Monday, November 08, 2010

A Swing and a whole bunch of misses- last week's horror films

Well, some weeks you just have the worst luck. I'd say only one pick this week was worth watching, but them's the breaks!
So from worst to best:
Dead Clowns- by Steve Sessions- one of the reviews I read about this film was: " this movie wouldn't be good as a coaster" IYep I entirely agree. The cover art is the only thing good about the film. It's touted as an indie movie, but it's more like a home video- it's that bad. Please don't ever see this. It's not even bad in a good way, it's just terrible. There isn't even a poster for it because it's SO bad

Frightmare - Hide and Shriek by Ash Smith This is also called Paranoid for some reason. Whatever the title, it's bad. It has the usual premise-A group of high school seniors put on a haunted house to raise money for their senior trip, but when 3 people are killed they hunt for a seriel killer before the haunted house is shut down. This low budget, poorly acted and poorly written flick will scare you off the SECOND you turn it on. Believe me, I shut it off in the credits, but then turned it back on just to see if it was salvageable. Yup. Bad.

Alone in the Dark- by Uwe Boll- Why, why, why don't I read the directors before choosing something? I HATE this director and all his films. SIGH.
Premise: Based on the video game, Alone in the Dark focuses on Edward Carnby, a detective of the paranormal, who slowly unravels a mysterious events with deadly results.
I love Resident Evil, and that was a video game. This was supposed to be a fantasy thing, and maybe if you were playing the game you would like it, but as a film it sucked. Oh for the days when Christian Slater was in Heathers. SIGH. Pass. 


Splice by Vincenzo Natali
Premise: Two young rebellious scientists are told by their employers to halt groundbreaking work that has seen them produce new creatures with medical benefits by splicing together multiple organisms' DNA. They decide to secretly continue their work, but this time splicing in human DNA.
What the heck happened to what should have been an interesting movie? It SUCKED! I could see how the special effects people won an award, but the characters just did so many things that were unbelievable it was ridiculous. And it really turned what could have been a cool examination of life and what we are doing with it, to a ridiculous love triangle that just wasted everything. Whoever thinks this film is a great piece of science ficion needs to have their head examined. It was just bad. I hope Sarah Polley makes some better choices moving forward. I think it might be too late for Adrien Brody. He hasn't had a good role since the Pianist. BIG PASS!

Dark Ride- the Last Ride you'll ever Take- by Craig Singer. 
Premise: A group of six friends on a road trip stop off at an amusement park attraction named 'Dark Ride', unaware that a psychopath who brutally murdered two girls, has just escaped a mental institution and is seeking refuge there.
Yup, this one's claim to fame is probably   Jamie-Lynn Sigler from the Sopranos and Campfire Stories. This isn't a terrible film, just quite boring. The psychopath in the asylum is actually quite creepy, but there wasn't enough of him. You only see his face once and it was a good one. Too bad that he spends the rest of the film running around in the dark. And the "twist" isn't much of one, since you pretty much know what's going to happen. It's not horrible, and has a good gore quotient, but it certainly fits with the 80's genre of horror film. Except it's from 2006.
The Hamiltons - Their Loss is Your Pain by Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores. I did not like this film. It was just really long and drawn out with nothing much going on. There were all these allusions to interesting back stories that never played out, and I really grew tired with it. There weren't even any good laughs along the way. It was just bad. I think the book was better. 

And the pick of the week is Dorothy Mills- Evil Chose Her by Agnes Merlet
Premise: Jane Morton, a psychiatrist from Dublin in deep mourning following the accidental death of her husband and son, is assigned to work on the case of Dorothy Mills, a teenaged girl in a small village who tried to strangle a baby. After miraculously surviving a car accident, Jane discovers a village darkened by strange events and meets a very nervous Dorothy, who swears she never touched the baby. After analyzing the teenager, Jane makes a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder until the day that Dorothy speaks with the voice of David, Jane's dead son.

Except it's not really quite like that. It's much more involved, and I have to say that it was a very interesting film. It's got a basically all Irish cast and the acting is very good. This isn't a horror film, it's more of a thriller than anything else. If you are looking for gore- and death than don't look here. And there isn't anything to do with an exorcism in this film, although the marketing was set up like that- bad move, since it doesn't have anything to do with that, and I feel, cheapens the writing and plot. Dorothy is very interesting and I found that I was waiting to see how they were going to wrap it all up. It was a good little film. 






 

1 comment:

Rebecca A Emrich said...

okay at least I know what not to watch