A few movie reviews
Jun. 22nd, 2010 05:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sailorhathorMicro Movie Reviews
Alone in the Dark: Christian Slater isn't as cute as he used to be. Still, he does the Badass Trenchcoat thing.
At the beginning of this movie, there is a text crawl that seems to be giving us some background on the story. Then later, it is revealed that the crawl pretty much GAVE AWAY THE WHOLE MOVIE. Seriously. The characters react to what we already learned in the first minute as if it's supposed to be shocking, but we ALREADY KNOW IT. What the FUCKING FUCK. The movie is pretty boring, too. Many of the actors only make half-hearted attempts to be good. Skip it.
It's a shame, because it's another cool title.
Brother Bear: The animation is gorgeous, with beautiful colors and scenery, but the story lacks what is needed to make the movie interesting. I can't even see kids getting into it; I could see them taking frequent "I'm bored" breaks and getting up to run around like lunatics. I wish I could pinpoint why it's boring, but I don't know; maybe it's the pacing. The basic story SHOULD have been engaging... it just isn't.
Paranormal Entity: A very blatant copy of Paranormal Activity that had a few cool ideas, but most of it was pretty bad. In fact, I was quite shocked by how shameless they were in ripping off PA, not only in the similar title, but in similar dialogue and progression of events. Some of the acting was really awful. The lead actress playing Samantha seemed to more be there to show off her tits than to add anything to the performance. There were times when people would be talking to her and it was obvious she should be saying something, but instead she just looked at the camera and pouted for long stretches of time before responding. It's really awkward to watch. There are other times when the editor seemed to be asleep and some extra footage that wasn't supposed to be there slipped through, where scenes started too early and such.
The worst part is that the movie had an effects budget of $1.50 and it REALLY shows. I mean, seriously, there's a scene where the demonic entity PUTS THE CAMERA IN THE CLOSET before attacking Samantha so they didn't have to show any actual effects. XD I laughed and laughed at that scene, it was so horrendously lame. Most of the movie consists of scenes where nothing happens but a table moving or a cross falling off the wall. All very lame.
The cool parts were few and far between - but if only they'd done more stuff like this, it would have been a cool movie. First, the mother sleepwalks like she's possessed, and writes a word on a piece of paper that runs off the paper onto the coffee table. So when they get up the next day, they find half a word on the table and have to find that paper to figure out what she wrote. It turned out to be MARON, which they said was the German word for incubus; I'd have to research that to see what they're talking about. Then in another scene, they find footprints on the ceiling made of ashes. When the boy, Thomas, follows the footprints back to their origin, he finds the urn that contains his dead father's ashes overturned and footprints all around it. That was pretty chilling. There isn't a lot of reaction to it, though, which I found to be disappointing; if I had an urn of a loved one's ashes and some entity came into my home and mucked around with it, I'd be pretty openly pissed. In yet another scene, Thomas rigs up some bells on strings that he hangs in doorways so if the demon walks through there, the bells might ring. Pretty neat idea. Of course, the bells do ring, and it's pretty much the most tense scene in the whole movie. I actually gasped out loud twice. I mean, the kid is really close, trying to figure out which bells made the sound he heard, and then suddenly furniture starts to move and it's like the demon's coming right at him. So, I'm like totally stealing all that stuff for my horror fanfics, hahaha. (With credit of course. I mean, it's a fanfic; it's already fudging off material I didn't come up with.)
Oh, and there's one more halfway decent scene where Thomas is trying to find Samantha, and he goes wandering out the front door, and when he comes back in, he finds doors open that weren't open before, like she was playing "come find me" games with him. Possessed. And of course, she sleeps in her bra and underwear. Who actually sleeps in their bra?
The lamest thing about the movie had to be that it teased you a lot and then didn't deliver. I hate movies that do that.
They did fool me with Thomas, though. You never see his face, but he gives a very distinct impression that he's like maybe 18 or 19, somewhere in that age range. Now I know why we never saw his face. The actor is actually 31. O_O
I wouldn't recommend it unless you just have to see every horror movie ever produced, especially ones in the "homemade film" genre. It reminded me of the movies I used to make with my high school friends, and the budget looked about the same, heh.
Alone in the Dark: Christian Slater isn't as cute as he used to be. Still, he does the Badass Trenchcoat thing.
At the beginning of this movie, there is a text crawl that seems to be giving us some background on the story. Then later, it is revealed that the crawl pretty much GAVE AWAY THE WHOLE MOVIE. Seriously. The characters react to what we already learned in the first minute as if it's supposed to be shocking, but we ALREADY KNOW IT. What the FUCKING FUCK. The movie is pretty boring, too. Many of the actors only make half-hearted attempts to be good. Skip it.
It's a shame, because it's another cool title.
Brother Bear: The animation is gorgeous, with beautiful colors and scenery, but the story lacks what is needed to make the movie interesting. I can't even see kids getting into it; I could see them taking frequent "I'm bored" breaks and getting up to run around like lunatics. I wish I could pinpoint why it's boring, but I don't know; maybe it's the pacing. The basic story SHOULD have been engaging... it just isn't.
Paranormal Entity: A very blatant copy of Paranormal Activity that had a few cool ideas, but most of it was pretty bad. In fact, I was quite shocked by how shameless they were in ripping off PA, not only in the similar title, but in similar dialogue and progression of events. Some of the acting was really awful. The lead actress playing Samantha seemed to more be there to show off her tits than to add anything to the performance. There were times when people would be talking to her and it was obvious she should be saying something, but instead she just looked at the camera and pouted for long stretches of time before responding. It's really awkward to watch. There are other times when the editor seemed to be asleep and some extra footage that wasn't supposed to be there slipped through, where scenes started too early and such.
The worst part is that the movie had an effects budget of $1.50 and it REALLY shows. I mean, seriously, there's a scene where the demonic entity PUTS THE CAMERA IN THE CLOSET before attacking Samantha so they didn't have to show any actual effects. XD I laughed and laughed at that scene, it was so horrendously lame. Most of the movie consists of scenes where nothing happens but a table moving or a cross falling off the wall. All very lame.
The cool parts were few and far between - but if only they'd done more stuff like this, it would have been a cool movie. First, the mother sleepwalks like she's possessed, and writes a word on a piece of paper that runs off the paper onto the coffee table. So when they get up the next day, they find half a word on the table and have to find that paper to figure out what she wrote. It turned out to be MARON, which they said was the German word for incubus; I'd have to research that to see what they're talking about. Then in another scene, they find footprints on the ceiling made of ashes. When the boy, Thomas, follows the footprints back to their origin, he finds the urn that contains his dead father's ashes overturned and footprints all around it. That was pretty chilling. There isn't a lot of reaction to it, though, which I found to be disappointing; if I had an urn of a loved one's ashes and some entity came into my home and mucked around with it, I'd be pretty openly pissed. In yet another scene, Thomas rigs up some bells on strings that he hangs in doorways so if the demon walks through there, the bells might ring. Pretty neat idea. Of course, the bells do ring, and it's pretty much the most tense scene in the whole movie. I actually gasped out loud twice. I mean, the kid is really close, trying to figure out which bells made the sound he heard, and then suddenly furniture starts to move and it's like the demon's coming right at him. So, I'm like totally stealing all that stuff for my horror fanfics, hahaha. (With credit of course. I mean, it's a fanfic; it's already fudging off material I didn't come up with.)
Oh, and there's one more halfway decent scene where Thomas is trying to find Samantha, and he goes wandering out the front door, and when he comes back in, he finds doors open that weren't open before, like she was playing "come find me" games with him. Possessed. And of course, she sleeps in her bra and underwear. Who actually sleeps in their bra?
The lamest thing about the movie had to be that it teased you a lot and then didn't deliver. I hate movies that do that.
They did fool me with Thomas, though. You never see his face, but he gives a very distinct impression that he's like maybe 18 or 19, somewhere in that age range. Now I know why we never saw his face. The actor is actually 31. O_O
I wouldn't recommend it unless you just have to see every horror movie ever produced, especially ones in the "homemade film" genre. It reminded me of the movies I used to make with my high school friends, and the budget looked about the same, heh.
