SEASONING HOUSE (2012) *** RECOMMEND ***

 

A British horror movie.  The directorial debut of Paul Hyett, who mainly had worked in the make-up/fx department.  Stars Rosie Day, Kevin Howarth, and Sean Pertwee.

The story: Set in the Balkans,  it follows a young girl whose mother has been killed by soldiers and if forced to work in a prostitution house for soldiers.  The soldiers like to brutalize the girls, so her job is to keep them drugged up and to clean them up after the men beat them.  However, after befriending one girl who is savagely attacked, she attacks her attacker, setting the soldiers after her.

Was it good?

Half of it was good.  First, let me say it is a powerful concept for a movie.  This isn't your typical kids-in-the-woods stuff.  Seeing this prostitution house (based on a true story) makes for a powerful (disturbing) experience.  In addition to the drama of this girl working in the house is the story that the operator of the house is in love with her, setting up another powerful dynamic.  And for the first half of the movie, it is a powerful movie experience.  The acting is also excellent.  The whole cast is good and Rosie Day especially was fantastic.  The set design and the directing (for the most part) were very good too.  Part of what makes the first half work so well is the mood and atmosphere they have build for the place and the way the director follows the main character as she goes about her duties tending to the girls and slipping in and out of the vents as her only way of having any sense of freedom and control.  However, after she attacks the first soldier and the soldiers go after her, the movie quickly slips away.  The story devolves into little more than chase after chase.  Instead of going for emotional depth, the script goes for action.  Even worse, by the end of act two they have her leave the house.  What was a tense, contained thriller for the first 2/3rds, now becomes little more than a generic chase movie.  What hurts the movie even more is that the chase elements as usually pretty stupid.  For a thriller to work, you want the characters (hero and villains) to be smart, to think ahead and plan.  Here the villains just chase her, pretty much one by one, and even when they grab her or could shoot her they don't (or they miss).   

However, while the movie definitely doesn't live up to the potential of its concept or it's cast, there is still a lot here worth recommending.  It's not a fun horror movie, and not an easy movie to watch, but for people looking for a powerful movie experience and able to deal with the violence/sexual brutality, the movie has more impact than 99% of what is out there.  Hopefully the director will learn from this and next tiem get a better script.

*** RECOMMEND ***

EVIL DEAD (2013) ** RENTAL***

EVIL DEAD (2013)

This is the remark/reboot of the classic 1980's horror series Evil Dead by Sam Raimi (Spider-Man 1 2 and 3, Darkman, Great and Powerful Oz).  Produced by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice and star of the original Evil Dead movies).  Directed by Fede Alvarez, after directing a short film that got Sam Raimi's attention.  Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez,  Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore.

THE STORY:  A group of friends bring a girl (Jane Levy) to a remote cabin to detox her from drug addiction.  She has recently OD'ed and they feel extreme measures are needed.  However, they find bodies in the basement and one of them reads from a strange book and soon they are being possessed by a horrible demon who tries to kill them and collect their souls.  

WAS IS GOOD?

Sort of.  If you are a fan of the original then, well, this doesn't measure up.  At all.  And I'll talk about why in a minute.  If you haven't seen the original twenty times and used the phrase "Groovy" as your ringtone then there is a lot to like.  The basic idea of a group of friends trying to detox a girl who becomes possessed is interesting, and there are some nice twists and turns.  The action is pretty much non-stop.  The problem is that you don't care.  There are no relationships and there's no real build up to anything.  It's the girl gets possessed and then messes up he friends, pretty much one-by-one, killing them off.  the movies makes an interesting turn when the girl is cured by her brother and now she becomes the target of the demons, but while it has a cool "what will happen now" effect, there's no real emotion or sense to it.  And it builds to a big dramatic ending that is simply solved with a chainsaw. 

Now compare that to the original, which slowly builds for the first ten minutes, allowing you to meet the characters and see them interact.  Next the demons are invoked.  Now one girl becomes possessed, but instead of just inflicting violence, the demon wants to possess the people and terrorize them, turning their friends against them and taunting them.  In this movie there is some of that, but it just never lands.  The demon isn't trying to terrorize, but simply to kill and it isn't nearly as interesting.  Seeing people get picked off one-by-one (let me go visit the demon girl and hey, look, I got attacked) isn't as interesting as a group in a room together trying to protect each other.  There is also the odd switch of the girl at first being the antagonist (once she is possessed) and then becoming the hero at the end.  It was an interesting choice, but I can't say I was really hoping for her to win.  It goes back to the original concept of a group of friends trying to get a girl to detox.  It is he friends that are the protagonists and they are the ones we bond with.  Switching to the girl as the protagonist at the end breaks the concept.  If the idea had been a girl trying to detox is attacked by demons and has to save herself, then it would have been fine, but in general when you switch concepts in the 3rd act, you are going to lose a lot of mojo.  And this movie felt over with 15 minutes to go.

Another thing to mention is that there is a lot of gore in this movie.  The idea of people cutting off their own limbs is a recurring thing.  (And you thought that was the sort of thing you only needed to see once?  Ha!)  It got to the point where it felt like most of the brainstorming was about what gruesome effects they could do, because they go for the gross out a lot!

All in all, while this was an interesting movie, it didn't have that "Evil Dead" feel.  Worth a rental though.  Hopefully next time they will concentrate on story and character more and less on gore.

** RENTAL **

TRAP FOR CINDERELLA (2013) *** AVOID ***

A British drama/thriller with more drama than thrills.  Stars Tuppence Middleton, Alexandra Roach, Kerry Fox, Aneurin Barnard, Frances de la Tour, Emilia Fox.  Directed by Iain Softley, who also wrote the scrrenplay based on the book by Sébastien Japrisot,

THE STORY: After an explosion at an expensive villa, a woman with svere facial burns and amnesia undergoes reconstructive surgery to her face and finds diaries that help her recover her memory about the explosion and what happened that night.

Was it good?

No.  It was pretty boring.  While the description might make it sound like a thriller, it was so slow it felt more like a character piece.  In many ways the story is similar to the Greta Scacchi/Tom Berenger SHATTERED
 with questions of identity and a murder, but the first half is so slow that it just doesn't have any thrill.  And while the second half does pick up, the twists lack any emotional punch.  In the end I didn't care what her real identity was or is she got away.  Simply there are better thrillers and more interesting character pieces than this one. 

*** AVOID ***

EVIDENCE (2013) ** AVOID ***

EVIDENCE (2013)(a review)

This is a found footage film. I'm a big fan of these when they are done right. CLOVERFIELD and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT were great. EVIDENCE is not. Written by John Swetnam. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi. Stars Stephen Moyer (True Blood), Radha Mitchell (Red Widow), Dale Dickey, Torrey DeVitto, Nolan Gerard Funk, Aml Ameen, Harry Lennix, Caitlin Stasey, and Svetlana Metkina.  

THE STORY: Cops find a horrible wreakage filled with dead bodies and have to sift through the camcorders of the victims to find out who was behind it all.

 Was it good?

No. The thing about found footage is that it is supposed to be more like reality tv where you feel like these characters are real people. So the best of them, even ones like CLOVERFIELD that have giant monsters, have a compelling story about the characters. CLOVERFIELD has a guy realizing that he loves a girl the day before he is going to leave for Japan. BLAIR WITCH has a group of kids getting lost and turning on each other. This movie didn't have anything. There's a few minutes of "get to know them" footage of the characters, but there isn't much to get to know. Then the horror starts and there's just a lot of screaming. Even the mystery isn't a big deal. The police have very little to do and since the event is over, there isn't anything really pushing them. Even worse, they don't seem to do much to try to solve it. In the first 70 minutes they come up with one idea. And the final reveal is pretty weak. It is a clever concept that could be interest, but they just don't do anything with it.
*** AVOID ****

LIMITLESS (2011) (a review)  *** AVOID *** 

Thriller directed by Neil Burger (The Lucky Ones, The Illusionist), starring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Silver Linings Playbook, The A-Team) and Robert DeNiro (do i seriously need to write the credits of Robert DeNiro?).  Written by Leslie Dixon, based on a book DARK FIELDS by Alan Glynn. 

The Story: Edward Morra (Cooper) is a down-on-his-luck loser writer wanna-be whose ex-brother in law gives him a pill that instantly makes him a super genius.  He proceeds to write a brilliant book and starts investing money, quadrupling his money every day.  This gets the attention of a rich business guy (DeNiro) who brings him in on a big merger/acquisition.  Meanwhile a loan shark keeps tracking Morra down to get more and more of the pills, using more and more violent means of persuasion.

Was it good?

No. This is a movie about smart people written, apparently, by the dumbest people on earth.  Let's just accept the fact that a pill can make you instantly smart.  No problem -- every sci-fi story takes a little faith (which is ironic since it's science fiction, right?), and if that's the basis of the story then let's give it to them and just go with it.  So what do these genius people do?  Well, first he writes a book...except being a genius doesn't mean you are going to be able to write a great book.  Plenty of brainiacs can't write at all.  Then he begins to do day trading (stocks) even though he has no trading and somehow is able to put these little bits of information together to make these great trades allowing him to quadruple his money EVERY DAY.  He also is instantly an expert martial artist because he has seen Bruce Lee movies (ignoring the fact that in those movies the people are just acting so it's not like he really is learning how to fight and of course the fact that just because know how to do a martial arts movie doesn't mean you are physically going to be able to do it as effectively as Bruce Lee)...but again let's just go with it because if those were the only problems with the movie, the movie would be silly but not actually really, really dumb.

By now Morra has started to work with a businessman (Deniro), helping him with a giant merger for which he promises Morra $40 million.  Which is stupid.  By now Morra has over $1 million on his own.  Quadrupling that every day means he would have $64 million in three days.  So why does he care about this guy?  He needs money (for something that isn't clear), but really he could make more money on his own.  So how does this make any sense???

Also, he is pursued by a loan shark who tasted a pill and now wants more.  So what does he do?  Basically nothing.  (He does hire body guards, but aside from being seen once I don't think they show up again.)  Wouldn't a smart person realize that this guy is going to keep coming back and do something about it?  Or come up with better protection than, you know, nothing???

Also, he's in constant danger of running out of the drug so he hires a guy to try to reverse engineer it.  Why?  Isn't he the super-genius that can do everything perfectly?  Why doesn't he learn the chem-geneering himself?  Why on earth would you trust a non-genius?  Why would you risk other people learning about the drug?  All he would have to do is take a month off from business and he'd do it perfectly.  And while he states he needs money, there really is no ticking clock where he has to have X dollars by X time, so what's a month?  Even if he blew the merger deal, there's always another business deal and he can do day trading and earn millions there.  So what really would be the smart move?

And that really is the problem with the movie -- it's a movie about people who are supposed to be geniuses, but really they act like the dumbest people on earth.  For instance at one point a woman is bing chased through a park by a man with a knife.  She tries to get help and the man kills them.  So her genius solution?  Grabbing a girl who is ice skating and twirling her around to use the girl's skate to kill the guy.  Is that really the genius solution?  Or is that the dumb-a** solution that a 14-year old boy would come up with???  Because I'm pretty sure that would get the woman in a lot of trouble and bring up even more questions (not to mention news reports and cops. 

But of course all of that is completely ignored because what better way to write about geniuses than with large, gaping plot holes???

Speaking of plot holes, at one point a woman Morra sleeps with is found dead.  At one point he is a suspect, but then it is never mentioned again.  Yep, that's smart writing.

Seriously, I could keep picking it apart but that would be a waste of time.  What the movie does well is keep moving.  So while each point might be stupid, it moves on to the next thing not letting you linger on its stupidity.

And Morra's big plan?  Run for Congress.  Because we're all better off with heart disease and cancer being solved by the non-geniuses.  Yikes.

*** AVOID ***

FLYPAPER (2010) (a review)

FLYPAPER (2011) (a review)

A heist movie and a detective movie and a romance all in one. Stars Ashley Judd and Patrick Dempsey.

The story: Tripp (Dempsey) flirts with a cute teller, Kaitlin, who is about to be married (Judd) when two groups enter the bank to rob simultaneously. But then things start to go wrong and now Tripp, who is eccentric and obsessive tries to figure out who really set up the heist and what plan they have for all of them.

Was it good?

In parts. As a heist movie it isn't that interesting or exciting. As a romance, it isn't that convincing. And as a comedy it wasn't very funny. However, there is something charming about it. Between Tripp and Kaitlin's flirting, everything going wrong and Tripp's attempts to figure out what is happening it is constantly entertaining. Unfortunately, a lot of the explainations don't really hold and the movie at times veers off into the silly/unbelievable catagory. In a lot of ways it reminded me of a silly (and not as good) version of the episode "Bad Breaks" on BURN NOTICE. In that episode Michael is trapped inside a bank during a robbery and he has to try to stop the robbers by sabatoging them while pretending to help them. This movie isn't as clever or as funny and some of the twists are obvious and even the ones that aren't just never really surprise you.

Still, for all the ways in which is doesn't succeed, it is consistantly entertaining and almost always charming. I wouldn't recommend it at theater prices, but for a light/fun movie with a little robbery throw in, it's definitely worth a rental.

*** RENTAL ***

NEVERLAND (syfy channel movie)(2011) (a review) *** RENTAL ***

NEVERLAND (syfy channel original movie) (2011)( a review)

The latest in the Syfy channels series of reinventing classic fairy tales (following TIN MAN, their take on Wizard of Oz and ALICE, a sci-fi retelling of Alice in Wonderland). All of the movies have been written and directed by Nick Willing. This movie is a prequel to the classic story, telling how Peter and Captain Hook can to be in Neverland. This movie stars: Anna Friel, Rhys Ifans and more.

The story: 1906 London. Peter is a thief and part of a gang run by James Hook. During a heist, they find a magic orb that transports them (and several other boys) to Neverland. Peter is found by the indians, incluidng Tiger Lily. Hook and the other boys are found by pirates, including the beautiful lead pirate Elizabeth Bonnie. Now the pirates, led by Bonnie and Hook, will try to find the magic orb and the secret of the indians while Peter tries to decide who he should be loyal to.

Was it good?

In parts. It was interesting enough that if you are a fan of Peter Pan then it will make for an interesting watch. The beginning in London isn't interesting and goes on for WAY too long. However once they get transported to Leverland things get interesting. What makes this section work is the way peopel seperate into two sides. Peter and Hook used to be allies, but now Hook with with the pirates and Peter is with the indians, and no one really is a villain yet. They both have goals that make sense (finding the others, getting home), but because of how each side operates they are set against each other. The best part of this is the relationship between Bonnie and Hook, the two pirate captains (Anna Friel and Charlie Rowe), which at times is manipulation and at times genuine attraction. Unfortuantely, as the show goes on the dynamics become less interesting. It becomes about chasing people and burning things. And the goals that people have keep changing. At one point they want to go home, then Hook wants the fairy magic (that allows Peter to fly), and then they want to go home but come back...I don't know. For the 2nd quarter had a wonderful feel to it, a sense of fun you'd expect from a Peter Pan story, but as it went on it seemed to lose that becoming darker and less engaging. (The beginnign is pretty dark too, but I was okay with it starting like that.) Eventually all the things come to pass -- Peter gets to fly, Hook loses his hand, but by then it just didn't feel like a prequel...I just didn't believe that these characters would turn into the Peter Pan and Captain Hook we know. Which wouldn't be bad if this was meant to be a different interpretation, but when it is set-up as a prequel it makes for a disappointing last hour.


Still, if you skim the first half hour, the second hour especially has a lot of great things in it and the relationship between Bonnie and Hook is worth watching too. Of course, it's the Syfy channel, so it's done on the cheap and there are definitely scenes that get hurt by that. It's not a story I would watch again or give as a gift, but it was good to watch and I'd recommend it for free or a cheap rental.


*** RENTAL ***