What I'm Watching: The Collector/The Collection

Hey, it's a two for one review!

I recently watched The Collector, finally.  Mainly because I saw trailers for The Collection, and realised it was a sequel.  Oops.  I should watch the first one first, eh?

So I watched them both back to back, and here we are.

The general plot concerns a man who likes to go around to places, rig up elaborate traps, and then proceeds to get off watching his victims try and escape.  And fail miserably.

We do not find out who he is.

We do not find out why he's doing this.

We do not find out why he saves people.  At least, not entirely.

We DO get hints at these things, but I like that they are slowly dealing out information over the movies, and hope we get another one with some more answers.

I really, really enjoyed both of these movies.  Screw the popular reviews, they don't seem to get it.  Most of them complain about everything I just said, but not knowing who this guy is, that's part of the point.  They're playing on the same terror The Strangers played with, in that we never see these killers' faces, and they could literally be anyone, they could be the guy you walked by on the street, they could be your neighbours, they could be your best friend.  That is true terror, right there.

And hey, a little mystery is always fun.  Now, if we don't get answers, and the creator does assure us repeatedly that there ARE answers, that is indeed frustrating.

But back to the movies.

The first movie focuses on a single family and their home, and a handyman who is also a recently released ex-con.  He gets caught in the mix when he breaks into the house to retrieve something, and ends up being the main rival of the Collector.  It's a great dichotomy to have this one criminal striving for redemption going against another criminal who really just doesn't give a shit.

Josh Stewart does a great job as the lead, and with so much of his creeping around the rigged house having to be done in silence to avoid the Collector, he has to do a lot with very little, and he does it amazingly well.  The cat and mouse between the two is SO well shot.  Both of these, if done poorly, would have killed the movie right there, but both just sing.  Great filmmaking.

The second movie deals with the fallout of the first, with Josh's character coming back into contact with the Collector in his base of operations, and with a team of cannon fodder...er, bodyguards with their own agenda that just so happens to coincide.

I prefer the first movie because the scale is more intimate and you get to really get to know everyone very well, and with everything being turned up to 11 for the sequel, you lose a bit of that.  But just a bit.  The insanity of an entire hotel turned into a series of death traps makes up for maybe a little less care being taken in characterisation.

The story arc for Josh's character in both films is well played, starting with him being the ex-con, wanting to just get in and get out of the house, but slowly finding his courage and rising to the occasion.  And the second movie when his courage leaves him, and almost being his downfall.  Fortunately there is a resounding moment of the damsel in distress saying screw that, and saving herself AND Josh.

The Collector himself is a great addition to the horror pantheon of bad guys.  He holds his own with so many, and I love the way he's played like this insect-like predator.  He's calm, quiet, detached, and the way he moves, the way he acts...just a thrill to watch, with almost no dialogue, again.  The acting in these movies almost blows me away, within the context of what they're working with.

And yes, you'll hear these are from a few people involved in the later Saw films, but these are SOO much better.  And yes, that means gore, but I don't think that got as bad as some people think it did, or maybe afraid of it getting.  Just brace your stomach and gives these films a chance if you want some crazy fun action and terror.  It's like Home Alone on crack, with the sequel being, and I realise this is a bit of an old, obscure reference, the Hotel Cabal from Gargoyles.

J

What I'm Watching: Late November

And away we go with more movies!

A little off the beaten path from our usual fair, but with a reputation of badness, I finally got a chance to see the Hitman movie adaptation.  Now, I am NOT a player of the games.  I have Hitman 2, played it a little, but never quite got into it, so I am vaguely familiar with the property, but not intimately.  I felt they got a lot right, and it was a fun story, with an ok cast.  I *liked* Olyphant's 47, and the movie was fun, but not great.  The biggest problem was the needlessly complex plot that wndered all over the place for very little reward.  Way better than I'd heard, but I can see how fans would be more pissed than I was.  Don't seek it out, but if you stumble across it, what the hey.

Speaking of poorly received adaptations, hello Green Lantern!  A lot of the same things I said about Hitman apply here.  Not as bad as you may have heard, an ok cast, a lot they got right, but it ended up not gelling right.  If anything, the plot could have used a little MORE complexity.  In reality, it's biggest crime was coming out in the same year as Captain America, Thor, and X-Men: First Class.  Sucks to be you, Hal Jordan.  It needed some work, and comes off as a pretty basic story, but an ok comicbook movie that is better than some, worse than most.  Thoroughly average with a good cast.  Go watch the new cartoon instead. ;)

Somewhat horror like is a movie I have NO idea what I feel about it.  Yeah, Red State is one of those.  Kevin Smith tells the story of a group of teens that run afoul of some very religious folk, and how horribly, HORRIBLY wrong things go.  I love Kevin Smith, and this is SO different from his normal type of movie.  And that is a good thing.  The cast is simply amazing, and the preacher steals the entire freaking show.  But Kevin almost wanted to make three different movies, as three stages of this one larger film, and I don't think everything came together quite as well as he would have liked.  That said, it's better than Cop Out, and probably some of Smith's best directing as the camera does more than just sit there, with the aforementioned astounding cast, I just...don't know what to make of it.  This movie is likely going to get a cult following, and could grow on me over time, it's just so not cohesive upon that first viewing, because it goes all over the place, deliberately.  Just as you find your footing, it veers elsewhere.  And I *like* that, but it makes it hard to get a handle on this movie!  Worth seeing just to form your own opinion.

I have a new favourite found footage movie; Grave Encounters.  Now, I still love the Paranormal Activity movies, but GE gets SO much right.  It is genuinely spooky.  It is the best excuse for a found footage movie so far, using the current glut of Ghost Hunter shows as its premise to follow a group of tv people making that sort of show in a genuinely haunted asylum.  And shit goes way the hell wrong.  Where most found footage movies hold their scares, and only do minor little things, this movie is VERY in your face, and it had me twitching by the end of it.  Really, really enjoyed it.

Meanwhile on tv, there's American Horror Story, a new horror show on FX, that uses their more adult themes to the fullest, and doesn't hold many punches.  The very first episode left me cold, and didn't click for me, but the show has gotten better with each episode, and the Halloween two parter was the best yet.  It's the story of a family moving into a new home in LA, that has a long, storied, and bloody history.  Cue the ghosts that won't leave them alone.  I'm not sure how the hell it can really last as a lengthy series, but for now I enjoy the ride.

Also there's one of two fairy tale inspired shows, Grimm.  I still haven't watched the other one yet, give me time!  But this one is about a detective who learns he is the latest in a long line of hunters of fairy tale creatures, and he must protect normal people from them.  It's a little Supernatural, a little Buffy, and...since I just watched the first episode, only a little ok.  The plot is ok, it has some mildly interesting stuff, but seems to be trying too hard to shove its cleverness down our throats.  And the final clue that leads them to the Big Bad Wolf trying to kill Red Riding Hoods is so mind numbingly stupid, it almost made me throw my remote at the tv.  I hope it gets better, but that one moment almost ruined the entire show for me.

And finally, if you want to see my review of In Time, which I will say I kinda loved, swing over to my LiveJournal and read many more in depth thoughts than, "Yay good!"

WHEW!  Ok, that mostly catches me up, and clears the deck for our post-Thanksgiving review, and for the massive December plans I've got brewing.

Happy holidays!

J

What I'm Watching: July, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!

Before diving in, if you want to pick my brain on Transformers 3, swing over to my LiveJournal where I go pretty in depth with it, and no need to repeat myself.

With that out of the way, I came across an odd little movie on the pay stations a few weeks back, and checked out this thing called Portal.  No, not THAT Portal.  Sadly.  This Portal was about a pair of guys whose car gets stuck in the thickest fog bank this side of London's East End.  They spend the night at the lone hotel they find, and then things get weird.  As the plot unfolds, they discover they're stuck in a time loop, and there's satanists behind it all.  This was a really clever idea, done well enough, and made good use of 'bottle' storytelling, and the dense fog really helped sell the closed in idea, and minimal sets.  It doesn't quite execute as well as it would have liked, but since it was literally something I discovered at 3am on a Saturday, I can't complain.  As is usual, the ending falls apart and doesn't really resolve anything, but yeah, acted well enough, and had an intriguing enough plot that it was legitimately interesting.  If you find it at some 3am, check it out.

The summer tv season has begun, and one of the first new shows to come out was Falling Skies.  In short, this is a post-invasion show, and we're following the resistance movement in Massachusetts.  The first episode wasn't bad, but didn't blow me away, but I am becoming more intrigued by why the aliens are here, what they want, and what they're doing.  I love that we are not seeing all CGI, and we get some practical aliens.  And hooray for them being REALLY alien.  I'm tired of humanoid aliens.  My biggest complaint is I want to see more of how we got here than just "the aliens invaded, and technology stopped working".  There's a story in there, in and of itself.  I get wanting to not go that route, since this is the story of the resistance, the fight back, and not the invasion, but I would like some details sprinkled in here and there.  It gets better each week, and the introduction of their Lokean archetype definitely brought a new level to the show.  You need that element of chaos.

And if you're like me and disappointed in Teen Wolf, you can get your animalistic funtime on in another show, The Nine Lives of Chloe King.  I'll admit it, I am kinda loving this show.  It's about a teenaged girl who wishes for some excitement for her birthday, something different, and boy, does the karma fairy grant her wish hard.  She discovers that not only is she a long lost member of a supernatural race of feline-like people called the Mai, but she is their prophesied unifier, who will live nine lives.  The show is very Buffy in tone, with those high school tropes and allegory, but not quite as much quirky writing or cleverness.  But not everyone is a Joss Whedon, so I don't hold that against the show.  But yeah, this is a really solid show that fills that Buffy void very well.  I hope the show finds a way to develop a little more beyond just having Mai versus a group of humans called the Order, but the high school drama gives it some variety.  Much better than Teen Wolf, much better acting, much better writing.

Finally, back to the movies, or DVD, I caught Adjustment Bureau at long last.  And...I loved this movie.  I love when science fiction poses questions, looks at the human condition, and plays with concepts that are just the other side of known reality.  And it's not REALLY science fiction, since there's no technology doing anything, but that's the closest place it falls into.  I love questioning fate, free will, choice, and how we all fit into the big plan.  This movie was fun, with an amazing cast, and a unique idea, or an old one told in a new way.  I highly recommend it if you like classic Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, because this falls very well into that wheelhouse.  It's much more like those stories than the modern Will Smith attempt at making I, Robot an action movie.

That's it for now, back to the big time reviews!  See you in a few days.

J

What I'm Watching: Late June, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!  Happy summer!  Anyone up for a trip to camp?  How's Crystal Lake this time of year?

Anywho, before diving into what images flicker in front of my eyes, I did want to direct everyone's attention to the Movie Cover Gallery which has a minor, but significant change.  I split out movies for 2009-2010, and a seperate page for 2011 as I mentioned earlier.  But as I kept looking at the pages, something felt wrong, and it felt strange to visit the 2009-2010 movies first.  So, I flopped the pages around, and when you visit the MCG now, the first movies that come up are the current year's fare, and the pre-2011 movies are now archied to a seperate page.  Chronological made sense, but moving the older movies to a seperate page made just that hair more sense to me.  Your mileage may vary, but it's not difficult to find any movie on those two pages.

But onto the watching part of this post.  First up was something that slipped my mind last time, the new Teen Wolf show.  Forgetting it did give me a chance to watch a few more episodes, and I wish I had tonight's newest episode to watch as well, but I guess that will have to wait.  Still, a few episodes in and I am formulating an opinion.  And that opinion is a resounding Meh!  They took everything you knew and loved about the classic movie and tossed it right out the window.  I'm surprised there's even a werewolf in this movie.  The humour is gone, the family curse is gone.  About the only things that DO remain are a wolf who is a teen.  It is so dark, so brooding, and just so, so meh!  I have no other word for it.  The characters are whiny, and making the show like every other werewolf story, where a guy gets bit and has to deal, makes it JUST ANOTHER WEREWOLF STORY.  There is nothing special here.  SO disappointing.  It's ok, but so nothing special.  And it's barely ok.  Maybe I just don't get the show, but it's just so bland and unoriginal.  I have hope that it's just growing pains, and they find their voice, but those hopes are low.

Speaking of werewolves, I also watched the big screen horrory reimagining of Red Riding Hood.  And even if I didn't know this was from the director of the first Twilight film?  I'd be able to tell.  It has that same clean, sterile style, and the haaaair.  Where did people in medieval times find so much product to slick their hair up into points like that?  The world looks very fake, very set-like, and way too storybook.  Which almost works for the story, considering the subject matter, but it pushes things a little too far, and almost feels like a play.  Look of the movie aside...this isn't bad.  The story is solid, well thought out, has some interesting twists, and makes sense.  The acting is solid, and Gary Oldman, as always, is a blast.  There's problems to be sure, but the movie doesn't deserve the bashing it got, I think.  It's fun, and an interesting take on the story everyone knows.  I did hate how they brought in the, "My, what big ____ you have" stuff.  That was WAY too forced, and I don't think we really needed it, other than to say, "See!  See!  RED RIDING HOOD!  In case you missed the title!  And the red hood!"  But that aside, it's worth seeing if you've got some time to kill and it comes on tv.  Not bad at all.

Another side thing that's what I'm watching, but not exactly that big of a thing, is MST3K.  I've mentioned, probably ad nauseum, that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of the grandfathers of Trisk, and a few weeks ago I was growing nostalgic, missing those Saturday or Sunday mornings where I'd curl up in my chair and watch the newest episode, and it hit me; duh, I have 20 volumes of DVDs.  I can recreate my weekly MST3K fix easily.  And so I did.  A month ago, I grabbed MST3K volume 1, and started from the start of that set, moving forward one episode a week, just like I originally saw a few years of the show.  Granted, this is far from all the episodes, and in no particular order, but order is unimportant.  Doing the show in order WOULD be fun to do someday, though.  As I'm watching, I'm also posting my thoughts on the episodes each week to my LiveJournal.  If you're so inclined, you can follow those posts right over here which links to the MST3K tag for my LJ, so all those specific posts will appear there.  I don't guarantee every episode I watch being talked about, but if I have something to say, I will.  Nothing major, nothing revelatory, but it might be of interest to some people.

And that's enough for now.  See you in a week for a new full review!

J

What I'm Watching: June, 2011

NOT THOR!

Ungh.  I can't see 3D movies, so was waiting for 2D showings that never came.  This has made for a not happy Jason.  I may have excessively grumpy reviews in the future.

Been a light DVD month, but there's a few sitting around here.

Vanishing on 7th Street...oh, you tried so hard.  Shadows, moving, human shadows, freak me the hell out.  One of the few things that will turn me into a whimpering girl.  The trailer really caught my eye, and the movie had a few GREAT moments.  It is really more of a character piece, and it does some good work with those characters.  Unfortunately, there is some very dodgy plotting.  Characters act strangely, things happen for no reason...heck, the entire movie happens for no given reason.  I can live with unexplained things attacking, but this movie gives you NOTHING to hang onto.  Why people were disappearing into the darkness, what the darkness was...I can go without knowing all the answers there.  But once those things start doing things, having plots, and taking specific actions for some reasons, you need to elaborate and give us SOME insight.  And the ending is just a big ball of "What??"  This could've been a great movie, but it is at least kinda watchable, but it's hard to recommend it on a few good scares.

Another very panned movie of recent months is I Am Number Four.  Another movie well-deserving of poor reviews.  The worst thing a movie can be is bland.  You can be good, and hey, you're set.  You can be bad, but be entertaining at least.  As this site shows.  But if you're just there?  That is entertainment death.  There's nothing to talk about.  And Number Four?  Is just kinda there.  It's not good, it's not bad.  I can live with cliche writing.  Almost everything is a cliche in some way, but if you do something interesting with the cliches, you can rise above them.  See Star Wars for example.  Yeah, you heard me.  I just said Star Wars is full of cliches.  But so is Number Four, and the quality gulf is vast.  It's not helped by some very bland performances.  The lead, in particular.  I wonder if his blandness is because he's trying to force his native accent into an American one, and he's so focused on that he loses all emotion.  He talks about the deaths of his people, his friends, and mentor, in the most boring, matter of fact way.  He may as well have been talking about the weather.  Nice.  The story isn't awful, but this presentation of it is just so monotone.  The one bright spot is Teresa Palmer.  When she arrives in the last third of the movie, things actually happen, dangit.  She enfuses the movie with a whole new level of life.  I don't know if it's just her, or the fact that she brings action sequences on her heels, but either way, that last third of the movie actually starts getting good.  But it doesn't make up for the bulk of the movie.  I'd still watch it before Vanishing though.

Just as cliche, but so much better, is the Roommate.  Or as I call it, the CW goes to College with a Single White Female and has a Fatal Attraction.  I enjoyed this.  It's not great.  It's just as cliche as that description makes it sound.  But we haven't had this sort of movie, in college, for awhile, so I don't mind a new entry in this field.  The cast is decent, and the acting isn't bad.  Leighton Meester layers her crazy character so she's not all nutty all the time, and you almost feel for her at times, which is always tough to pull off.  Not perfect, but a good 90 minutes to kill.  But if you're tired of the whole sort of story of a girl trying to take another's life, or be her only friend, you could pass this one by without much trouble.  It is far from the strongest entry in the field.

And finally, my pick of this post, Drive Angry.  Oh ho, this movie is kinda awesome.  If this had come out in the 80s, and it damn well is written like it could've, it would be reviewed on this site.  And we'd probably give it at least a four out of five.  Nic Cage is a bit, well, Nic Cage, but that works for the role of escaped from Hell bad ass Milton.  Amber Heard is a force to be reckoned with in this movie.  She is, holy crap.  I don't know what reserves of acting she's pulling on for her rage, but DAMN does she kick ass, and you believe she will rip your head off, spit down your throat, and then use your head for a soccer ball.  Just for looking at her funny.  William Fichtner as the Accountant, the man sent from hell to reclaim Cage, is just as good.  He steals this movie.  He's always been a treat to see on tv and movies, but here, he's a pure joy.  This is a modern day exploitation flick, and every bit as bad and good and fun as you would hope that would be.  The only downside is that you can tell this movie was done in 3D.  The 'at the screen' gimmicks sometimes get to be a bit obviously much, but they're still fun and fit well with the spirit of this movie, so whatever.  If you love the movies on this site, the less painful ones at least, you need to see this movie.

And that's it for new stuff.  I've got some classic crap to review!

Oh, and if you want to know what I thought of X-Men: First Class, swing over to my LJ and read my breakdown of that.  Short version: Freakin' awesome.

J

What I'm Watching: April, 2011

Hello, horrorheads!

First up, before I get into my rambling thoughts, my scanner seems to have passed away.  This has a minor effect on the website, as each review contains cover images from the DVDs that I scan in myself, as a bit of odd proof that I actually own these things.  This is never anything I've pointed out, but it's there.  I'm shopping around for a replacement, so it's a minor thing, and I'll get by no problem, but there might be a slight difference that gets noticed.  Or maybe not.

I've been watching the classic V tv series from the 1980s.  I saw a number of these back when they originally aired (Sigh I'm old), but mostly remember them from the Scifi Channel reairing them in the 1990s.  I finally grabbed the DVDs and have gotten around to watching them.  What with alien lizards, killing people, and a few scares, it's an appropriate thing to mention.  Also, cheese.  There is a lot of nostalgia for V, and much of that is due to the original miniseries, which is a brilliant bit of allegory.  But once it became a weekly series, the quality took a dive.  Not many alien effects, most of the spaceships are reused footage from the miniseries, the cast is pared down almost weekly as money dries up, and the writing is simplistic and corny, if not downright silly.  The reboot of the show in recent years is getting a lot of deserved flak, but...the other original series?  Not that great either.  It's still campy fun, and does have some brilliant moments, and familiar characters, but it's wince worthy too.  And it gets worse with each episode, I think.

It is no secret I love Doctor Who.  I reference it in almost every damned review, in some way.  Often, more than once.  So yeah, the new series kicked off just before I'm writing these words, and I loooved the newest episode.  That's all I'm saying.  It was surprising, terrifying, and all those things you expect from Who.  I also picked up the American-made FOX tv movie from 1996.  Eric Roberts as an over the top, super campy bad guy.  He needs to appear in more movies I review.  He's a godsend to Trisk.  So goofy, I love his performances.

On the movies I missed front, there's the much-maligned Skyline.  Aliens come to Earth, and people get sucked into the sky and their ships.  A lot of the dislike this movie got is well deserved.  The movie has nothing that stand out about it, but it's not THAT bad either.  But it's not bad enough to come around to good again.  The performances are fine, the effects are surprisingly good, but the plot is slow, plodding, and takes too long for anything of substance to happen.  You never quite get a feel for the characters, with all the time they spend with them, which is a shame.  So much time, and I couldn't care less about these people.  Making most of them be stereotypical LA asshats doesn't help.  The plot is also a little too murky.  It clears up on repeated viewings, and with some commentary, but I don't think the movie itself quite explained itself well enough.  I'd check this out if it comes up on tv, since it's an OK movie and not as bad as many say but...it is still kinda bad.

Also, finally saw Black Swan, which may be the most critically and commercially acclaimed movie I've seen and owned.  Why is this here?  It is just barely horror.  This is the most horror movie that will win an Oscar, I think.  It has definite elements of horror to the story, wrapped up in a serious drama.  It's more the latter than the former, and is actually very well done.  Darren Aaronofsky is a brilliant director, very visual, and this is such a well made movie in almost every way.  It's just barely not something I would normally watch, but has those minor bits that DO interest me, and brought me into a movie that I mostly enjoyed.  A definite must see.

And finally, a movie I bet none of you have heard about, which is nothing new for Trisk; Dead Awake.  This is about a man who's struggling through life after his parents died, obsessed with death and who killed them, and unable to move forward.  The trailer made the movie look a lot more supernatural than it was, and while there were some elements of that in the final product, the movie was not what I thought it would be.  It's not a bad movie, and has some good things to say about life and loss, and that state of suspension some of us can fall into after losing someone, and is actually quite good for a small, personal film like this.  Just not what I was expecting.  Once I got past that, I came around to liking it.  Nothing great, but a good watch.  It's a very personal story, good character bits, and well written.  Just the kind of small, independent movie with just the right amount of the darkness to keep things interesting.  You never quite know how much of that stuff the movie is dealing with, 'til the very end.

So, that's the long write ups here.  If you want to see what I thought about some other recent releases, swing by my Livejournal, and read my in-depth reviews of Source Code and Insidious.  I won't repeat myself here, and let you read those wordy reviews over there.  They really are entire posts unto themselves.  In short, they're both great movies I loved watching.  Pick through my reasons why at your leisure.

See you in a few days for the next Trisking review!

J

What I'm Watching: Early February, 2011

Hey, horrorheads!

Taking a break from plotting the first half of adventures for Triskaidekafiles in 2011, rebuilding my computer, and assorted stuff to catch up with all of y'all out there.  Let's take a look at the pile of DVDs that have passed my eyeballs in the last few weeks, shall we?

At least this month is all horror, all the time.  I grabbed a random DVD when I saw it coming out, called Chain Letter.  At first I hoped, I prayed, it was an adaptation of the Christopher Pike novel of the same name.  Yeah, no.  It's not.  Bad things happening to people who don't forward chain letters is nothing new, but an adaptation of that teen horror classic would have been better than this.  Which isn't to say there isn't fun to be had here.  They take the old tropes of that type of story and drag it kicking and screaminto into the 21st century, using text messages and e-mails.  The cast includes genre faves Brad Dourif and Ketih David, and they definitely bring their A games, but the rest of the cast is weird and wooden.  The deaths though, are amazing.  Holy crap, the blood is great in this.  The plot starts out mostly ok and set up well enough, but the whole mystery is very poorly done, and completely falls apart in the half-assed way they try to explain what's going on.  There's no emotional hook to what is going on, and since the mystery is never really delved into, the revelations are ultimately meaningless and confusing.  The ending manages to redeem some of the movie by being a little clever, but nowhere near enough to save this film.  A good bloodfest that just went horribly awry, which is a shame.  It's like a rough draft of a story that needed a few more revisions.  I enjoyed the campy fun, but it could have been much better.  This so would be a full reviewed movie if it had come out 15 years ago.

Also watched Monsters, which is an interesting story, with an interesting reaction from me.  It's the tale of the daughter of a wealthy man trying to get out of Mexico, and one of his employees is there to help get her across the border.  Along the road trip, they fall in love.  Oh, and there's alien creatures that have begun infesting Earth, but the movie wouldn't really be any different if they were there or not.  Replace aliens with rebel soldiers, and the story would be functionally unchanged.  The movie is well known for doing a lot of CG and replacement of elements on a very low budget, in a very guerilla way, and for what the movie did, how it did it, and how well it did it?  On those counts, I love it.  I admire the movie for what it accomplished in visual storytelling and effects, but the story being told around them is so bland, so straightforward, and just left me cold.  You know they're going to fall in love from the moment they meet, and they do.  There's no real obstacle to that growing relationship thrown in their way, so that's pretty uninteresting.  And the aliens are only background details of the world, so there's very little interesting there to the story.  It could just as easily have been people on safari and watching a lion in the distance.  They did some good work with allegory but overall, the story goes from point A to point B in the straightest, least interesting line possible.  I look forward to more from the director, since he did an amazing job MAKING the movie, but yeah...

Next up is the Last Exorcism, another movie in the genre that puts you squarely in the film, making the cameraman a character in the movie.  Unlike Cloverfield or Blair Witch, this isn't found footage so much as a real documentary, and sold that way.  It has a score, it's edited, and it's polished.  I think that made this movie all the better.  The characters are actors, and this mockumentary is well made.  They nailed the feeling of a documentary, and everyone totally sold it.  The acting is spot on perfect, the camera work, everything.  It's the story of Cotton Marcus, a preacher who has grown disillusioned with the church's policy on exorcisms, and begun making a documentary to show what shams they are.  Along the way he encounters a family with a supposedly possessed daughter in the middle of nowhere New Orleans, and he has to determine if she is really possessed, or it's all an act.  The movie brilliantly walks that line between is she or isn't she, and you are kept guessing right up until the very last minute of the film.  So well done.  The ending of the movie has become very divisive.  Love it or hate it.  Me, I love it.  This is one of the best horror films I've seen in awhile, and such a good ride.  Definitely seek this out.

Finally, there's Let Me In, the American remake of a foreign movie based on a book.  I've not seen Let the Right One In, or read the book, so I can't compare and contrast.  I can only speak to what I've seen.  And what I've seen is good.  Very good.  Chloe Moretz is amazing.  She has a long career ahead of her in this business, and is a better actress than a large chunk of the Hollywood population.  Her costars are equally good, and the performances in this movie really make it.  This is a vampire story, a coming of age story, and a love story all at once.  It takes common themes and looks at them in whole new ways, and does it so, so well.  My only complaint is when Chloe vamps out and becomes a bouncy piece of CGI.  The  CG has no weight to it, and she bounces around effortlessly.  It looks so fake and yanks you right out of the movie.  Those moments are so few and far between, that fortunately the rest of the movie being rock solid makes this definitely a great movie.  If they dealt more with that side of things, with more of the goofy bouncy vampire, then this movie would suffer from it.  But no, that isn't what the movie is about.  It needs those moments to get from one story point to another, and then back to amazing acting, storytelling, and cinematography.

A mixed bag, but mostly good.  Chain Letter is good for camp, but don't expect a good movie.  Monsters you should at least check out since a lot of people love the story.  It just wasn't what I wanted.  But Exorcism and Let Me In are great, and must see movies.

See you in the theatre!

J

What I'm Watching: Christmastime

A bit of a mixed bag this time out, killing time as the next review floats through the interpipes, and catching up on the backlog of DVDs that piled up.  Even though I never feel like I make a dent.

Nic Cage's latest movie, that I never got to see in theatres, was Sorcerer's Apprentice, and you know what?  It's a pretty fun flick.  It's nothing super great, it's not the next great classic.  But it is VERY fun, and the plot holds together very well.  The cast is almost completely well acted, and even Nic Cage who can be uneven does a decent job.  The magic looks good, thanks to a lot of practical effects supporting the visual effects.  The plot is made up of a lot of familiar elements, but they are put together in such a way, that this is almost a unique story.  Yes, it's the classic good versus evil paradigm, but they tackle it in a unique way.  I definitely recommend it for a fun, popcorny movie to watch on a snowy afternoon with cocoa.

Another movie I've watched recently, but seen before, is Metropolis.  The original, not the anime version.  The very much original, as the Complete Metropolis was finally released.  It's missing a few pieces of footage still, but this is the most complete version ever, and possibly the most complete we'll ever get.  The new sound is downright amazing, and actually jarring to have a 5.1 orchestral score to an old, silent, black and white film image that is occasionally dug out of a poor archive because that was the best copy available.  The story is much clearer than I remember it being, and more engaging.  It's been a long time since I've seen earlier hacked up versions, but I'm pretty sure this is a better, more coherent film.  You have to judge it on what it is, and the time it came from, but if you can get through that, it's certainly worth a new look.

Say what you will about Metropolis, the plot may be light, the characters not that built up, but it's an early filmic work, from another country so...but even so, you have to respect the film for what they were able to do in 1927, in the way of scale and effects.

My favourite new zombie movie, well new to me, is Dance of the Dead.  It came out in 2006, but I just found out about it and got it around Halloween.  I adore this movie.  It is *almost* the US version of Shaun of the Dead, but not quite as good.  It's a fun teenage high school romp at the prom, with zombies.  How can you go wrong?  The writing is smart, with some nice wit, and very fun.  The gore is great, and the plot hangs together.  My one complaint is, again, comparing it to Shaun.  The movie doesn't quite pull together as many threads, and isn't QUITE as clever as Shaun.  Which is a shame, because there are some great opportunities for them to set things up and pay them off, but they rarely have that payoff.  If they had followed through on some very obvious plot threads, this movie would be a classic.  But for an independent film from newer filmmakers, it's still rock solid.  Like I said, I adore it.

While not really science fiction, fantasy, or horror, I do want to talk about the new BBC show, Sherlock.  Hey, so many of these movies involve mysteries and twists, so there's a slight connection.  And hey, dead bodies and slashers.  This version is taking the basic Conan Doyle characters and dropping them into 2010.  And you know what?  It totally works.  Almost nothing needs to change about the characters, it just needed updating to more common parlance, like Watson's journals becoming a blog.  If you're a fan of classic Holmes, there is a lot to love here.  There's a lot of references, both in the background and right in your face.  The mysteries are very solid, and very engaging.  And the actors playing Sherlock and Watson are amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first series.  My only complaint is that it's too short!  Three episodes of 90 minutes each?  That's just enough to get me interested and frustrated!  The wait for new episodes will be sheer torture.  If you love mysteries, and are wanting for good ones, or just have a soft spot for Sherlock, this is a must watch, plain and simple.

That's plenty to ramble on about this time, gotta get back to work on Trisk's Christmas review!

Happy Holidays, Horrorheads!

J

What I'm Watching: Early December, 2010

Well, the year is almost done, and it's been a decent 2010.  I've not gotten out to as many movies as I've liked, but that's what DVD is for, and that's what a lot of this post is about.  A couple of movies this time around are a bit of the odd, little known, rare side of things.

An odd little movie I grabbed randomly because it sounded fun, was the Australian thriller, Restraint.  Or Ravenswood as it's known in some markets.  It's a very small cast, but the performances are pretty well done across the board.  Most notable in the cast is Stephen Moyer, whom will be familiar to horror fans as Bill Compton on True Blood.  He plays a rich agoraphobe who is trapped inside his own home after some bad events.  One day, his home gets invaded by a pair of criminals on the run from the cops.  To save his life, he offers them large gobs of cash sitting in a trust fund that the female accomplice can get her hands on since she has a striking resemblence to his fiance.  Things go awry from there, as the trio are forced to spend time locked up in the house together, learning about each other.  It is a very good ride, especially for a low budget movie from first time (I think) filmmakers.  The ending leaves a weird taste in my mouth, but it works.  If you're looking for something a little low key with a few thrills and character exploration, this one is worth a rent.

Speaking of movies with decent thrills but weird endings, the other movie to pass my DVD player lately has been Altitude.  That's actually an odd coincidence between two very different movies.

Altitude is the story of a bunch of young students renting a plane to go to their annual Coldplay concert.  The pilot lost her mother in a plane accident when she was young, and the event haunts her.  After takeoff, things go from bad to worse as they get lost in thick, dark clouds, and start to see a creature lurking within them.  What the creature is and where it came from is the driving mystery.  This was a decent little movie, and used the bottle formula of a small cast trapped in a single location as they're slowly wiped out to good effect.  The first third of the movie is spent learning who the characters are and the plane's initial flight before things even go that wrong, so by the time the shit hits the fan, you actually care when tentacles start tearing people apart.  Or root for it, in one case.  But at least you do care about these people, which is always a good sign in a thriller/horror movie.  The ending is VERY strange, and while it wasn't unique, it did come out of nowhere, and was just so out there and a little bit ballsy that it kinda blew my mind.  I think I liked how it all wrapped up, but I'm not sure!  It was just such an out there twist, it sits uneasily with me.  But I've seen worse movies, so I say it's worth a look.  It was also directed by comicbook artist Kaare Andrews, and for a first time director, he does a good job.  Again, for a movie from new creators, and low budget, it's good for what it is.

Two very interesting flicks, that are a bit off the beaten path and might be of interest.  I've still got a lot more backlog to get through, and reviews to work on, so best to get back at it.

J

What I'm Watching: Late October, 2010

Happy Halloween!

Before I dive into the movies and such I've been watching lately, just some quick notes on what's coming to Trisk in the near future.

For those that have been here for awhile, you will remember the very quiet November from last year, as I partook in the yearly NaNoWriMo writing competition, and this year will be the same.  But with one main difference, there WILL be a review, come hell or high water.  I also plan to still do a Watching post at the very least, so it won't be a total ghost town around here.  Look for our Thanksgiving review on the 15th, to split the month up nicely in half to bide time between now and December.  And there's still one more review going up before then.

After that, Trisk will be diving right into more Christmas movies, and that will take us through 2010.  I've got only a little inkling of 2011 movies to kick off January.  There is a number of films jumping up and down to be reviewed, so they definitely have my attention.

Over the past few weeks, I've watched a number of horror movies; one rather strange, and one pretty straightforward but really good.

The stranger of the two was the rather infamous Human Centipede.  It's the rather simple story of a mad scientist who captures some hapless people stranded on the road, and then does crazy experiments on them, but taken to the Nth degree.  There's nothing that special in the plot, and what really makes the movie stand out is the nature of the experiments.  The crazy Dr. Heiter sews three people together with their mouths connected to the preceeding person's ass and connects their digestive tracts.

Ew, right?

Personaly, I found the Hostel movies far more disturbing, but I can see why this would squick people out.  I still found it to be an interesting study of the few characters in it, and was intrigued to see just how it would turn out.  While I find it hard to recommend something so bizarre and disgusting to many, if you can stomach it and aren't downright turned off by the description alone, I do think it is at least worth seeing, just for the experience of having done so.  I'm not going to get into the medical accuracy, or the movie's claims thereof.  Why start now?  NONE of the movies here are accurate to any sort of reality.  Isn't that half the fun?

From the weird to the almost normal, comes Frozen.  I really, really liked this movie!  I am sold on Adam Green's work, and am definitely moving Hatchet up my list of movies I need to see right the hell now.  Some people will sit down and nitpick apart every last second of the movie, trying to come up with things the trio of characters could have done differently once they get stuck on an abandoned skilift one weekend, or plot holes, or the usual.  However, in my opinion, I feel the movie addressed most of the major potential stupid moments very well.  Most ideas people come up with actually wouldn't work as well as you would think upon first thought.

The strength of Frozen is in its characters.  The secret to all good horror movies.  If you care about the people about to die, then you're willing to buy 90% of anything a movie might throw at you.  Since this movie is three people on a chairlift and nothing else for 80 of it's 90 minute runtime, you absolutely need great characters, and Frozen delivers.  Especially with the casting of Emma Bell as Parker.  She is absolutely adorable, and just on sight alone, you want absolutely nothing bad to happen to this girl.

Your desires will be completely denied, as much happens to Parker.

The absolute best scene in the movie is centered around what the movie doesn't show you, as a brutal attack that many movies would go to for the blood and gore, is left completely out of our sight, and we only experience it through the faces and reactions of the other characters.  That was brilliant and sold me on the movie.

Oh, and the writer/director is from my neck of the woods, and includes a lot of references to the New England skiing culture, so I may be grading on a curve just for those things alone.

But seriously, I could go on and on about this movie, and would love to talk more about it with anyone who has seen it.  If you haven't, I definitely recommend that you do.

And the reason I've kept this post on delay for so long, I literally just walked in the door from Paranormal Activity 2.  I talked about the original back in January, and wanted to get around to my thoughts on this as well.

It's not as good as the first movie, I'd say.  Whereas the original knew just when to get to scaring you, I felt the second time around they spent a little too much time with the characters.  It was ok stuff, but just a hair too long, and I started squirming in my seat waiting for things to get going again.

That said, the scares do make up for it, and are pretty good.  Some of them outdo the first movie, some don't.  It was a really good ride though, and a must see for any fan of the original.  A lot of the events were a bit confounding to me with how they lined up with the first, how they could possibly coexist, but that was explained nicely by the end.

I could have easily set fire to the three young women sitting across the aisle from me though.  They would not shut up and kept giggling.  Some of the giggling was warranted, but argh.

My one complaint is barely even a thing.  It has nothing to do with the plot, and it was a joke that got made by the husband.  His wife is in the bath, and he makes a joke about joining her and how he will, "Release the Kraken!"  In a movie set in 2006.  Um...  Gotta love anachronisms.

That's all for now!  Next full review up soon, and I'll see you when the snow flies.

J

What I'm Watching: August, 2010

Hey hey, horrorheads!

Taking a break from the dungeon, and thought I'd rear my head to talk a little about stuff.

Not much on the old viewertube lately, since we're in that lull of movies coming out in theatres for Halloween, and the DVDs coming out from last Halloween, but a few things do still appear.

Like Parasomnia.

I came across this movie out of nowhere while seeing what releases were coming out, and it seemed like an interesting idea that hasn't been done that much, and written and directed by William Malone.  Who?  Well, he's probably best known for the 1990s remake of House on Haunted Hill.  Which has its problems, and boy are there problems, but I kinda like.  So I grabbed it.

But you don't care about that, you want to know if it was any good.

And y'know what?  It was!  Surprisingly enough, with the other credits to Malone's name.  He's not made a lot of good movies.

As before, Parasomnia has problems too.  The story is a little too straightforward, the acting isn't great from time to time, the dialogue is a lot stilted, although in fairness a lot of that is relegated to the very noir detectives, and that's clearly deliberate.

The plot circles around a young man who discovers a girl suffering from a sleep disorder that keeps her asleep most of her life, and is only awake for minutes or hours at a time.  The reverse of most people, to put it another way.  Or the way it feels my days are going lately, to put it a third way.  But I digress...

Their relationship gets complicated when Danny discovers Laura's mind has been tampered with by a sociopathic, murderous, mesmerist who was kept tied up in the padded room next to her place at the psych ward.

There's some amazing bloody parts in this movie, Laura is a thoroughly innocent and charming character whom I quite felt for as she's been so manipulated and has no idea what's real and what's a dream.  A situation that hasn't been helped by Volpe's hypnotic voice.

The thing I loved most about this movie is the cinematography.  The directing is amazing in a lot of scenes, and even the credits are gorgeous.  The plot was lacking, but this was an enthralling movie to just watch.  Forget the story, just get this movie to watch.  The colours, the angles, and editing...Malone may not be a good writer, but man can he direct the crap out of a movie.  For a low-budget independent movie, this rivals the look of many bigger horror flicks.

I've seen better movies.  I can nitpick this thing to pieces.  But the more I watch it, you know what?  The more I kinda love it.  It's pretty solid, and developes the characters well, before the bodies start hitting the floorboards.  And hey, it's got Jeffrey Combs, and he's always fun to watch.  It's not the best movie, but it's the one I was most surprised by how much I enjoy it.

Aside from that, I've also just wrapped up watching the newest MST3K DVD boxed set, as I tend to do every few months.  Another great release from Shout! Factory.  Not much more to say on that.  More of the same, really.

There's a handful of newer horror related films sitting next to me waiting to be watched, so I'll cover those in my next WIW post, most likely.

But before I get to those, there's the next movie to watch for this site, so keep your eyes open, and see you in the theatre!

J

What I'm Watching: July, 2010

Hello, horrorheads!

Probably the biggest news is that I saw Predators this weekend.  What a movie!  Light, popcorny fun, a good guilty pleasure type of movie, and definitely a worthy sequel to the original.  There's a few issues with it, but overall I was thoroughly entertained for 90 minutes and change.

The acting was pretty good from everyone involved, and it was fun to watch the characters trying to figure things out and not get dead.  If you're a fan of the movies, I definitely say you gotta see this movie.

In more closer to home stuff, right here in Trisk Labs, as has been obvious, I have something old and something new in the Puppet Master movies.  I've already covered the new remastering of PM1, and I want to write up my thoughts now that I've actually watched the whole thing instead of just looked at images.  That's a post in and of itself.

But the something new is Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, the first, new PM movie in ten years.  Since it's brand new, I don't plan to do a full on look at the movie like my other reviews, but I do have some thoughts on it.

Sigh, it's not bad, for a Puppet Master movie, but it's not great either.  There've been worse PM movies, that's for sure, but it doesn't quite reach the greatness of those first few films.

The movie just looks weird, for starters.  The movie starts off with some new footage spliced in with scenes from the first movie, notably William Hickey's role as Toulon and Blade's scampering around the grounds of the Bodega Bay.  But the differences between the original and new are VERY noticable.  I don't know what they filmed the new movie on, but it has a very digital look, and it just doesn't mesh well with the classic, filmic look.  It becomes very noticable when people are supposed to be in the same hallway, but in two different movies.  I could get really geeky and talk about the depth of field, and the compression artifacts, but you get the idea.

The plot is pretty standard, as a kid who was friends with Toulon discovers the puppets, and just so happens to run into the same Nazis that chased down the puppet master when he returns home.  How coincidental.  Oh, and they're also trying to blow up the bomb factory the guy's girlfriend works at, as well as come between the boy and the girl.  Convenient.

The acting isn't that great either, and the making of features on the disc probably explain why.  This movie was filmed in 13 days.  That's very fast for a movie, and they could have used a little more time to finesse the perfomances some more.

But I don't hate it.  It's got some nice kills, the new puppet isn't so bad (Although he's a bit on the nose with the plot), and the plot may be standard, but it gets the job done and is a solid kind of standard.  Stick with what works, right?  But then the movie fails to end.  It is all setup for the next movie.  Ugh.  I hated it when Puppet Master 4 was the first half of Puppet Master 5, and I hate it now.  I want a complete story from my movies, not a setup for the next film which may or may not be made.

In fairness, this is a Full Moon movie, and they'll surely shove it out sooner or later.  They crank these puppies out like a cor...meat grinder. ;)

Maybe I'll be happier once the next chapter is out and I can see the 'whole' film, but that is a huge beef of mine.  Definitely worth seeing for fans of the series, but not the best entry, with some weird visual touches.

Now I gotta get back to the dungeon and watch the next movie for review, which just arrived the other day!  Keep an eye out for more snakes, and more puppets shortly.

J

What I'm Watching: February, 2010

Been awhile since I posted up something new over here, and I've got a few movies sitting around.  I also want to post up some thoughts on the last few reviews, so I should get to that in the next few weeks.  I've also got the next Trisk movie sitting here ready to go, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

So anyways, what have I watched of note lately?

Well, I finally got to see Zombieland, yay!  This is a *really* good movie.  I wouldn't call it the best horror movie of recent years, like I have a number of others that I've mentioned here, but it is absolutely rock solid.  I thought of saying that it's the American answer to Shaun of the Dead, but it's not quite that good, but oh it so wants to be.  But just because it does not reach those heights doesn't mean that it isn't worth watching.  It is a very close #2 to Shaun, which is no bad thing, my fiends.  It creates a very believable, well thought out world that I totally buy as a post-zombie apocalypse land.  The characters pop, and the writing is very clever.  It also has a great gimmick; we're all familiar with the rules of zombies, but what about the rules of surviving in a zombieland?  The ongoing runner of rules is a great addition, good advice, and incorporated so well into the movie.  If you've not seen Zombieland yet, you gotta check it out, if you read this site.  For a low budget film, its very well done, and this is the Dawn of the Dead for the 21st Century.

Besides that, I've also seen another low budget independent film, House of the Devil.  Sadly, this is not as good as Zombieland.  I had high hopes for this one, and in some ways it gets there, but for the most part, it is going to turn a lot of people off.  If I ever need to explain to someone what a slow burn movie is, I'll just show them House.  There's not a lot of dialogue in the movie, and not a lot happens until the last 20 minutes, and that is no joke.  There is a lot of walking around, sitting, staring, and poking around a more or less empty house.  Now, it does take that time to establish the world and characters, as well as being pretty atmospheric and a little creepy in the empty house, but it's a little TOO slow.  If it had been ten minutes shorter, or more things happened, this would have been a great film.  This is very much a throwback to late 70s/early 80s horror films. There's a wonderful simplicity to it which I quite like, and it even uses a lot of that classic style for the credits and direction, in much the same way that Planet Terror was a loving recreation of grindhouse films.  Sadly, it's closer in storytelling to Death Proof, where nothing happens 'til the very end.  The movie is well cast and acted, it just didn't quite reach where it wanted to go, I think.  It's absolutely worth a look though, but it may disappoint many people, if they don't reach for the fast forward button.

And that's it for the moment.  Now it's back to the grindhouse grindstone for me!

J

What I'm Watching: January, 2010

Happy 2k10, everyone!

We had some nice holidays here, and the viewership numbers were pretty decent for December as well, and so far so good for January.  Growth is slow, but we're getting a steady trickle of visitors.  Spread the word folks, tell everyone!

Anyways, it's been awhile since I've posted a journal entry, so thought I'd take a break from the next review, and toss up some comments on what other stuff I've been entertaining myself with.

Probably the highlight of the entertainment has been District 9.  Such a very well done movie, and amazingly so for the budget.  They did a nice mix of regular movie style, and the resurging trend of documentary style footage.  I love stories where the scifi is mixed with a blend of reality, and District 9's and South Africa's prejudices aren't a very overdone topic in entertainment, so I really enjoyed seeing that.  Definitely worth a rental, and I'd say add it to your shelf.  Or hard drive, if that's the way you roll.

Coming in a close second is the very docustyle Paranormal Activity.  I love this movie.  They really knew how to dole out the tension, and just how much time to spend on characters and exposition.  The behaviour and actions didn't seem overly forced or mindnumbingly stupid like they did in Blair Witch project.  I could nitpick a few things, but these characters seemed very real to me, and reacted in mostly real ways.  Micah was maybe a little thick, but his actions were pretty understandable.  They're more or less what I would do in a similar situation.  If you enjoyed Blair Witch Project, well first of all what's wrong with you?? ;)  Second of all, then you'll probably enjoy this movie quite a bit.

Also, I sat back and waded through the second season of the Showtime anthology series, The Hunger.  It's basically Twilight Zone, but with more adult situations, language, and skin.  Also, they tended more towards the horror than scifi, but that's splitting hairs on these types of shows.  The main problem with anthology shows is that the quality of stories from one episode to the next can be wildly random and uneven, and that's just the case here.  There are some absolute gems though in both seasons.  Terrence Stamp hosts the first season, and David Bowie replaces him in the second, and both bring the show up considerably from where lesser hosts could have left it, and even in a meh episode, then they're fun to watch.  Even if they're only in a few minutes per episode.  And hey, they are FAR less annoying than the Cryptkeeper.  If you can find these seasons cheap, then they might be worth your time for the good episodes scattered in there.

Now, back to the next review!

J

What I'm Watching: December, 2009

Hey, horrorheads!

(Where did I steal that from?  I know I've heard it somewhere.)

Not much of interest, actually.

A few weeks ago, I watched set 16 of the MST3K DVDs, and it was quite the set.  Probably one of my faves of the Shout! Factory era.

Currently I'm working my way through Lost season 5, since that just came in, and the Dharma Initiation Kit limited packaging is freakin' huge and I want it out of my way.  If not for that, I'd be watching the Hunger.  More on that later.

I've been going through DVDs slower than normal due to my writing that book from November still.  I normally watch two or so hours, but with the writing going on, I've cut it back to one hour, unless it's a movie.  So I'm waaay behind.

I'm also still recovering from Blood Freak.  Hoo boy.  But don't worry about upcoming reviews, I have three I'd LIKE to do.  Sadly, I've developed this amazing ability to pick a movie just as it goes out of print, so that's making it a pain to aquire the others I want to do.  But fingers crossed, there will be at least one more review, but I'm really hoping to do even more, to make up for my vacation from November.

More to come!

J