Category Archives: Films released in 2012
STRIPPERS VS. WEREWOLVES
STRIPPERS VS. WEREWOLVES-United Kingdom-2012
Note: I couldn’t find a decent larger-sized photo from Strippers vs. Werewolves to save my life. However, I do believe the photographs that I found of the cast, in particular the female cast members, will serve as suitable replacements. This has been a public service announcement. Thank you.
Adele Silva as Justice. Of course there’s a stripper named Justice.
Ali Bastian as Dani. I bet the writers took a poll of the most popular stripper names. Strippers, poll; get it?
Barbara Nedeljakova as Raven. Seriously, her parents named her Raven. They’re so proud.
Lucy Pinder as Carmilla. Okay, Carmilla is a cool stripper name. Nothing smart-ass to say here so let’s move it along, folks. Oh wait, I’m sorry; she doesn’t play a stripper. Never mind.
Steven Berkoff as Flett. Flett? Really?
Robert Englund as Tapper. Tapper? What, “Freddy Krueger” was taken?
Directed by Jonathan Glendening
Screenplay by William Barron and Pat Higgins
What is it with strippers and supernatural creatures? First, there was Zombie Strippers (2008) which showed us that Jenna Jameson’s talent goes no further than taking her clothes off. Then there came Zombies vs. Strippers (2012). How original; just take the word “Zombie” and the word “Stripper” and flip it around and add a ‘vs.” in between the two. I didn’t see this one and something tells me I don’t want to. Let’s also not forget Zombies Zombies Zombies: Strippers vs. Zombies (2008). Anyway, we now come to Strippers vs. Werewolves; which may be my last post unless I can talk my wife into writing my posts based on my dictation. The reason being is that I may dig out my eyes with a spoon after seeing this debacle.
Let’s start with the plot. A stripper, Justice (Adele Silva, Doghouse) accidentally kills a guy who turns into a werewolf while she’s giving him a private dance. Her boss, Jeanette (Sarah Douglas, Superman II), seems to know a lot more about werewolves than the owner of a strip joint should know and tells her they have to get rid of the body before it’s too late and they’re all dead. It’s always too late in this type of film and pretty soon we have a battle going on between the strippers and the werewolves. That’s the plot. I heard the writer of The Kings Speech lost sleep over wishing that he had written Strippers vs. Werewolves.
Let’s cut this short. I shouldn’t have to waste a post on this poorly directed, horribly written, badly acted and laughably edited piece of garbage. Robert Englund (The Mangler), Steven Berkoff (Beverly Hills Cop), Barbara Nedeljakova (Hostel) and Sarah Douglas are wasted in this dung pile. Don’t even get me started on the werewolves. Basically the make-up guy called the gofer over and handed him fifty dollars and said. “Alright Skippy, what I want you to do is I want you to run down to the Spirit Store and get some of them fake werewolf ears and some of them fake werewolf hands and I want you to bring ‘em back here, alright? Make sure and get yourself something with the forty dollars you’ll have left over.” Strippers vs. Werewolves is the result of someone who took too many drugs and watched too much horror and porno movies. The result is a wet dream that tries to bite off its own leg in order to wake up from itself. Now, would someone please wake me up and tell me that it was all a horrible dream?
TRIVIA
Robert Englund’s character is incarcerated in HM Chaney Prison – a nod to original Wolfman star Lon Chaney Jr.
There’s an homage to An American Werewolf in London when a dart playing lycanthrope grumbles “you made me miss”.
Took a total of £38.00 at the (UK) box office when first released.
¼
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WEREWOLF: THE BEAST AMONG US
WEREWOLF: THE BEAST AMONG US-United States-2012
Ed Quinn as Charles
Stephen Rea as Doc
Guy Wilson as Daniel
Nia Peeples as Vadoma
Rachel Katharine DiPillo as Eva
Adam Croasdell as Stefan
Steven Bauer as Hyde
Directed by Louis Morneau
Story by Michael Tabb
Screenplay by Michael Tabb and Louis Morneau and Catherine Cyran
I’ve read on a few websites that Werewolf: The Beast Among Us is a sequel, or spin-off, of the Universal Pictures remake of The Wolfman with Benicio Del Toro. I really don’t see how either description can be accurate; a sequel or a spin-off usually contains at least one character or element of the original film of which it is carrying over from. Werewolf: The Beast Among Us has neither. By the way, just because both films have a werewolf doesn’t count.
Werewolf: The Beast Among Us opens with the customary prologue in which, as a child, one of the main characters of the film witnesses his family as they are slaughtered by the beast. This time it’s Charles, played as a child by Stefan Iancu (Born to Raise Hell) and as an adult by Ed Quinn (Eureka, House of the Dead II), who goes from boy to man and becomes the leader of a band of werewolf hunters which include Steven Bauer (Scarface) and Adam Croasdell (Supernatural, Bondjamesbond). The gang meets Daniel (Guy Wilson, The Open Door, and The Midnight Game) and soon discovers that this is no ordinary werewolf they’re hunting. “This thing thinks like a man”, one of the hunters says. Well thank you, Mr. Obvious. Who is the beast? When will it kill again? Can it be stopped? Can it be controlled? Does it have fleas? The answers to these questions except for the fleas one can be found in the thrilling tale of Werewolf: The Beast Among Us. Then again, maybe the questions will not be answered.
Werewolf: The Beast Among Us starts out with a little promise and an exciting beginning; but it suffers through a slow second act and a ridiculous finale. The characters are one-dimensional to the point of being as flat as Andre Delambre’ head in The Fly and there are so many red herrings (which I know are a given for this type of film) that it becomes increasingly ridiculous. For a movie about a seven foot tall beast that ‘thinks like a man’, Werewolf: The Beast Among Us is still feeding on puppy chow.
MY WEREWOLF ATE THE TRIVIA FOR THIS FILM
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IN THEIR SKIN
IN THEIR SKIN-Canada-2012
Selma Blair as Mary
Josh Close as Mark
Rachel Miner as Jane
James D’Arcy as Bobby
Directed by Jeremy Power Regimbal
Written by Joshua Close
Privacy has always been an important issue with me. I don’t mind telling people certain things about my life; that I believe in God or that I love movies and reading and that I’m a bit of a geek at heart. For the most part, however, I pride myself on being somewhat private. When you start asking me a lot of personal questions I shut down and a creepy feeling come over me. Why do you need to know so much about me? Are you jealous? Do you want to be me? I can’t for the life of me imagine why.
In Their Skin made me feel that same creepy feeling that I feel when my privacy is invaded. When Bobby (James D’Arcy, Hitchcock, Cloud Atlas) and Jane (Rachel Miner, Supernatural, Sons of Anarchy) begin to insert themselves into the lives of Mark (Josh Close, The Master, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and Mary (Selma Blair, Hellboy, The Fog), they begin by asking questions. What’s your last name? What do you do for a living? Who’s the little blond girl in the photograph? Working up to it, they begin to use the couples’ belongings; Bobby puts on Mark’s glasses and acts scholarly, distinguished. The creep factor kicks up to ten during the dinner scene. In one moment, Mark puts his hand on Mary’s shoulder and asks if she wants some water. For a brief instant we think that there’s a glitch in the soundtrack before we realize that Bobby is saying the exact same thing to Jane; even using the same tone of voice and gestures.
In Their Skin is seated firmly in the world of suspense and horror; but it relies more on drama to increase tension and keep us on the edge of our seats. The only complaint I have about it is that it uses the cliché of a family having lost a child and not being able to cope as a plot device; which I personally feel has been done to death. But that’s a minor complaint, as I am fond of saying. In Their Skin is easily worth the 96 minutes it takes to invest in it.
No Trivia For This Film
½
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V/H/S
Hannah Fierman as Lily
Directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence
Written by Simon Barrett, David Bruckner, Nicholas Tecosky, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
V/H/S opens with a group of friends videotaping their exploits; whether it’s smashing windows in buildings, spray painting graffiti or grabbing random girls and pulling up their shirts to show their breasts; it’s all on film. We find out later that they get paid for their shenanigans and their ‘employer’ has a new, perhaps more simple job for them; to break into a house and steal one video tape in particular. Well, that seems easy enough, right? When they’re in the house, they find the owner dead in his chair in a room with several TV’s and lots of video tapes. The guys begin to watch, and that’s where the anthology genre melds with the found footage genre.
“Amateur Night“, the first video, is about a group of friends (not the same group) out for a night on the town. One of the friends, and this is a good alternative to holding a bulky video camera, is wearing a pair of eyeglasses with a built in camera and microphone. The intent of the guys is to find a girl and then videotape having sex with her. They find two girls and take them back to a motel. One girl passes out and they leave her alone. Yeah, okay, that part I buy hook line and sinker, not. The other girl, well, let’s just say the other girl is very special. This episode is directed by David Bruckner (The Signal) and is a good start for the film in that while it is hardly believable it is never boring. Hannah Fierman is creepy as hell as Lily, the girl with ‘something extra’.
“Second Honeymoon” is about Sam and Stephanie and their titular adventures in an old west town. They videotape their fun and Stephanie gets her fortune read. She will be re-united with a loved one, says Pappy, the mechanical prospector cum prognosticator. At their hotel that night there’s a knock on their door from a girl asking for a ride for the next day. The girl goes away, the door to their room is locked, the camera is turned off and Sam and Stephanie settle down to sleep. The camera turns on and pans to Sam sleeping. It pans to Stephanie sleeping. Wait…what? We see only a glimpse of the third party in the mirror before he (maybe she) have fun with Sam’s toothbrush and the toilet water. Sam and Stephanie continue their fun the next day and then we repeat with the two of them going to sleep and the unknown third party turning on the camera yet again. Only this time there’s a twist and Stephanie re-unites with that loved one that ole Pappy told her all about. “Second Honeymoon” is directed by Ti West (The Innkeepers) and is unfortunately not a good example of his work. He’s done way better than this and I believe he will continue to do better than this. Let’s move on.
‘Tuesday the 17th“ is a home video version of the ‘slasher in the woods that’s killing all your friends and yet no matter how hard you try to kill him you just can’t seem to do it’ entry in the horror genre. Spider, Joey and Samantha accompany their new friend Wendy into the woods to smoke pot and do whatever it is pot smoking teens do in the woods together. Wendy tells them that her friends were murdered here and they laugh it off. Then they start dying at the hands of a killer that the tracking device on the camera just can’t seem to clear up. Is it live, or is Memorex? Directed by Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), “Tuesday the 17th” is more an example of ‘let’s have fun with the video camera’ than it is a serious attempt at filmmaking. That’s not a bad thing, mind you; it makes it even more fun, in fact.
Emily talks with her boyfriend and doctor-t0-be James via web cam. She tells him all about the strange mark on her arm and then the ghost of a child runs into her room and back out again in “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” segment of V/H/S. There is more than meets the eye in this segment directed by Joe Swanberg; but to tell anymore would take us into spoiler country and I hate traveling there. Let’s just say this is a good example of why I think web cam chat is creepy.
A pirate, a marine, a nanny cam and the Unabomber go to a haunted house. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Actually, it’s “10/31/98″ and buddies Chad, Matt, Tyler and Paul go to what they think is a Halloween party, only to find the place deserted. But when they see ghostly figures and hands coming out of the walls they begin to realize that they may not be so alone after all. This final segment, directed by Radio Silence, is easily the best segment of the film and is a clear example of the fun that the filmmakers had with V/H/S. The film as a whole brings nothing new to the table; but by the end you really just don’t care.
TRIVIA
Folks, there is nothing to see here. Please move on in an orderly fashion. Thank you.
“Amateur Night”-½
“Second Honeymoon”-
“Tuesday the 17th”-
“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”-½
“10/31/98″-½
Overall rating:
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THE TALL MAN
THE TALL MAN-United States/Canada/France-2012
Jessica Biel as Julia Denning
Jodelle Ferland as Jenny
Samantha Ferris as Tracy
William B. Davis as Sheriff Chestnut
Stephen McHattie as Lt. Dodd
Written and Directed by Pascal Laugier
Watching The Tall Man is like driving on a road late at night that you think is familiar. You are under the impression that you know your way around and that your destination is just around the corner. But then you make the turn and everything changes; nothing seems the same, as if you’re in the middle of a bad dream about driving that you’ve woken up from only to find that you’re still dreaming the same damned bad dream. If what I just said seems confusing to you then you are on your way to understanding maybe 10% of the way I felt watching this movie. I’ll even go one better for you; after the movie ended and I was left sitting there shaking my head the first thing I did was consult the Wikipedia entry for the movie so that I could read a summary of the plot to determine whether I was understanding it correctly.
Jessica Biel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The A-Team) stars as Julia Dennings, a nurse in a small, dead town called Cold Rock, located somewhere in Washington state. Julia is the town nurse. Her husband, who passed away before the events of the movie, was the town doctor and was considered a ‘saint’ in the eyes of the townsfolk. The town was once a mining community; but that’s all gone now and Cold Rock and its citizens have all crawled in their graves and laid down to die, so to speak. To makes things even worse for this little Podunk town is a child abductor known as the ‘Tall Man’. Julia is skeptical that such a person exists until her own child is abducted and she must face up to the reality that the ‘Tall Man’ is all too real. I am going to stop right there. There is no way that I can tell you any more about this movie without giving away every single plot point.
The Tall Man is the latest film from Pascal Laugier. If the name rings a bell it’s because Laugier’s previous film was the intensely disturbing and insanely fucked-up French masterpiece Martyrs. I’m positive that with The Tall Man Laugier would have loved to have captured the lightning in a bottle that he did with Martyrs and he nearly does exactly that. Jessica Biel is fantastic in her role as Julia Dennings. Stephen McHattie (Pontypool, 300, Watchmen), as a federal agent assigned to the case, is one of the most reliable character actors working today. The film moves at a steady, comfortable pace. But it all goes back to driving on that road and thinking that you know where you are. The Tall Man is one of the few films of which I think a road map would have been beneficial.
NO TRIVIA
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EXCISION
EXCISION-United States-2012
Traci Lords as Phyllis
Ariel Winter as Grace
Roger Bart as Bob
Jeremy Sumpter as Adam (Image not from film)
Matthew Gray Gubler as Mr. Claybaugh
John Waters as William
Marlee Matlin as Amber (Image not from film)
Ray Wise as Principal Campbell (Image not from film)
Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Cooper
Written and Directed by Richard Bates
In the beginning we meet the four main characters; Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Transporter 2), a trouble teenage girl eager to win her mother’s approval; Phyllis (Traci Lords, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell), Pauline’s domineering and controlling mother; Bob (Roger Bart, Hostel Part II, The Midnight Meat Train), Pauline’s father and Phyllis’ doormat. Finally, there’s Grace (Ariel Winter, ParaNorman and Modern Family), Pauline’s younger sister, who has cystic fibrosis or CF as it is mainly referred to in the film.
Pauline wants to be a surgeon. We know that she wants to do this mainly because she wants her mother’s approval and that she wants to help her sister live a happy, healthy life. Pauline looks weird, acts weird, dreams weird and even has weird sexual fantasies that result in nocturnal emissions. She dreams of dry humping headless corpses. She pulls out her bloody tampon and sniffs it before throwing it away. She dissects a bird and licks its blood from her hands. When she decides to lose her virginity she gives a boy, Adam (Jeremy Sumpter, Frailty, and Peter Pan) her phone number, arranges a meet in a motel room and plans the event at the same time she’s on her period. There is absolutely nothing normal about this girl.
All of this, as well as other events in the life of Pauline, lead to the climax of the film. Sadly, this is a climax that does not shock us. It’s not because we saw it coming from a mile away; but because Pauline has already done enough and said enough to make us immune to her actions. That’s part of the trouble with this film. The other part is that there is little to no soundtrack, which makes it feel like the movie is playing out as if it were instructions for a clinical procedure. Pauline doesn’t live her life; she analyzes her life and does whatever she can to make us uncomfortable.
The performances in the film are good; especially from McCord and from Lords. McCord goes the extra step to play down her natural beauty by making her hair stringy and wearing little to no make-up. Lords gives one of the best performances of her storied career as Phyllis, There are moments in Excision where you don’t know whether to hug her or slap her. It’s too bad the film demeans the acting by being so clinically written.
The worst part about Excision is that even at less than 90 minutes the film is too long. The film would have played out better as a 45 minute episode of Masters of Horror instead of a full length feature film. I really can’t see there being much of an audience for this one. It’s sad, to be honest; the film is not a horrible one, it’s just too much of an impersonal one.
NO TRIVIA
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WRONG TURN 5:BLOODLINES
WRONG TURN 5: BLOODLINES-United States-2012
Doug Bradley as Maynard
Camilla Arfwedson as Sheriff Angela
Simon Ginty as Billy
Paul Luebke as Gus (Image not from film)
Oliver Hoare as Julian (Image not from film)
Written and Directed by Declan O’Brien
Based on characters created by Alan B. McElroy
5?
Yes, 5.
5?!?
Did I stutter? Yes, I said 5. There have been 5 Wrong Turn movies? Okay, look, I am as surprised by this as you are and I’m the one that has to come up with something new to say about the fifth movie, Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines. So I need you to sit there like a happy idiot while I think. Okay?
Well, okay.
What are you going to say?
I’m going to talk about how this movie seems to take place just after the events of Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings. So, chronologically speaking it takes place long before the events of the first Wrong Turn. One Eye, Three Finger and Saw Tooth are no longer hiding out in the abandoned Glensville Sanatorium and have now taken on a mentor of sorts in Maynard, played by Doug Bradley.
Ooh ooh, I know him! He played Pinhead in the Hellraiser movies.
Very good, little retarded child! He even makes a reference to Pinhead in this movie.
I’m here all week. So, what happens next?
Well, it seems that every year this town in West Virginia holds the Mountain Man Music Festival. Everybody comes there to dress up like hillbillies, get drunk and listen to live music. These five kids; Billy, played by Simon Ginty; Cruz, Amy Lennox from Never Let Me Go; Gus, Paul Leubke; Lita, Roxanne McKee of A Game of Thrones and finally Julian, played by Oliver Hoare; they all come to Mountain Man to party and do drugs and all that kind of shit.
So you might as well write ‘Kill Me and Eat Me‘ across their foreheads.
You are catching on. These kids run into Maynard; who then attacks them and in turn they attack him and they all end up in jail after being arrested by the fetchingly arresting Sheriff Angela as portrayed by Camilla Arfwedson who had a part in The Duchess. At the jail Maynard starts making threats and saying that his ‘boys’ are coming to get him out and that the sheriff and the rest are not going to live to see the light of day blah blah blah. Pretty soon One Eye, Three Finger and Saw Tooth stab, electrocute, tenderize with sledgehammers, run over with trucks and tillers and basically kill their way through the rest of the movie.
Yeesh! So, is it any good?
Well, you know ‘good’ has become an irrelevant term for this series. The first one was good and the second one was really cool…
The first one had Eliza Dushku. Rrrrrrrrrreowr!!
Heh heh; down, boy. After that the movies have been a case of ‘okay, what are they going to come up with next to try and gross us all out?’ The last three Wrong Turn movies have been good only in the most primitive sense of the word. They are good because there are still people out there who enjoy them and want them to be good. Does that make any sense to you?
No, I’m still thinking about Eliza Dushku.
*Sigh* Say goodnight, dumb-ass.
Good night, dumb-ass.
MOVE ALONG NOW, YA HEAR? THERE’S NO TRIVIA TO SEE HERE.
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THE BARRENS
THE BARRENS-United States/Canada-2012
Steven Moyer as Richard Vineyard
Mia Kirshner as Cynthia Vineyard
Erik Knudsen as Ryan (Image not from film)
Allie Macdonald as Sadie Vineyard
Peter DaCuhna (L) as Danny Vineyard
Athena Karkanis (R) as Erica
Shawn Ashmore (R) as Dale
Written and Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
The Jersey Devil was the 13th child of Mama Leeds,
His daddy was the devil himself.
Born normal, it changed form;
Cloven hooves, horses head,
Bat wings and a forked tail.
Pine Barrens, New Jersey
is where it calls home.
Pine Barrens, New Jersey
is where no one belongs.
If you recall, after the debacle that was 11-11-11, I was ready to write Darren Lynn Bousman off as having spent the 15 minutes of fame that he earned after Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV. 11-11-11 was a monotonous and uneventful film directed by a man with no imagination and no fucking business behind a movie camera. But I guess everyone deserves a second chance and Bousman receives that chance with The Barrens. It’s not a great film; there are no Oscars in its future and film historians will not be talking about in the same breath as Citizen Kane; but at least it gets the bad taste of “11″ out of our mouths.
Richard Vineyard (Stephen Moyer, Bill Compton of True Blood) is determined to take his family camping for the weekend. His reasons are two-fold; one is to bring himself, his daughter Sadie (Allie MacDonald, Alphas, House at the End of the Street) and his new wife Cynthia (Mia Kirshner, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, The L Word) closer together; the other is to scatter his father’s ashes.
Vineyard and his family set up camp in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and talk that night commences from fellow campers about the legend of the Jersey Devil, a creature said to have haunted the woods for the past 400 years. Richard overreacts to the stories and it is from there that we discover that he had his own little run-in with the beast. Pretty soon he’s acting strange; hallucinating, hearing things. He comes down with a fever and we think ‘well that explains it; he’s not in his right mind’. Then the bodies turn up with their entrails ripped out. Is Vineyard responsible; or is the Jersey Devil all too real.
Okay, so looking back I can see that the whole premise is about as dumb as a retarded box of rocks, but Bousman actually manages to keep it together and keeps us guessing until the very end. After the predictability that was 11-11-11, I have to give kudos to the old boy. I also have to give props to whoever decided to make Moyer’s character British. Moyer actually is from Brentwood, Essex, England and I believe the writers knew that if they gave Vineyard an American accent that viewers would associate it with his character from True Blood.
In the end, The Barrens boils down to good, dumb Bousman fun.
TRIVIA
Darren Lynn Bousman’s earlier cut of this movie was only 81 minutes long.
Darren Lynn Bousman originally wanted to shoot the film in the actual Pine Barrens of New Jersey.
There were more shots of the Jersey Devil in an earlier version of the movie.
A majority of the scenes were done in a single take.
As an added treat, ladies and gentlemen Mr. Bruce Springsteen and A Night With The Jersey Devil:
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- The Barrens (horror-movie-a-day.blogspot.com)
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PARANORMAL4ACTIVITY
PARANORMAL4ACTIVITY-United States-2012
Katie Featherston as Katie
Kathryn Newton as Alex
Matt Shively as Ben
Alexondra Lee as Holly (Image not from film)
Stephen Dunham as Doug (Image not from film)
Brady Allen as Robbie
Aiden Lovekamp as Wyatt
Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Story by Chad Feehan
Screenplay by Christopher Landon
Let me clear one thing up for everyone from the start; I did not hate Paranormal Activity 3 nor did I think it sucked in any way. But, I know that I am in the minority when it comes to the film so let’s move on. Apparently the filmmakers thought differently than I because they have set the 4th film in the series 5 years after the events of Paranormal Activity 2. The setting is now a house in Nevada in 2011 and strange things begin to occur after the family takes in a strange little boy from across the street after his mother is taken to the hospital via ambulance. When I say strange I mean this is the kind of kid who appears out of nowhere to scare the living shit out of you and who talks to unseen beings named Toby. I’m sure you remember Toby from the 3rd film so I don’t have to tell you what he is.
The film centers around the family’s teenage daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton, Bad Teacher) and her sort of somewhat boyfriend, Ben (Matt Shively, Barrio Tales) as Alex experiences strange phenomenon throughout the house and Ben helps her set up laptops that double as webcams to record the activity. Another neat trick involves night vision and the X-Box Kinect system. It made me wonder what the hell I was doing with a PlayStation 3.
But I digress. Paranormal Activity 4 is one of those movies that I don’t like to say a whole lot about because I don’t want to give too much away. I will say three main things about the film. One, the film does have some genuinely scary moments. Two, the film answers certain questions, but of course it sets up even more. Finally, the film marks the significant return of Katie Featherston to the series. That may not seem all that relevant to anyone else, but I’ve had the hots for her since the first Paranormal Activity. If that’s too much information then sue me.
So, is Paranormal Activity 4 good? I think so. Is it scary? For the most part, yes it is. Is it going to make a shitload of money? Seriously, what the hell do you think? Oh, and for those of you keeping tabs I rate the series in order of quality 1. Paranormal Activity 2; 2. Paranormal Activity; 3. Paranormal Activity 4 and 4. Paranormal Activity 3. Now shoo, go buy Halloween candy or sacrifice a virgin* or something.
NO TRIVIA AT THIS TIME
*Written in Blood does not in any way, shape or form condone the sacrificing of virgins or even non-virgins for that matter. Do not attempt this. If you do I do not know you.
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- ‘Paranormal Activity 4′ Review: The Horror Franchise Finally Loses Its Way (slashfilm.com)
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- The paranormal bus stops here (sfluxe.com)
- A youthful energy creeps into ‘Paranormal Activity 4′ (seattletimes.com)
- Is ‘Paranormal Activity 4′ The Best Yet? Frightened Fans Weigh In (mtv.com)
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AMBER ALERT
AMBER ALERT-United States-2012
Chris Hill as Nate Riley and Summer Bellessa as Samantha Green in AMBER ALERT
Also starring Jasen Wade.
Directed by Kerry Bellessa
Screenplay by Joshua Oram and Kerry Bellessa
I asked my wife if she was ever scared of the boogeyman when she was a child. She responded by answering a question with another question; why should she be afraid of the boogeyman or vampires, werewolves or zombies for that matter? It’s not the imaginary creatures that can harm you; it’s the ones that are all too human that can. Seeing as how I love being scared by a good old monster flick as much as the next guy I couldn’t really get where she was coming from. After witnessing Amber Alert, the debut feature from director Kerry Bellessa I get her way more than I care to admit. The film is about human evil at its lowest form; the abduction and potential molestation, rape and murder of a child.
Friends Nate (Chris Hill) and Samantha (Summer Bellessa) are in Nate’s car when they spy a vehicle described in an Amber Alert. From there the film becomes a ‘what would you do’ situation and the two friends are the argument that our own minds would play out if we were in the same situation; do you call the police and then mind your own business or call the police and follow the vehicle in the desperate hope that you can do something to alter the situation for the better.
Amber Alert is another in a long line of ‘found footage’ films. I usually throw up a little in my mouth when I say those two words but not this time. It seems strange to say considering the subject matter; but I truly enjoyed this film. The two leads, Hill and Bellessa, are believable in their roles. I would assume that the two are friends off camera; they bring believability to the characters that two people who are unfamiliar to each other could not. I endeared myself to Summer Bellessa the most. Her personality was quite infectious at the beginning; but it was her side of the argument that won me over to her. I understand that a lot of her actions come from motherly instinct, but I just don’t see how anyone in the right frame of mind could stand by and let harm come to a child.
Amber Alert is not a perfect film. A good portion of the movie takes place inside the car and I found myself wishing that the editor had done his job a little better and shaved a little time off. However, that’s nitpicking and I am well aware of it. Director Kerry Bellessa has crafted that rare horror film that makes us think as much as it scares us. The last 15 minutes of the movie had me holding my breath and peering through my fingers at the screen. The last time I did that with the vampires or the werewolves was when I was six. Make believe monsters can be killed very easily by changing the channel, turning off the TV or closing the book. The real monsters will never go away and Amber Alert makes us all too aware of that truth.
NO TRIVIA
Amber Alert is available on VOD and is scheduled for release to theaters on November 2nd, 2012.
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