosphere or aura of creepiness, which is somewhat of a let-down considering the fact that nothing much happens. Without many kills for gore-gags and a pretty lagging pace, not a whole lot to like here unless this sort of thing fits you.

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2010: Moby Dick-After being abducted and taken aboard a futuristic submarine, a scientist and her assistant find themselves involved in the captain's mad quest of vengeance against the legendary 500-foot long whale responsible for his disfigurement and a trail of carnage along the water. A perfectly fine and decent creature feature, based mainly upon the fact that it really features a lot more original material than would be expected since it's based on the familiar story quite well. Being a modern-day adaptation allows for some more fun in some key areas, as there's some really entertaining and exciting underwater chases involving submarines, torpedos, traps, and such, which is something that's a lot of fun and really amps the film up considerably. The final fight in the island cove also works pretty well, but the film does suffer from the same old thing regarding the Sci-Fi Channel originals, the lame CGI that rarely matches the action presented as well as the fact that this one has a lot of extraneous subplots to stretch the running time out which are pretty silly, but the CGI is the main thing holding this down and keeping it fairly mediocre.

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The Replacement Killers-After failing to complaint a hit for a Chinese gangster, a hitman teams up with a document forger to protect the target against his now-infuriated former boss. Not a whole lot to really report on this one, just realized that I never had an uncut copy of it in the collection (I never had it to begin with, as upon realizing it I had rented it but never owned it despite thinking for all these years that I did) so now can officially state I do own it. Pretty fun time with lots of the John Woo-style HK action film which I love with lots of gun-play and stuntwork, so it's a pretty fun time. Seems a little too short but not that much of a complaint.

Hero-An elite assassin hired to track down rivals to a corrupt emperor in ancient China finds the last of his intended targets are revolutionaries looking for the same solution in life. Strangely, one that fixes the same problem, in that I can finally add an uncut copy to the collection after so long. Far too much time spent trying to make it seem like an epic instead of just going for the jugular with the action, but once it starts hard not to get too bored at how much fun those are. Good stuff there, just needed more.

The Touch-A group of acrobats team up with one's former criminal boyfriend to stop his ex-boss from stealing a valuable artifact that will spell doom for mankind. A bit too-much Indiana Jones and not enough chop-socky kung-fu for my liking, but this was still a pretty decent entry that definitely had enough to keep me interested. The stunt work and fighting is a little pedestrian considering the talent involved, and the decision to include Dane Cook as one of the henchmen makes no sense as his scenes are a total clash with the rest of the film as he pretends to be funny, but the finale does redeem it somewhat with some really nice stunts and a lot more fighting compared to the rest of the film, despite the Indiana Jones style of action. Overall, pretty decent but still flawed.

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- Copie Conforme. An english writer meets a french fan in Tuscany and the two decide to hang out for a couple hours while pretending to be married. Or perhaps they *are* married and pretend to meet for the first time.

Sort of an anti-romance movie, in that it skips the usual courtship between two characters and moves straight on the the familiarity and weariness that usually comes from years of marriage.

Odd, but not at all bad.

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Stephen King's Bag of Bones-Traveling to a lake-front mansion to get over his wife's death, a distraught writer finds that her ghost is using him to help a local woman battle an evil land-owner who's evil secret goes back to the town's infamous haunting involving numerous disappearances to cover up the original tragedy. Taking the new miniseries as a whole, this one definitely feels just like every other Stephen King story: an isolated Maine town, elders having a deadly secret who the locals are afraid of, lots of melodrama instead of horror with only brief forays into the style to trick us into thinking that's what it really is, and far too many scenes outside the style that just eats up so much time that this could very easily be paired down by well over an hour without taking away anything of any importance in the storyline. Scares are pedestrian and seem to consist of the same thing, a wrinkly ghost-like woman appearing out of nowhere, which gets old very quickly and really hampers this one overall. It's still typical King so it's just mediocre and not unwatchable.

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Kill Katie Malone-After thinking they've purchased a gag-gift on an internet auction, a group of friends find their new toy actually contains a malicious ghost who stops at nothing to interfere with the outside forces amongst the group, forcing them to find a way of dealing with the angry spirit. A fairly different take on the killer-ghost genre, with the ability thrown in that ghosts can be contained into an object and then used as what amounts to genies from the legend, a unique concept that does some good work here. The fact that this tends to go for long periods of time trying to set up points where the interaction become necessary is a bit of contention, since the film's not really that interesting in those periods and not a lot goes on worth getting excited about, but the decent amount of gore in the kills and a pretty tense number of confrontations throughout the storyline definitely save it and make it pretty entertaining.

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Unleashed-After escaping from a brutal owner, a man finds a life of peace and solitude interrupted when the former boss returns to claim his possession and must fight for his escape from his previous life. A rather different kind of jet Li film, in that it's got far more drama than action and very, very rarely lets him do his thing, creating an odd contrast that makes it seem as if he's not supposed to be the star due to being so drastically different in tone than the others he's performed in. The fighting style is still Jet through and through, which allows for some rather fun confrontations when he gets to let loose, as the fights look nice and definitely get some good action going during those times, but the rather over-done drama feel during the middle segments aren't the kind of thing required for a martial arts movie and it really slows the film down, making this somewhat of a challenge to get through.

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Believers-After responding to an emergency call, a group of paramedics find themselves abducted by a strange doomsday cult that has intentions of including them in their plans, forcing them to fight their way out before the group carries on with their plans. An utterly terrible and completely boring thriller masquerading as a horror film with the one single marking point for it's inclusion in the genre is a single scene where a formerly dead victim is reanimated through unknown means and is up walking around soon afterward with a strange look in her eye. Beyond that, there's hardly anything here that really gives this one a horror feel or tone, and the fact that the majority of the film time is spent with them doing nothing but sitting around or focusing on the group telling each other to get ready but not doing anything else. This one leaves far too much unexplained or really confusing as to it's inclusion, leaving the whole thing an unmitigated mess that focuses on completely unthreatening cult that serves no other purpose but to continually keep the film going without explaining anything. Tiresome, cliched and rather uninteresting make this a really useless entry all around.

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Dread-While attempting to film a documentary on people's most basic fears, a film student and his friends find that the original proponent of the experiment is going far beyond the realms of the project and keep him from dragging them into his brutal world. Fairly dull and not really much of a horror film, this one comes off like a lame thriller with more nudity which is about the only thing that really works here. The fact that the film-students, given an innocuous and completely cliched love-triangle that really had no point in here other than to stretch out the running time, continuously return to the madman's world despite countless points where it's obvious he's deranged make no sense, and with the blood and gore coming in at the end, makes the beginning a chore to sit through. While there's one decent gore scene that does redeem it as well as the nudity, this one just didn't really do much else to keep it interesting.

And Soon the Darkness-After getting separated while on a biking trip through Argentina, a woman finds her friend has been abducted by a gang of white-slave traders and must team up with a shady American living there to help rescue her and stop the group's activities. Not much to say here either, just a badly-done thriller that really has nothing of value beyond shots of the supposedly-hot girls in the lead doing a bit of bikini'd sun-lounging, which is about all the film has going for it. There's no deaths which mean a near-total absence of gore, the fact that it's more about her investigating the mysterious organization doesn't leave any room for stalking, taking them out one-by-one or anything of that sort, and the rather tame way it goes about dealing with the whole situation doesn't make for anything else to really come off as something to be afraid of or even gain some knowledge about. All in all, this was a fairly worthless effort.

Memorial Day-A former Marine team member held hostage and brainwashed by an evil terrorist organization fights to prevent them from using him in their scheme to plunge the world into total war with their laser satellites. A rather low-budget actioner that, shockingly, isn't a Seagal movie but features another low-budget Action star in the role that really isn't well-suited for the type of film since he's not too prominent in the first half as it sets up it's storyline about the terrorist group and such, which isn't in the slightest bit interesting and really keeps the film slowed down considerably enough that there's almost no action scenes in the first hour of the film. While there's some decent stuff afterward that does move the film about some, hardly any of it is really exciting enough to get worked up over as it's all stuff done hundreds of times over before and never really feels like it should've been made with the star, but oddly it feels like it could've been a Seagal movie. Hard to know if it would've been better, but it's not that great as it is now.

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Red Riding Hood-While a small village is in the grip of a ravenous killing spree by a werewolf, a young girl tries to understand who's responsible when she comes to believe it may be some she has a deep connection with. Far too much influence from the Twilight crowd due to the increasingly convoluted and meaningless love triangle going on, not to mention a lot of fantasy elements brought into the forefront rather than a more cohesive horror element really bring this one down somewhat, but the fact that there's some good action scenes throughout, a good bit of mystery as to the creature's identity and a really beautiful look to the film gives this one some good points along the way.

The Wasp Woman-After realizing that her company is in danger, a cosmetics head decides to test an experimental age-reversing formula based on wasp venom but instead finds herself turning into a wasp-mutation if she doesn't receive an antidote in time. Pretty decent classic horror, not too much here that really works due to the abbreviated running time although the attack scenes after the transformations do have some rather nice aspects to them. The fast pace keeps it from being too boring and there's some nice amounts of cheese thrown it to make it somewhat interesting, but again the really short running time, lack of real on-screen scares or action and an obvious lack of budget somewhat hurt this one and make it somewhat decent overall.

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Battle in Outer Space-A race of space invaders attack the earth and render mankind helpless with their advanced weaponry, forcing a last-ditch effort to repel the aliens before they take over the world. Utterly essential classic sci-fi of the highest order, this one is a ton of fun and just a real blast to watch. With a furious pace that provides enough answers in it's brief running time to make sense of what's going on as well as the weaponry involved, giving everyone an identity as well as a motive as well as keeping it simple enough not to get bogged down in the unnecessary, this has the bright idea to make the final two-thirds rip-roaring action setpieces as we get a laser-filled battle on the moon for a first initiative as well as a space-set dog-fight years before that was attempted elsewhere. The real highlight, though, comes in the last moments when the ships launch the main attack on the city, leaving the place with a series of spectacular explosions that look impressive today, providing the thrills as well as the outstanding model work that's highlighted throughout the rest of the movie. While it occasionally slips into cliched territory or presents a bit of backwards logic against itself, this is still prime 50s science fiction cheese.

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From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money-After agreeing to participate in a robbery at a Mexican bank, a team finds that several members of their crew are actually vampires and try to survive the encounter before they're turned into the creatures as well as keep the police outside at bay. A lot better than it should've been, and which starts off on a good note with the lack of Tarantino in any shape or form in the story, as well as a fantastic opening attack that really sets the tone for the rest of the film quite nicely. Though the build-up with the recruitment's takes far too long than it should, several of the attack scenes before the bank attack are a little too drawn out and the plot itself has a couple gaping holes (one of which is pointed out in the film itself by the characters) this is still a pretty involving film that really isn't that bad or boring, and the finale is a huge, fantastic action scene that really works very well, with a gunfight, shootouts, hand-to-hand brawling and fighting amongst the action before turning to dealing with the vampires in more traditional manners, which allows for some nice gore to be present amongst it all. All in all, mildly flawed but definitely enjoyable.

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From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter-After getting pulled into a convoy along the Mexican Revolution, a group of travelers find their cantina hideout populated by vampires that are interested in one of the party's members, forcing them to fight back before they succumb to the creatures. Not nearly as much fun as it's predecessor, due mainly to the fact that this one has far too much time spent with it's Old-West rip-offs feeling like a Spaghetti Western imitation in the first half to the complete and total elimination of any horror elements. Even upon arriving at the cantina, which is just under an hour into the movie itself, it's still a bit before they reveal themselves as vampires despite us knowing something's going on. The film is a lot better when that happens due to a lot of wild action, tons of bloodletting and just a lot of fun, featuring some cool make-up effects that give off a great vibe about the situation and plenty of storyline motivation beyond just a never-ending stream of attacks. It manages to save the film somewhat, but it's still not enough to overcome the boredom in the beginning.

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Let Me In-While being constantly bullied in his small hometown, a young teen learns to fight back after befriending a strange girl who lives in the town who might be responsible for a series of brutal murders due to her unique nature. Having been completely underwhelmed by the original, it's safe to say this one is better only through completely marginal means, as this one didn't really do much for me either. So much of the time is spent with the bullying concept that it runs into overkill, as the group is portrayed to purposefully go after and torment him merely to make their comeuppance all the more satisfying, never once staying realistic and descending into cliche so easily there's no connection to the events due to their overwrought nature. Mix this together with an incredibly drawn-out and overlong romance angle that just feels forced and this one has some big problems. There is some plusses in the fact that there's some pretty decent gore scenes here and there for her attacks on the village residents and there's a pretty decent car crash sequence thrown in as well, but it still can't overcome it's flaws.

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Ganja and Hess-After being stabbed with a ceremonial dagger but finding himself unable to die, a man tries to control his insatiable blood-lust while keeping himself safe from his new wife who grows curious about his strange activities. A truly abysmal effort, this had very little elements that were enjoyable and wasn't all that entertaining at all. The main thing with this is that nothing happens at all in here and it's an endless repeat of boring blather about nothing in particular, endless looping of an admittedly-catchy tribal song and not much else, as the film's barely-there plot unfolds in such a confusing, mystifying manner that there's almost no way to ensure what's going on at all. That just makes the film seem endlessly long and excruciatingly boring, since we don't have anything to really get a grasp on at all beyond the few decent moments of eroticism and sensuality present in their romance with each other, but overall, this one just isn't all that worthwhile.