April 24-
May 30
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It was terrible. Mariel Hemmingway is a horrible actress, Michael Pare is a hunk but we don't see nearly enough of his remarkable body (despite the fact that when he transforms, he shreads through his clothes like The Incredible Hulk) and as an actor he's not trying at all, and the movie is mostly about that little boy from Dennis the Menace (the one with Walter Mathau) and his German Shepherd, Thor. The music is too light and family-oriented, scenes go on for much longer than they should with bad editing, the werewolf thinks that "family love" can break the curse (HELLO!)... And the killing scenes go on for too long and waste a few good seconds of good blood and gore by having the wolf scratch / bite the victims right away then shake them or jiggle them around for 15 seconds before the camera cuts away to another scene. The rest of the movie is pure boredom.
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All the critics rave about how great this movie is. I just have to go... "ug." It's a ghost horror movie from 1944 where you do see a very cool-looking apparition in maybe 2 scenes in the movie, but instead of anything scary happening, the movie is way too talky and music-driven, and there are way too many jokes and really unfunny comic scenes. One-liners, really... When the movie apparently has some kind of perverted incestuous or lesbian friends / sisters trying to kill people from beyond the grave - someone will always die, then make a joke about it. And a bad one at that. It's also too sappy and melodramatic. Two things I hate - bad old jokes from 1940's mainstream movies, and melodrama! It's one of those unintentionally funny movies but critics seem to think it's a masterpiece. It's also boring and long. But it does have an amazing house, by the ocean / sea. When the brother and sister are looking it over in the beginning- the only real scene that makes any part of this movie worth checking out.
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This was on Encore last night and I wanted to check it out again. Probably because since seeing this movie, I bought (a completely cheap used copy of) Wishmaster and that movie completely rips off Demon Knight. Anyway, I was wrong about this movie... it's not that good. The special effects are horrible, the "demons" look terrible, the acting is that annoying brand of "let's everyone just talk too much and too loud" instead of people really looking scared that also hurt 1999's House on Haunted Hill remake. Nobody seems really scared in this movie. And the score music is awful too. A lot of badly pitched horns and loud, screeching railroad tracks. And it's not scary. The director does have a visual flair. But his second horror film, Bones, was much better than this.
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Well... What can I say about this movie? It's better than I expected it to be after seeing the trailers and ads back in '03. But since the director was added to the Masters of Horror roster in the second season... I expected that maybe this movie was quite good. I mean, if the other directors approve of it, maybe it is better than average. But, the average of this decade so far is very low. So just because it's better than most of the crap coming out doesn't mean it's that good. The characters are still pretty dumb and not easy to care about. But admittedly, the director takes the focus off of them. The style is almost non-existent, but there are a few really good-looking scenes. The villains are completely unimpressive, silly, and not scary. But the scenes of trying to survive are really intense. For every negative, there's a positive. So, it ends up being a not-good but not-bad movie. Which I can certainly live with.
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Anyway, it's the first of the Ginger Snaps sequels that I've seen and I was really looking forward to it, since the first film is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, this film is just not very good. Unlike the first film, this one lacked any real point about male - female relationships and social dynamics. All they do is put the girls in a camp of fairly savage oldtime-war muskets & arrows men and show the girls getting punched in the face a lot. This one seemed to be going for a Native-American Mythology point and lacked the hard feminist bite of the original. This time, the humans were as boring as the werewolves. BUT, the movie did look amazing. The production design and camerawork was excellent. And, of course Katharine Isabelle's performance is great. Even if the filmmakers aren't giving her much to work with. She gets a few killer one-liners in the opening. A real disappointment.
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Near-total piece of sh*t. All it is is an episode of C.S.I. mixed with Se7en, Deep Red, and Cube. Worthless. A
little blood / gore does not do anything to save this movie. One single good quality - the "time twist" at the end. Otherwise: avoid like the plague.
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That title says: Chillers. / It doesn't overwhelm at the start. But when it was over, I had to say- I liked it quite a bit. It's an anthology and the first two (of five) "stories" are really flat. So much so actually, that I laughed a couple of times. During the "swimming story," there's a scene where a woman thinks a man is drowning and she and the lifeguard dive into the pool to look for him. It's a huge pool, and... they keep popping up and diving down in the exact same spot to look for him. They don't swim across the pool. They're in the same spot in this huge pool and the music is so "suspenseful" at that moment, but they're not looking at all. During the "camping story," there's an adult and 3 little like 10-year old boys. So at first you think- what the hell's going on? No one's thinking this guy could be a pedophile or something. But then, the boys start smoking cigarettes. And I just thought... who on Earth would let their kids smoke in a movie like this? It's hilarious. They're really sucking and blowing this smoke out of their mouths- it's not a gag.
But anyway... the next three stories are truly excellent.
Especially the "vampire" one. The first true highlight of the film. Very unpredictable. It gets off to a slow start, but once it kicks into gear- it's impressive, interesting, and smart. Especially the last one, the "demonic possession story," beginning with a college professor debating the goal of tribal rituals with a class of aggressively naive students. The "Oral Roberts" references are sharp and his response to one annoying student is a real Clapper Moment!
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for both
Re-watching these, both of which I loved before, was an unfortunate lesson in growing up. Growing up means you become more aware of bad mainstream-movie cliches and posturing. Though you will feel a little more upbeat walking out of these than you did coming in, you have to wait a
long time to crack a genuine smile while you're watching.
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The title says: The Newlydeads. / I guess it was supposed to be pretty bad. It was really cheaply made, the acting wasn't
very good, the special make-up effects were really bad, and the villain looked horrible. But I really enjoyed it. It was funny, charming for the most part, the music was good. Until the ending, when everyone was running in the woods for 10 minutes straight and you couldn't tell what was going on. Keep a few things in mind - it's Troma, it's "shot on video," the killer is a zombie transvestite. But, here's an absolutely
fascinating historical note: one of the victims is played by Doug Jones, who has become a
legend in Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi films through his roles in Pan's Labyrinth, HellBoy, Quarantine, Batman Returns, Fear Itself, and HBO's Tales from the Crypt. He also played Billy Butcherson in Disney's Hocus Pocus.
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It was okay. The first 28 or so minutes was fast-moving, funny, and a little creepy. The dubbed audio really stings you in the ear and that made me almost jump a couple of times. The blood / gore is very good, the music is very good, the acting is okay, the camerawork is likable. But... there's no real story here. No point to anything. Then, along comes the cult. When they have the big war scene at the cult and all the scenes showing you the inner workings of the religious cult, the movie is boring beyond words. But toward the end, it does get better again. And again, very funny. This movie has a wicked sense of humor.
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What a disappointment! I was so hot to see this after Stacy Title's amazingly disturbing, intelligent, and deeply scary 1995 thriller The Last Supper. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible this movie is if you haven't seen it. But I can best wrap this one up with, "stay far away from the Hood of Horror." Far, far away.
Admittedly, the 2nd story was based on a good idea, but it went nowhere, the Slumlords were mindlessly cliched and lacked satirical bite, and ended as badly as the entire 1st story played out. The 1st story was so bad and so poorly written that it was
offensive. Offensive to people who are forced to live on the streets, offensive to women, seriously offensive to minorities. And the 3rd story was completely predictable.
This movie, literally, is like Tales from the Hood for Dummies. And when I say "dummies," I mean it. They completely insulted our intelligence as viewers. Not to mention this is a painful waste to all the talents involved, especially Ernie Hudson from the masterful Ghostbusters movies!
The most interesting thing about the whole movie was Snoop's rap theme, that actually included references to a few horror movies: Fright Night, The Last House on the Left,
and The Last House on Dead End Street. Great to know Snoop knows his horror. I also would have thought Snoop knew better than to do a bad movie just to keep up the lame "Smooth Pimp" image.
9/10 (Took a star off for Pierce Brosnan's singing. 
