Just Watched Movies (2013)

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Added an uncut copy of Sea Beast to the collection.

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Shark Night-Trying to have a relaxing weekend trip on a freshwater lake, a group of friends finds the festivities ruined by the repeated attacks by a group of sharks placed in the lake by exploitative fishermen and must try to get out alive. Frankly, this is one of the more disappointing and frustrating efforts to come along since there's so much here that could've been made great that instead turns this into a rather pedestrian affair. One of the biggest lapses of all is the complete and utter stupidity and lameness regarding the plot which has several humongous holes in it. Besides the fact that most of the species chosen pose no threat to man and don't eat meat in their diet yet do so here, one of the biggest is the fact that the sharks featured are all fresh-water creatures and can't survive in fresh-water, of which we're told repeatedly that it is, yet there's nothing that states why the sharks are able to thrive as long as this one states as the operation is evidently running smoothly for quite a while. As for why it's gone so long unnoticed manages to uncover it's biggest non-surprise plot-twist later on almost right from the beginning with the surprise helper in the operation uncovered right from the moment this is found out, and thereby forces the film to go on far longer than it should with scenes clearly shown simply to beef up the running time and keep the group in danger beyond all sense of realism since the first gimmick part to this clearly isn't strong enough to support a full-length film without a lot of extra help in order to keep them in the water, and because they're being forced into the water by others rather than faced with no alternative and must be there to begin with, it really takes the fear out of the sharks because they're only the lapdogs of someone else and don't have a mind of their own, making for a rather piddly sense of fear from them. On top of that, we're faced with utterly atrocious CGI for the sharks that don't in the slightest portray any sense of realism or hide this computerized nature, and the 3D effects are pretty much the same exact gag repeated over and over of the shark swimming open-mouthed at someone from out of nowhere which really wears thin after a while. While there's some fine attack scenes in here, including a marina explosion, a frantic race to get to a safety dock in the water and a water-ski chase through a lagoon providing both action and some suspense that proved it could've handled some fun scenes here and there, overall this one was a terrible disappointment.

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Mama-Finding their long-abandoned nieces after years in the wild, a man and his girlfriend learn the ghostly guardian the girls invented to watch over them is a real spirit and must try to save themselves from the supernatural threat. This turned out to be quite a nice if somewhat cliched offering that has some rather decent moments to it. One of the main problems to go on here is the fact that the film makes no sense about what kind of woman the guardian really is. Some of the time, it appears as a regular, plain old ghost haunting the family and attacking them or just playing with the children, but there's other times where the figure is made out to be an otherworldly demon trying to access our world through the spreading-fungus-like holes in the wall that seem to be set-up in order to harvest souls around the house, which comes off nicely in giving us some scares but really has little purpose in explaining the story. As well, the film tends to meander in completely uninteresting scenarios, with the vindictive grandmother trying to get the girls under her custody and not trusting the couple to do so merely for her own good or the sentimentality of slowly winning over the younger, more feral sister with motherhood tactics she'd never prepared for before, which is a plausible intuition from the storyline but really comes off as tired and cliche from the continued usage of the tactic in other movies. Beyond that, the kid-friendly rating is a detriment in keeping all the potential deaths and violence almost always off-camera or shrouded in darkness to really keep us from seeing anything interesting, and the constant materializing of the ghost beyond the unknowing character for a scare gets old the third time it happens. However, there's some good things here, including the rather ominous way it builds up in intensity towards the ghost actually attacking with the games with the children, mistaking it for the girls or simply using the fungus-like holes in the walls to spread the fear, and with it being such a creepy-looking creature in it's own right generates some very chilling sequences in the later half when it's finally on the warpath after the family. These here really save it from the rather pedestrian and lackluster offering it could've been.

[Fenril]

Nov 22, 2013 11:53:37 GMT -5 slayrrr666 said:

Mama- [...] the kid-friendly rating is a detriment in keeping all the potential deaths and violence almost always off-camera or shrouded in darkness to really keep us from seeing anything interesting, and the constant materializing of the ghost beyond the unknowing character for a scare gets old the third time it happens. [...]

True, but on the other hand that made the ending pretty surprising, or at least I didn't expect them to go that route.

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Yeah, maybe they wouldn't have brought in such a touching and bittersweet ending had they not gone that route but in a horror film, I don't really want that kind of ending. Give me a shocking ending that I'm not expecting and really throw me for a loop, not give me something I can find in a romantic comedy.

Bering Sea Beast-Working on a potentially-loaded gold vein, a family of gold-hunters in the Arctic comes across the truth behind a local legend when they disturb the resting area of a group of vicious vampiric predators and must save the town from the ravenous creatures. This is an incredibly fun if flawed entry amongst the Sci-Fi Channel efforts, though it actually does a lot more right than wrong. One of the biggest pluses here is the absolutely fun and exciting plot-line that allows this one to be loaded with action scenes, especially in the later half which is when the creatures get free and are able to wreck havoc in the town. With plenty of fun encounters including the ambush at sea in the dark that shows the hunters' trap is far from effective that allows the creatures to feast on them in some nice behavioral-attack scenes, an effective encounter in the warehouse that finally leads to a discovery about their weakness and the final match at sea armed with their chosen weapons in a thrilling battle against the creatures which has plenty of momentum turns, some suspenseful moments thrown into the mix and an explosive ending that makes for a fun and exciting finish, the finale gets quite a bit of enjoyable moments out of itself that's coupled nicely with some really good action scenes earlier on. As well, the creatures are given a rather inventive back-story that makes them far more than just unexplained things creeping up out of the darkness, but have a more understandable biology and behavior that most other creatures in these films are never graced with and offers a touch of sympathy when combined with the real reason for their appearance in the modern world. That said, there's still some problems here, mainly in the rather atrocious CGI here with some utterly abysmal work on the creatures that make them look like pixilated bat wings with fangs without any sort of detail to the beast completely neutered among the blurred nature of the scene, and when done in conjunction with the blood and gore makes for quite a troubling experience. As well, it features a few troubling story lines that make no sense, including the effort to include the human villain amongst their plans or the need for secrecy regarding their appearance, a common trait that serves nothing original here and really does this one little favors. Otherwise, this here was quite enjoyable enough.

Critters 2: The Main Course-With the news of more aliens still on Earth, the bounty hunters set off to find the lone human they can trust to help them corral the beings before they spread throughout the town and become too much for them to handle. This here turned out to be quite an exciting and enjoyable horror/comedy that has so much going for it that there's just no shortage of fun to be had here. The fact that this one decides to get the creatures out quite early with the discovery of the eggs and the town becoming aware of what's going on with his reappearance to their total dismay and a series of isolated attacks that clearly signal the creatures are back and ready to continue their rampage as before, only making the creatures as completely oblivious to the others around them makes for a rather fun time with the different attacks not being recognized until the mid-way point results in some nice fun. With the different tactics of trying to get the creatures under control still providing a lot of laughs as well, it makes for much more fun to be had when it plays off the previously established guidelines for the series as well as injecting a lot of clever and sometimes creepy points in this to add in a horror angle when all is said and done makes this one a lot more entertaining and enjoyable. There's enough gore in this to appeal to the more traditional horror fans with their attacks on the townspeople in the diner, the church and the final attack in the storage locker not only provide some fun moments throughout with their fun combination of mixing light-hearted action with some rather gruesome moments to add up to a bunch of fun times. While there's some flaws here in that the continuous jokes about the events in the first film are used to make it appear that he's just insane and should know better about spreading such information around get tiresome quite quickly, there's enough to like here that it's enough to overcome the few flaws.

The Incredible Professor Zovek-Brought in by the government, a master fighter with psychic powers and his assistant find their assignment to bring down a criminal mastermind far more dangerous than initially figured when they find his released deformed, mutated beings are put under control and forcing them to deal with all them as well as the initial target. There's some pretty big problems with this one and really hinder it from generating all that it really could've with this story. That in itself is the main problem, that it really doesn't exploit it's fine premise more than it could've, as this one seems to be ripe with the potential of featuring all sorts of confrontations with the mutated beings in different conflagrations against the hero as he locks up against them on his path to stop the creator at the center of it, yet instead this one decides to make the psychic powers and physical prowess he can demonstrate far more often than what really should be necessary. Even starting off with a ten-minute long session among governmental agents to prove his powers are indeed true makes for a rather convoluted and completely draining experience to start off with that really takes the life out of the movie before it even starts, and then throughout the film as it's filled with all sorts of double-crosses and spy-movie machinations as he attempts to escape the trap-filled lair rather than fight the creatures to finally get free. Perhaps it's for the best, though, with the laughable and hardly intimidating make-up on the creatures with over-sized denture-fangs and artificial drool to complete the demented look yet just comes off as amateurish and laughable when compared to other, better jobs at the same time. These here really ruin what could've been a fun entry with plenty of cheesiness to fill this one, with stuff like the continuous usage of his psychic powers to overcome guards, move objects around and generally make everyone else look like a goof for his benefit after having ample evidence that he's capable of doing so with no further attempt to contain the powers, numerous brawls with the security guards and other agents to display some marginal martial arts skills and a fantastic brawl with the wildest creature during a classic burning-down-the-castle finale that offers up some nice action and stunt-work with the final resolution. This really could've been a lot of fun if it wasn't so flawed.

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Jack the Reaper-After getting involved in a bus crash on the way home from a field trip, a group of teens find themselves stuck at a haunted amusement park with a deranged, mystical killer killing them off one-by-one and forcing them to find an obscure method of survival. This turned out to be quite a fun and enjoyable slasher that features a lot of really exciting features. One of the better elements here is the fact that this one manages to get a lot of mileage out of the creepy amusement park setting with the nightmarish scenario of only being exposed to a few select parts of the park and no matter what continually returning to the same area over and over again, all of which just makes this seem more like a dream than anything but frankly adds to a chilling vibe that washes over this section of the film. That this is where the film pretty much starts offing the characters one-by-one in rather gruesome detail is where it starts getting really good, with a lot of rather fun and exciting elements coming into play due to that with a lot of pretty chilling stalking scenes, some decent escape attempts and a series of pretty violent deaths all brought upon due to the killer's use of a pick-axe as the weapon of choice here. It adds up, along with the rather demented killer and innate sense of hopelessness to turn into a rather fine slasher more often than not. While those are the good elements, it still suffers from some pretty big flaws, including the fact that this one tends to employ the exact same gimmick as several other films do right down to the very same mode of killing done here, which is a major plot-point but is nonetheless taken from another film series entirely and rather the backstory of the killer's identity is changed around. That tends to make it feel like a rip-off more so than as an original feature, which wouldn't be as bad if the low-budget origins weren't at play. Being so cheap means that the look of this is very cramped and confined, there's not a lot of big, extended sequences and the make-up effects don't always come off as good as they should. All-in-all, though, this one seems to have more going for it than not.

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Satan's Little Helper-Thinking he's following a real-life version of a favorite video game character, a young boy unwittingly aids a serial killer along a rampage of carnage on Halloween night, and when it finally dawns on him about his actions, tries to help his parents stop the madman. This ended up being quite an enjoyable if really flawed effort. Most of this is due to the absolutely original notion of the connection between the killer and the game, which is quite a coincidence but really allows for a demented atmosphere throughout as there’s the whole issue of a child being fascinated with violence and death and actively encouraging it to happen, granted unwittingly but still plays an active part in the process. By making it so that he’s so unable to realize the difference between real-life and fantasy allows this to really get dark with its humor by including the rampage home from the supermarket where they basically run wild through the town knocking off people left and right in the shopping as he joyfully cries out alongside the carnage which is simply fun all around simply by his presence there gleefully doing his thing during the whole sequence as he thinks it to be a game they’re playing. That as well gives the scenes in the house prior to the rampage a sense of eeriness as the killer interacts with the family who are unaware of the true nature of their companion as the cold, silent stare out from underneath the unimaginably creepy devil mask works wonders in generating a creepy villain and aides this as well during the other scenes out among the town as the rampage really picks up during the middle segments of the film. While this tries to give off a comedic vibe from these efforts, it’s really not all that funny as the entire joke, that he can’t distinguish fantasy from reality because of the way the character’s dressed, is pretty lame for a running joke to go through an entire film and doesn’t really have much else in the way of jokes to make it work. It’s all based on his inability to see that the figure is a killer as everyone else plays along for no reason and this ends up giving the film a really off vibe during the first hour. Thankfully, once the ruse is found out that’s dropped in favor of a series effort to stop the madman which is far more interesting with the twist involving the identity switch, the race to stop him from getting back to the kid and the rampage at the party offering some addition fun due to the more serious tone offered. Overall, it’s quite a fun ride but it’s most certainly not as funny as people say it is, leading to it’s only real flaw.

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My traditional birthday viewing of the complete Zombi 2 DVD with all bonus features and movie watching options.

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The Medallion-After trying to track a crime-lord looking for the secret to immortality, a deceased cop is granted supernatural powers in his quest to stop the vicious madman from completing his mission. I've always had mixed feelings about this Jackie Chan feature and there's very little that's changed about it now. The main issue is still the fact that it takes way too long to get the medallion into his hands that it really could've been played off as a straight action feature protecting the boy and not really changed all that much in terms of the actions as presented in the story since it's used so little in here that it's really not needed. It certainly doesn't give him the upper hand in the fights any more than he already needed, and all it really does in the end is expose us to utterly ridiculous wire-works scenes that don't need it and a fight against a woefully under-skilled Julian Sands that comes off as quite lame and ridiculous all around. Still, there's a lot of action in here that really could've used a little more time to get developed such as the home invasion, the battles into the complex and the battle among the ferry, among others, so while it's got some big moments it's not stretched out making it seem crowded and rushed in terms of it's story. The comedy's hit-or-miss, so overall this isn't the worst vehicle of his career but it's not near the top either.

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The Condemned-Gathered together for a potential chance at freedom from prison, a man joins other convicts in a life-or-death struggle for a reality show on a small island where he must kill the other participants to live a free man. This was a pretty enjoyable effort though there's a few areas of concern with this one. The main issue with this one is the fact that the majority of these people, who are supposedly the worst scumbags in the world for having multiple convictions, offenses and the like, barely register as being such. Only two or three of the main criminals really look like they're capable of the crimes associated to them, and even the women don't like that intimidating to really stand up to the men so it really doesn't come off as all that logical. As well, this really doesn't have the stigma of a true action movie as it's more of slasher effort plot-line just with gunfights, fist-fights and brawls instead of being hacked with a knife or whatever weapon of choice was going to be used, and in the end the whole plot of this is quite hard to get into and doesn't make too much sense. Fortunately, the majority of this wasn't so bad as the storyline does indeed give this an excuse for a non-stop series of brawls, fights and traps laid out on the island that results in some pretty enjoyable and exciting fights throughout, and while none of it is really all that well choreographed, the realness makes for a different breed than most movies typically offer and overall it's enough to make it worthwhile.

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Barrio Tales-Two teens are told stories about the locals in their small border town: a vengeful witch curses the carefree college students who caused her granddaughter's accidental death; a series of child disappearances may be the cause for a chef's incredibly popular confections; a group of border-hopper tormentors realize too late the error of kidnapping a special group along their path. Quite simply, this is quite a lame and rather weak anthology effort with a lot wrong here and very few positive qualities. The first story works only because it's set-up as the classic jerks who cause the accidental death while the lone sympathizer among the group is punished as well as the guilty party. This is undone in a simple five minute revenge sequence that has no build-up, no gradual revelation of the curse working on them, it just comes in and soon turns into the next segment. The second is decent enough with a pretty lame mystery surrounding the truck worker but is mishandled with an immediately-recognizable set-up that really swerves no one, is spotted a mile away despite the best efforts to make it suspenseful and gets by only with a fine stalking sequence at the end to save it. The third is utterly atrocious and really doesn't have any value at all, being more of a ploy against illegal border-hopping than anything. It's more of a gang-land style retribution angle than anything to do with horror and really has very little of interest about it. Couple this with a weak wrap-around and a brevity that allows these three stories to be told in a grand running time of 80 minutes makes for quite a hard sell with little time to work anything out of the cliched set-ups, making it all the more of a weakened effort.

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The Thompsons-Forced on the run, a vampire clan arrives in London looking for help and recuperation only to find their hosts have far more diabolical plans in mind when they're captured and forced into a breeding program to ensure survival, putting the two families against each other. Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a decent enough vampire effort that does have some pretty enjoyable features about it. One of them is perhaps the most controversial of the film's changes, in how it deals with the vampires in here. Rather than being remorseless nocturnal bloodsuckers unsympathetic with humanity in the slightest, this one portrays two distinct differences that are rather unique: being a condition received at birth and thus being able to walk about in sunlight with no ill effects, and the second issue of having no real interest in humanity other than feeding time and being out and about without getting into the strange, rabid intensity around fresh meat. Here, they're given a little more of an ability to blend in with the rest of humanity and that's quite a fun option here as it goes against so much of what's known and given about the creatures in the folklore. While this change may not be for everyone, the fact that it's no excuse for how slow and uneventful the first half of this is really hard to take into account, which has the ever-familiar stamp of British class and restraint that makes nothing seem important to get worked up over and really drains this of its energy. That said, there's still some good parts here with some fine gore scenes from the multiple kills, a couple of outstanding action scenes coming from a multitude of brawls and gunfights, and a twisting, convoluted storyline that stays on-track throughout these twists and turns that keep this quite enjoyable though not entirely perfect.

[Fenril]

- The hobbit: The desolation of Smaug. Hopefully you already know the plot, because it's nearly impossible to summarize. There's like a thousand plotlines converging and crashing into each other, here.

What can I say? At least this one isn't as boring as the first one, but on the overall this continues to be an example of why expanding a 280-page book for children into a nine-hour trilogy is just not that good an idea. And it's certainly not as thrilling as "The lord of the Rings" trilogy, which did the oppostie: compressing thousands of pages into three manageable chunks.

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Traditional Holiday fare with the family:

Home Alone
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Christmas with the Kranks
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
The Santa Clause

Plus added uncut copies of Room 6 and Voodoo Moon to the collection.