You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2008.
According to Cinematical.com, Anne Hathaway is starring in a new horror film called Passengers in which she will play a counselor who works with a group of plane crash survivors. One of the survivors apparently has some kind of powers since the crash that can’t be explained. Sounds like a lot like one of my favorite shows, Lost. I’ve posted a youtube version of the trailer but I’m not sure when the film will arrive. The website at the end of the trailer is now only pointing to Sony’s main site. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the lovely Anne Hathaway will probably not be naked in this because it’s rated PG-13, however, if you have some kind of psycho obsession you can see just about all of her nude in Havoc, but that is the only reason you should ever see that film.
Vampires are cool right now. Let's have her lick the blood off the sword!
Hollywood has decided to grace us, yet again, with another damn remake. This time the victim, besides us of course, is Red Sonja. Rose McGowan has been pegged to fill the boots of the very masculine Brigitte Nielson. Splash Page is apparently so interested that they’ve even inquired about possible sequels and/or spin-offs based on this forgettable film. Hopefully they’re trying to do this as some sort of advance warning of the impending apocalypse that is sure to strike after the 2009 remake hits the big screen. What I find utterly strange about this is the casting of McGowan in this role. Brigiette Nielson, although god awful in her performance, was somewhat believable in the role since she was like six feet tall. McGowans is only 5′4″ so it’s going to be even harder to buy into her in as a sword-wielding badass. Hell, it’s hard enough to simply buy into her as an actress.
You'll have to wait until next summer to see Snape kill me.
By now, you’ve heard that Warner Bros. pulled back everyone’s favorite four-eyed wizard movie for a summer release next year. In it’s place is the film adaptation of some book about a vampire kid who drinks animal blood instead of human blood and falls in love with some chick. Twilight is set to open on November 21st as a slap in the face, or bite to the neck, to all those broom-riding wizard fanboys (and girls). Initially I was happy to hear that they’d snatched the Harry Potter film because, well, I think Harry Potter is retarded, but my reaction of joy was short lived once I learned it would be replaced by an even more lame, teeny-bopper romance vampire movie.
Excuse me! Did someone directing a bad movie call for a bad actor?
First let me say that I am aware of the fact that Vin Diesel can’t act his way out of a paper bag even if that paper bag was on fire and full of dog shit. Despite this fact I’ve enjoyed some of Diesel’s films including both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. Plus, he’s actually a cool guy because he’s as much of a geek as I am. While everyone seemed to be pumped up for Death Race, for whatever fucking reason, I was anxiously anticipating Babylon A.D. That all changed after reading what director Mathieu Kassovitz had to say about his own movie courtesy of FirstShowing.net:
I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn’t respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience…It’s pure violence and stupidity. The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters… instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24. I know what I had — I had something much better in my hands but I just wasn’t allowed to work. I don’t see how people who went through all these amazing blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Iron Man this summer will take it.
Wow! Those are pretty strong words coming from the dude who actually directed the film. The trailers eluded to a smart, intelligent action sci-fi with a worthwhile story, but in fact, it’s basically going to be complete and utter bullshit. This is the part I just don’t get about Hollywood execs. The suits apparently don’t think moviegoers are smart enough to enjoy a movie that is thought provoking and intelligent. I guess they believe that, hell, if it’s science fiction it’s got to be full of action and effects or no one will give a shit.
Kassovitz just made the decision for me as far as this film is concerned. It’s one thing to read a bad review on a film, but when the director of a film butchers it himself you know it’s going to be horrific. That’s a real shame because I had a lot of expectations after the amazing trailer for this movie.
Yeah, so Fay has come and gone but that hasn’t stopped the weekend horrorthon. Had a small power outage this morning but other than that, we were fortunate in having nothing but a lot of heavy rain.
Patrick Bateman is one fucked up yuppie!
The first movie on the agenda tonight was American Psycho starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, and Reese Witherspoon. The movie is based on the novel of the same name and focuses on Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a young twenty-something yuppie from ’80’s Manhattan who just happens to like murdering people on the side. Bale portrays Bateman with an incredible amount of intensity and really manages to nail the fact that Bateman is a schizophrenic psychopath merely existing amongst his peers. I saw this film a few years back before Bale achieved any sort of notoriety or fame and I liked it just as much the second time around. Actually, I probably enjoyed it more on the second go. This film could probably be more aptly grouped as a psychological thriller than an actual horror film but it was an excellent film nonetheless. I’d highly recommend this one especially for those Bale fans out there.
My Rating: ***1/2
Alright so it’s getting close to 11:30 PM here and Fay has been downgraded to a Tropical Depression. Looks like the worst part is over for us here.
Some dude named Ian Stone dies a bunch of times.
We continued our horrorthon with one of the “8 Films to Die For” from Horrorfest 2007 called The Deaths of Ian Stone. I thought it was alright but my wife made the point that it seemed like a drawn out Outer Limits episode and I think she basically nailed it. The movie focuses on Ian as these monsters continuously chase him down and kill him only to bring him back in a new life after each death. He starts to remember each past life and the story moves on from there. While I enjoyed this movie, I thought the very best scene was near the beginning when he first encounters the monsters on a train track. Overall the film was alright, but as all of the films we’ve watched over this horrorthon, it wasn’t great. I thought the concept was interesting and the story fresh and original but the scares and creep factor were somewhat limited.
My Rating: ***
Well, it is currently 8:45 PM and the horrorthon is back on in full force. Fortunately, we’ve managed to keep the power and internet up through this which amazes me. Gov. Bob Riley has, however, announced a state of emergency for Alabama and we’re supposed to get six more inches of rain. Flooding is the main concern here in our neck of the woods. Fay has moved somewhat north of us now. Here’s the radar image:
Dude, when that voice says "get out," it means get the fuck out...like...yesterday!
The first movie on the agenda tonight was the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror. I must say, usually I hate remakes with a passion, but I was somewhat impressed with this one. I thought Ryan Reynolds did a great job as George Lutz. The film wasn’t overloaded with gore, which I also found notable. Although the creepy atmosphere was present, especially with George constantly hearing the “katch ‘em, kill ‘em,” the use of shocking and creepy imagery was more of a present factor. Quick shots of ghosts covered in blood or with goo hanging from their heads from supposed gun wounds were abundant. I thought they added some interesting twists that weren’t present in the original. The whole addition of how the house became haunted in the first place, was an interesting concept. Not original, of course, but interesting nonetheless. Overall, The Amityville Horror wasn’t the perfect horror film, but it was creepy enough to keep me on the edge throughout. I’d recommend it.
My Rating: ***1/2
It’s now 11:30 PM and while the rain is coming down, we still haven’t gotten anything real heavy here yet. Fay’s now back over the water as the current pic below indicates.
Put Wes Craven's name on it! That'll get 'em to watch it!
But on to more important shit, we finished They and I’d forgotten the fact that I’d seen this movie. It wasn’t until the scene where the main chick meets up with her childhood friend in the diner near the beginning that I realized I’d watched this one a few years back. It’s also called Wes Craven presents They for some odd fucking reason that I can’t figure out because his name is no where in the credits that I can see other than as “presenter.”
I thought the movie was alright. It was pretty much archetypical horror. Group of young people are experiencing some form of evil. No one believes them. All the kids start dying off until the end where the main character is left running for her life. I say “her” because the final character is almost always a female. After all, most of the time, it’s dudes watching horror and we’d much rather see a chick running around at the end of a movie than some random guy. I was satisfied with the film although it tended to drag in spots. The creatures were completely CGI but that was perfectly acceptable for me. They were well rendered for the time (2002) so it worked. I thought they could have spent less time on the useless dialogue and other similar scenes which seemed to drag on. They could have spent more time trying to build up the suspense during the parts where the creatures are actually attacking. Overall, although They is certainly no where near the best in the genre it worked for me because of the use of atmosphere as opposed to gore to creep out the audience. Not a bad choice for a horrorthon I guess.
My Rating: ***
So, it is now approaching 10 PM here. Still no real sign of Fay. As of this writing she is back over the gulf picking up a little intensity before she makes landfall…again. This will be a short review as we’re getting ready to watch another so please keep that in mind when reading.
Holy fuck! These Russian ghosts mean business!!
We finished our first movie tonight. The Abandoned was one of the “8 Films to Die For” from After Dark Films. Usually I don’t like a lot of the Lionsgate stuff but I did enjoy The Abandoned. A woman returns to her birthplace of Russia after 40 years and goes back to her estate only to uncover a terrible secret that haunts the grounds. I thought the movie was well done. There’s nothing creepier to me than ghosts/apparitions walking through an old abandoned house. That shit just sends chills up my damn spine. I thought the atmosphere of the film was perfect. It wasn’t loaded down with gore either which is usually one of my pet peeves with these films. It was definitely a unique ghost tale and I’d recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.
My Rating: ***1/2
