Just Watched Movies (2013)

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Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College-After reading from a sacred comic book that contains a spell to conjure a swarm of devilish creatures, a college professor sends them out to ruin the live of a student involved in a despised prank-war ritual with other students who must stop their childish rampage. This here turned out to be quite an enjoyably goofy and silly monster movie that has more than enough assets to make it interesting. The comedy here is outlandish, as the stipulation of this taking place during prank week means that the pratfalls, gags and goofs that occur are all pretty funny in their own right, and when added by with a gaggle of one-liner-spouting creatures that react with the slapstick grace of a silent-film star, the results are nothing short of hilarious. While it works on the comedic level, as a horror film this is quite lacking. One of the biggest problems is the complete lack of fear instilled by the creatures because they are so goofy and cheesy-looking that their scenes don't evoke anything remotely associated with terror or shock, and when combined with the admittedly goofy and ludicrous back-story for their conjuration, and it all spells funny more than screams. That said, there's some more good stuff here in the finale being quite action-packed as it manages to bestow a feeling of real tension because the villain is still treated as though he's serious and the manners in which they go about dealing with it are quite fun overall, and when mixed with real-life special effects and props manages to make for a rather enjoyable effort.

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Vile-A group of people trapped in a house are forced to torture each other by their captors to produce an experimental drug needed for their research, and they soon start to enjoy the process far more than anticipated. Absolutely wrecked Torture Film based on the ludicrous premise of having the captors do the torturing, which gets old after five minutes due to the inherently lame pretense their forced to do it under, which makes no sense at all. The people display no intelligence whatsoever as getting out of there is surprisingly easy, and it always just ends up infuriating whenever you think about it. The gore gags aren't half bad but there's far better overall efforts out there that won't make this a pain to watch.

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Fast and Furious-When the death of a mutual friend brings an old feud between a fugitive and a government agent back into light, they realize it's inadvertently caused them to join forces against a powerful drug lord that's become a common enemy. This one actually didn't turn out as bad as it could've been considering the others in the franchise haven't been that great, and there's no reason to think this one wouldn't be as well considering the first half of this repeats the exact same flaws found in the other entries: way too much time spent on people in the lifestyle that don't make for interesting screen-time between anything that's going on, for the first half deals with them and their rivalry with each other. Once it gets past that and they work together, it becomes a lot more fun with a series of inventive and exciting car chases, even if they're not in the traditional sense of doing so, a few gun battles and brawls as well as a couple other halfway decent action scenes beyond the initial opening number that's really fun. A little CGI heavy at times, but overall this one's not so bad at all.

[slayrrr666]

Added an uncut copy of Stephen King's Desperation to the collection.

[Fenril]

- Springsteen & I. Documentary about Bruce Sprinsteen and his assorted fans' insight into his carrer. Compiled from over 300 hours of unedited fan material, and completed with live concert footage.

One of those documentaries that seem ripe for disaster in that it could easily have been two hours of ego-stroking. Instead, the result is a rather fascinating insight into what people from very different walks of life may see in the same kind of music. Particularly interesting are those that see Springsteen himself as a champion for blue-collar workers. There's even a sort of real-life surrealism whenever we get to meet the fans who actually managed to get on stage with the man himself (intersected with actual footage of those concerts or shows).

- Rango. After a freak road accident, a chameleon with thespian pretensions finds himself stranded in a dying dustbowl town (populated by some of the most bizarre talking animals you'll ever meet), where his ability to spin tall tales gets him nominated as town sheriff. But can he solve the town's drought problem while taking care of several dangerous hired killers?

Surprisingly surreal and dark-humored American animation that manages to be both an all-ages comedy and a postmodern western yarn. I think this is a case of a movie's marketing not quite selling what the movie is about --it was promoted as being in the stile of Dreamworks or Pixar films, yet is closer in spirit to the animated productions of Burton (Johnny Depp even voices the title character), Bluth and perhaps even Bashki. This is especially evident in the extended version, which restores several deleted scenes (the truly dark and even existential bits) and the true ending.

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Ghost Shark-After several of their friends are killed, a group of friends try to convince the authorities that the culprit was a spectral great white shark, but when no one believes them they are forced to go out alone to defeat the bloodthirsty, murderous spirit. This here was quite an enjoyable and entertaining Sci-Fi Channel effort. One of the only complaints to be found here is the same common attribute found in the majority of their films, the lame CGI that's found in bringing the shark to life. While it is a ghost in this case and a lot of it's scenes are then by-design supposed to be off, as well as the storyline dictation of what it can do, but there's just far too much time given to this that it really becomes distracting after a while. That said, there's a lot to really like with this one that seems to be usual for such channels' film's penchant for supernatural-inflicted action scenes that could have no possible basis in reality, for here we have evidence the shark emerges from areas like a slip-n-slide, kitchen sink pipes, a garden hose used in a car wash, puddles and even the spray from a busted fire-hydrant, among other places of a similar caliber that are so far-fetched and ridiculous that there's no possible way it conveys any sense of reality. Trying to tie it into a historical-based reality with the implication of the ancient burial ground where it was spawned is a great move that at least offers a sense of balance for the ludicrous action presented, the method of finally defeating the creature is pretty inspired and there's naturally a lot of bloodied CGI death shots as people are bitten in half, decapitated, snacked on, chomped and dismembered here to provide some nifty gore scenes, all of which pace the film along and make it quite enjoyable overall.

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Girls Gone Dead-Going to a small, isolated house for spring break, a group of cheerleaders find their activities halted when a masked madman arrives looking for retribution against the girls and forcing them to fight him off to survive. This here turned out to be quite an enjoyable and entertaining effort that has a lot going for it. One of the biggest pluses is the fact that, as a slasher comedy with comedic touches, it would've been painfully obvious to try to make the killer a rather weak and almost joke-like individual, but that's thankfully avoided here with the killer being kept to a threatening role and only appearing to dole out a quick death or initiate a chase, and with the striking mask and choice of weaponry used it creates some powerful images at times. The last half is also rather interesting with the killer striking them throughout the darkened house as the gradual rise in dead bodies found in the different rooms is quite well-done and the confrontations start getting more and more intense, revealing some nice twists and making this quite enjoyable. The adult video shoot massacre is great with all the flailing body parts featured in the rampage, and with all the nudity and gore featured makes for an attractive addition to the movie. The main problem with this one, though, is a common feature in many of these hybrids, where the comedy here is just lame and not that funny. Ranging from jokes about religion to overweight individuals and how drunk they are, it's quite lame and tiresome to see these lame styles of jokes repeated over and over in these types of films so their use here is completely aggravating. As well, it tends to run a tad too long with several rather unnecessary subplots that serve just to add bodies to the fray, but overall it's not too bad regardless.

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Gangsters, Guns and Zombies-Having finished a bank robbery and on the run in the countryside, a group of robbers find that the area is overrun by the victims of a deadly zombie virus and have to fight off the creatures in order to get away safely. As far as zombie films go, this one was quite decent enough and certainly has enough going for it. One of the better elements is the fact that the running zombies are utilized right in here for one of the only times in their existence, for they still shuffle about with lethargy at times and really seem to be outmaneuvered with ease if the situation was enabling them to hide away from the creatures, yet whenever they spotted their victims the zombies were able to run them down and overwhelm them with their numbers. This is what makes them quite effective, when there's a way out yet they can overpower to generate the kill. There's also some rather fine action scenes that come from these encounters, with a forest encounter with live-action role players in medieval knight-gear, a gas station ambush and an assault on a small house in the countryside being the biggest scenes to make for some fine action moments here and there, while the finale at the dockyard is good if quite brief and could've been stretched out a little more. There's still some flaws here, as a running gag with the group finding passers-by on the roads and keep going only to see them get fed to zombies just after doing so get old after the fourth time it happens as the gag doesn't go anywhere, the make-up effects in general look really bad as the zombies are just outfitted with fangs and blood-shot eyes to denote their zombie-ness and as a comedy, this really fails since it constitutes everyone cursing at one another for it's jokes, which is just lame. Overall, though, there's enough here to like to outweigh the negatives.

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Age of Dinosaurs-When a biogenetics company announces they have recreated dinosaurs and brought them back to life, their escape into Los Angeles forces a firefighter to race to save both his daughter and the city from the rampaging beasts. This here turned out to be quite a fun if typical Sci-Fi Channel creature feature which means that a lot of the issues present are quite familiar to those with experience in this field. As expected, the CGI is pretty terrible with the usual inconsistencies present where creatures appear to shrink and grow in scale depending on the sequence provided and really don't have too many scenes where it's all consistent with everything else around them. As well, the fact that the misappropriation of size between the different creatures is another factor to deal with, as the film doesn't make any sort of historical accuracies to the different species, mangling the statistics among the different creatures and getting them wrong all-to-frequently. On top of that is the traditional stand-by of looking way too fake and generated outside the set, with their pixelated appearance and design looking none-to-real and being way too obvious about the computerized necessity for their input into the story. That aside, this one wasn't too bad, as there's a lot of fast and quite vicious dinosaur attack scenes that run the range from one-on-one confrontations to being overwhelmed by the size or numbers of the other species and even including a full-scale assault with a military helicopter firing away at the creatures which is quite exciting. The fact that the majority of those scenes are done with realistic-looking puppets or props makes it all the more interesting since they look like they're interacting with the cast for once and it manages to look rather nicely on it's own being so close to the true being. This factor alone saves the film tremendously, and in conduction with the fine action on display makes it really worthwhile.

[slayrrr666]

Added an uncut copy of XXX to the collection.

[slayrrr666]

Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators-Following a series of strange alligator attacks on their property, a bayou family puts a land-standing territory feud into hear-gear when their rival family turns into mutated gators from botched moonshine and must stop them from taking over the swamp. This here turned out to be one of the more enjoyable and entertaining efforts put out by the Sci-Fi Channel recently and has a lot going for it. One of the better efforts is the fact that there's a strong sense of cheese throughout that's not played for laughs and is kept totally straight, the comedy coming from the incredulousness of it all being depicted in the real world. From the concept of how the gators are turned to a realization of the title on their physical bodies that gives them a distinct advantage in the area as well as the physical qualities of their original personas are played up to maximum effect here, which all makes for some cheesy fun when they're placed into action here. Using the swamp-land location is a great move to give the film a pretty decent location to set it all, and there's plenty of action with several nice chases through the water and surrounding wet-lands to give off a pretty tense vibe from time-to-time. The multitude of bodies piled up allows for some pretty decent gore-shots, which do get ruined by the fact that they're all CGI which happens to be the only real fault here. The gators look a lot better than expected and anatomically don't look that far off but the glint off their bodies that is the tell-tale sign of CGI ruins the illusion somewhat. Still, the story's pretty fast-paced and the homages to the other story shoehorned into this make for a pretty enjoyable time, so overall it's just the CGI that really lowers this one.

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The Chronicles of Riddick-Arriving on a friend's planet to seek the source of a bounty on his head, a fugitive finds them next in line to be overthrown by a vicious race of aliens and forcing him to fight alongside them to save the universe. Overall, this one wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, as I generally prefer my sci-fi to be action movies set on other worlds or slightly-altered future societies of greater technology and not much else so something like this is quite different in it's full-on sci-fi mode. There's some rather enjoyable moments here that help with that including some fine one-on-one fist-fights, a couple of explosive shoot-outs and a harrowing chase through the rocky terrain to get to safety that's quite thrilling even if nothing of a traditional action scene is present in the scene. The assault on the planet is spectacular as well with all the buzzing ships, aerial dogfights and wanton destruction of the city that's quite fun and thankfully not too CGI-heavy to make for a bland sequence, and while the plot has a lot of scatterbrained ideas and logic, it's not so bad.

Paycheck-After finishing his work for a large software corporation and learning of a change in policy afterward, a programmer goes on the run with a fellow scientist to escape from the henchmen who want him to fix his work he sabotaged before he left to help them continue their quest for world domination. Frankly, this was one of the most confusing and scatter-shot plots ever, and it's got no way to get around them since that's part of what makes the film tick as he loses his memory during the course as standard procedure for work, yet overall despite that this wasn't all that bad. The action scenes are fine if slightly too long (and coming from John Woo, who really should know how to helm an action scene like the car chase in the construction yard or the train depot shoot-out, it's a minor disappointment) yet the full-throttle nature of the plot means the continuous amount of action that's all quite fine and enjoyable enough. Once the whole ploy has been revealed and the plot makes more sense, the film moves along a lot better and doesn't really slow down, but overall this one was good if unspectacular.

[Fenril]

- Los olvidados [aka The young and the damned; the title literally means "The forgotten"]. The harsh life of assorted children in the slums of 50's Mexico City, with special emphasis on the turbulent relationship between eager delinquent Jaibo and well-meaning (but perpetually down on his luck) Pedro, linked together by a murder. The violence of the city and the selfish behavior of every adult around them can only lead to even more violence.

Masterpiece of Mexican cinema. This movie caused quite the uproar upon its' initial screening --the unflinching look at the wastegrounds (both literal and moral) of the big cities certainly did not gel with the 50's idyllic cinematographic vision of modern Mexico. Yet it's come to be regarded as an important piece of mankind's story, not to mention a very influential movie. Several later latinoamerican movies like the Brazilian "Cidade de deus", the Equatorian "Ratas, ratones y rateros", the Colombian "Rodrigo D. No futuro" and our own "Amores perros" each owe a lot to this film [the bitterly ironic part is that all but one of these was based on a real-life case]. It's also notable for a couple surreal scenes where director Buñuel shows his artistic flair --a highly symbolic nightmare and what seems to be a main character's glimpse into the afterlife.

- Monty Pyton's The meaning of life. A series of loosely-connected sketches highlighting the absurdity of life itself, doused in Monty Pyton's trademark brand of humor.

Perhaps the essential Pyton film --truth be told I prefer "Life of Brian", but only in the sense that that one is a complete movie per se (that is, it has an actual story built around the humor). This one is a bit uneven, which is almost inevitable in a sketch film. The definite highlight (at least for me) is the infamous "Every sperm is sacred" montage song.

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Unstoppable-Initially set-up to take a quick job, a penniless soldier finds himself injected with a mind-controlling drug by a criminal group to use him for their crimes only for him to use his military skills to fight back against his captors. This one actually wasn't all too bad of an action effort and was actually quite enjoyable. For perhaps the first time in his career, it actually looks like Snipes is a real martial artist rather than just demonstrating a few moves here and there that don't look all that complex or complicated unlike here, where it finally looks like he knows what he's doing and generating some fine fist-fights through that tactic. There's a few decent car chases thrown in as well that make for some great action scenes, including some very big car-smash stunts that look far grander than the type usually found in such films which gives it a great overall feel. The payback feels natural in the storyline terms, and thankfully the inclusion of the FBI investigation doesn't feel like an unnecessary inclusion to drag the film out, but the plot of the main villains doesn't have too much logic to it. It feels like a first-draft reasoning that never got fleshed out or explained further, since it makes little sense why they would want him considering they're all mercenaries themselves and surely his skills would've popped up on a background check when that would've been made. If that's to be overlooked in this, then it's actually not that bad and one of Snipes' better DTV efforts.

[Fenril]

- V/H/S. An anthology film comprised of five stories and a wraparound one. The gimmick is that all entries are filmed with subjective camera. In order:

- Amateur night. Three men head to a danceclub to pick up girls, take them back to their hotel room... and film whatever goes on with a concealed camera in one of the man's glasses. Unfortunately for them, one of the girls they pick up isn't just stoned out of her mind. She's quite literally monstrous...

While the story istelf is a fun little revenge story / creature feature (and it's a plot that's been done thousands of times), in this case the subjective camera givest it an interesting twist: by itself, the men bringing willing (through drunk at best) girls for an orgy isn't that heinous --it's the fact that they are being taped --and that we, the audience, are watching it -- that makes it reprehensible.
Then we get the monster twist... actress Hannah Fierman does an amazing job as a love-starved yet preying... demon? vampire? succubus?, and the special effects used for her transformations are pretty impressive.

The one flaw is that due to the camera-on-glasses angle the climatic chase scene is more confusing that suspenseful (in fact it takes a while to even figure out what's going on). Also, for a story that is about voyeurism it's odd how they keep the actual sex scenes strictly off-camera.

- Second honeymoon. A married(?) couple record their cross-country trip on a video camera (the wife is usually the cameraman). They sightsee, visit a fortune-teller machine, book cheap motel rooms --and they are quite unaware that somebody has been breaking into their room(s) at night, taping them in their sleep, fiddling them with a switchblade, and messing with their money and their appliances...

The only entry with genuine suspense, IMHO. Strictly speaking it's a bit boring at times [this is one of those movies whose scriptwriters appear to believe that flat dialogue is more realistic than a witty conversation], and there are only two scary moments --but those two moments pack a wallop, as they happen just when the audience is been lulled into a false sense of security. The climax is impressively gory.

My sole complain here is with a small detail at the ending --right after the one gory setpiece they have the video "malfunctioning" so that it shows bits of different scenes --in this case it's so the last scene comes out a surprise. And it does, but it also leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

...but in this case those questions are actually pretty intriguing. Basically, this deceptively simple entry keeps you guessing long after it's over.

- Tuesday the 17th. (Love that title). Wendy tricks two guys and a girl into accompanying her on a camping trip -specifically, the site where another group of campers was slaughtered by someone or something that lives in the woods. But she didn't bring them here for closure. She just needed bait...

Surprisingly good slasher story. I'd call it "posmodern", but the truth is that it just plays with a few slasher clichés without doing much about it: it takes the idea of the "final girl" as possibly being as monstrous as her adversary. It inverts the usual exploitation of female nudity [ironically, the other entries in this movie revel in this] by having Wendy using the video-camera to harass one of the guys (with a lingering close-up on his crotch, the same way he had previously lingered on her breasts). And most notably it brings the idea of a supernatural slasher to the forefront with a simple visual trick: the killer can't register on camera (what we can see looks like a generic black overall with a red mask(?) on top).

This entry is pretty gory as well, through the effects here seem less realistic (possibly on purpose, so it'd look like a lot of 70's/80's slashers).

It's also the only entry where that technique of having the video malfunctioning actually works --we get glimpses of previous victims as ghostly apparitions (with the implication that the cameraman can't actually see them).

The last scene is a bit weird in that it's open to interpretation, through.

- The sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger. The eponymous Emily has a series of video chats with her boyfriend James, whom she's trying to convince that the appartment she just moved into is haunted. And indeed, the camera often registers a child-like figure scampering around. But perhaps she should paid more attention to that strange lump growing on her arm. And a little suspicious as to how her boyfriend has such good reception when he's supposed to be miles away...

Surprising entry that appears to be a haunted house story but goes elsewhere for the plot twist [this plot twist was used in another movie of a couple years previous, but I'll avoid mentioning it because it's a spoiler]. The ending manages to be doubly (perhaps even triply) cruel when you think about it. Specifically the line: "I can fix this, I just need to break a few bones..."

- 10/31/98. (Hate that title). Four men on way to a halloween party arrive at the wrong house --mainly, it seems they have crashed into an actual haunted house. But what to do with the girl they found tied up in the attic?

The only entry that comes close to being fun to watch [yes, these have been good, but in general they aren't that pleasant to watch], with cheesy yet charming special effects (check out those computer-generated bats! That don't interact at all with anything on screen!), with a wicked ending.

I kinda get the impression that the script called for younger actors, through --this has twenty (and thirty-) somethings behaving like teenagers. Kinda like in Suspiria, I guess.

- Tape 56. The wraparound story concerns a group of thrill-seeking thugs who videotape and screen their crimes (vandalism, statuory rape...) and are hired to break into a film-collector's home to look for a specific videotape. As each gang member watches a tape from the collection (the stories we have been watching) he vanishes without explanation --until there's only the leader and another, not quite human occupant in the house...

By far the weakest segment, with interchangeable characters --all of them uniformly vile, which rather than make us glad for their commeupances makes it a chore to sit through their scenes, plus a rather directionless script.


All in all... it's a much more thought-provoking movie than I expected, but it wasn't particularly scary and it has that problem that is usually found in torture films (even through this isn't one) --it's so grim it's not much fun at all, and at the same tame it's too exploitative to take it as social criticism.

I still enjoyed watching it, through, and will probably look up the sequel.

But as far as horror anthologies go, classic Amicus entries or even contemporary features like "Trick R Treat" are miles better than this one.