Scary Movie 5: Oh my fucking god.......

Today, I look at...ugh...it doesn't even need an introduction. Now, before I review this, here are some thoughts on the previous installments in this abysmal series (No spin-off films like A Haunted House, Epic Movie, or Meet the Spartans.) Scary Movie: Now, while this film is extremely stupid, it's that kind of so-dumb-it's-funny type of humor, not nearly as good as the Zucker's previous spoofs such as Naked Gum. Scary Movie 2: More gross-out gags, less funny humor. Still somewhat funny. Scary Movie 3: Series takes a serious dip in quality, as if it wasn't bad enough, especially due to PG-13 rating. Scary Movie 4: Worst in the series, parodies everything and anything. Still PG-13.

Scary Movie 5:
The first film not to feature Anna Faris and Regina Hall. Guess they finally got in their right minds and ditched. This film stars Ashley Tisdale, Simon Rex, Erica Ash, Sarah Hyland, Bow Wow, Kat Williams, Jasmine Guy, and Heather Locklear. It also features cameos by celebrities such as Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Jerry O'Connell, Mike Tyson, Snoop Dogg, Mac Miller, Sheree Whitfield, and Big Ang. The film crams in four parodies into 85 minutes: Mama, Paranormal Activity, Black Swan, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It also has "side-parodies" of films such as Sinister, Insidious, Inception, and Evil Dead (which must have been shot in the past week as that film came out a week before this.) It even has a "parody" of The Cabin in the Woods, which was self-parody to begin with, and is 5x funnier than this film. The "parody" is simply saying the title 8 times over and over. It also parodies pop culture such as Fifty Shades of Grey, Madea, and Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo. It also makes reference to Army of Darkness (one of the original Evil Dead movies), which in itself was a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still. The film lacks any subtly, with only a few moments that made me chuckle, I was laughing because the people next to me were enjoying the film so much (they quietly informed me they were high, but who knows, they could have just been stupid). You know, this film would probably only be funny to a pothead, it's random, weird, and just all over the place. How they got all these actors and celebrities to be in this piece of shit is a mystery. I can't believe this is from the same people who made The Naked Gun, Airplane, and the original Scary Movie. This is the first film in the series to come out in nearly a decade, and I hope this effectively kills an already dying franchise. This is still in theaters, and isn't doing very well at either the box office or in the eyes of critics, so I hope this is the last film in this franchise. Scary Movie 5 is an awful, unfunny, uninspired mess. Why can't horror spoofs be more like The Cabin in the Woods or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil? That's all I have to say. 1/5 stars.

 (Image: Wikipedia)

The horror classic "The Evil Dead" gets a darker reimagining, will it be something to remember?

Last weekend I saw the reboot of the classic horror-comedy Evil Dead Trilogy.

Evil Dead:
Five friends go to a cabin in the woods to help one of them, a young college student named Mia, detox from a drug addiction. But when one of them discovers a mysterious book of the dead ("Necronomicon") in the basement, and Mia becomes possessed. The trip then becomes a gruesome nightmare, and it's a fight to survive the night. I was initially worried about this movie, but when I heard the original director Sam Raimi (who also directed Spiderman, Drag Me to Hell, The Gift, and Oz the Great and Powerful) and original star Bruce Campbell (Raimi's childhood friend who is also a cult star) endorsed the film and even produced it. The film, although being the first film not to be directed by Raimi or feature Campbell as the bad-ass character Ash, it's surprisingly effective. The red band trailer went all over the Internet, making it top at the box office in it's opening weekend. The film packs in a much gore as it can in 90 minutes. Whereas A Good Day to Die Hard was 97 minutes and felt like it was a half hour long, this film is several minutes shorter, and feels a lot longer, but in a good way, like you got your money's worth. The film, although much darker than the original, which played most of the violence for dark slapstick, was entertaining, thrilling, terrifying, and shocking. There were moments where people couldn't even look at the screen. I feel that the found-footage films are dying out, as the torture porn films did back in 2010, and I hope this is the direction horror films continue to go in. But a fair warning: if you are squeamish, just avoid this movie. The movie also showcases things that we saw in the original Evil Dead: strange and surreal camera angles, excessive gore, and practical effects. Something this reboot is being praised for is it's used of practical effects over CGI. The film also packs in a bunch of references and subtle homages to the original trilogy. With the success of this film, the filmmakers are thinking of coming out with a fourth Evil Dead film (as in a continuation of the original series).That would be awesome. If you like Sam Raimi's film, the Evil Dead franchise, or horror films, Evil Dead is a must-see. 4/5 stars.
(Note: One thing this film does well, is turn hot chicks into disgusting demonic monsters with the magic of special effects.)

 (Images: Google, Wikipedia, Chud.com)

Some news about director James Wan

I was researching director James Wan recently, and, from what I've read about his upcoming projects, he's branching into new genres. For those of you unfamiliar with the young, Malaysian-Australian film director, he has filmed and written macabre hits such as Saw and Insidious, as well as some mediocre flops such as Dead Silence and Death Sentence, as well as directing a commercial for survival horror game Dead Space (similar to crime filmmaker Guy Ritchie's popular Black Ops II commercial from late 2012). He has had several projects announced that never went anywhere, such as Fall Night, a vampire movie based off a graphic novel. Even a neo-noir/action film called X-Ray was announced in 2009, and it never got any more news. He even had a film called Haunts announced for release this year that was never mentioned again. But it appears he's gotten some big work recently. He was signed on to direct an adaptation of the MacGyver series. He also is to begin shooting Fast and the Furious 7 this summer, as he is directing it. A young filmmaker known for work in horror films moving to action blockbusters? Let's see how it works out....

 (Image: Wikipedia)

The Last Exorcism films

I'm going to take a look at the found-footage film The Last Exorcism and it's recent, non-found footage sequel. (I recommend you listen to spill.com's audio review of the second film.)

The Last Exorcism:
Reverend Cotton Marcus has performed several exorcisms in the past, and is working with a documentary crew to prove they are all a scam. He claims to have performed at least a dozen fake exorcisms, and the documentary crew is here to film his last one. He travels to the countryside to meet Louis Sweetzer, a man who claims his sweet (no pun intended) daughter Nell is possessed by a demon, named Abalam. Cotton begins his usual tricks to show that the exorcism is fake, but when strange things begin to happen while the cameras are on, Cotton and his team begin to feel that this troubled girl's issues may be a little too real. The performances by the main cast are pretty good for a horror film (especially nowadays). Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, and Louis Herthrum give pretty good performances as the main characters. There are some scenes in here that are absolutely terrifying, others kind of fall flat, a rather mixed bag, to be honest. But the final sequence is very disturbing, even if it goes a little overboard. The horror elements work very well, as does some of the drama. This film isn't a modern masterpiece, but it's one of the better scary movies that have come out in the past 5 years. The Last Exorcism is a worthwhile horror film, checkit out some time. 3/5 stars.


The Last Exorcism Part II:
Nell Sweetzer has no recollection of what happened to her in the first film, but is put in a girls' home in New Orleans, and life seems to be going good. But when strange things start happening to her again, she must take the help of a secret society of voodoo priests to stop Abalam's destructive power. Although Ashley Bell tries to give another good performance, this script just doesn't work. Many of the scares are funnier than they are scary. The romantic subplot for Nell is stupid, and the fact that the voodoo priests are barely helpful makes their whole part in this movie useless. The movie's ending sounds like the middle of a movie. And at the end, Nell does the most selfish thing anyone can do, and it makes her an unlikeable c*nt. Yep, that's what she is. It's totally called for. The special effects are dreadful, the ending is awful and nonsensical, and the entire film is dull. 1/5 stars.

Halloween reviews: The Omen

Today, I look at the classic demonic horror film The Omen, directed by Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies, Tales from the Crypt) and starring Gregory Peck.

The Omen:
The US Ambassador to Great Britain, named Robert Thorn, after the miscarriage of his and his wife's child, adopts a young orphan, and raises him as his own. The child, named Damien, begins exhibiting strange behavior around age 5, when he freaks out in front fo church, and when his nanny hangs herself screaming "It's all for you, Damien!" Thorn begins investigating, and finds that his son may be the spawn of Satan. He and a photographer try to stop Damien from taking over the world, but they begin to notice there are "omens", such as strange photos which predict the way a person dies... Gregory Peck gives a strong performance as Thorn, who at first defends his son, but begins to notice Damien's true nature. His performance as a troubled father who slowly falls apart is breathtaking. Lee remick plays Thorn's wife, Katherine. She is a concerned mother, but isn't quite as strong as Peck. David Warner (The Lost World, Tron, Time Bandits, Star Trek V, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titanic) plays Keith Jennings, a young newspaper photgrapher who assists Thorn in his investigating into Damien's origins. Billie Whitelaw plays Mrs. Baylock, Damien's new nanny who turns out to be a demon in service to Satan. She has a truly creepy and threatening prescense around her, as, with Thorn, she is (literally) so close to home. Harvey Spencer Stephens gives a good perofrmance as Damien, a sweet little boy who just happens to be Satan's son. This little satanic hellspawn just has creepy things happen around him, such as animals at the zoo run in fear from him, and having a demonic Rottweiller always at his side. Pretty good performance for a kid. Patrick Troughton plays Father Brennan, and old, half-crazy priest who tries to warn Thorn of Damien's origins, including his strange birth mother. The film, unlike The Exorcist, is low on special effects, but the music is really creepy. Jerry Goldsmith's iconic "Ave Satani" is truly haunting and disturbing. I found the mystery and the overall plot a little more far-fetched but a lot more disturbing than The Exorcist, due to the fact that the evil villain wins at the end, and people actually get gruesomely murdered in this film. The Omen is a truly original, creepy and haunting horror film, and Richard Donner works surprisingly well as a horror director. It's a shame he didn't do more. 5/5 stars.
(Also, the film had a mediocre remake that was released on June 6, 2006, and was marketed as "Coming 6-6-06". That's pretty cool.)

Halloween reviews: Donnie Darko

Today, I look at the acclaimed, cult sci-fi/horror thriller Donnie Darko, produced by Drew Barrymore, and starring the then-newcomer Jake Gyllenhaal, and his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal. (Mild Spoilers)

Donnie Darko:
Young Donnie Darko, a socially awkward schizophrenic in 1988, begins having visions of Frank, a dead man in a disutrbing bunny costume 9the most iconic image of the film), who warns him that the world with end in 28 days. He begins to try to cope with friends, these strange visions, his surreal home life, the discovery of time travel, and a new love interest. But, will Donnie be able to prevent this doomsday prophecy?... This film is surpirsing. It did poor at the box office, mainly due to the fact the MPAA only allowed it to be show in 58 theaters, and that was because they were pissed off at the trailer, which prominintely featured a scene in which a plane crashes. (The film was released about a month after 9/11.) The cast are excellent. A young Jake Gyllenhall plays Donnie to a tee. He's awkward, strange, intelligent, and funny. He stands up to aauthroity, but also crosses the line on occasion, and is considered a sociopath and an overall weird kid. Jena Malone plays Gretchen, Donnie's new neighbor and love interest, who is a little weird, like Donnie, and finds his outbursts at the idiotic authroity figures of the town amusing. Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osbourne plays Rose and Eddie Darko, Donnie's caring parents. They're not like most movie parents, who are oblivious to their childrens' problems. They are involved with Donnie's psychologist and genuinely care for the mental state of their fragile son. Speaking of which, Katharine Ross turns in a great performance as supporting character Dr. Thurman, whom is Donnie's uneasy psychologist, often losing hope for Donnie the more his mental state detiorates. Maggie Gyllenhaal (Jake's rela-life sister) plays Elizabeth, Donnie's sister and rival. Daveigh Chase (Lilo and Stitch, The Ring ) turns in a good supporting performance as Donnie's kid sister Sam, who got her own direct-to-DVD sequel. (S. Darko, skip it.) James Duval plays Frank, the strange imaginary friend of Donnie, who warns him of the end of the world. Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze plays opposition roles as Karen Pomeroy and Jim Cunningham, respecitvely. One is a sweet teacher who wants her students to challenge authority and ask tough questions, and Cunningham is a feel-good Christian speaker who is later found out to be a pedophile. Beth Grant plays Kitty, a local teacher and neighbor of Donnie's, who Donnie depsises for being a bitch, being blind to Cunningham's con-man act, and for being so simple-minded. Also worth a note are Alex Greenwald and Seth Rogen (back in his days of Freeks & Geeks) in small roles as some bullies. The writing and direction by Richard Kelly is fantastic. The strange hallucination scenes and the scenes of dark comedy in this surreal universe seem to blend together well. This is thanks to the fact that Kelly makes the scenes feel the same tone, and not drastically and noticeably opposite like in some movies that attempt the mixing comedy and horror thing. The music is also done well, and adds to the scenes of tension or strange visions. The special effects are below par, and minimal, with a 4.5 million budget and under a month to shoot, they had to not include so many effects, which makes the film all the more unique and cool. Donnie Darko manages to be funny, surreal, scary, thrilling, and intriguing, sometimes at once. 5/5 stars.

Halloween reviews: Dawn of the Dead

Since yesterday I reviewed the zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead, I've decided that today i will review it's sequel, and arguably the better film, Dawn of the Dead... (Mild spoilers)

Dawn of the Dead:
In 1978, the zombie plague has spread past the countryside, and has been recently invading populated society. The apocalypse is now looming more, everpresent now as small towns fall to the zombie hordes. But, a small band of survivors, including some SWAT members, stake out a small mall, but, a violent biker gang and endless swarms of flesh-eating monsters threaten their dream of peace and quiet... This film offered more gore, action, and death, all in gruesome color. The opening of the film shows a SWAT raid on a project in the slums, showing it overrun with zombies, and the news stations are running 24/7 in order to warn the masses. This shows that the epidemic is even worse, especially as in the last film, it seemed that the local cops were wrapping up the zombie situation, at the expense of Ben's life. The cast are great, cult actor Ken Forree (The Devil's Rejects, From Beyond, Keenan and Kel) plays Peter, another George Romero black protagonist, who is a SWAT member. He's a bad-ass, and another black hero who just takes charge. Scott Reiniger plays Roger, Peter's smart-ass best bud and fellow SWAT member. He's cocky and likeable, which makes his death halfway through the film more tragic. He also has a great line ("We got this man, we got this by the ass!!") David Emge and Gaylen Ross play Stephen and Francine, a young white couple,w ho know Roger, and get smuggled out on a chopper by the two after the SWAT raid. Francine works at the news station, and Stephen's her boyfriend. Tom Savini (special effects artist on this, Creepshow, Friday the 13th, and others) has a minor role as Blades, a motorcycle gang member. The tension and special effects are great. The slow-moving zombies create a more slow-moving suspense scene, and Savini's graphic special effects are great. There's some funny comedy, too. Also, the political message stays as well.  This time, it's a message about consumerism, as the zombies stumble around the mall mindlessly. This film was released in Italy under the name Zombi, and got unofficial sequels like Zombi II (a cult film, called Zombie in the US, as it's msotly unrelated). The film also escalated Ken Foree, Tom Savini, and, of course, George Romero to cult stardom.Overall, Dawn of the Dead is an excellent horro film, and the best zombie film ever made. 5/5 stars.
















 The film is famous for having a darker, alternate ending:(Spoilers) In the original ending, after Stephen and Roger become zombies and get killed, Francine starts up the hlicopter (evne though she can't fly), and Peter kills himself before being eaten by zombies, and Francine, realizing there is little hope, chops off her own head with the chopper's blades. In the theatrical ending, the director decided to have a more light ending, so as Peter is about to kill himself, he springs to action and kills some zombies, and he and Francine fly away in the chopper....