Entries Tagged 'horror' ↓
February 3rd, 2008 — From The Feeds, ghosts, horror, jessica alba
There wasn’t a tremendous amount of buzz about “The Eye” -- not to me anyway, but you would’ve expected it to perform well, based on the Jessica Alba brand alone.... grossed only 13 million over the weekend, second to the beast that is Miley Cyrus. “One Missed Call”, a movie with far less star power, had a 12.5 million opening weekend. Go figure...
BTW, GO GIANTS!
January 27th, 2008 — From The Feeds, horror, werewolves
“Skinwalkers” isn’t what we’ve been lead to believe. It’s actually a modern western that involves Native American mysticism and a bit of Japanese numerology -- no, wait! It’s a classic character-driven horror movie -- better yet, a child-in-peril supernatural thriller with twists and turns around every corner, leading to a werewolf vs. werewolf smackdown in Act III! The answer is: all of the above.
Captain Obvious moment: bigger doesn’t always equal better. A straightforward story can go a long way. Starting off with a pancake flat opening, “Skinwalkers” is full of needless scenes, unnecessary twists and sketchy action sequences. Even Rhona Mitra can’t save this one.
Most of us grew up watching memorable cinematic moments like, “Luke, I am your father” and “I see dead people”, so the desire to emulate that brand of shock and awe storytelling is understandable but it’s not always necessary. They tried to shoehorn a twist that hurt the narrative -- made no sense. Werewolf movies have been in a slump for a while and hiding the creatures (which look pretty decent) in the theatrical trailer was a big mistake. I don’t have a problem with the PG-13 rating, but if you’re going to take out the gore and violence, you need to replace them with something else. Better action scenes, cool transformations, whatever. Poke around on the DVD (which includes commentary by director Jim Isaac) and you’ll find an Easter egg featuring Stan Winston at Comic-Con discussing how he became involved with the project.
December 8th, 2007 — From The Feeds, horror, movies, shyamalan
The one sheet for M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening” is finally out. Meh. Can’t say I’m especially excited about seeing this if it’s anything like the early draft that was floating around the net a while back. Still a fan though...
November 28th, 2007 — From The Feeds, horror, movies, vampires
I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early draft of the script before seeing the film and while I thought it was lacking in certain areas, the premise was probably cool enough ride out the bumps in the story. BZZZZT! Nope. Didn’t happen. The red flags in the script waved just as brightly as they did in the movie.
Basically, what we have here is a zombie flick disguised as a vampire movie. Feral vampires. Okay. They don’t wear puffy shirts, nor do they seduce their victims with hypnosis or the promise of immortality. They’re all about the kill. Nothing wrong with that but if the vamps are just catalysts in the story, atleast gives us three dimensional characters that the audience will love/hate/feel something about and this is where “30 Days of Night” fails. I almost wish they took a page from some of the character development that occurred in “The Mist”.
The film hinges on the fact that we’re supposed to buy into this barely developed relationship between Eben (Josh Hartnett) and Stella (Melissa George), a lot of which is unsaid so we’re treated to seeing them exchange pained expressions and muttering something about her leaving town. Maybe it just was a lack of chemistry between the two leads (Harnett is so wooden, he might have tried impaling himself into a vamp or two) or weak character development, but the relationship and therefore the movie didn’t work for me.
I haven’t picked up a graphic novel in years, so I’m totally ignorant of the source material but I’ll say this much: why vampires? Why not zombies, aliens (sounds like John Singleton’s “Executive Order Six” is gonna cover that one) or little monsters that multiply when they get wet and eat after midnight? Seemed kind of random.
