Just Watched Movies (2014)

[slayrrr666]

Scary Movie V-When his brother's death forces him and his wife to adopt his nieces, they soon come to learn the absence of parental involvement has caused the children's spirit guardian to come to life and force them to protect their newfound family. This was an incredibly fun and utterly enjoyable spoof that carries the series quite well. Managing to throw the spoofs and mocking into a coherent storyline for once that actually supports all the different elements throughout here as the non-horror movies are usually at odds with the full-on horror spoofs in the series which here manages to work with how they all fit into this into a coherent, funny whole. This is certainly among the funniest in the series just on that matter alone in that it gets the different films into a coherent storyline while making sure to always go for the joke wherever possible, and several of the gags here rank among the best in the franchise with a really wide-spread amount of hilarity to come from this. As well, the fact that it's clearly not as cameo-happy as the others were is a great sign here as it never tries to throw people into roles simply to get them out there but has them inserted into the spoofs in order to really sell them quite nicely. Overall, there's not a whole lot to dislike here.

[slayrrr666]

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark-After moving into a new house in the countryside, a young girl discovers the area home to a race of dimunitive beings who need to feed on human teeth to survive and must convince her parents to help her stop them. This is quite a decent enough effort that does have enough going for it to make it work. The main thing going for this one is the fact that house itself is used to build the kind of atmosphere and presence that gives this a rather impressive amount of suspense throughout this. By being the kind of location that can accurately keep the creatures hidden so well as it does here by utilizing the darkened hallways, light-less rooms and generally creepy layout this gives off, it has the perfect hiding locations to allow the creatures to stay a rather impressive force by having them know the lay-out so that there's an advantage to them that's not available elsewhere. That gives this a few rather impressive attack scenes throughout this with there being the basement brutalizing and the ambush in the bathroom to give this a rather spectacular air about it to having the kind of action required to stay invested here. As well, the final half which is the assault on the dinner party and the guests there is quite a bit of fun and really works quite well, helped by the swarm of creatures there but also managing to get plenty of high-end spectacle coming from this so it all works out quite well. These do help somewhat to overcome the few flaws in here, though nothing overcomes the factor of having the father be so utterly clueless and careless towards his daughter's claims. The blatant dismissals here generally feel solely there to provide an excuse to stay in the house and keep the plot rolling along rather than out of any general kind of rational behavior on his part, as the kind of sequences ushered throughout here are far more worthy of investigation on his part and these are brushed off quite simply to move the plot along so these are quite unbelievable. As well, the constantly-changing tone of the creatures here is somewhat confusing, since it gives them a reverence and feel towards their behavior and general appearance that reads more like a fantasy than a straightforward horror effort so there's a rather alarming clash against the brutal and vicious actions they undergo here. It doesn't help the CGI looks atrocious and off throughout here as they rarely interact well with their surroundings and the size changes throughout, but when they have a whimsical attitude towards someone here only to suddenly swarm them with knives and surgical tools to violently begin hacking them to pieces, it's differing moods is a big problem. Otherwise, this one isn't so bad.

[Fenril]

"Don't be afraid of the dark" was ok; like you said, the behavior and presentation of the critters was a bit confusing, and to a degree, I get the impression that the director, producer and scriptwriter each had a different idea as to what they were supposed to be and act like. I'd like to see the original tv version sometime, too, as I hear it's very good.

- Wag the dog. On the face of a presidential sex scandal, a spin doctor, a white house secretary and a movie producer join forces to stage a nonexistent war against Albany to distract the press. It works --maybe FAR too well.

Piercing comedy that remains even more powerful today than when it first aired; and horrific, too, once one reflects on what this movie tells us about perception and history. The third act has been sometimes criticized for changing the tone somewhat abruptly (from subtle satire to black-humored farce), but I don't think it detracts from the overall result. Quite recommended.

- Chernobyl diaries. Six tourists hire a guide to take them on a not-quite-legal visit to Pripyat, neighboring town of the infamous Chernobyl disaster. A risky enough venture as it is, and that's before they find their tour van mysteriously vandalized, not to mention the wild dogs, the mutated fish and something else...

Average suspense with the kind of plot that sinks as soon as it's taken into scrutiny. Specifically:

SPOILER

So the menace here is mutated people that, presumably, were disfigured by the radiation and are being locked in by the government. Ok; this doesn't really explain why they are attacking trespassers (for that matter, what exactly are they doing to them? Sometimes it seems they are feeding on them, sometimes just attacking, sometimes just making them get infected as well. The script never makes up it's mind). More importantly: they are apparently rational enough to cut the cables out of a battery and to... send what seems a little girl to distract the tourists? (This particular scene is notable because it's completely at odds with the mutants(?)'s behavior in the rest of the movie. It's like the remnant of an earlier draft of the script where the menace was actually ghosts or some such). Yet they move like a swarm of zombies whenever they are on-screen, and seem more interested in the tourists than in the authorities that are actually shooting at them. Basically, if you look at the plot in reverse, their actions just don't make much sense.

SPOILER END

That and, really, the characters are exchangeable, which makes the early scenes of traveling in Europe kinda pointless. Even the spooky idea of visiting an abandoned town is just not put to effective use. Disappointing overall.

[slayrrr666]

Yeah, I'm glad you found 'Don't Be Afraid' as disappointing as I did. I think they were supposed to be treated a lot more reverently, with a much greater focus on their supernatural abilities in an earlier draft but a lot of it was dropped in favor of the horror angle it was eventually made as. The problem is that keeps the horror from being all that damaging since the regal fantasy approach it has makes for a distracting, jarring approach.

As for Chernobyl Diaries, I quote my own review:

Apr 2, 2013 11:04:26 GMT -5 slayrrr666 said:

Chernobyl Diaries-Agreeing to tour the abandoned town of Pripyat in the Ukraine, a group of friends find the town may hold more visitors than they expected and must find a way to get out of the town and it's dangers alive. Despite what could've been a great effort, this one turned out to be a slight disappointment overall. The film's biggest flaw here is the absolute inability to know what it wants to be, as the trials and tribulations of the group inside the city are just dull in comparison to what comes after, but the fact that all we get is a single line in Russian about the protagonists yet are never given any sort of evidence during the film to support the diagnosis since it shows several other particular efforts as to what could happen rather than what was announced at the end. This is aided by the fact that they're hardly ever seen anyway and get very little screen-time, the majority of the film featuring them running around in the radioactive areas battling other threats than what we're told, and the incredibly poor decision-making to constantly keep themselves in danger for the expense of the movie's sake is another big blow here. It has some fine set-pieces at times and gets in some great atmospheric moments in the later half, but overall this one is just too disappointing to really get better.

The Cottage-Taking their charge to a secluded cabin in the woods, a pair of kidnapper's struggles to keep her in control eventually bring them into contact with the deranged farmer on the next-door-lot and must fend him off to get away alive. Frankly, this was a plainly confusing entry that really doesn't know what it wants to be. The first half to this one plays it quite straight-up as a gangster comedy with the inept kidnappers squabbling with each other over their own issues, from the ineptitude to carry out the kidnapping in accordance to the rules of the act to their family issues and general insecurities throughout, yet none of this is all that impressive or enjoyable due to a lack of exciting actions and the feeling that this was supposed to be a slapstick-style comedy in earnest. However, none of what happens in here is really all that funny and seems to consist of everyone in here cursing out everyone else instead of actually doing something. Once the escape attempt occurs and it turns into a horror film, there's a lot more enjoyable actions here with some genuinely chilling suspense scenes as the initial search through the house reveals a far greater danger than they ever expected and is laid out beautifully to allow that, the march through the bear-trap-filled field in the dead of night as well as the stalking in the barn which really gets this going with some wholly impressive shocks as the deformed killer emerges from amongst a roomful of similarly-severed heads for a masterful jump sequence. As well, it doles out the blood and gore quite nicely with plenty of verve here as this is quite bloody with a lot to really like in terms of dismembering the victims with all sorts of wicked tools here, yet this section also gives off the film's biggest flaw as well in that it again tries to make this a horror/comedy yet none of what happens is all that funny. The failed humor of their predicament against the lame kidnapping humor in turn makes this quite problematic overall when the horror segments here work wonderfully if played straight, and the conflicting tone of this one overall makes for a troubling if somewhat rewarding experience.

[slayrrr666]

Added an uncut copy of Pet Semetery 2 to the collection.

[slayrrr666]

Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery-After scoring tickets to the biggest wrestling show of the year, the Scooby gang teams up with a group of wrestlers to put an end to a crazed bear running amok behind the scenes of the show. While this might not be the best entry in the animated series so far, it's got a lot of rather impressive elements that really put this up near the top of the list. The fact that this one manages to make a rather enthralling mystery out of something that's quite hokey and rather convoluted here in the bear's reasoning for the attacks on the training camp where everyone is resting up for the big event being pretty loony and continues to seem more unrealistic the more it's scrutinized. That still makes this seem all the more enjoyable with the introduction of the wrestlers causing this to feel more like an old-school enmascarado film (though that could be due to one of the wrestlers actually being one) of having the wrestling moves being used in the real world against a real opponent in the wrestling ring as well as having an active influence on the rest of the actions within the film as they do spend a pretty generous amount of time in here interacting with the group on their investigations which really helps sell that kind of world incredibly well. Of course, the comedy is top-notch as there's several rather hilarious gags here with the continued running gag of Daphne's crush on Cena, the road-trip to the event as well as the method of defeating the villain being quite hilarious for their ludicrousness, not to mention the utterly hilarious part of guilt-tripping the gang into going in the first place which is pure gut-busting funny. Sure, the finale could've been tidied up a little cleaner, but this is still one of the better ones in the series.

[slayrrr666]

House-Getting stranded at a remote, vacant hotel in the woods, two couples find themselves beset by a deranged killer who forces them to confront their inner-most demons buried within them in order to get out alive. This is an overall quite troubling effort as this really could've been something quite decent but is too heavily flawed to rise above. The biggest issue here is that this one is just way too overall cliched and familiar to scores of other films where people find themselves trapped at a house or shack in the middle of nowhere that's not what it initially seems at all, and that familiarity makes for this one to simply run through the motions of hitting every single general plot-point without fail. There's the initial meeting with the family that shows them off as general creeps, the scramble throughout the house to secure weapons once the killer arrives and then the play-out with each one forced to confront something troubling from their past which is the main genesis of the film rather than the killers' stalking scenes which are quite problematic since this really only makes a specific point within the film come to pass. If none of these actions that are presented as the most horrific memories and events in their lifetime mean nothing or are not that scary at all, then the film as a whole is just utterly bland and boring during these sequences which is what's presented here. Only one of these events is really all that terrifying and worthy of being that kind of unrelenting psychological torment yet even that is dutifully hindered by the film's Christian morality that comes into play in the final half which is just so problematic that there's almost nothing at all to praise in these scenes. It's all so bland and boring that there's almost a negative impact taken here from the few scares that do occur here which is what's the most troubling part of all this. Those middle scares, especially the frantic search around the house to locate weapons that soon turns into the different torments that are undertaken which comes out of nowhere as this was set-up quite nicely with the human killer in a dark, decrepit house, yet there's a lot to like with these scenes that gets taken away by the unneeded Christian morality that utterly destroys a lot of that.

[slayrrr666]

Lord of Darkness-Trying to uncover the truth behind a rash of disappearances, a Scottish journalist traces a murderous clan of cannibals in the area and must stop them from serving up his friends for their insatiable thirst for human flesh. This frankly turned out to be quite average overall when it really could've been something. What ends up working so well for this one is the fact that this one is really just so good at hiding the true criminals so well here that it really doesn't seem likely that it's a whole family. The deranged sons are all the focus here with their puzzling display of martial arts moves that come out of nowhere here but still contain a rather creepy edge to them so that their scenes work quite well. Put on display in the final half, with all sorts of action-packed confrontations including the tunnel ambush, the capture at the river and the cooking station shootout which makes effective use of their darkened lair and disorienting walkways for great effect with this giving off an extremely tight, dense feel for launching attacks and ambushes out of anywhere, causing this to get some chilling suspense moments here and there. Of course, none of this is really all that good compared to the effective treatment of the main killer who is utterly slimy and repulsive in great fashion. From the near-orgasmic blood-drinking on his victims, the delight of chopping and chomping bodies and the severely nasty and gruesome effects work here to make the kills look quite nasty, there's a lot to like here and this is quite effective in these scenes here. However, it still doesn't make up for several rater big flaws. The biggest issue is the fact that this one is really more of a crime drama investigating the family's actions around the town during the middle scenes which is quite dull and boring overall. Since this is played as an investigation angle, it hardly has anything happen as all we do is simply read newspaper articles, hear the investigator recite information already learned and basically do nothing while the brief intervals to acquire new meat is hardly enough to counteract this boredom. On top of that, the fact that this throws in the final twist the way it does here is quite a lame and overall stupid idea that's not even done with any real intent to do anything other than to totally screw over the audience by wasting all this time during the mid-segments that would've ended the film much earlier and causing these to just be as flawed as possible.

[slayrrr666]

The Morgue-While working a routine shift as a morgue janitor, a woman finds the quietness interrupted by a series of individuals running from a deranged killer and must find a way to stop his rampage and get out alive. This was just an overall bland and really problematic effort with a lot wrong with it. The biggest issue with this one here is that it doesn't seem to know what kind of film it wants to be as there's so many different elements scattered throughout here that it really doesn't make cohesive sense all the way through. The initial impetus here is that this is a ghost/slasher type of effort, especially with the sightings around the grounds and the backstory of the killed worker providing this with enough of a feel that there's a pretty dark atmosphere here covered through this, yet it's all dropped in the middle with no rhyme or reason to become a psycho-stalker type effort before it's all finally revealed as a nightmarish supernatural-inclined fate-altering type of horror film that really fails to connect these together. This really could've done something good with the ghost/slasher effort by actually making good use of it's spectacular setting in the darkened, seemingly-endless corridors inside a morgue that's just utterly dripping with manic chills. However, each of these different scenarios that play out here are just wholly glossed over without the film really giving it a chance to play out as it shifts from each one to the other so that when it does do something incredibly spooky as the fateful journey through the woods only to wind up no matter what direction chosen to be back at the front-door of the building the effect comes off as confusing moreso than actually chilling the way the concept should've come off. On top of that, the film goes into a ten-minute epilogue actually spelling out everything along the way to showcase how all the events in the film actually played out and how they impacted their real-life counterparts which is just endless and goes on for far too long than this type of reveal really should, beyond the fact that the film actually should've ended ten minutes before as that set-up made for a more perfect ending than what's delivered. These do manage to harm the few good points about this, as beyond the spectacular setting used here the nightmarish quality of many of the stalking scenes in the final half do work quite well. The chases down the long corridors, the killer continually bursting out from behind corners or creeping up unsuspectingly behind them or just plain running throughout the building, these scenes are quite fun and certainly provide this with workable elements that could've been better utilized in a better film.

[slayrrr666]

Kuffs-Forced to take over his recently-deceased brother's private security force, a teenage slacker comes face-to-face with the crime lord attempting to run him out of business and overthrow the city. This was overall pretty pitiful and utterly disappointing comedy with a few action moments. There's just so much to dislike here that there's little chances for it to succeed with it's central gimmick of having the lead character talking directly to the audience but only offering up totally lame observations. No jokes, no wise-cracking on the situation at hand, just random observations that don't really amount to anything other than having this as a gimmick. The comedy is pretty stupid throughout and doesn't make this funny at all with the kind of lame slapstick and unrealistic sight gags that are just overwhelmingly lame and the action itself is just an utter disappointment on top of a weak story that just has no real bearing on what would happen in real life. In short, this one was pretty bad.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man-Finding their neighborhood bar in danger of closing, a group of friends decide to rob a bank-owned armored car only to stumble onto a much-deadlier situation and must escape a horde of gunmen to stay alive. This was a fine enough action movie that manages to score enough to make for an interesting time but still has a few too many flaws. The constant attempts to humanize their friendship does manage to slow down the plot with a few too many side-ventures without really doing much to counteract the earlier versions once they're on the run. We already know about their past and how close of a friendship they have, we don't need it hammered home in the second half when it distracts from the action. That the action is quite good makes these even more unneeded with the kind of shoot-outs present here with the bar ambush, the hotel encounter and the final shoot-out in the airplane graveyard to make for an extremely fun series of encounters and action set-pieces. Overall, it's quite fun but still has those few flaws.

[Fenril]

- You're next. College student Erin accompanies her boyfriend to a weekend get-together with his family. Barely has the family settled in for dinner when they find themselves under attack by a group of masked killers, seemingly intent on mowing down the entire family. Erin, however, is far more resourceful than she seems...

Surprisingly fun slasher movie. This starts out fairly slow, with a quiet opening scene and a not very sympathetic cast. But the minute the deadly action starts up the tension is kept constant, with the character's personalities being nicely worked in. They even manage to make two particularly unpleasant characters... not sympathetic per se, but because they both react in believable ways to an unlikely situation, we at least feel for them. Even one line that seems out of place turns out to be significant much later on, as one of the later plot twists come to light. Also worth noting are one creative death scene near the end and one wicked final scene --complete with a wickedly nasty way to present the ending credits. All in all recommended, maybe with the warning to be ready for a somewhat dull first 10 minutes or so.

[slayrrr666]

Colombiana-Trained to become a professional assassin following her parents' death, a woman finds that one of her targets leads to their killers and embarks on a violent mission to bring down the criminal gang behind it. A little troubling of an Action film but overall there's some rather outstanding moments here that do bring this up quite well. The simplistic, formulaic story and over-long sequences do hold this down somewhat as there's not a lot of originality really done here as this just tends to run through a series of predictable notions without really doing much of anything with them so it all comes off as familiar with the past traumas spurring the present, and then it just takes forever to get past scenes that have no real business taking as long as they do such as the opening scene in the village where they chase her for what seems like ages without catching up to her. It's stuff like that which holds up the rather more enjoyable nature of the second half when she's doling out her hits and taking on the henchmen which gets quite fun and enjoyable with numerous confrontations which showcase her skills to the fullest from the calculated elimination of the guards at the mansion to the escape from the hotel during the SWAT team invasion as well as the final assault on the ganglord's compound. This is a real highlight with numerous firefights, plenty of shooting with the appropriate amount of fighting and finally plenty of explosions which makes for a fun time overall and really helps to overcome the slight downtime.

[slayrrr666]

The Green Hornet-After his father's murder, an aimless slacker joins up with a tech-savvy martial arts master to help rid the streets of criminals and gets involved in a gang-lords' attempt to rule the city. Not being much of a fan of comic-book movies at all, this one managed to come off pretty decently as both that and a somewhat decent Action movie in it's own right. The opening half of this, where its all about his setup in becoming the hero with the lifestyle he leads and the eventual death of his father takes quite a long time to get through and makes this one quite dull in the first half. Even the introduction of the chirpy assistant to help probe the incidents he causes doesn't really make this all that fun since it continues on with the utterly contrived and plain stupid jealousy angle that doesn't prove any point since he's totally in the wrong about his sidekick and the stubborn-ness demonstrated don't make for any kind of exciting storylines. It's not until the final team-up that this becomes any sort of entertaining as it's practically all sorts of action set-pieces put into play as the rather fun car chases through the streets allow for some fine stunt-work and shoot-outs before getting to the spectacular finale in the office complex where it all gets cranked up even more with impressive stunts, non-stop action and plenty of fun to be had. This more than makes up for the slow beginning and makes this a wholly enjoyable feature despite the problems in that slow beginning.

[Fenril]

- The purge. In 2022, a family bunkers in their home to wait out the Purge, an annual event where all crime is allowed during twelve hours. Salesman James Sandin is convinced the home security system that has made the family wealthy will be enough to keep them from harm on the most dangerous night of the year. But the real world will not be kept out so easily...

I actually saw the sequel first, and having finally seen the original movie... I think the sequel was actually better. In this one, the selling point is of course the premise, with the family's house serving as a microcosm in representation of an entire country. The problem is... for one thing, the severely underdeveloped characters are had to root for, and in at least two cases, their actions are somewhat incomprehensible, as their motivations aren't en]tirely clear. For another, it's just not suspenseful or exciting enough. Overall a fairly dull affair, save for a couple interesting ideas. The ending, while not satisfying at least does attempt to do something novel with this kind of survival horror stories.

[slayrrr666]

Battle: Los Angeles-Sent into battle against an alien force, a group of Marines are forced to utilize all their training and courage to stave off the the advancing horde and retain control over Earth. A little troubling here as this one does tend to waste a lot of time on rather useless and arbitrary means throughout here as the massive amount of time spent on the feelings of inadequacy with his age in the beginning is really overdone and quite unnecessary here as well as the continued storyline about his questionable past leading into his forced command of the group when it's quite easily shown how that came to be and their focus on that is quite ludicrous. Beyond that, the CGI for the creatures' ships do look decent enough but too many times there's that sheen which just looks way too fake and shiny without really utilizing the wear-and-tear of the situation that's present in the all-out war between the two. All that said, these issues go out the door during the action scenes here with this one really working up quite an impressive amount of battles here that are just a blast with plenty of heavy gunfire, tons of artillery brought to bear on both sides and the kind of fighting that really showcases the struggles to get the upper hand throughout here. The bus ride into the freeway trap, the ambush at the depot and the final battle between them are quite fun and really bring a lot of exciting action to make for a slightly flawed but overall fun experience.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol-Set up to look like international terrorists, a team of intelligence agents goes undercover to look for the arms dealer trying to use stolen missile launch codes in a ploy for nuclear armageddon. This was a slightly disappointing effort that tends to play off more like a spy caper rather than a balls-out action film the way the plot initially sets itself up to be as the framing devices here set itself up like the team must outwit the misinformed good guys while tracking the bad guys who set them up in the first place yet instead this is just a one-sided espionage effort with little in the way of actual action. A few lame hand-to-hand battles, one chase and a final shootout is all we get here in terms of action and hardly any of that is really all that intriguing in such a long-winded film with little about it to really make for a fun time. The extended running time certainly provides this with plenty of chances to do that but instead doesn't really do much of anything exciting with that so it tends to look all the more boring but not getting the most out of it's time with several lame counter-stories to further eat up time instead of delivering the action. Funnily enough, this is still a somewhat engrossing watch as you don't really feel as though it's a slow, plodding mess but rather remains quite watchable throughout as there's enough action to keep you invested and not turning it off but more action would've been necessary to keep this going better.