What I'm Watching: Pretty Dead

Hey!  It's a new post, yay!

I am SO behind on these, and movies just keep on coming.  I don't wanna deny you all my delicious thoughts, and want to try and catch up.

Like this movie, Pretty Dead?  I watched it back in January.  Eek.

But oh man, did I enjoy it!

It's quite possibly one of the best found footage movies I've seen this year, aside from Mr. Jones.  And I think I liked the story here more, and preferred the use of the found footage tropes more over in Jones.

In short, a young med student, Regina, is out partying one night, and after a bad experience with drugs gets a terrible infection because drugs aren't exactly regulated.  Everything seems fine, given that she's got a bit of a nasty thing in her, but it soon becomes clear that all is not well.

Regina can't sleep, she heals rapidly, and develops a craving for meat like she never ate before.  Oh yes, horror fans can maybe start to notice some traits here.

She occasionally blacks out, attacks people, and things just get steadily worse, until she is taken away to a hospital to see if they have any luck diagnosing her.

I love love love that this is told from a medical student's perspective.  It really gives some weight to the science of what's going on, and helps make it all the more real, and make it seem natural that she'd be curious and scientific about this strange thing happening to her, rather than the usual excuse of just doing it for kicks.

You really feel for her charatcer as she struggles to maintain her humanity, as the infection gains more and more control over her.  It is a great mixture of the parasite/possession genres with the zombie undertones.

I really don't want to call this a zombie movie, even though the hallmarks are there.  If I must, it's clearly closer to the 'rage zombie' side of the horror family tree.

The biggest shame is that the cause for all this, the cordyceps fungus that causes 'zombie insects' in nature, kinda hit a saturation point in pop culture and the collective consciousness of our media.  If this movie existed in a vaccuum, it would be a great, refreshing, unique idea.  Sadly, with other things like "The Last of Us" and their clickers using a very similar idea, it kinda gets lost in the crowd.  Which is a shame, because the story is well told, with a great lead you feel for, like I said.

Still, having the real world basis for this makes it just that much more terrifying.  Which is naturally why everyone's using it right now, right?  I don't believe anyone copied anyone else, but we all saw those documentaries and videos online at the same time, so naturally everyone went, "NEW ZOMBIE MOVIE IDEA!"

The ending did leave me a little cold though, at first.  As is usual with horror, it is so easy to drop the ball in those last few minutes, and this one literally lost me in the last five seconds.  It didn't really end, so much as stop, as these sorts of flicks tend to do.  I know I make a lot of the same complaints about found footage movies, but they are almost universal problems of the style, and more people need to avoid them, not embrace them.

But, the more I thought about the ending, the more I've become okay with it, and the commentary definitely helped me once it was couched in what sort of terms the makers of Pretty Dead wanted to end the movie with.  This is the outbreak origin story, the movie we rarely get to see, and it ends at the point where so many others begin, and we've SEEN that movie over and over again.  And that's fair.  And I can live with that.  It just threw me the first time I saw it.

So, in short, I give Pretty Dead a high reccomendation, even if the acting isn't great, even if the ending was abrupt.  But we've almost come to expect that from these movies, and since you've been warned, you might get more enjoyment out of it than I.  For a no-budget, found footage take on zombies, with a new(ish) twist, it's a pretty unique thing to watch.  Although less unique than it wishes it was, which is a shame.

What I'm Watching: Mischief Night (2014)

Jumping from Memorial Day to almost-Halloween, I thought I'd give my thoughts on the freshly released Mischief Night!

Now, when trying to find information on this movie, I discovered there's like...a dozen of them with the same title.  And nearly FOUR of them in the last year.  So if you want to find stuff out about it beyond my words, Here is the IMDB page, and Here is the trailer.

Mischief Night is, as most of us surely know, the night before Halloween, which has taken over a lot of the pranking on that night.  Some other movies...er, cultures call it Devil's Night, but it's all the same thing.

Here, we have a young girl, Kaylie, who is babysitting for a family to help out a friend, and has to deal with the usual batch of naughty teens.  And then Malcolm McDowell arrives at her front door to warn her to be careful and not open the door for any strangers.

She promptly ignores that advice and ends up being the victim of a masked home invader, and ends up getting chased, attacked, and tied up.

Now.  I know what you're thinking.

Jason! you say.  Jason, we've seen this movie a hundred times before!

And you are correct.  But here's the thing.  All that?  All the usual stuff?  Takes place in the first act.  The first 30 minutes get through everything you expect from that plot.

And then things get interesting.

The second act was just...  It was SUCH a delightful surprise, because I was realising, as Kaylie was being tied up in the chair, just how little movie there had been, and this was usually the point where the movie was wrapping up.  I was wondering where the movie would go from here, and it did NOT disappoint.

See, Kaylie is a little disturbed, and she starts to freak out her captor.  This whole thing didn't go as planned, and he's got a headache from a few dozen vases getting smashed in his mask.  So he decides to screw this and go home.  He frees Kaylie and is about to leave when the pranksters return, stopping his escape short.

He watches as Kaylie shows her own mischievous side as she gets her revenge on the pranksters.  He gets this GREAT look of "Dude, this chick is more screwed up than me, and I'm wearing a cheap Michael Meyers knock off mask!" on his face for a good solid five minutes as he watches his former captive go about her fun.

It was at this point, as the pair start to actually bond, that I got a huge grin on my face, asking out loud, "Are...are they actually flirting?!"  The movie swerves wildly in the second act and actually becomes the single most bizarre and most awesome horror love story I have ever seen.

And it was a joy to behold.  The chemistry was decent, the mischief they made was fun, and it was just such a surprise that I was totally along for the ride because this was a truly unique experience.

I was legit nervous that the third act wasn't going to live up to the promises of the second act, and the movie would fizzle, but oh no!  I should have had no fear!  The movie continues to surprise in the final 30 minutes continues to deliver on surprises as things get back on the horror track and get weird and a little disturbing.

Those final surprises may not have been the most surprising turns of events, but they still kept things lively and flowed out of previous events perfectly.  That's part of WHY they weren't surprises, but they were executed well.  Pun most definitely intended.

And no.  I will not spoil those final twists.  I have already spoiled too much of this movie, but I had to give the readers something to explain my feelings for this movie.

I absolutely adored Mischief Night.  It was the single most enjoyable experience of a little indie movie I have had in a VERY long time.  Any horror fan has got to see this movie for a unique story that just has not been told, and is told fairly well.

You get the usual pitfalls of a lower budget flick like this.  The acting isn't great at times (But I have zero problems with it) and McDowell was ultimately wasted in a bit part that he was still great fun to watch, though.

I cannot reccommend this movie enough.  It started off okay, and then just kept surprising and pleasing me, leaving me with the biggest grin on my face for having given this a chance.

So here's to Mischief Night, my new favourite holiday movie.

What I'm Watching: Mr. Jones

No, I do not mean to say I've been sitting around endlessly watching Counting Crows videos.  What a cruel, terrible fate that would be.

Instead, I checked out a new found footage movie, Mr. Jones, and it may be one of my favourite found footage movies yet.  Certainly of this year.

It starts off with a premise I can get behind.  The movie is a documentary about reclusive artist Mr. Jones, whom no one has ever seen, met, heard, and even his name is made up just so he can have a name.

I love that right off the bat the movie has a reason for being a movie.  It's not just a collection of some footage someone 'found' and crammed together to show us bad shit happening.  The movie of the movie has a purpose, and that's always good, and is far too underused in the found footage genre.  And thankfully it's also not the overdone variant of "ghost hunters looking for stuff".

Scott's documentary doesn't start off that way though.  It starts off as just he and his girlfriend Penny taking a break from reality for a year to go live in a cabin and try and fix their relationship and life, while he tries to make a film about SOMEthing.  He doesn't know just what that will be at the start, but once the couple discover the strange and unique scarecrows of Mr. Jones in the fields and shrubbery in the mountainous desert around them, Scott knows he has a subject; the definitive movie about this reclusive artist.

The first half of the film is filled with them first trying to figure out what to do with their movie, which I love because I've SEEN documentaries like that, starting out with, "Well what do we do??" is a great way to set things up, then it has Scott going back to civilisation to do interviews with Mr. Jones experts over his 30+ year history, art historians, professors, and people who have owned his art.

This slowly starts to deepen the mystery of Mr. Jones, only leading to more questions.  Meanwhile, the shadowy figure is terrorising Penny back at the cabin (And Scott before he left, just so he's not left out).

Which brings us to the final third of the film, when everything goes crazy, and is probably what makes this a fave of found footage.  Mr. Jones seems to be a figure protecting our world from the dreamworld, and Scott and Penny have upset a delicate balance with their meddling.  There comes a point where they both fall into the dream world, and all the rules of found footage fly out the window.

There are no more cameras, for a large part, but footage is still being taken, the characters see themselves being filmed on the tv, and even comment on there being no possible camera where it is.  They directly wave their hands through where the camera should be, and even affects the footage.  It is just something so new to bring to this subgenre, it makes this movie feel really fresh, and doing something different with the tools, by breaking the rules.

Like most found footage movies, the movie has its bit of a "...Huh." ending, and doesn't entirely satisfy, but it does leave me with most of a completed story and doesn't just stop dead like so many others.  The format is great, builds well, and I love how it just utterly unspools towards the end.  I especially love the interviews, as they created a rich tapestry with very little to use other than words, and some of the interviewees were fantastic, including the always great Taran Fahir, whom I just love and was such a pleasure to see turn up here.

The only thing I didn't really like was Scott rigging up a camera to the camera so it would record the operator and the subject.  It's a clever idea, lets you show reactions of the operator instead of just hearing them say "Oh my gooood!" for 90 minutes, but they used a wide angle lens that instead made everyone holding the camera have a big, round face and the reactions were pretty silly most of the time.  Too much time spent on them mugging for the camera going "Ooooo!" and "Oh wooow!".  I give them points for trying, but it didn't quite come off, possibly because of the actors trying too hard with it, and just coming off unnatural.

But I will give them points for occasionally PUTTING THE DAMNED CAMERA DOWN WHEN IT'S IMPORTANT!!  A big bug about every FF movie.  Fortunately, once cameras become unnecessarily, that also solves that problem later on.

Mr. Jones turned out to be a surprisingly well done and creative bit of psychological thriller by way of found footage, and yeah, it works.  I wasn't expecting much going in, but I had quite an enjoyable ride.  Definitely worth the time.

What I'm Watching: Oculus

Hey hey, Triskelions!

I know I've been missing for a bit, but I just got a new computer and I am busily getting far too distracted by playing video games that are newer than 10 years old!  ...Er, I mean, I am SO busy getting the thing set up and up to snuff!

But I am here now, and I got out and saw the new(ish) horror flick, Oculus.

Now, before I go any further, it should be made ABUNDANTLY clear that I am a gigantic Karen Gillan fan.  Unashamedly so.  Well, maybe a little bit of shame, but no one's keeping track.  So go into this review with that huge grain of biased salt.

So yeah, guess what?  I loved Oculus!

Surprise, right?

What we've got here is the story of two young adults, who were tormented by an evil, cursed mirror eleven years ago.  During those events, Tim was forced to kill his possessed/driven mad father before he killed the kids.  For doing this, and thanks to yelling about a killer mirror, he was sent into psychiatric care.

The story picks up in the present day with him finally coming to terms with what happened as bad memories, being a young kid, and every other psychological explanation to get him past the supernatural.

His sister, on the other hand, has not been developing such coping mechanisms, and still believes that the mirror is more than just a mirror.  She's spent many years trying to track it down, and learn its history, all plotting for this time now, to finally destroy it and avenge her family.

First of all, THANK YOU, OCULUS, for giving us another original story.  Sure, you can find some common DNA with other movies and such, but this is not a remake.  It's not a sequel.  It's not an adaptation.  It is what it is, and as long-time readers of Trisk know, I will heap praise on any horror movie for that reason alone.

I really love how Kaylie laid down the history of the mirror, so far as she knows it.  I also love that the origins of the mirror only go back SO far, and even her extensive research never turn up where it came from.  The whole story reminded me A LOT of the Magna of Illusion.  And if you get THAT reference, we need to be friends.

On top of that, I absolutely LOVELOVELOVE that she took a scientific approach to it, was SUPER smart in her interactions with the mirror, took SO many precautions, had a number of ways to get around the mirror's trickery, and quite honestly, this is the shit so many horror fans clamor for.  It's not perfect, but she had a plan, she stuck to it...it was fun being given rules, and then seeing that the mirror and the things within it were smarter than even all the precautions taken.  So, so good.

Because, naturally, things can never be so simple as, "here's my plan, and everything goes swimmingly!"  Where would be the fun in that?

Also, it was great that they left it JUST vague enough for the first half of the movie whether the mirror was really cursed, or it WAS just stories the kids made up.  That becomes increasingly clear to not be the case the longer the movie goes on though, but they pretty much rode that line perfectly right up until it had to be revealed one way or the other.

On top of all that, I like that Tim, the one who has been seen as crazy for the past 11 years, is the voice of reason.  HE is the one providing all the rational explanations for what was going on, and trying to tell his sister that she's delusional.  It's a great reversal, and a good reason for having him be in psychiatric care all this time, because it gave him all those perfectly reasonable things to say, that would make sense on any other day of the week.

You wouldn't think watching a battle of wits between two siblings and a *mirror* would be this good, but the movie wisely intersperses the present day story with flashbacks to the past to fill in the entire gruesome events of their youth and their parents' demise.  It especially becomes interesting once the walls between the two time periods start breaking down, and while they never quite interact, having Tim and Kaylie also bearing witness to the same events we're watching make them MORE than just flashbacks; they're mind games the mirror is playing with them.  That helps make the scenes an active part of the story, not just filler and backstory.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending.  On the plus side, it absolutely doesn't RUIN the movie, which is all too common in horror movies, right?  But this was one story I was hoping *really* had a positive outcome.  I still like what we got, but I did exit the theatre with a bit of sadness and "Awwh," over what we were given.

Still, the movie has a great cast (I'm not a big Katee Sackhoff fan, but she was really good in this as the kids' mother, being slowly driven insane by the mirror), an original story, and is actually populated by smart characters who think things through.  It is definitely worth seeing for those reasons alone.

But really, it's worth seeing for Karen Gillan trying to do an American accent for 100 minutes...

What I'm Watching: Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Welcome back, Triskelions!

And boy, is that ever an appropriate nickname for all my fans.  All two of you!

ANYways, yeah!  I saw Captain America 2 tonight, if that isn't super clear by now.  This should be NO surprise to anyone.  I love superhero movies more than I love horror movies, I just chose to make a site about those other ones.

But I still talk about the former, so here we go, watch out and don't trip over the spoilers!

The plot finds Cap still trying to adjust to this new time, and honestly?  He's doing a pretty good job of it.  They don't hammer the man out of time stuff at all.  Most of that comes from his moral compass and how he feels America should be, and that is the absolutely correct way to go with that.  Don't spend half the movie making jokes about what the internets is and such, but show him as the great man, the great patriot, he is, and disappointed in what the country he loves became while he wasn't looking.

I really, really liked Cap 2.  Anyone who's talked to me enough knows that I still say the original Cap flick is my favourite of the Marvel movies most days, and that holds true today.  Which isn't a bad thing for Cap 2, that's a high bar to leap over.

I can't say I outright LOVED Cap 2, though.  It is hard to put my finger on precisely what, if anything is wrong with it.  It's a perfectly solid movie, it's very much more comicbook action, but I think, much like Iron Man 3, after the spectacle of Avengers, it has a lot to live up to.

And Cap 2 has even more to pull off, since while it IS pretty good, it's still not up to the gigantic superheroic spectacle of the other films.  I almost don't want to say it's more grounded, more real world, because we still have a dude that was frozen in ice for 70 years, gigantic flying fortresses, and the like, but you get my meaning, I hope!

I really love this being more of a political thriller, because that makes this really its own thing.  The fact that this ISN'T a big superhero spectacular movie is in its favour, truth be told.  That's the brilliance of the comics, and it helps to have each movie with its own flavour to have each one stand out amongst the crowd.  And going the political route definitely helps Cap stand out from an INCREASINGLY crowded crop of superhero movies, as well as being a perfect fit for Captain America.  Duh.  The comics did it for decades, so of course the movies should follow suit.

I especially like that the world wasn't *really* at stake this time out.  Sure, it was in its way, with our freedoms being in grave danger, and a large number of the population being firmly in the villains' crosshairs, but the stakes here are WAY different than an alien invasion trying to destroy everything.  There was very little 'destroy the world' type stuff, and that is SO refreshing in a blockbuster movie.  This is more about the fight for the soul of the country and the world, than anything else.

The biggest problem for me, is that Emily VanCamp was *criminally* underused in this movie.  I really hope this is more setup for future films, because it feels almost like a waste here, and I can only imagine there's deleted scenes.  Still, Emily is such a good actress, that even with what little she had, she still brought SUCH weight to the role, that it felt more than what was there.  Again, I hope I'm making sense here. ;)

They managed to do a very solid adaptation of the Winter Soldier ideas from the comics, and almost everything worked in the remade context of the MCU, which is always good.  The thing I missed the most though, is that they have firmly established that Black Widow was born in 1984 and doesn't have a lengthy history of being a Russian spy, part of which would have involved spending time with the Winter Soldier.  I liked the movies neither confirming nor denying Natasha's age, and losing out on such tidbits of her past just feels like a missed opportunity to me.  I would've loved to have seen some flashbacks with the pair of them.

Speaking of Black Widow, man.  While there's a strong argument to be made for Avengers being her story, Nat was given SO much to do in this movie.  I can't even call her 'the breakout star' of this movie, since Scarlett has done such a great job already in the MCU, but this movie really let us spend time with the Black Widow, REALLY get to know her beyond kicking ass, and it was great to have.

A lot of the characters were well served, from Fury, to Nat, to Falcon and Maria Hill.  Even Peggy Carter got some great moments.  Even some of the lesser characters and cameos got some great moments.  And oh MAN was it *awesome* to see Jenny Agutter in action!  Sorry, the Logan's Run fan in me is showing.

Falcon was an absolute treat, by the way.  Anthony Mackie's joy at playing this part is evident in every moment he's on screen.  He was introduced perfectly at the start of the film, and ever so slowly brought into the circle of chaos around Cap.  It was also a great contrast with Cap's own circumstances, and also great to show how some things never change in wartime.  The pair may be separated by half a century, but they bond over shared circumstances in completely different wars.  It worked SO well, and the friendly banter between them was exactly what I'd expected from the comics coming to the screen.

As you can see, I have a LOT of positive things to say about the movie, and not a lot of negatives.  It really is a matter of just not being as explodey as other movies, but it's also not trying to be.  And at the same time, I love that about this movie!  I'd still give it a giant yay, and of course if you're a fan of the Marvel movies, you are going to see this.

So yeah, that's my chaotic mishmash of a review. ;)  I think this will be more important in what it causes other movies, and Agents of SHIELD to do, in light of its events, than anything within itself.  This was a similar issue I had with Cap 1, in that it felt a lot like putting the pieces into place, and not quite complete in its own right.

Now that I know what to expect from the movie, what its tone is, what it's striving for, I'm sure it will grow and grow on me with later viewings.

Gaaah, and I didn't even mention how cool Batroc was!  As a huge Batroc fan (I know it's weird, shut up!) it was such a blast to see him, even briefly, on screen.  And the fights in general were great!  The action was really well choreographed, and gah, I could go on about every little detail as it comes to me, but I'm gonna jump out now.

What I'm Watching: Dead of the Nite

One of the best found footage movies I've seen is Grave Encounters, about one of those ghost hunting reality tv shows going to an abandoned hospital and trying to capture spooky stuff on camera.  Frankly, those ghost hunting shows are the BEST excuse for a found footage movie.  It explains the cameras with so little effort, the two are a near perfect match.

Which brings us to Dead of the Nite, which trods the same ground.

And sadly, is not really a match for Grave Encounters.

But I still found myself mostly enjoying it.  The plot revoles around some paranormal investigators checking out the legendary Jericho Manor, which is being taken care of by genre star, Tony Todd.

Tony ends up being used to better effect here than he was in Jack the Reaper, thankfully.  Still, his part is far too small, and over far too soon.  But what's there is good, and easily a highlight of the movie.

The biggest problem of the movie is the pacing.  We spend the usual ages of time establishing charaters, and while that usually is good, here it just falls flat.  The characters aren't great, the acting is a little stiffer than I'd prefer, and things really don't start clicking and flowing until the movie is almost half over.

They try and get around this by jumping around in time a little bit, as the cops are investigating what happened and watching the footage the victims/suspects took of the manor and their murders, and it just about save the movie by giving it the pace it needs, and early suspense to keep things interesting.

I was almost thrown by the ending of the movie, but it's almost too big of an ask for the audience to buy into the explanation that is given.  I like the twist because it was unexpected, but it was unexpected because it's so preposterous!  Your mileage may well vary here.

Still, there's some highlights, like Tony, and some good jumps.  The acting smooths out a bit as the plot starts clicking, and hey, a crazy twist is still worth noting.

I wouldn't say you need to rush out and see this movie, but in the found footage genre?  It's one of the more *consistent* movies out there.  So many are great most of the way through, and then completely dive bomb at the end and everything is ruined.  Dead of the Nite actually manages to be slightly saved by the ending, and because it's averageish all the way through, it's almost *more* pleasing that way?

It's a weird situation to be sure but there is something to say for a movie not building up your hopes and destroying them at the last second.  And hey.  Tony Todd is worth seeing almost any movie for, right?

So I guess it's worth a watch, if you've got the time, but no hurry, and don't expect something mindblowingly new!

What I'm Watching: Rewind This!

I'm avoiding watching my next big review movie, hiding from the snow, and there's nothing on the telly save for Olympics, so I thought I am long LONG overdue for a WIW!

I don't do a lot of documentaries in my life, choosing rather to read about events than watch people talk about them, so for me to pick one up and watch it, is saying something.  Mostly about me, but also about the subject matter.

And Rewind This! is pretty much perfect subject matter for me.  The documentary covers the advent of the videotape, the rise of videotape culture, video stores, the direct to video market (And you BET Full Moon and Charles Band are in this!),  and how it all came crashing down.

This is one of my favourite documentaries I've ever seen.  All these fans, showing their love, the personal nostalgia, insights into the industry, and even a few disenting voices about how terrible video was, made this a REAL treat for me.

I don't really have a lot to say about the documentary itself, besides that it pretty much gave the perfect look at the whole boom of the VHS in the 80s, and how we've lost a little something since it went away.  Progress is progress, and necessary, but something got left behind when that particular avenue crumbled.

That was probably one of the best bits of the movie, the reasoning for how all this weird stuff came out in the 80s, as studios rushed to fill shelves from their catalog, grabbing any old thing that might make a few bucks, and less of that has come out on DVD as they go for the purely marketable stuff, and even LESS on Blu-Ray now, with the studios exerting more and more control on just what they'll 'allow' us to see, and that truly is a shame.

(And fortunately there's places like Scream! Factory sneaking out some of those lost gems every month!)

But yeah, this was an amazing documentary on an incredible period in home entertainment, one that is especially important to myself as I am sure you can tell.  I had so many fond memories of watching really terrible horror movies with bad tracking on overwatched tapes with my friends, welling up inside me while watching this.

If you have ANY nostalgia for the video tape, or the 80s, or Blockbuster, or anything on this site, you NEED to watch this documentary.  I cannot recommend it enough.  And the best part about the DVD, is just HOW much extra footage they packed into it.  SO much deleted from interviews, and bonus stuff, it's like another two hour long documentary ON TOP of the 90 minutes they already gave you!

Trisk is a love letter to trashy horror movies, and this documentary is even more so a love letter to the VHS and the 80s.

J

What I'm Watching: I, Frankenstein

Oh look, it is another review in my series of "I finally got my ass out to see it on the last day in theatres!" reviews!

This time out is I, Frankenstein, from some of the same folks who gave us the underrated Underworld movies.

And knowing that going in, you can *kinda* guess how you're going to feel about this movie, since it is very much in the same style.

Now, I loved the Underworld series, and quite enjoyed this movie.  It follows a Frankenstein monster more familiar from the original story, and how he winds up involved in a war between demons and gargoyles, fighting over his creator's lost journal and ultimately his own body.

Yeah, the movie is a bit crazy!

But that's easily one of the reasons I liked it.  The acting is solid, with a fun cast who are enjoying what they do, the action is good, and the story is pretty damned unique.

The movie isn't great though, and it's got some huge flaws, mainly in maybe being a bit too crazy and high concept, throwing too many crazy ideas onto the screen at once.  It walks a tightrope between solid action movie and over the top action with gargoyles and demons and Frankenstein's monster.  It almost works, but that's a tough chasm to cross.

Still, despite its flaws it IS entertaining and fun, and I can't ask for more than that from a 90 minute movie.  It kept me entertained, made me smile, and was just plain good fun.  Is it as good as an Underworld movie?  Nah, I wouldn't even say it's as good as Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, but it's still not bad, all the same.

My biggest problem with it was the world building.  I never QUITE buy into this world where gargoyles who can turn into humans wander around a GIGANTIC cathedral in the middle of a bustling city and have gone unnoticed for hundreds of years.  And the demons aren't much better.  Everything seems to exist in a bubble all of its own, with no real regard to the world outside what this movie is doing.  That can be problematic, but again, if you're willing to go along with the movie, you are in for a hell of a fiery ride.

It's not a classic, it might not even become a cult classic (But I hope it does!), but it falls squarely into 'big dumb action movie' that is definitely a popcorny adventure.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  If nothing else, I'm happy to support something that is pretty unique in voice, tone, and story in the theatres, even if it is kind of an adaptation of existing works all the same.

What I'm Watching: Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones

Hello, Triskelions!

As usual, killing some time before the new main review goes up in a few days, and thought I'd sprinkle in at LEAST one new quickie review, and hopefully a few more before then!

I have long been a champion of the Paranormal Activity series, loving each of the movies to SOME degree, and they grow on me more and more over time, even if I walk out with more of a "Hmm" reaction to the last few.  So, it's no surprise that I went to see The Marked Ones, although it took me awhile to get there.

The movie follows a family in the LA area, several years after the original events of the first movie, and focuses around some Latinos just after graduating high school, and discovering the woman that one of them lives above may in fact be a witch.

Marked Ones breaks from the more 'security' oriented type of found footage that a lot of the other PA movies use.  Yes, they use a lot of handheld as well, but a lot of the PA visual language comes from a lot of establishing shots setting up each area in a repetitious manner, and this movie did away with all that.

This is both a good thing, and a bad thing.  On the one hand, you lose a lot of that building of tension you get with that style.  You lose the, "See, everything is normal, just like the night before, and the night before, and the night before, and...NOW THERE IS AN EXPLOSION OF CABINETS."  That's a good way to lull the audience and pull the rug out from them, and this movie replaces those with a few lingering shots of the same room, until eventually something happens during the lone scene.  And that's fine, and works well with a more handheld style.

But it also gives this movie it's own visual style, its own identity, and that's good, because it allows this movie to stand on its own merits, and not be "Paranormal Activity, but with Mexicans."  It really is its own thing, and it mostly works.

The movie is smart enough to use some of the same tropes from the main franchise though, so you don't feel alienated.  They sprinkle in JUST enough references to remind you this is the same universe, while at the same time expanding the mythology.  We get a lot of potential backstory here, and since it's not connected to Katie's story, or the new random family of the week, it gets to establish things on its own and fill in some blanks that might have otherwise been difficult to work in.

We get a good number of scares, and since they involve possessed people, we actually get to SEE things happening, and not just exploding cabinets, falling knives, or floating sheets.  We get more physicality of the evil in this movie than we have in previous films, save for Katie's occasionally villainous appearances.

They do a number of new things that really caught me off guard, because they're not typical to a PA movie, and again, these things were welcome.  Warping space in camera was such a "WHOA" moment for me, because such visual effects just aren't done here, y'know?

My fave bit must have been this movie's use of one of the best tropes of the series; the possessed creepy 80s toy.  We've seen it with the Lite Brite, Teddy Ruxpin, and this movie gives us a communicative Simon game.  That was brilliant, awesome, and SO creepy in its simplicity.  But man, they missed a trick with it though, and I wish the scene had gone on for *literally* two seconds more.

If you're a fan of the PA movies, this is a MUST see.  It matters to the series.  It does different things, has a different voice, but is, in my opinion, important to the mythology.  I enjoyed it as much as the rest, and probably more than the third installment.  Do not skip this movie just because it's not in the main branch!

What I'm Watching: The ABC's of Death

Welcome back, Triskelions!

So, what movie had the honour of being the very first thing I watched in 2014?  I hate to say it was "The ABC's of Death" but here we are...

I was going to get this when it came out on DVD, but the price made me scrunch my nose and say no.  Too much for an anthology movie of this nature; 26 short films, most about 4-5 minutes long at most, each one taking a letter of the alphabet, picking a word that starts with that letter, and then telling a story about that thing being responsible for death.

That sounds like it has potential, but having that many short stories, you are also going to have any number of misfires.

I kept the movie in the back of my head, and was poking around Amazon and saw it was free on Amazon Prime, so decided I'd watch it at last.

Let me tell you, I should have taken my computer completely turning itself off due to power issues on the D story as a sign and never gone back.  But I am persistent and pressed onwards.

Yeah, that kinda tells you what I thought right there, doesn't it?

I would say that out of over two dozen short stories, there is MAYBE five or six that are worth your time.  Some have decently cute twists, as much as you can pull one off in a handful of minutes, at least.  But so many stories are just meh and forgettable.

But worse than that, there are way too many that are just sheer fucked up.  And y'all know I have no problem with fucked up.  I like the Human Centipede movies, after a fashion, right?

However, having stories about a girl obsessed with how her teacher's farts smell, and would rather die smelling that than the impending doom of a toxic gas leak, and then gets sucked into her teacher's ass, which apparently also contains a pocket universe?

Yeah.

And then there's the stripping Nazi furry.

But then there's the Dogfight story, which is actually well done, told without words, and is amazingly shot.  The Q story poking fun at this whole thing by breaking the fourth wall in a glorious way.  Xavier Gens' X story, XXL is also really good, has something to say about society, and is super creepy and effective.

Some just don't make a lick of sense to me, like Cycle, which seems to be an endless loop of a guy going back in time to go back in time to go back in time to kill himself, but it also seems like that's NOT it and he was replaced?  The storytelling could have been clearer on so many of these shorts.  And they would have if they weren't forced to be only a few minutes long so this runtime didn't explode with 26 half hour movies, right?

So, a handful of gems, a few okay stories, then a whole back-acre of meh, bad, and WHAT WAS THAT?! stories.  That's normal with an anthology, but usually you can say, oh, there's one great story out of three, or two good stories, but there's just SO many shots going out here, and not enough of a hit ratio.  Which is a shame for the gold buried here.

There WAS some fun to be had, trying to guess what the word would be, since that's not revealed until the end of each short, wondering what each word for each letter would be the thing to do people in.  That was the best way I got through this mess.

ABCs really needed more storytellers that could deal with this short format, and maybe be a bit more creative without being so insane that you just don't care.

Which is another problem; with so many stories told so quickly, you just don't care.  Any one of these might be fine to go watch on YouTube and it would be a fine little short film.  But by story #19, you are being introduced to yet another set of characters that you're supposed to care about for a blink of an eye, in a row?  That's a big ask.  These work less well when seen all back to back, strangely enough.

And personally, I wish the movie hadn't been front-loaded with a handful of foreign language shorts, that kinda made the learning curve a little higher than I would've liked, and took me longer to get into it.  Mostly because I wasn't expecting it, to be sure.

I really can't recommend seeing this as a whole, but there's a few gems worth seeking out, if you want.

A strange experiment that just doesn't work, but has potential with a stronger focus and better creators, maybe?  I dunno.

What I'm Watching: Children of a Darker Dawn

Merry Christmas Eve!

What did Santa Jason bring you for your early present?

Why, it's a review of Children of a Darker Dawn!

This movie can be summed up as a modern day take on Lord of the Flies, but on a global scale, and this particular corner of the post-apocalypse taking place in Ireland.

So SO many things there I should love.  Sadly, calling up "Lord of the Flies" as a cultural touchstone is actually a bad idea.  This is nowhere near as good, and never quite reaches the levels of societal commentary of that movie.

In short, a strange virus infects the populace, and it drives all the adults crazy, and eventually death, leaving the kids to pick up the slack.  Fortunately, with all the hosts dead, the virus soon dies out leaving the kids to grow up in effed up land.

We zero in on the journeys of two girls, sisters, Evie and Fran.  They're trying to keep to themselves, stay alive, find shelter...you know the drill in these stories.

It's not long before they run into a larger group of teens trying to survive, and willing to take harsher means to meet that goal.

They take the girls' food, and leave one of their own with the sisters, but the new trio soon run into yet another group, and the FIRST other group comes along shortly after.

The reason this doesn't quite meet Lord of the Flies territory is that the characters all feel a little samey, or just not well drawn out.  Most characters are defined by yelling, and there's no real societal heirarchy.  Just teens running into each other and trying to take their food.

I'm also trying to decide how I feel about the production values.  Most of the movie takes place in abandoned homes, that look sufficiently decrepit, but they don't look like they've *ever* been lived in.  Now, you could say that they've been picked clean by previous travelers, but there should still be some set dressing.  Same with the costumes.  Most of them looked like they were just what the actors wore to set, which actually *works* by feeling genuine, but doesn't work because of a lack of planning.  It feels both too real by being perfectly normal, and too fake, causing a weird tonal dissonance in the style and look of the surroundings.

Now, the acting IS pretty good in this, way better than I'd expect, based on the ages and experience of most of the cast.  While they can get a bit shouty, when they're not, when they're just interacting, there's a decent genuine quality to it.  And the actress playing Fran really hits on a lot of the same notes that Maisie Williams does, as Arya on Game of Thrones.  In all the right ways, let me say.  Again, she gives in to histrionics from time to time, but she's a kid who has seen everyone she knows except her sister die, so I can excuse that behaviour.

Darker Dawn never quite seems to latch onto a whole story.  There's bits and pieces here, there's vignettes almost that work, and they show other things that are intriguing, and make you wish that the movie was more about that, but it never quite gets to those things.

Especially a series of shots towards the end of a group of girls going full on Hannibal Lecter on someone they come across.  Now this, THIS should be terrifying, and it does cause some chills.  A group of kids, none of them more than 15, many even around ten, bringing down a person by sheer force of numbers and doing what they can to survive?  Why is the movie not about these people?  We never even run into them during this story!  They're just told by someone as flashback!  Or maybe as a warning of the world to come, that was never quite clear.

The movie has a number of moments like that; intriguing ideas that are ultimately unconnected, and would have been a better narrative to follow.  The flashbacks and teases of what happened to these kids are the truly interesting things.  I almost think this would have worked better with the 'current' story being a wraparound, and making those flashbacks of what came before as more of an anthology story type model.  As it is, nothing is given enough time, and just kinda glossed over what we really want to see.

Still, the acting is good, and the story isn't BAD, what there is, but I never quite managed to connect with this movie.  There's something there though, and some people are digging it, so if you have a chance, I do say give it a shot.  There is some good stuff there, it just never landed for me.  I definitely plan to give it another look in the near future.  It's got something there that just didn't quite connect during my first viewing.

J

What I'm Watching: Almost Human

This past season saw the end of one of the best science fiction tv shows of the 21st century when Fringe drew to a close.  I wasn't immediately on board, but I saw the potential behind the series, and the show quickly grew on me, and eventually dealt with themes I love (Parallel timelines!) and got very deep with the symbolism, metaphor, and allegory.

My life has been lacking a decent scifi series in the same vein, but fortunately now we have Almost Human.

Now, Almost Human is NOT Fringe 2.0.  I could see some stories being done on either show, and the creators are some of the same people, as well as there being those similar thematic links, but ultimately Almost Human is...well, nothing like Fringe.

But, the two shows do sit nicely next to each other, like brothers that went into similar but different careers.  You know they're related, and yet they are SO different.

Almost Human is a story set in the near future, after science has begun to outpace our morality and our laws.  Quite frankly, we're already starting to see this, and AH posits it is only going to get worse from here before it gets better.  And I'm on board with that viewpoint.

The show picks up after detective John Kennex is involved in a failed raid where he lost his partner, and his leg, and slipped into a coma for 18 months.  After a period of recovery, John returns to the force, and even in that brief period of time, things have changed; every officer is now partnered with an android.  John is immediately frustrated with this restriction, and its not long before his MX unit has an 'accident' and falls out of the car and needs to be replaced.

John's new new partner is a DRN unit, or just Dorian, a run of androids that were too human, given a bit more free thinking, creativity, and emotions.  And just like humans, this gave them a tendency to be unstable, so the line was scrapped.  Dorian's ability to be more human, and less cold, as well as keep up with Kennex and his ways actually makes the two quite the pair.

With that setup, the show then delves into your usual cop show tropes, but with a scifi bent to them.  Now, I'm not a fan of the police procedural.  I have nothing against them, but in a day and age of three Law & Orders, three CSIs, and two NCISes...well, the market is kinda flooded with the same stories retold over and over, and this is just in recent years.  We've been seeing these stories for ages.  And me, well, it's obvious I like a little gimmickry, a little scifi, and this show delivers just the right added touches that keep me interested.

Yes, this show has the weird science that made Fringe come alive, and that is the biggest connective tissue between the two shows.  The science isn't QUITE as mad as Fringe was, and mostly sticking to the realm of just advancing what we can do now with tech and drugs and such.  Still plenty of time for gooey moments with chemicals and diseases and androids with their skin ripped off, but so far there's no sign that we'll delve into alternate realities here.

Still, the scifi elements definitely make this my kinda cop show, and boy am I grateful.  I am enjoying the heck out of this.  Not quite as much or as immediately as Sleepy Hollow, but there is a lot to love here.  If you're a fan of cop shows, you have got to watch this.  There is enough to keep those fans interested, and enough of its own take on things with the scifi that it is familiar and also unique on the modern landscape.

And I'm not gonna lie, I'm hoping the Bad Robot guys pull the same tricks they've pulled with Lost and Fringe before, where they start you off simply with character drama and not a lot of crazy science fiction and then...BAM hey!  Your show has massive amounts of time travel!  I love that method of keeping things basic and hooking the everyday viewers, and then opening up into something so SO much more.

Besides the stories, the clear attraction here is the cast.  Karl Urban is perfect as Kennex, and yes, you can see a little Dredd around the edges, but he's softer, more human, and without the facscism.  Michael Ealy as Dorian is also great, with just the right blend of android like calm, with slightly awkward stumbling towards humanity.  It hits the notes it should absolutely perfectly.  You know he's not human, but he's also not stiff and emotionless.  But besides the two on their own, I absolutely LOVE the chemistry the pair has with each other.  It's almost like watching two brothers at their worst, the way they bicker, but clearly like each other.  The banter and jokes between Kennex and Dorian is enough alone to watch this show.

My biggest complaint with the show is the secondary cast.  I'd like a little more balance to give them time to shine.  Minka Kelly is an incredibly underrated actress who feels almost completely wasted here as the tech girl who gets three lines an episode.  She's better than this, and I hope she gets a storyline soon.  And one that doesn't make her be the damsel in distress.  She's supposed to be a fellow detective, but they're not really selling me on that.

There is one character whom I think will end up being a breakout for the show, and that's Rudy, played by Mackenzie Crook.  At times you can tell he is trying SO HARD to be this show's Walter Bishop, and in some ways he is, being the slightly off mad scientist in the basement, but he's nowhere near as literally crazy as Walter was.  But he's a good actor, and a good character, with some good lines, and he provides some humour when it's needed.  He'll easily be the fun character on this show.

So, there's a new scifi show on the air, and it's surprisingly really good, and definitely worth your time.  There's a few flaws, to be sure, but since the show is only four episodes in, I am sure there is more than enough room for improvement!

What I'm Watching: Maniac (2012)

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here's something tasty for y'all today; three years ago today I reviewed the original slasher classic, Maniac.  I thought it would be appropriate to finally give a quick look at the remake starring Elijah Wood.

Yeah, Frodo starring in a horror movie.

And y'know what?  It works.  It REALLY works.

This may be the single best remake I have ever seen, and it actually does different things, thus giving it a fair justification for existing.

The story is very much the same, with just a few differences, but the way in which its presented is wholly different.  This movie is done in first person, through the eyes of the killer, through those large, emotion filled eyes of Elijah Wood himself.

And again, and this was surprising to me, it totally works.  Doing an entire movie from the first person perspective, LITERALLY inside their head and looking out, sounds like a trainwreck, but this was SO well done, and manages to put you inside the killer in a way you never have been before.

Alexander Aja directed, and with help from the cameramen and Elijah himself being right there behind the camera for nearly the entire shoot (Save for a handful of shots) they really create a unique vision, and turn the camera into a character.  All of those people needed to be on the same page to create this performance for Frank, and that is a large part of why this works.  Elijah's skill at acting, a skilled cameraman, and a great director all came together as a unit here.

The brilliance of it comes when you find yourself getting into it during the more character driven moments, accepting that you are Frank, feeling his awkward shyness, just believing the role you yourself find yourself in...and then have it violently ripped away when you see your hands brutally murdering someone.  It is off-putting, and done so brilliantly...in some ways this is a must see movie, and in others some people should avoid it at all costs, because it can be very uncomfortable, to downright unpleasant, and yet that's the entire reason it works...

Don't ask me which version of Maniac I enjoyed more, because they're both so similar, yet SO different, and do things differently that both films truly can exist side by side.  I'd say the first one is a little more gory, but the remake has its moments.  The remake is more creative in some ways, but the original set so many other things in motion.

The only thing I didn't like in the remake was how Anna figured out Frank was a killer.  He mentioned other girls being killed and wanted to make sure she was safe (It's been awhile since I saw the movie, so I might not be 100% accurate on that, but it's close), and it freaked her out, because how could he know that girls were being killed??  Well, gee, I dunno.  Maybe because he watches the news?  Reads a paper?  Talks to people?  It just came off as SO false that it came dangerously close to ruining the movie for me, but fortunately the rest of the movie is so strong, that the lone stumbling block there doesn't totally ruin things.

The one other thing that didn't always work was Elijah's voiceover.  It's perfectly moody, it sets the scene, and works for what it is, but it just doesn't SOUND right.  And this is hard to get across until you see it for yourself.  It sounds like it's been recorded elsewhere via ADR, and a lot of it probably was.  The words are good, but you get that awkward distance you sometimes have when the audio isn't 'live'.

Still, I really loved this movie, and it stands on its own, and is a worthy successor to the original.  Casting Elijah as someone the exact opposite type from the original Frank, and because of Wood's normal image, and innocent face, is some of the best casting ever.  The brief appearances of Elijah in mirrors really helps sell things, even when the audio might be faltering.

It's a great slasher flick, with a lot of nods to the original (Watch for an homage to the infamous movie poster when Frank's in the car park!), and is a truly unique experience.

I have a slight fear that this will spawn a whole raft of copycats, like the wave of found footage movies we've had since Blair Witch, and I really think that's a mistake.  This is a trick that can only work once, maybe a handful more times, but the more people try to do this same thing, the less the creators invovled will get what made this work, they'll miss the whole psychological aspect, and just put a camera atop some hands with a knife, or whatever.  This is lightning in a bottle, pure and simple.

What I'm Watching: Thor - The Dark World

HAVE AT THEE!

Yep, it's no surprise that I rushed out to see Thor: The Dark World.  Longtime readers know I'm a comic geek, and know I was more than a little miffed at being unable to see the first one in theatres due to a lack of 2D showings near me.  Fortunately, my local theatres have wised up since then, and I could see The Dark World on opening day.

So, how's the sequel?

Pretty freakin' good.  If you enjoyed the first Thor movie, you should enjoy this one.  If you didn't enjoy the first Thor movie, I think this one has a little better balance of elements and it's worth giving another try, although I understand why you might want to wait on that count.

This movie focuses more on Asgard and the other nine realms than Midgard, which I know was a large complaint people had with the first movie.  A lot of the humour is still there though, and everyone's voice feels spot on.  Every line was exactly what I wanted it to be, for the most part.

Thor 2 picks up pretty much right where Avengers left off, dropping Loki off at his father's throne, to receive his punishment for the events he caused in the first movie and Avengers.  From there, we slowly build to a convergence of the nine realms, and the return of Malekith, his dark elves, and the Aether, an otherworldly force akin to the Tesseract.

"These artifacts may sometimes manifest themselves as stones..."

Jane Foster is pulled back into the story, literally, when she stumbles upon the interdimensional hiding place of the Aether, frees it, and becomes an object of desire for the returned Malekith's plots.

Oh, so much of this movie I enjoyed.  I loved how they slowly brought Malekith's look towards the comics design.  I loved Algrim's disguise echoing that of his comics look as Kurse.  I'm sure it will be divisive amongst fans, but I also enjoyed making the Asgardian weapons a little more scifi, even if that does make them seem a bit lightsabre-ish at times.  It added a bit of magic to their culture, by way of Clark's Law.  And making the Dark Elves even more scifi seemed to make sense to me, although it's hard to explain why.

Hemsworth is great as Thor.  You can really see the growth the character has made over these three movies.  He has grown into someone whom is worthy to wield Mjolnir.

"Meowmeow!"

I am so glad that Darcy returned.  She's great comic relief, she's a great standin for the audience, making a lot of the quips we may want to make ourselves.  I wish there had been more of her, but at the same time, I feared the movie was going to leave her, Eric, and Midgard itself entirely behind once Thor and Jane went to Asgard, and I am so glad to be proven wrong and they were all present in the climax.  That was handled rather well, although at times I think the placement of scenes and the editing didn't quite work.  The storyline on Earth just doesn't flow as well as I would have liked, and the order felt off at times.  I suspect these scenes were bounced all around the story for pacing, and things got a bit jumbled along the way.

The use of every Asgardian in the plot was great.  They each had their role to play.  Except for Hogun.  That was a really weird ommision from the storyline, and almost baffling.  I suspect actor availability, so that's a shame, but the rest of the Warriors Three were used to great effect, Sif had good stuff to do, and even Frigga got a lot to work with, even if her role was cut a bit too short.  What she was there for, she was good in.

Loki is Loki.  His mischievousness was well handled, even toying with audience expectations at times, and I like he was even given a bit of redemption.  While it doesn't excuse his past actions, it is a reminder that he is NOT all evil, and he is a complex, multi-faceted character.  Even if his own agenda does get in the way of that from time to time.  I absolutely loved his little scene of shapeshifting with Thor, and his use of a cameo was brilliant and pitch perfect.

Christopher Eccleston brought more gravitas to Malekith than he would have otherwise had, and in lesser hands, the role would not have been as much, and as it is, there's not much there.  The performance definitely helped elevate it, though.  I hope we get to see some of the deleted scenes that would have fleshed out his otherwise purely villianous character.  Much like Frigga's scenes from the first one got left behind, and they really helped boost her role, which was a shame.

I don't think the movie, the Asgardian portions obviously, felt quite as epic as the first movie, and I can't quite place my finger on why?  I'd wager it has something to do with Kenneth Brannagh and his Shakespearean training really nailing that over the top, amazing, crazy and yet down to Earth familial relations of the Asgardians.  Which isn't to say Alan Taylor did a bad job, I thought he still knocked this out of the park, but the first one just had a different feel to it that worked just that little bit better.

I really can't say if I like this or the first Thor better.  They each have their ups and downs, and I'd probably rank them pretty equally.  I'd say this storyline probably thrilled me more, but I think the first one was handled better, overall.

So, for the most part, Thor: The Dark World is just as enjoyable as the original, and I'd personally rank it higher than Iron Man 3, out of the Phase 2 movies.  It hit all the right notes, for me.  I'm sure there's more flaws, but I was most pleased with what I got.

"One down, five to go."

What I'm Watching: Hallow's Eve

And now it's time to wish all the ghouls and goblins a happy Halloween!

So of course, I have this little treat for you, and what more appropriate movie to take a quick look at than the aptly titled, Hallow's Eve?

This is one of this month's independent movies I've never heard of that I got drawn in by an intriguing trailer, and once again, the presence of Danielle Harris.

Oh, the movies I will sit through for her...but I digress.

Hallow's Eve follows the story of a young girl who gets seriously injured on her farm as a kid, when a bunch of kids tease her and chase her into the path of an oncoming tractor.  She survives, but is horribly scarred by the event, both physically and mentally.

Several years later, the kids are once again coming to the farm, to partake in the yearly Halloween haunted farm event the family throws.  It's not long before bodies start dropping, and you start wondering just what is going on.

Straight up, the best thing about this movie is Harris.  She puts in one HELL of a performance as the girl's mother, and brings much needed emotion and character to the film.  Everyone else never quite clicks for me, and that just makes Danielle's performance stand out all the more.

The haunted house like setting on a farm is also a highlight, as it gives lots of creepy places to kill people off, and it strikes me that there haven't been more Halloween themed movies set in places like this.  You would think a dark farm, with corn fields, and creepy decorations, and eerie characters would be a huge trope, but no.  The fact that the setting is most refreshing is another good reason to watch this movie.

This all leads to a pretty hefty body count, with some really good effects and deaths, so there's that at least.

But it all leads up to an ending that is...at the same time, somehow completely obvious, mind boggling, and satisfying all at the same time?

It manages to give a little bit of a twist of presenting two killers, which I always like.  It allows you to throw suspicion off everyone and keep people guessing, and that actually works really well.  One of the killers is exactly who you think it is, and the other is...somehow logical, but never quite set up well to my satisfaction.

Still, there's enough here to like, and even the parts that are wince worthy are mostly in good fun, and given with a wink and a nod to the audience.  This movie knew it was campy, and it hit the mark pretty well.  I may have thrown my hands in the air in the last few minutes, but the movie wasn't ruined by the ending, so that's always a plus.

Hallow's Eve is a fun little bit of campy Halloween fun, and if you get the chance, I actually reccomend giving it a chance for your late night Halloween watching.

What I'm Watching: Dead in Tombstone

Happy Devil's Night, everyone!  Do try and not start too many fires in honour of it, though.

Since it's Devil's Night, longtime readers know I am off watching my favourite movie, The Crow at some point today, but that also dovetails nicely into today's quickie review; Dead in Tombstone.

Now, why does it work well as a lead in?  Well, let's see...

We have a man, who is murdered by men he considers family and friends, makes a literal deal with the devil, and crawls out of his grave to seek revenge and send their souls to the fiery pits instead of his.  That sounds vaguely familiar.

The twist here, is that its set in the Old West, and they got Danny Trejo to play NotCrow.  Or as he's actually called in this, Guerrero.  When I heard the plot I was immediately intrigued by something being Crow-like, and with the added bonus of Trejo, Anthony Michael Hall, AND Mickey Rourke as the devil, it became a must see.  I waited eagerly to finally see this movie.

And hey!  It did not disappoint!

Now sure, it's no Crow.  But then, like I said, favourite movie.  What IS going to compare to that?  But still, it has a very solid plot that has worked time and again in a number of movies, and they do it well enough, with a capable cast.

The biggest problem is that the members of Guerrero's gang that he's trying to kill are largely ciphers, whom you don't know anything about, and don't really care about.  Now sure, they're murderous brigands and traitors, but still.  That other movie I am trying not to mention painted very colourful characters that intrigued you and were distinct.  They all kinda blur here, except for Guerrero's half brother played by Hall.

(And no, there is no way I buy Trejo and Hall as half-brothers.  But hey, that's a minor point, and the acting from the pair is great.)

Rourke feels a little wasted here as the devil, but the character is little more than a plot device.  But what he does do, he does well.  I just wish there was more to the role than a deus ex machina, but without the deus.

Dina Meyer is another fave of mine, and was just more icing on the already intriguing cake, and sadly also ends up on the wrong side of things storywise, with Rourke.  She ends up being too much of a damsel in distress, but she does have a few good moments here and there.  It's really not her story, however.  That's okay, though, and her presence is more than welcome.  Again, just wish they could have done more with what they had.

Where this movie really shone for me though, was the cinematography.  The lighting, the direction, the camera work, is all REALLY well done.  There are so many amazing introductions, and use of backlighting, that the quality of the craft raises the bar for this movie, and puts it on a level it would not have reached in lesser hands.  It is a western with a supernatural feel, and almost shot in a film noir style at times.  The experience is quite unique, and was a joy to watch for that alone.

The crew may not have been the most developed bunch of characters, but their deaths really shine in the movie.  There's some inventive use of effects, and creative use of storytelling.  They truly died better than they lived.

While the movie ends up being flawed, and could have fleshed out some characters, and used others better, it's still a solid movie, very entertaining, and it's a good sign that my biggest complaint is that I just plain want to see more.  And with the ending of the movie setting this up to easily become a franchise, I would very much relish the opportunity to see more of Guerrero and friends.

What I'm Watching: Bad Reception

Welcome to the new What I'm Watching section!

Which is just the journal section renamed.  I figured just making this the section of the site where I do smaller reviews for things that don't fit the wider theme just made sense.

ANYways, this time out, I've been watching Bad Reception.

This movie is about a guy who finds a tv on the side of the road, takes it home, and discovers it doesn't work.  But it soon unfolds that anyone who sits in front of the tv shall be judged by the spirit of a long dead preacher, and killed if they are found guilty.

Oh sweet potatoes, this movie is like The Video Dead and Redeemer: Son of Satan got together and had a little baby.

Yes, with that plot description, and touching on two of my favourite reviews, I had to check this thing out, and it delivers.

Not a good story, but it delivers plenty of strange.  Granted, not as much strange as Redeemer, but what the hell does?

The cast is pretty meh across the board, but that's unsurprising for this sort of project.  The writing isn't great, which is also par for the course but...

This is one of those movies that just has something.  And at least some of that is identifiable.  The mythology of the movie, of a group of priests who would travel around and judge people with their scribes, until one of them went bad and was burned alive, claiming he would one day return and seek his vengeance...hell, that's a good idea.  I just wish it was more fleshed out and made more sense at the end of the day.

It is never really explained why or how this all revolves around a tv, other than having a hand McGuffin to focus on and try and smash.  The various ways all the kills happen is actually really REALLY good, and almost worth seeing the creativity there, however.

The ending is actually most satisfying, even while leaving open routes to a sequel, as unlikely as those may be.  The story wraps up, and there is arguably a winner, and the movie stays more or less within its own rules, even if it makes them up as it goes along.

The best part of the movie is the detective looking into all the random murders that our main character seems weirdly connected to, but then reveals he knows all about this ancient order, and how to defeat this rogue priest's spectre.  He drives the plot forward, he's a decent actor, and he's probably more important than anyone else in the film.

Sadly, the movie never reaches greatness, but the unique plot, with the low budget, and lower acting actually makes this a great movie for Trisk.  I only wish it was a little more strange, but it's a pretty decent diversion for our usual fare.

But really, how many evil televisions are out there?!

What I'm Watching: Fright Night 2: New Blood

So, I enjoyed the 2011 remake of Fright Night.  Mainly because of the cast, but it was a fun movie.  David Tennant was hilariously over the top as a Vegas magician, and Colin Farrell was deliciously over the top and enjoying his role SO much, he was just having a blast with it.

And that is at least one of the strengths of this sequel, but I'll get to that.

The first thing you need to know is, this is NOT a sequel.  It's a remake.  But it's not even a remake of the original Fright Night 2, which would've been fine, if still annoying, but at least acceptable to go that route.

Nope, this is ANOTHER remake of the original story.  So really is Fright Night, with a new cast.

What person possibly has the decision to go, "Hey, remember that movie that we did two years ago?  Let's do it again!  With the same story!  But an all-new cast of people that don't have anywhere NEAR the same star quality, and make it direct to video!"

How is that a good decision in ANYone's mind?!

They try and justify this in the commentary track by saying, hey!  James Bond changes actors all the time and just keeps going!  Yes, BUT they also don't call it "The Living Daylights 2" and tell the exact same story with everyone who died the first time coming back to life magically because they need to die AGAIN in the *ahem* sequel.

And I'm sorry, but you are no James Bond franchise, Fright Night.

With all that out of the way though, how is the actual movie, taken on its own merits?

Well...

Surprisingly, it's not terrible.  The story is a LITTLE different, with Charlie, Amy, and "Evil" Ed *muttermutterdiedinthelastmoviethisisaSEQUELtomutterdamnitmutter* heading to Romania this time for a school trip, and moving next door to their professor Gerri Dandridge, who, gasp!  Is a vampire!

I like at least mixing it up by having our heroes move next door to the villain, instead of the bad guy coming into town.  I also like making Gerri, who gets turned into a woman with the reboot, is tied to the legends of Elizabeth Bathory, an infamous serial killer, and rightly connected to vampires thanks to her own obsession with blood.  So that's actually a decent addition to their mythology, and a good use of hers.

And just like the previous two Fright Nights, Charlie discovers Gerri's secret, and rushes to famed monster hunter, Peter Vincent.  This time, Peter's the host of an online 'ghost hunter' style show, that actually works really well for the character's archetype and updating it for today.

Sadly, that's the best thing about the character of Peter Vincent.  Ultimately, he does absolutely nothing, adds nothing to the plot, and does very little but doubt Charlie at every turn.  Which isn't surprising, but by the time he believes, he doesn't really impart any great wisdom or actions that impact the plot AT ALL.  A total waste, which is a shame because as I said, the updating is good, and the actor isn't bad with what he's given.

Colin Farrell's Jerry becomes Jaime Murray's Gerri, and I will say straight up, she is HANDS DOWN the best thing in this movie.  Turning the character into a femme fatale, seeking release from her curse, and tying it all in with Bathory actually makes for a compelling, seductive character which Murray excels at playing.  She knocks it out of the park, and the role is practically tailor-made for her, and right in line with the other roles she has played.  She embodies the character, and thrills at her actions in a way very similar to Colin, and you can actually see the two characters coming from the same cloth, and split by this weird multiverse.

Also, they do some genuinely unique things, at least to the best of my (admittedly sometimes spotty) recollection.  The best part is giving their vampires actual echolocation abilities, which was definitely really neat.

The actors for the human kids aren't terrible.  They're actually pretty fun, but "Evil" Ed ends up with the worst of it, but that's mainly due to some really cheesy lines he gets.  But hey, the Fright Night movies have ALL had a little bit of cheese in them, and this movie is no different.  It goes a little far on that account only a few times, so the winces are few, at least.

Where the movie really falls apart is the very end, which always seems to be the case.  But Fright Night goes above and beyond on that charge.  Instead of just having an ending that doesn't work, or doesn't really end, this movie actually makes NO sense with its ending.  And I am going to rant into spoiler territory, so yoy may want to turn back now if you really want to see this movie.

Seriously, this ending is just so baffling I need to go through it all and get it off my chest.

Gerri takes Amy to her lair, so her blood can cure Gerri of her curse.  Charlie dutifully follows and is told that any vampires created by her will turn back to human if Gerri is killed before sunrise.  Okay, still fine, right?

So Amy gets turned, and has to kill or turn Charlie or something, which she does.  Charlie becoming a vampire actually comes in handy, because he kills himself to stop Amy from becoming a vampire, which doesn't make a lick of sense.  And so it begins.

With Charlie dead, Amy starts to whither, taking away Gerri's one chance at freedom.  Except Charlie missed his heart, so he wasn't REALLY dead!  Then...why was there all that trouble and drama and whithering, if he wasn't dead?  Did this suddenly become Princess Bride and he was only mostly dead??

Peter shows up briefly to stab Gerri through the heart, but she pulls the same trick, and HE missed HER heart too.  So the one thing Peter actually does in the movie is an abject, pointless failure.

Okay, okay, things look bleak, but the sun isn't up yet, so there's stil hope!  And THEN the sun comes up.  Well, shit, so much for turning everyone back!

All the clocks go off, it's dawn, no one can be turned back, but Charlie still uses his high pitched bat-like powers to shatter the windows in the bathhouse of blood, causing Gerri to die from exposure, as vampires tend to do.

And with Gerri dead by the rays of dawn's early light, everyone turns back to normal and...wait...IT IS AFTER DAWN!

Yes, people.  Fright Night 2.  Where the rules are made up and the plot points don't matter.

Up until that ending that makes no sense, violates it's OWN damned rules, and is just ten minutes of headscratching, it's a decent enough vampire movie.

But the problem is, it's Fright Night.  It's NOT it's own thing, you can only take it so much on its own merits.  Especially when it's the THIRD remake, telling very much the same story.  The new unique twists to it do shake things up, but it's stil the same story.  You've seen it before.  TWICE!  And each one was better!

I was actually grooving along okay enough in this movie, even WITH that annoyance, and grumbling that Evil Ed should not still be kicking in a SEQUEL, but that ending was just so utterly incomprehensible and dumb that all my good will melted into a pool of blood like Gerri.

If you're a fan of Jaime Murray, this movie is STILL worth watching though, since she does a great job, and there is SOME fun here besides that, but at the end of the day, you ought to go see either of the other original Fright Nights before this.  Both are superior films in every respect.

Meanwhile, the spirits of Charlie, Amy, Jerry or Gerri, Peter Vincent, and Ed, are forever stuck in a karmic repetition of their existence in infinite variations, until they finally get things right, I guess.

What I'm Watching: Agents of SHIELD

Continuing along with the premiers I give a crap about, and fit vaguely with this site (The Blacklist is fun but predictable, by the way!), Marvel has finally done it, and made a prime time live action tv series, Agents of SHIELD.

Anyone who has listened to me for awhile has heard my rant how I long for a comic based tv show way more than I want another movie.  I'm not going to ge into THAT rant here.

The question is, does SHIELD fit the bill?

Well...it comes close.  See, I'm gonna be THAT guy.  I'm not in love with the show.  It's good, but I didn't quite connect with it from the pilot.  But hey, the same thing happened with Fringe, and that became one of my favourite shows of the last few years, so initial impressions, ESPECIALLY of a pilot are always dicey.

Still, I was hoping for a little more, and I suspect its the expectations that hurt more than anything.  After the Avengers, the bar was set pretty high, and the show doesn't reach them.  But, it doesn't have to, does it?  It's a tv show.

And one of my biggest problems isn't even the show's fault, but the marketing.  I've been hearing about the show all year, seeing clip after clip, and even though I didn't even WATCH most of them, I *still* felt like I'd seen most of the show.

The other thing was, I was hoping for a little more comicbooky stuff.  I get wanting to use original characters for the team, it allows them free reign to do what they want, they won't be ruining say, a future appearance in the movies of Agent Carol Danvers (For example), and they have no expectations with the fans of what the characters might do.  But it still felt more like it's own universe more than anything TOO Marvel related.  There were moments though, and they did exactly what I prayed they would do with Lola.

It's funny that another problem I had was that there was TOO MUCH comicbooky stuff.  Not actual content, but the references were getting to be a bit TOO cutesy.  "Ready to joing us on our Journey Into Mystery?"  Iiiii see what you did there.

I hope they get stuff like that out of there system, because while I do actually like cute stuff like that, doing it too much can become too annoying with the constant winks to the audience.

The story itself in the pilot was decent enough, building on the movie universe's tech already, and each character has a bit of mystery and questions to explore, although nowhere near as with Sleepy Hollow.

Now, I say I didn't love the show, but I did absolutely like it.  I was mildly entertained, I enjoyed it more on my second viewing when I wasn't in critic mode, although still a few bland bits, but it was mostly solid for a pilot, and that's what I judge it on.

The first episode was not a home run, knock it out of the park affair, but it was good, it did what it needed to do, and I absolutely see the potential there.  I am just as sick of 'getting the team together' stories, as I am of origins, I guess.

Now, the second episode that I just got done watching?  A definite step up in quality, and they did a really good job of mixing the cool action with some solid character moments that really made these people more real in the context of the show.  It can be tough to strike that balance of action and talking, and this episode more or less got it right.  I'm not entirely sold on some of the directions they're *going* with the characters, but hey.  It's there show.

Overall, while I wasn't immediately grabbed, the show has potential, and I'm sure things will pick up.  The second episode made that pretty clear.

And I'll admit it, classifying the plane as SHIELD 616 made me grin huge.

What I'm Watching: Cockneys vs. Zombies

Hello horrorheads!

I've been following a zombie comedy movie for awhile now, the titular Cockneys vs. Zombies.  It had that right look of fun and horror, and I'm a fan of Michelle Ryan, so it was on my radar.

I was a little afraid at it trying to be the next Shaun of the Dead though, but the trailers made me smile enough.

It finally came out on DVD, and first thing I'm gonna say is that it is not fair to compare it to Shaun of the Dead.  Even though I'm going to, at times.  The movies are very different, with different goals in mind, and even the creators of CvZ know they can't compare to such a masterpiece.

Shaun is such a well-crafted piece of work, with every single bit of dialogue feeding into the next, building up, and even the littlest detail leads to foreshadowing and the end.  The craftsmanship in Edgar Wright's movies are mindboggling at times.

And CvZ just does not compare, on that level.

But that said, it is still REALLY solid, taken on its own merits.  Even held up against Shaun, it still fares very well, even if it is proudly standing and staring up at its better.

The story centers around an old folks home in London, under threat of being demolished and the residents being located far FAR away from home, and into an area that the local cockneys just will not stand for.  So the grandkids, and their cousin, along with a few friends, team up to pull a bank heist to pay the money needed to keep the home open.

Meanwhile, the same construction company looking to rebuild have uncovered an ancient tomb, and set free a zombie plague upon the city.

I love mixing up the heist genre with a zombie movie, because you would NEVER think of those two going together, and honestly?  They don't.  But it's a good diversion and set up for plot and characters, as the zombie movie crashes the party and stops the heist dead in its tracks.

Which is probably a good thing, because the entire team besides Michelle Ryan's Katy are either inept, bumbling fools, or raging psychopaths, leading to the heist going horribly wrong in literally every way they can think of.

From their, the mission is STILL to save their granddad and his friends, but now the threat has become the zombie hordes.

This movie does some truly, incrediblely inventive things with the genre that I don't think I've ever seen before.  The humour is great, very well balanced with the more serious threat of zombies, and there are a ton of great, gory zombie kills.

Cockneys vs. Zombies had me laughing, yelping, cheering, and it even touched me emotionally a few times.  It never quite reached the heights of Shaun of the Dead, but it made a damned good effort, and if it didn't unthrone the reigning king of British zombie comedies, it should feel no shame in being a very close second.

I definitely recommend checking out CvZ, and just judge it for what it is, not because it's not Shaun of the Dead.  It was definitely surprising just how good it was, since I went into this without middling hopes for a fun time, and was not disappointed.