Doom Plague Movies

I recently got pretty sick. Sick enough that I was incapable of doing anything at all except laying on my couch in complete delirious misery. I wasn’t even able to sleep, it was so bad. This gave me a lot of hours to fill. A lot of hours. Needless to say, perhaps, I cleared out a good number of things from my instant queue, and even hit a few things that were just randomly picked hoping they’d lull me into oblivion.

In total, I hit 20 movies in about 60 hours.

So I thought I’d do a bit of a brief writeup on each, and use a very easy scoring system. + if I liked it, - if I didn’t, \ if I don’t really go either way or maybe go both ways.

Here we go:

-American Loser: I really feel like they used Sean William Scott and Gretchen Mol as magnets for this movie knowing that people would flock to it, and then didn’t bother, you know, writing anything. This was such a boring movie. The idea that a guy is an alcoholic with learning disabilities and is trying to form a relationship with a chick that is just as fucked up as him has potential. It was not met. Or even glanced at.

+Assassination of a High School President: This was a lot better than I expected it to be. There were really interesting layers and the story was pretty intriguing. Bruce Willis’ character was simply amazing, his aversion to gum was well played out (something that I thought was going to be really stupid). It had a kind of noir-ish feel to it, but doesn’t quite dive into the pool. This isn’t a bad thing, even though it sounds like it should be.

+Let Go: Another movie I really thought was going to be blah, but turned out better than hoped. The description that Netflix gives it doesn’t really do it justice, not that I’m surprised by that happening anymore. Everybody they cast did a brilliant job at their parts, though I have to say my favorite was Kevin Hart. I love that guy. I really felt for him through the whole movie. He just kept trying and failing, and it so wasn’t even his fault.

+Safety Not Guaranteed: Granted, this movie has some kind of strange moments in it, and those moments wouldn’t have worked in any other setting, but they did in this one somehow. They only really left one thing untouched that nags at me, and that’s the like “I have only done this once before”. It’s never questioned, never brought up to the guy. Everything else is taken care of. Why not that? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME!? I WAS SICK!

+Heavenly Creatures: I’ve known this story for some time. I have a couple of true crime books that talk about it or give the short version. When I found out that a movie had been made, of course I had to see it. I had never previously encountered the journal entries, and the addition of those just made the whole story more … more. It adds a level that you just don’t get when you’re reading the basic facts.

\The Snowtown Murders: So. So, I really liked the information this movie put forth. The facts of what went on. Depicting all the characters really well. It just wasn’t a very exciting movie. At times it was incredibly graphic (a scene where one brother rapes another goes on a lot longer than you’d think), and there was enough to keep my attention, but I think that I would have much rather read about all of it. As detailed as it was, there were some spots that didn’t really touch on things too deeply, and that was weird. I didn’t hate it, but I won’t watch it again.

-Jerk Theory: Fucking suuuuuucked. There was no redeeming moment in this movie at all. Not one. Nothing. The acting was bad, the story was stupid, it was boring, it had obnoxious songs in it. Bad. All bad. No good.

+He Was A Quiet Man: Not really something that I expected to see Christian Slater in. I mean, obviously he is, but the role, the character he plays, isn’t really Slater norm. I think it really shows his diversity as an actor, his amazingness, really. This movie was really touching. There were a lot of unexpected things, too, which I liked. I kind of wonder why I didn’t hear more about this movie, but I kind of don’t. You don’t really know what to expect going in, and there’s no real way to describe it to anybody else that doesn’t make it sound trite or unlike the movie you just watched.

+The Killing Jar: It could be that I just really really love Danny Trejo, Michael Madsen, and Harold Perrineau, but I had a lot of fun with this one. A lot. The plot synopsis makes it sound really boring, but I was not bored for one second.

\Capote: I like things that Capote has written, I just wasn’t really interested in the movie. I can’t exactly say why, either. Maybe just because I was sick and it’s not really a great sick movie? I don’t know. I also didn’t hate it. And Phillip Seymore Hoffman’s portrayal of Capote was glorious. Beautiful. He was stunning in that role. That’s what kept me watching the whole time, honestly.

-HottieBoombaLottie: Just. Shut up. This was a movie I hoped would destroy my brain and let me sleep. Unfortunately, I stayed awake for the whole thing. There were tiny funny moments, and that’s all it’s got going for it. So bad. So very, very bad. I might have actually gotten sicker due to this movie.

+Repeaters: What happens when you Groundhog Day a trio of recovering drug addict kids? Chaos! Wonderful, wonderful chaos. It’s not the most intelligent movie on the planet, and there are some plot holes that never get cleared up (really kind of minor plot, thankfully). Still, it was fun.

\Hick: The actors played their parts well, the concept was interesting, but when it was all said and done, I just wasn’t into the story. It wasn’t bad, it was just blah. Not the best. Also, Netflix should learn how to properly describe things, because this movie is nothing like how it’s written up.

+Nightwatch: There are two movies of this name. One of them is Russian and the other has Ewan McGregor and Josh Brolin. It is very important to make sure that you do not watch one thinking you are watching the other. They are very very different movies with very different plots and you will get VERY confused. That said, this Nightwatch was FANTASTIC. Man, I loved it. I was on the edge of my seat. As much as I could be, since I was laying down curled in a ball. WATCH THIS MOVIE. Goddamn.

\Howl: I am not a fan of the poem, Howl. This movie, however, was pretty well done, and the animation was amazing. Jon Hamm and James Franco nailed their parts. And the story of the trial is pretty interesting, too. They cut out the more boring bits, of course, making it seem less tedious than I’m sure it was. It was entertaining enough to keep a sick girl happy.

-Arthur: I hate Russell Brand. I do. There’s only one thing he’s in that I can think of that I enjoy, and that’s Despicable Me. I’m not sure why they picked him to redo something Dudley Moore did so well, but it was a poor, poor choice. He just didn’t pull it off.

\Project X: I watched this largely because I saw a preview for it with a friend of mine and the dog in the jumping castle was really amusing. I’m ambivalent toward the movie in general, as it had some fun parts, but the concept is not really… anything I’m into. If that many people were anywhere near my house, people would be getting shot. By me.

-Nine Dead: I don’t think I’ve been so disappointed in a movie in a really long time. This one should have been great. Nothing about it was, though. It was flat, it didn’t have suspense, it didn’t have interesting characters, the actors failed at getting anything across (except for the mob guy, he was pretty believable), and I will never – not ever in my life – believe Melissa Joan Hart in a role like that.

+Employee of the Month: This movie really starts out shitty. I gave up on it a couple of times just because the flow was off and the story wasn’t catching me. But I hit a certain point and all of it turned around. From then on, it was good times for everybody. Okay, just for me, since I watched it alone. Blood, laughter, things that were completely unexpected. It’s like the recipe for awesome.

+Killer Elite: Yep. Yes. All the time yes. All the yesses in the whole world. I cannot yes enough. I did go into this thinking that it was all action, which it’s not, but I wasn’t upset at the absence. There were actiony parts that were enough to fill my desires. The rest of it… wow. Wow. And the line “Strawberry or fuck you”? I knew I was in love as soon as it was uttered.

Faces in the Crowd – again

That was… not really worth sitting through a second time, despite the fact that I didn’t really see it the first time.

The idea of the movie was pretty interesting, but that’s about where the good ends. They don’t pull off the idea very well, and there are parts of the story that feel like they just left something out. I don’t know if it was bad editing, or what, but I really think that pieces were missing.

The directing was really bad, too. With actors the likes of what were there, things should have been a lot more engaging. But they weren’t. I really didn’t give a crap about any of the characters.

For a thriller, it wasn’t very thrilling. Not even mildly suspenseful. I had no moments of wondering what was going to happen, or if the killer was going to catch up to her. I didn’t even care when he did.

And the killer, for that matter, felt like a cop-out. This might harken back to the loss of information, the bad editing or whatever it was. But it just didn’t feel set up enough for it to end up who it was. There were very minor clues, but they had to be pointed out to me, and they didn’t come until the very end of the goddamned movie.

Another cop-out was that she could recognize what’s his ass because of his facial hair. It seems to me that if she picked up on that clue, anybody with that facial hair would have then looked like what’s his face. After all, she does at one point think some guy is her boyfriend because he’s wearing the same tie. The theory should translate. And yet…

No. No this was not worth being conscious for.

Faces in the Crowd

Sometimes I really don’t understand the decisions I make.

A friend of mine told me that she was going to try watching this one, and that I should as well. So last night, I made that my plan. Except, for some reason – and I really cannot explain myself here – I also decided to take Ambien.

What this means is that I saw the first half hour or so of this movie and have no idea what happened during the rest of it. Yep. I fell asleep. As Ambien is made to encourage, of course.

I’m going to have to try again. This time, I hope, I won’t make the same choices.

Kalifornia

This is one of the strangest movies I’ve watched in quite a while. From the story itself to the characters themselves, I hardly know what to think about everything that went on.

Let’s start with the cast, shall we? We shall.

First you’ve got Juliette Lewis. She’s playing a young, kind of stupid, kind of overly innocent, girl. She does it very well. If I had never seen her in anything else, I would have thought she was actually an idiot. She’s played the girlfriend of a deranged motherfucker before, in Natural Born Killers, but this was less of a knowledgeable role. Here she believes that her man is a good person at heart, where in Natural Born Killers, she helps in the slaughter and mayhem.

Then we’ll move on to David Duchovny. He plays a guy you sort of expect Duchovny to play. Intelligent, writer, unsure about where he’s going in life. Just knows that he needs to do this thing, write a book, because he’s already spent all of his advance, and he’s not really sure where to go with it.

Plus Michelle Forbes. You may not recognize her name right off the bat, but I assure you, she’s done some notable things. She’s been in some pretty high profile situations on television, such as Maryann Forrester on True Blood. Recognize her now? You might not when you see her in this. Man, she’s a fucking chameleon. You change her hair and her makeup, and she’s nigh unrecognizable. It took me a really really long time to realize who she was, after a long bout of nagging in my brain that kept saying I knew who she was.

This brings us to Brad Pitt. This is where things start getting weird. Oh, it’s not as if we haven’t seen Brad in the role of somebody off their hinges before. Remember 12 Monkeys? Oh yes. But this time, it’s something a little special. He’s an ignorant, psychopathic, redneck. Oh, how he does play his part well. Brad is, arguably, the first reason I decided to watch this. The second being that the premise really interested me.

Premise. Writer takes a trip to Cali, deciding to try to ride share, and ends up with our dearest little girl and her disturbed boyfriend. Not knowing who they are, agrees to welcome them on board on his tour of the most famous murder sites in America.

Who would NOT want to watch that?

You know from the start that it’s going to go badly at some point. But you just don’t know how or when. Let me tell you, when it comes, it kind of comes at you from a blind corner. Then, just when you think that everything couldn’t get more strange, it does.

I’m not saying I didn’t like this movie. Because I did. I guess I just wasn’t expecting what it was. I kind of had this idea in my head and then when it didn’t fit, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I’m still not really sure. Do I watch it again, just to make sure that what I saw is what I saw? Also, you shouldn’t mistake this strangeness with the sort that comes from surrealist movies like Slipstream. This is it’s own kind of strange.

Special, maybe.

Most of it comes with Brad’s character, Early. Just all the little nervous ticks and habits that Brad slipped in, the things that were consistent through the whole movie, the way he would look – that look in his eyes – when he was going to kill, the throat/nasal clearing thing, the laugh. It sort of crawls into your brain and stays there. I don’t know where Brad got the ideas for these things, but they’re pretty inspired.

Juliette’s character brings a lot of her own, though. She was like a little girl most of the time, too eager to please and trying too hard to make these strangers into her friends. She has this trademark “um” that in most people would be obnoxious, but in somebody like Adele it’s almost endearing. She needs that “um” to have a moment to gather her thoughts. She needs it to move into some other conversational territory. She’s not an adult, but she’s in a very adult place. Let me correct that. She’s an adult chronologically, but not mentally. The situation she finds herself in, the things she does, proves this.

The ending was certainly brilliant. Not at all what I would have expected. Probably not what it would have been if this had been a main stream movie. They wouldn’t have allowed it. It was far too dark. Not that the rest of the film isn’t dark. But there’s a certain level that they’ll allow in when movies go big, and I think this pushes that line to it’s breaking. But it was absolutely perfect. Anything else would have ruined the whole experience.

I think the only thing I am truly confused about, though, is the fact that this had a warning for graphic sexual whatever. Which was only in photographs which weren’t all that graphic.

Silent Hill: Homecoming (Frustrations)

I cannot even tell you right now how long ago I got this game. I borrowed it first from a friend, then decided that I liked it too much to not own it, and that it was going to take me a fairly long time to play through it, so holding onto his copy wasn’t really nice.

I have this frequent problem. Or I did. I am trying to correct it. It’s a bad habit, and it’s how I ended up with a giant fucking stack of games that were only somewhat played through. I would be in the middle of a game and something would come out that I was more interested in. Now, instead of buying said game and waiting until I finished what I was working on, I would play the new game, leaving the other sad and alone. Crying. On my shelf.

While I did this with Silent Hill: Homecoming, I did manage to pick it up again fairly quickly after I finished whatever wondrous thing had floated my way. I was playing along quite happily, too. Enjoying myself. Yelling at the television when things wouldn’t die. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a potty mouth. It’s not just when I write.

Then the most horrible of horribles happened. The one thing that every gamer dreads and curses the sky for.

I got stuck.

I did it to myself. I can wholly admit that. It was all entirely my doing. No question. I went into an area with maybe two bullets, a quarter of my health, a crowbar, an axe, and a flashlight. No medical kits. No health drinks. Just wandered on in, didn’t even think about it. Didn’t consider that I’d just found something pretty significant and maybe, just motherfucking maybe, I should take a moment to gather myself so that I wouldn’t be walking into the massive clusterfuck of assrape that I did. No. Not me. I’ll just go right down this pretty creepy ladder here, and… oh. What’s that? Boss you say? Can’t go back, you say? Fucked myself, did I?

I did.

I literally spent weeks trying to find a way to defeat Scarlett with what I had on me. I can admit that I didn’t even come close. Not even mildly. It’s actually pretty laughable how not close I came to killing her and proceeding with the rest of the game. I would laugh, except it’s my problem. Laughing at yourself often gets you a white padded room and a special jacket. Or maybe that’s just how hard I would be laughing, and with the release of emotion might come some added screaming and…

Let’s move on, shall we?

I have previously talked about my quest to wrap up the above noted games, bringing my backlog into some realm of sanity. Coupled with the vow that once I have picked up a game, I will complete it before starting another. (This vow is hard to keep. Obviously I was not made for vows. Or with much willpower when it comes to video games.) The time for Silent Hill: Homecoming did roll around, and lo, I picked it up and with heavy heart did erase my previous game, thus confirming the restart that was fated to occur.

I’ve been enjoying it… I suppose I should say that I had been, had being a very key word here… I had been enjoying it during the replay. There had been enough time and enough other games in that time that I didn’t remember the story perfectly, I didn’t automatically know how to solve the puzzles. It was a little new despite how far I’d gotten. It was okay. It really was.

Until I started thinking about getting to that boss level with the goddamned giant fucking puppet of massive sphincter bleeding. Then I started to get upset. Not with the game, though, with myself. I kept thinking of all the things I could have done differently to prevent this replay from happening. Replaying because you want to is one thing. Doing it because you’ve shoved your own head up your ass is entirely different. It’s just aggravating.

I had to stop playing again. Now it and GTA 4 are the ones staring at me from my shelves, asking me why they aren’t yet finished. SH:H pleading with puppy dog eyes and little whimpering noises. “Just finish me, I’m a good game, I’ll show ya, you enjoyed me before, just pick me up, we’ll have a good time together, promise”. Bastard.

I’m just so annoyed with myself over things that I’m taking it out on the game. I have to get over it, that’s what it comes down to. I have to, and I will. Somehow. Because I cannot just let it linger. It will drive me crazy (obviously we’re significantly down that street, aren’t we?).

There will be another update on this when I finish the damn game.

German Serial Killers – Antibodies

I wonder, really wonder, why there aren’t more movies like this accessible to hands like mine. Really, really wonder. I’m a girl who really enjoys things like horror, murder, serial killers, psychological rapings. Yet, somehow, the films made my Germans which encompass said themes aren’t just… added into my Netflix queue by magic. This is actually the first one that has even been in the “You Might Like This Because…” area.

Holy shit, what an excellent mindfuck. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. They didn’t pull back on anything. Anything. If they did, I’m actually a little stunned. If there are cut scenes more graphic and brutal than the scenes that actually made it into this film? I’m sure they’ve been set on fire. And if they weren’t set on fire, I hope to god they’re on the dvd, because I’m buying it as soon as I can.

Two things I should note:

1. Hearing Mass said in German is pretty fucking hilarious. It sounds so musical in Latin, and yet so harsh and abraiding in German. It was like being scolded the entire time.

2. You cannot say something is starring Norman Reedus if Norman Reedus dies in the first 10 minutes.

Doubt

I’ve been wanting to see this movie since it was first advertised on television. I just never got around to doing that. I’m sort of glad for it now, as I think I might have been a little sore at having to spend any sort of money on this movie.

It’s not that it’s bad, per se. It’s more that it feels…. unfinished. Like they had to stop filming right at a crucial point and had to just do the ending real quick.

I get the premise of the movie, and I think I see what they were trying to do with it ultimately. I feel like they wanted you to come out of the movie wondering who was right in the whole thing. Who was guilty or not. What the truth was. I feel like it was supposed to be one of those thinker flicks that get put out every now and again, and it was supposed to be really hard hitting and glorious.

The thing is, I see the potential for that. I do. I felt like it was really gearing up to be this psychological masterpiece. That at the end of it I would have to sit and think a bit to really figure out what I thought and felt.

It just didn’t happen.

And it’s just out of grasp, too. Just right there, right out there where your fingertips can almost touch, but not quite. On quick, strong willed bursts, you can feel the soft brush of the point along the tip of your nail, but are unable to snag it.

I think that if this was originally a book, it must have gotten that point across much better. Sometimes books are just far more capable of getting these things through. If it’s not a book, maybe instead of making it into a movie, it should have been made into a novel.

Disappointment is a strong word, I think. I’d rather go with left wanting.

Lakeview Terrace

Samuel L. Jackson is a complete badass on his worst day. If he were sick in bed with Mono and Swine Flu, he’d still be more of a badass than the entire rest of the planet combined. He could out badass anybody at any time.

To put such a colossal badass in the role of a badguy? It makes one hell of a fucking badguy. Scary as shit. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to cross him. Ever. Goddamn. I would either follow the guy’s rules, or move to the complete opposite side of the world as soon as possible.

Then. Then, my friends, you give the motherfucker a badge and power. He didn’t really need it, because his personal authority exceeds many things that a mere mortal could dream of pulling off, but some crazy sonofabitch decided to make this guy capable of legally carrying a firearm. Again, not that he needs it. He doesn’t even need the handcuffs. His very presence can paralyze a person in their tracks. See? No handcuffs required. No gun required because he’ll just give you a heart attack in one glance.

Now that I’ve thoroughly discussed His Royal Awesomeness, I can get to the actual story.

I’d thought it was going to be more than a little slow at the start. I was wrong. I thought it was going to be very difficult to make a story revolving around suburbanites dramatic or dark. I was wrong. I thought it was going to be a little dull. I was wrong. I also thought I probably wouldn’t like it, despite SLJ. Wrong again.

Boy am I happy to be wrong.

Deliverance – Request

Tata tang tang tang tang tangtang tang…

Even if you’ve never actually seen the movie, you know the song. You know it even if you don’t think that you do. It’s been referenced in countless media since this movie came out in 1972. It’s called Dueling Banjos. Mentioned the banjos and it pricked something in your brain, didn’t it?

There’s another thing you might recognize that you didn’t know came from this movie. A nice little line that can send goosebumps across the flesh of many men:

“Squeal like a pig”

Oh yes.

Burt Reynolds plays the most aggressive and bad ass tree hugging hippie that has ever existed on this planet. His friends are less than knowledgeable and capable than he is, so they don’t really fare so well when the shit flies. They’re not sure how to stop bad things from happening, and are a little too talky for their own good. Find themselves in a world of trouble, and it just keeps getting worse.

But when you’ve got a guy who can hunt fish – yes, hunt, with a bow – there’s not a whole lot you have to worry about, right?

Wrong.

Just when it seems like things are going to be okay, he unfortunately breaks his leg and turns into a giant whiny bitch. He really stops being useful in any way, and keeps making faces as if somebody has run over his puppy AND his grandmother.

This is one of those iconic movies that everybody should see once, just so you can say you saw it. I don’t think it’s culturally significant in any way, but it’s a hell of a thing to observe. It’s the sort of experience that won’t happen anywhere else, with any other movie. One of those movies that people try to lie about having seen, and it doesn’t work, because the lie is just too obvious.

Now that I’ve seen it twice in my life, I think I’m good. There’s no way that I can forget parts of it now, no sir. Firmly set in my brain, it is.

Candyman

There’s exactly one movie on this planet that ever terrified me enough to give me lasting nightmares and long term issues with mirrors at night. This is that movie.

I started my horror movie watching early in life, so I can’t be sure why this one triggered that much fear in me when nothing else had. Perhaps it was the fact that it was watched late at night, during a storm, with all the girls from my Girl Scout troupe. They were all very screamy and terrified through the whole thing. For hours after they talked very specifically about how scary the movie was, and all refused to go to the bathroom alone. They jumped at every sound and were generally skittish about everything.
For a month after I would jump at my own reflection and I had dreams about my fellow Girl Scouts being ripped to bits. Bloody, horrible, graphic dreams.

As a person who has been independent most of her life, and never susceptible to suggestion like this, I can’t for the life of me figure out how this happened. The only part there that’s certain is that I had the fear. It was at least 6 years before I could even bring myself to watch it again. This right here is the first time since then that I’ve watched it (though this time there’s no significant reason for not seeing it).

Like all things that scare us as kids, watching this movie makes me wonder further why I was so scared. I’d seen worse prior to Candyman, and I’ve certainly seen worse since. Yet, I can still recall how it made me feel back then, even though I don’t feel the same way now.

This movie came along before this sort of story devolved into the realms of camp. Unlike I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, this movie is done with better, more serious filmography and writing that doesn’t treat the watchers as if they’re infantile. It’s out to scare you, but it doesn’t rely on cheap tricks to do so. I’m not saying it’s the world’s best movie, but it’s certainly better than most of the Teen Screamers that arrived in the late 90′s.

One of the things this movie does that a lot of them don’t do is that it plays off the psychology of the main character. Not merely her fears, but also her sanity. She’s placed directly into the role of the killer despite her innocence. She’s not only tormented with the brutal deaths going on around her, but also with accusations that she’s the one committing them. As if that isn’t enough, they start telling her that she’s insane and even lock her away for it.

It can’t be easy to keep yourself together when everyone keeps saying you’ve lost it.

I’m unsure if owning this is a priority or not, which I suppose means that it’s not. It wouldn’t be objectionable to me, it’s not a bad film. If it made it’s way into my hands, I’d watch it, but it’s certainly not a movie I’d miss if it never did.

One note: Fucking hell, Tony Todd. Real bees? In the mouth!? Madness.

The Unborn

I’m starting to feel like the only person on the planet who enjoys a good exorcism flick.

I mean, seriously.

I don’t understand why this movie didn’t scare the everliving crap out of people. It has such bad reviews all over the place, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

Is it because it’s Jewish folklore and not the typical Christian sort that you find when it comes to demon possession? Is it because there’s no blood in this movie? Well, at least not buckets of it. Strewn about willy nilly where blood has no business being.

I would have thought that people would shit their pants at certain scenes.

Maybe it’s a failing of the American movie categorizing. We put things like Hostel and Texas Chainsaw Massacre under horror, when what they really are are Gore Porn and Slasher films respectively. Maybe somebody needs to step up and re-teach the youth what horror really means. Explain the differences. Let those kiddies know that there doesn’t have to be blood in order for it to be scary.

It really saddens me that the nuances of this film are so lost on the general public. I’m not saying it’s the finest movie since Schindler’s List. It certainly doesn’t deserve worldly acclaim and dozens of awards. But a little appreciation would be nice.

When they take shit right from the holy books, people should be paying more attention.

Decidedly, it’s a movie worth owning. It sits firmly for me as better than The Ring, but not quite as good as Exorcism of Emily Rose. Since I own both of them, I think this would be a delightful addition to my collection. Not to mention, I am really tickled when heads turn backwards.

Also, on the Wiki page for this (and Wiki is not a credible resource, fyi), it states that some folk thought the lead actress was just used because of her physical attributes. There were no boobies that I saw here. One very mildly naughty sex scene, but no boobies.

Maybe just nothing seems too naughty after Zack and Miri.

The Last House On The Left (remake)

So I saw it. The remake of the Wes Craven film that I discussed a little while ago. You know, the one that was so bad that I had to fast forward through big chunks of it, when I don’t normally fast forward through anything – ever.

Today I took the chance and went to see the new version of it. It was quite firmly planted in my mind that there was no possible way it could be any worse than the original.

I am happy to say that I was 100% right.

In fact, I loved the remake. Absolutely loved it. They did such a good job with it. I would have loved it even if I hadn’t had the original to compare it to. Actually, after the first 10 minutes of the movie, I had pretty much forgotten entirely about the original. It was completely engrossing. Good story. Good acting. Extremely good effects. Lovely camera angles and pretty shots.

God. I’m so glad I went to see it. SO GLAD.

It’s definitely bloody. They pull my favorite trick with it, which is you think they’re going to pull away while something horrible happens, and then they don’t. I love that. The first time I saw anything like that was Lucio Fulci and his cinematic masterpiece, Zombi 2. This was like a well played tribute.

There are some scenes in this movie that are most certainly not for the faint of heart. Not for those who don’t like blood, or extreme violence. Not for those who would rather not see two girls psychologically tortured (Instead of it being implied).

I left the theater giggling like a schoolgirl. That’s how much I loved this movie. I will be buying this as soon as it comes out. Hopefully they’ll come out with an extra special collector’s edition with deleted scenes. I would like that. Also, a blooper reel. Why don’t more horror/thriller/slasher movies have blooper reels?