Resident Evil: Retribution
I remember playing Resident Evil for the first and only time on a stormy night in 2002. The experience lasted 20 stressful minutes and I turned off the television and watched Caddy Shack. Those 20 minutes had more scares, jumps and thrills than all five Resident Evil films combined. Is this a terrible thing? Nope. The series has been a brainless zombie factory of odd fun. It is impossible to critique because they are dumb entities that have defied the odds and critics. The greatest accomplishment is making zombies, S&M axe guys and brain lizard zombies boring. I was %100 more excited during the red band trailer of Hansel and Gretel 3D. However, I didn’t hate the film. I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face and thoughts of funny review quotes in my head.
Totally incomprehensible with dialogue so bad it makes Resident Evil 3 seem like the Citizen Kane of skimpy clothing zombie films. The Resident Evil series has become a money-making machine of mediocrity. All five films production costs total $245 million and have pulled in $745 million worldwide not counting DVD and future grosses of Retribution. This is a billion dollar franchise that looks like it is still gaining momentum. The critics dog pile them like the zombies on top of the faceless Umbrella agent. They’ve given the films 34, 21, 22, 24 and 35 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. The 35 is a well deserved upswing for Retribution after Milla spent 30 minutes flying around Alaska whilst talking to herself in Afterlife.
John wrote a fantastic review and it saved me from covering all of the finer points of this film. I applaud John for finding logic among the spin kicks and machine guns. The characters in RE5 are all unnecessary and mainly an excuse to piggy back on the Fast Five idea of bringing back favorite actors and going global.
There is a moment in this film where five men are standing in front of hundreds of zombie soldiers. The zombies are shooting thousands of bullets, dozens of rockets and billions of dirty looks. All of the bullets and rockets miss and the only death is caused by chainsaw. These men escape by throwing a chair through a window and sauntering out. The zombies do not follow. Resident Evil: Retribution makes zero sense and doesn’t attempt to. Some might call this lazy. I think they know their audience and are not trying to make Crouching Tiger Hidden Zombie. Also, the director Paul W.S. Anderson has made some of the best/worst loud films in recent memory. Death Race almost destroyed a brilliant idea and Three Musketeers was so bad it became great badness.
This film made me want to watch other movies. It made me think about how good Perfect Getaway was and if The Fifth Element still holds up. It also has me hoping that one day Kate Beckinsale, Milla Jovovich, Noomi Rapaace, Maggie Q, Linda Hamilton, Sigourney Weaver, Paula Patton, Anna Torv and Angelina Jolie team up and make an Expendables type film. No plot just explosions and one liners. Why not? The only condition is that Len Wiseman or Paul W.S. Anderson do not direct.
Do not critique Resident Evil like other films. The CGI is good, the performances shaky and the action occasionally cool. I still don’t get who does those monsters piercings though?
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John’s Horror Corner: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
MY CALL: Eh. If you’re a major franchise fan then I won’t stop you. But this had the most (not the best) action of the franchise, the least plot, and no major memorable moments whatsoever. I felt generally unsatisfied and maybe even a bit bored by it. [C] IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: The other installments of the franchise (in order), as well as Underworld: Awakening and its prequels. DIMENSIONS: I saw this in 2D and didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. If you catch it in 3D, please throw us a helpful comment.
Online reviews of Retribution are already all over the place ranging from love to hate by franchise fans and newbies alike. It seems that asking folks to list the Resident Evil movies in order of quality would be harder than getting an entire theater of fans to agree on pizza toppings. This fifth franchise installment, as with each of its predecessors, manages to deliver a new take on presenting the Resident Evil world and the next step in an elaborate but perfectly followable plot. The movie opens with a franchise story recap before picking up right where Resident Evil: Afterlife left off.
CHARACTERS: The irreplaceable Scream Queen Milla Jovovich (Faces in the Crowd, The Three Musketeers) returns as Alice fighting her way out of an Umbrella corporation virus outbreak simulation facility. She is joined by Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), who is cute and all in her little gun-geisha mistress outfit, but her character feels totally unnecessary and she didn’t bring anything special to the flick.
So did Ada “choose” that dress knowing that she’d be fighting her way out of an Umbrella Corp facility? Or did she just wake up in it like Alice in part one? What gives here?
http://www.eonline.com/news/330166/is-resident-evil-retribution-the-final-film-in-the-franchise
She also bumps into her not-really daughter (Aryana Engineer; Orphan). Under orders from the Red Queen, they are being hunted by Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory; Resident Evil: Afterlife, Resident Evil: Apocalypse) who is controlled by some weird mecha-spider attached to her sternum which, like her cleavage, goes well-exposed throughout the movie.
At Valentine’s side are Rain (Michelle Rodriguez; Resident Evil) in an unexpected role and Todd (Oded Fehr; Resident Evil: Extinction, Resident Evil: Apocalypse). During this pursuit, a team including the horribly under-utilized Kevin Durand (Legion, Real Steel) and Boris Kodjoe (Resident Evil: Afterlife, Surrogates) are working their way into the Umbrella facility to rescue Alice and Ada.
Oh, yeah, here’s Kevin Durand.
WHAT’S GOOD: Alice’s outfit. It’s new. It’s bad-ass. And it’s just conveniently waiting for her when she begins her escape from the facility just like when Beckinsale awakens from her cryo-chamber in Underworld: Awakening to find her boots and leathers “right there.”
Also, the hand-to-hand combat was best in the franchise here, but like the other action in the flick, it lacked good finishers and standout moments. The axemen-executioners looked sooooo bad ass! Great job on the concept and effects. Really, all special effects were great, especially the opening action scene (which ended Afterlife) in slow motion reverse. Very, very cool.
THE ACTION: Minus a few short story-building parts, this movie boils down to a 90 minute action sequence. This probably sounds amazing, right? Basically continuous action. But it wasn’t awesome. All of the action felt like “background action.” You know? Like when Optimus Prime was fighting Megatron, there were all of the soldiers and other Autobots fighting Decepticons in the background and nothing cool happened with them while the camera was on the two heavy hitters. In Retribution all of this action is never punctuated by awesome moments and there are not climaxes. The action is “okay.” But with all of the build-up and no big bang at the end I actually found myself feeling a bit bored. Bored! During an action movie with no shortage of action whatsoever! I didn’t even think that was possible. The most fun I had with the action was when Alice first starts to try escaping the simulation facility and she goes all gun-fu crazy on a series of zombies in a brightly lit hallway.
Look at how easily she counters zombie Jackie Chan’s eagle claw technique!
But, alas, there was no most awesome moment—so you feel like you’re “waiting” for the meat of the sequence the whole time. Perhaps worst of all was the finale fight between Alice, Rain, Valentine and a few other good guys including Boris Kodjoe. Hand-to-hand, weapons, guns and a lot of mundane choreography shot well and clever choreography shot poorly.
CREATURES: Nothing new. There’s the big brain-for-a-head dog monster, a few tentacle-mouthed zombies, the 15 foot tall executioners from Afterlife, and a small army of undead soldiers. You’d think the big brain-headed dog would make for some great action. Nope. What about the giant executioners? They might have been cool, but not nearly as cool as they should (and easily could) have been.
Maybe should have gotten braces…
Because now she looks like a Blade 2 reaper virus vampire on steroids!
PREMISE: The theme of the movie is “Evil Goes Global.” But nothing “felt” global about it. The tone was less effective than previous franchise installments. The global thing was that the simulation facility has different cityscapes—which Alice goes through like video game stages, one after the other—which emulate Moscow, Tokyo, etc., so that potential world power buyers could see how a virus outbreak would affect their enemy nation’s metropolises. All that these “stages” accomplished was making the franchise feel like a video game; a fault which, until the release of this installment, the franchise had successfully altogether avoided.
OTHER ISSUES: The antagonist here is the Red Queen. Well, what happened to the White Queen? Still working on a cure (i.e., antivirus)? Deactivated? What? And why did Ada Wong and, as we later discover, Albert Wesker stop working for the Umbrella Corporation? They never explain that. It would take one line of dialogue, people! What purpose does Alice’s clone’s daughter serve to the plot? She seemed really important in the middle of the movie, but totally forgotten in the last third of the movie. And why doesn’t the Red Queen make better use of the clones? She could program a bunch of Alice clones and, since their Alice’s clones, they’d be receptive to the virus and gain superpowers to take out the pesky Alice, Ada and the resistance. How did Rain know she’d be receptive to the virus? She injects herself with complete confidence.
A lot of people rave that they loved this flick, but don’t go saying it was fantastic online unless you can answer these questions based on what we saw in the movie. Clearly, a failure on the part of the writers and director. Let’s add that I never cared about most of the characters.
So…is Albert Wesker like, the President of the United States now?
FUTURE INSTALLMENTS? The movie ends with a very Terminator-SkyNet standoff at the White House between the remainder of humanity against a legion of Resident Evil beasts. So, as they tend to, they could easily pick up a sixth movie (perhaps Resident Evil: Resurrection) at the exact moment that closes Retribution. Based on how Retribution went for me, I’d hope they have director Paul Anderson go back to his old ways with the franchise OR add a more dynamic pacing to the continuous action strategy, which could have gone tremendously well if done more thoughtfully.
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Trailer Talk and News: Thale (2012) update
Release Date Update: The US release of Thale has seen some serious delays and, until recently, no one could find anything online with a DVD or theatrical release dates. Well, we’ve finally heard something! Thale is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and it was announced that arrangements are being made for an early 2013 US theatrical release!
Can’t Wait ’til 2013 to see it? You can actually watch the film on YouTube. I hesitate to provide a link, though, since it may be removed at any time and I have not found it available in good quality or in English. You could hunt down some torrent sites. But I’ve been told that the best available quality RIPs are European sources and aren’t available in English while, those that are subtitled, are of questionable quality. But, hey, every day more becomes available online. Just keep looking. I refuse to watch this without both good quality and subtitles. So I’m still rather in the dark about it all.
Ever since Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) and the jaw-droppingly amazing related feral-Santa short films (see Rare Exports review for links) I have actively sought out Scandinavian genre films. Dead Snow (2009) delivered some excellent Nazi zombie action. Let The Right One In (2008; remade as Let Me in (2010) stateside) was a haunting, vampiric, coming-of-age tale. And Trollhunter (2010) really blew my expectations away with a strong, understated, and comical fairy-tale-meets-biological-reality kind of way.
I have been waiting to see the full trailer for Thale for well over a year now. The film premiered in theaters in Norway on February 17th of this year. After seeing the original, shorter teaser, we’re left with really nothing. But now we have an idea of what we’re in for:
CLICK HERE to watch the trailer for Thale (2012).
I see you waggin’ that tail at me you saucy little minx. Come’ere for a kiss. What’s the worst that could happen, right?
Much as in Rare Exports, some well-to-do regular Joes stumble across a fragment of Norwegian folklore while on the job. Not knowing how to handle the situation, they take the “woman” in, clean her up, and try to figure out what to do next. The story from the folklore is called “Huldra.” A hulder/huldra is a woman with a cow tail who lives in the woods. Hulders wait to encounter woodsmen, seduce them with their terrestrial siren song, and presumably kill them as the woodsmen never return to their village. I wonder how deep into the movie our boys will figure this out…?
What’s the worst that could happen? You end up looking like a drained British dude from that 80s naked space-vamp flick “LifeForce” that’s what!
Some meta-movie background: There are variations on the mythology. In some stories the huldra lures men into the forest for sexual encounters, rewarding the satisfactory men and killing the poor performers. In other stories they kidnap men or lure them to the underworld. Other accounts involve stealing newborns and replacing them with their own ugly “huldra-born” children, forced marriages with humans, hybrid offspring, and even happily ever afters with Christian men. There are even different physical forms, or species or races (?), of huldras.
I’m expecting a more “horrific” angle of this mythology than even the trailer suggests; perhaps a beautiful creature with a dangerous appetite. Either way, I’m way stoked to see this. Some of the images and clips floating around the internet of a transformed huldra almost remind me of Species. I’ve got tingles!
RUMORMILL ALERT: In 2014 we can expect an American remake of 2010’s Trollhunter. The deal was made with director Chris Columbus.
TRIVIA: The title Thale is pronounced as “tail” and, in Norwegian, means “of noble disposition,” in this case referring to the different species that the huldra represents. Clever.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: The Best of the Worst Sequels Round 2
Bad Movie Tuesday: The Best of the Worst Sequels Round 2.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: The Best of the Worst Sequels Round 2
The 32 have become 16. The bad have defeated the worse. The voting was intense and proved people love their bad movies (check out the first round here). The biggest shocker (for me) was that Superman III lost to Weekend at Bernies 2. Superman III is absolutely bonkers (Listen to this fantastic podcast) and features a jerky Superman punching a hole in an oil tanker and this scene. Another strange thing is all the love for Blair Witch 2. It lost to AVPR but people came out of nowhere and proclaimed their love for a film that destroyed all of the good that the first Blair Witch created.
Who will move on? What bad movie do you love? This tournament is meant to find the best worst sequel. A movie that you enjoy despite the fact that it makes zero sense and features a dude named Mutt swinging with monkeys.
What I love about this list is that pretentiousness flies out of the window. People like these movies because there is something in them that connects. There is no logic involved only pure unadulterated love of bad cinema. Don’t be shy about your love of a movie where a man uses a baseball bat to hunt Wolverine (Last Stand).
Vote. Comment. Like. Comment about liking. Then comment about the tournament to people who will then comment and comment about liking. That sentence still makes more sense than Wrath of the Titans.
1.What is better? Raptors with Masters degrees or a nuked fridge?–Mark
“I’ll take Shia’s dumbest role over the smartest velociraptor.” –John Leavengood
2. Will Wrath of the Titans incomprehensible plot defeat AVPR’s slightly more incomprehensible plot?–Mark
“I’ve got nothing here. I enjoyed watching but hated listening to both of these movies. I suggest we actually have a tourney between the Titans and some predators and aliens. I’d love that!” –John Leavengood
3. Will Sofia Coppolas acting skills make people forget about Batman’s batnipples?–Mark
“If Batman and Robin doesn’t get destroyed by a Godfather film then I’m crying bloody murder. No one out there should like that batman!” –John Leavengood
4. Do Ryan Reynolds and his abs have enough to crunch Brendan Fraser’s 30-year-old son.—Mark
“This should be no contest whatsoever. I though Blade: Trinity was enjoyable whereas the third Mummy flick just hurt.” –John Leavengood
5. Will super Ripley and her basketball skills dunk on a vengeful great white shark?–Mark
“I’ve got to go with the resurrected, slash genetically engineered Ripley. Even if Alien: Resurrection rolled more eyes than Royce Gracie’s submission holds, I’d like to think that today’s viewership was content with the first to Jaws movies and nothing more until Deep Blue Sea.” –John Leavengood
Speed 2 fact: They wrote the film for Keanu Reeves. However, he read the script and turned it down faster than the remake of The Lake House. So, they quickly rewrote the script and tossed in Jason Patric. I love this films badness in a good way.–Mark
“I don’t know how either of these movie even made it to the second round! I flipped a coin and G. W.’s head said X-Men: Last Stand for the win.” –John Leavengood
“Anything with kung fu trumps Dumb and Dumberer. ANYTHING!” –John Leavengood
Was there any kung fu in Matrix 3? All I remember is the longest dying scene ever. It feels like Trinity reads A Tale of Two Cities twice…then dies…..and wakes up reading the book in Russian–Mark
“Trying to compare these two movies is like playing Dungeons & Dragons and flipping a “bag of holding” inside out while you’re halfway through a “portable hole” on the Astral Plane.” –John Leavengood
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John’s Horror Corner: Bleeders (1997), an unconventionally delightful mutant pseudo-vampire movie.
MY CALL: For such a slow-paced opening (and middle), I really enjoyed the story of this oft-forgotten B-release. The plot, though not perfectly consistent—what horror is, right?—really interested me and I gave a damn about the main characters. Throw in some stumpy, mutant, photosensitive Morlocks that can make you smile and you have a real winner with some fun flavor. This is an “A+” of a B-movie. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: The Hazing (2004); totally unrelated premise, but a truly fantastic direct-to-DVD horror. ALTERNATE TITLE: This was also released as The Descendent with a very non-horror-looking DVD cover. One may mistake it for a drama at a glance…but far from it. Yet another title, Hemoglobin, appeared to be a medical thriller of sorts. Again, quite far off. The present cover is most blatant and, while it gives away the appearance of the monsters, does that really ruin the movie for anyone?
It DOES look like some awful thriller, doesn’t it? Or a new Highlander TV series. There can be only one!
Wait! B-horror that comes with a history lesson? Yes, please! In 1652 the King of Holland forbade intermarriage within aristocratic families when doctors discovered hemophilia and other genetic defects in the royal family. [End history lesson.]
Eva Van Daam (Gillian Ferrabee; Secret Window), a true narcissist, chose to lay with her twin brother (also played by Gillian Ferrabee), the closest second to making love to herself. After the king’s decree against incest, she moved her family to the New World where, presumably, they could continue their sibling-kissing ways behind closed doors and they disappeared in history in some Atlantic island community.
Cutting to present day, we meet a very pale, awkwardly European-looking John Strauss (Roy Dupuis; Screamers). He is weak—noted by his heavy-handedness on his cane—has strange visions during seizures, and is a hemophiliac tended lovingly by his much healthier and more attractive wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman; The Chronicles of Riddick). After a life-threatening nose bleed—referred to as blood poisoning—we quickly meet this Atlantic village’s only doctor, Dr. Marlowe (Rutger Hauer; The Rite, Hobo with a Shotgun).
We learn that John was born on the island but raised in Paris since he was an infant, funded on some manner of anonymous/secret trust fund which the bank traced back to the Atlantic village. During their origin-sleuthing expedition, John and Kathleen stay in the town’s only hotel, which doubles as a funeral home. Charming, right? Dr. Marlowe turns out to be on the island investigating something himself, and his path soon converges with John’s investigation.
John’s visions become more frequent, he develops a hunger unremedied by food and has no explanation for having these strange “urges.” Some interesting discoveries suggest that John may actually be a Van Daam, even though he is 33 and the last of the family died off 75 years ago in a terrible fire at their estate. Hmmmm?
The protector of the Van Daam estate. If it’s anything like the Van Damme estate, then there’s not much worth protecting.
When we finally meet our monsters the scenes feel, well, “fun.” Someone gets dragged to their doom, as usual, but something about it made me smile. From here it’s all stumpy, disproportioned, hermaphroditic mutants and, to the delight of horror fans, they’re breaking the rules when choosing their victems with no discretion between a witch of a crotchety woman and a sweet old lady in a wheelchair, a sweet young lady trying to escape her abusive mother, and yes, innocent children!
What to watch for: 1) John finds the cure for his incurable disease. Not exactly turning to Eastern Medicine when hospitals failed him, he eats a dead fetus that’s been soaking in formaldehyde for years. Afterwards he has the confidence of an athlete from one of the early 1990s Wheaties ads.
Note the same eye color as John Strauss. He very well might have eaten his great uncle Perry.
2) The “Bleeders” are all legless hermaphrodites. So, essentially, when they move by tripod-ing their arms and “lower body” stumps they are basically slamming and dragging their genitals across the rocky floor of their catacomb homes. Ouch! 3) John is reunited with his long-separated twin sister (the THIRD acting credit for Gillian Ferrabee in this film, by the way) that he never knew existed. To provide an exact narrative quote from the movie: “And although his sister could make love to herself, she welcomed her long lost brother and loved him, too.” I appreciate when they came ad some sincere romance to a B-horror flick. Don’t you? 4) Realizing that Gillian Ferrabee plays three different small roles as incestuous members of the Van Daam family! I guess the director was trying to ride the coattails of The Nutty Professor (1996) which came out one year earlier with Eddie Murphy playing seven characters.
Here’s another DVD cover. This one looks like a mutant vampire flick.
Director Peter Svatek had done nothing major prior to Bleeders (not that Bleeders is by any means major), nor after, and I can only add Witchboard III: The Possession (1995) to his horror credits. That said, I was quite pleased with this flick and shocked that such an inexperienced director could generate this product. It absolutely could have been better. But it’s worth a watch just the way it is.
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Safe
Safe does something strange. it establishes a character and his motivations. You understand why he is running around NYC beating people up. However, it quickly ditches all of the development and focuses on Jason Statham hurting Russians, Chinese and corrupt cops.
Statham plays Luke Wright. Wright was a cage fighter who accidentally put a guy in a coma during a rigged fight. His foible got his family murdered and life destroyed. He is banished to poverty and he walks around NYC looking depressed and wearing a fantastic skull-cap.
One day he rescues a genius girl who is being chased by the same people who killed his family. He saves her via many head kicks and is able to protect her, get revenge and wear slick suits.
Safe is a vehicle for Statham to suplex, throat punch and liver kick hundreds of bad guys. Eventually, the plot moves away from redemption and towards gun fights and getting 30 million from a safe. That is where the movie lost me and I’m not quite certain what the rest of the plot was. I’m pretty certain Russians wanted the Chinese out but the corrupt cops were playing both sides and then everybody dies.
Statham has 28 films rated on Rotten Tomatoes. Safe ranks number seven with a 57% rating . The biggest problem is that all of his other higher ranked films (Lock Stock, Snatch, The Bank Job, Italian Job, Expendables 2) sans Crank 1&2 (because they are bonkers) showcase Stathams acting ability. The dude is funny. He doesn’t need to be running around cities punching people in the face and looking depressed. I think producers got the idea of a morose Statham after the success of Transporter. However, Transporter featured creative action and a stoic hero without baggage and skull caps. The fights perfectly showcased his skills and featured this scene.
Safe packs in the action but forgets about character. I’m hoping Statham works with Guy Ritchie again. Guy discovered Jason and knows how to blend his comedic and face kicking skills. The movie is a step in the right direction though. It is much better than Mechanic and Transporter 3 but makes you want to watch Snatch or Lock Stock to be reminded that this dude can act as well as he front kicks Russians.
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Premium Rush
Here is a conversation fellow MMF Co-writers had about the film Possession that lead to Premium Rush.
Leavengood: Possession is the Diet Coke of exorcism movies
Mark: I’m still waiting for the Coke Zero of exorcism movies
O’Lasavath: Premium Rush would be the Mountain Dew of exorcism movies if it had a possession subplot.
Mark: The tagline says “ride like hell.”
O’Lasavath: Here’s my pitch: JGL is a mild-mannered office clerk who gets possessed by the spirit of a deceased BMX pro. Michael Shannon is the priest who gets sent in to do the exorcism, but he has to catch him first.
Mark: My mind has been blown…
There is no exorcism in the film Premium Rush. That would be too easy. What David Koepp has accomplished is much more difficult. He has made a neat little movie about bike messengers in NYC. I will admit that the MFF crew were baffled by the first trailer and we had a lovely talk involving, Nu-Metal, birthday cards and extreme paper clips.
I am glad we were wrong because Premium Rush is a lean and mean film about JGL delivering a mysterious letter while being chased by Michael Shannon.
In any situation being chased by Michael Shannon would be scary. However, it is worse in this film because he plays a corrupt cop with impulse control issues. He owes a lot of money to bad men and he beat one of them to death when they tried to collect. So, he is desperate, angry and frustrated because he has to chase around the best bicycle messenger in the city.
The movie is pure popcorn entertainment that earned the 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a cohesive plot, intelligent writing and a fantastic blendof crazy stunt men and CGI. The film tells a neat self-contained story with imagination and energy. You like JGL and his crew because they are believable adrenaline junkies who pay the bills by risking their lives in the streets of New York City.
Premium Rush is a smart film if you don’t stop to think about it. The plot holes are there but the bicyclists don’t fall into them. If you are looking for a fun, tense and breezy summer flick look no further. The people of New York City might be annoyed by the riders but I enjoyed their adrenaline fueled antics.
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Bachelorette
Bachelorette is a strange little film. It is going to draw blind comparisons to Bridesmaids and The Hangover. However, the similarities are superficial at best. In Hangover the men were drugged and had to retrace their steps. Bridesmaids featured a down on her luck yet extremely talented woman navigating her best friends wedding. Bachelorette is three likable leads acting selfishly while looking to replace a ripped dress while drinking like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas and snorting more cocaine than Scarface.
There are several laughs to be had because the cast is too talented to be held down by the thin script. Watching Isla Fisher fall face first in a pool then immediately say “the water is beautiful” was fantastic. Fisher’s character is the female version of Chev Chelios from Crank. Nothing can keep her down and she should be called hurricane vodka. Her scenes with the guy with the hair up front from Shes Out of My League are highlights of nice meets force of drunken nature.
All of the cast members obviously relished playing miserable people. However, I think they had such a good time being bad they forgot they had to be a good. So, the writer created comically terrible people for 80 minutes then made them kind in the final five minutes. She derailed all the angry momentum and took us to romantic comedy town. This U-turn doesn’t work because the retribution (of sorts) hasn’t been earned because it has been shoehorned in.
There is one decent person in this film. He is the groom who sees through the deplorable characters and is the sole voice of reason. You like the guy because he is a beacon of decency among the selfish skinny people. Actually, the best moments of this film happen when the three women and acting alongside humans who have a soul. The contrast creates the most memorable moments.
Bachelorette was released on VOD and Itunes before hitting the theaters and shot up to the number one spot on Itunes immeditely. It was a big step for independent releases that cannot land on 3,000 movie screens. It proves that bad behavior can pay off when you have the right cast and there are not many reviews saying that cast was somewhat underused in the skinny wasteland.
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John’s Horror Corner: Silent House (2011)
http://fandangogroovers.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/the-silent-house/
MY CALL: Cool, tone-driven, creepy jumper loaded with sensory-challenging style but ultimately rendered “just okay” by a half-assed, unthoughtful ending. WHAT TO WATCH INSTEAD: Paranormal Activity(1 or 2)or White Noise.
The Hof already wrote a “tank top horror” review on this flick.
A man (Adam Trese; 40 Days and 40 Nights), his brother (Eric Sheffer Stevens; Julie & Julia) and daughter Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen, little sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen; Red Lights) are fixing up a house on a chilly day to get it ready to sell. The house is secluded, there’s no electricity, and it’s quiet, making it an ideal horror setting. Some interesting things happen to set the mood rather early on. The daughter encounters a girl who was, apparently, very good friends with her, although she remembers nothing of her. Her father goes to some trouble to hide some “insurance photos” from her. Her uncle seems a bit creepy the way he talks to her about how she looks. And the shaky camera work draws our attention to mirrors on more than one occasion and, we all know, mirrors equal creepy. Despite her lack of recollection, the house looks like it’s full of memories—perhaps they are memories best not reflected?
Sarah starts hearing things. We get some classic “house movie” moments like creaky wooden sounds, objects moving in the absence of a breeze and doors slamming inexplicably. Things get real when we briefly see human figures and she finds her father nearly dead in the house. Quite panicked, Sarah tries to escape but is locked in and, perhaps, hunted by the mysterious man in the house. While credibly horrified she is above the idiotic-panic moves that make us roll our eyes at horror victems. She’s as smart as she can be while so scared.
http://fandangogroovers.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/the-silent-house/
Flashlight and lantern-based set lighting and general silence (other than footsteps, breathing, screaming and moving objects) make this movie very stimulating to the senses. You stare at the screen to see what will come into the light and into focus like in Paranormal Activityor White Noise—all be this film less eloquently nuanced or subtle as either. This is another slow creeper whose scenes hardly have distinct beginnings and ends. Punctuated by sensory deprivation, Sarah spends so much of the film being continuously terrified that I find her both impressive and hilarious at the same time. And, even though the scare tactics are a bit cheap (loud noises and such), I find this to be a fun jumper.
The ending truly spoils the movie. I had no idea how they’d make sense of all this—including a random scene with a little girl at the side of the road who disappears moments later—and they pretty much failed on all accounts. While my most general predictions (not listed in this review) did, in fact, come true, I was in no way satisfied by the flagrantly displaced and hinted (though hardly justified) outcome. I’m tempted to tell you to actually enjoy the movie for a little over an hour and then stop and eject the disc at about 1:05 to avoid the dissatisfaction of seeing this through.
http://screambloodyentertainment.blogspot.com/2011/06/ath-silent-house-2011.html
The worst upon worst possible moment of this flick is when Sarah, who eventually escapes the house, goes BACK INTO THE F*$#ING HOUSE!!!!! The simple fact that this happened should be reason enough for you NOT TO WATCH this. That said, Elizabeth Olsen does a very nice job—unlike the story writers.
Movies, Films & Flix 