Saturday, August 29, 2015

The Crow, 1994 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would.

This movie is about Eric Draven (Brandon Lee), who got killed on Halloween night while his girlfriend got raped and killed also. One year later, Halloween night, he comes back and takes revenge into his own hands.

This is about as much as I knew about this movie going in. And the weird facepaint that inspired WCWs "Sting".

The opening to this movie looked great, but to be honest, the whole movie did. It kind of reminded me of the style of Sin City, especially the shots of the city/the world around this movie. It's hard to describe, everything looked fake, but in a good, comicy way.

At some times I really liked the editing with some great transitions between scenes, other times it felt like there was something wrong with the version I was watching.

I loved the characters, especially the character of Eric Draven aka the Crow, who, after his starting scene which was very sad and dramatic, became one of my favorite characters ever. He made fun of the gangsters before killing them and he did it so well. The acting by Brandon Lee was great, too. I've never seen any of his movies (he only starred in 10, this being of course his last one), so I didn't know what to expect from him. But I genuinly liked him and while the acting felt a bit over the top, it fitted the character very well.

All other characters were good, too, I liked the cop and even though I first thought the little girl is gonna be annoying (mostly because I expected her to be a main part of the movie), she was good too. I usually hate when kids in movies talk and behave like normal grown ups, which she did, but it was only a little annoying at the beginning.
The bad guys were fun, everyone had his own personality, but to me, no one really stood out (except maybe for the "main villain", but that's to be expected of a main villain).
Also, on a side note, I love to see Tony Todd in any movie, so I at least have to mention him here. Done!

This movie is violent by the way, but not too violent. We have some bloody scenes and good special effects.
Also, this movie is really fun to watch, it's really an enjoyable time and I can only recommend it to everyone. Rating it 4 out of 5 stars.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Cheap Thrills, 2013 - ★★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Wow what a movie.

The last movie featuring Pat Healy and Sara Paxton I saw was the Innkeepers.
The last movie with David Koechner I saw was Anchorman 2.

I didn't expect this movie to be this way. AT ALL.

It's about Craig (Pat Healy), a family man who has big financial problems. When he is let go from his cheap shop he goes to a bar to avoid going home. He meets Vince (Ethan Embry), a friend from school he hasn't seen in 5 years, and soon after they meet Colin (David Koechner) and Violet (Sara Paxton), who have ... like all the money. And they love to bet on money. Soon, Craig and Vince get thrilled by the thought of getting money for doing simple things. But those things get out of hand.

First off, even though IMDb sais it's a comedy, it is not. At the end there is nothing to laugh at any more.
It starts off slow, just like it would probably happen in real life, they get lured in by really simple stuff like letting a girl slap you for 50 bucks or hitting a security guy for 500. But once they reach the home of Colin and Violets home, things get out of hand.

This movie is really brutal and made me feel sick more and more every minute. But the first half of this movie was pretty slow and almost started to get boring but just when I started checking my phone it took a turn and had me hooked again.

The acting is great, first I thought Sara Paxtons acting was really weird but I realised it wasn't the acting but the character and it worked. All other characters were awesome and Pat Healy, who isn't that big of a star did a great job.

What made me watch this in the beginning though is the low runtime, it is not even 90 minutes long. So I thought, hey looks like a quick fun movie, because I didn't have that much time. It was short, but not fun, but in a good way.

About the genres, I didn't check letterboxt for them and am to lazy to do it now but IMDb sais it's comedy, drama, crime. I would say it is Psycho-Horror, Thriller and maybe spliced with some comedy.

I really liked this movie a lot, it was a new idea I hadn't seen before, well acted and well thought out. I give it 4 out of 5 stars and a like and recommendation.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

The Ledge, 2011 - ★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Sunday August 16, 2015.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Death Run, 1987 - ½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Well at least the mutants looked kinda cool... the rest was pretty shitty.

Stitches, 2012 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

So being a clown is less a job and more a cult?

Some time ago, the not so funny clown Stitches (Ross Noble) had a job on a kids birthday. The kids don't like him and, accidentally, kill him.
Six years later, Birthday kid Tom (Tommy Knight) celebrates his first Birthday since that incident. And Stitches comes back from the dead.

After only 10 minutes I already noted that it's a really good mix between scary, gory and funny. And that mix stayed/got even better untill the end.

The characters are all pretty good, of course a little stereotypical, but put well, it wasn't annoying. I actually started liking and caring about some of the characters, which doesn't happen that often these days.
Also, the acting is great, especially for a low budget movie.
The best character is Stitches though, who is also perfectly acted by Ross Noble.

After the Birthday Party scene at the beginning the movie feels a bit like a teenage school comedy with bullies and all that, but even those bullies are pretty good.

I like that they chose to only slowly reveal the undead clown, we always see more and more of him before we get a full body and face shot.

I loved the editing, one sex scene is beautifully interspliced with a killing scene in another room and there are some other pretty cool edited scenes.

The best part of this movie are the kills though. They are creative and interesting kills, but most of all funny as hell. I actually laughed out loud multiple times, not only because of the kills but also because of the commentary uttered by Sitches. Delivering these lines with such a straight face, I dare to say he is better than Freddy Krüger when it comes to line delivery.
Also it's an almost perfect use of practical effects mixed with some CGI. Of course it's a low budget movie from Ireland, so especially the CGI parts still look a little fake, but the practical stuff is awesome.

I really enjoyed this movie a lot and if it wasn't for the bad cgi in a few scenes it would have gotten 5 stars. So glad I caught this. By the way, just as in Puppetmaster I didn't know the featured Ross Noble, and also not Tommy Knight, so it shows it's really low budget.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Puppet Master, 1989 - ★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

This movie was banned in Germany for 25 years, now it's unbanned so I watched it.

Probably a great double bill with Toy Story.

This movie is about a hotel filled with killer puppets. Okay, there is a bigger story around it about this group of people who all have special psychic abilities who get invited to a funeral in said hotel, the funeral of one of their psychic friends who killed himself. But most important are the puppets.

To be honest I expected this to be really bad. But it was better than I expected.
First off, you know a movie is low budget if you don't even know the "special cast members". I have no idea who William Hickey is... okay I just checked and he was the evil scientist in a Nightmare before Christmas. But yeah.

The music is good, I enjoyed it, especially one dream sequence that we get 3 times. That sequence felt like a David Lynch scene, not just from the look but also from the sound mixing and the music.

I enjoyed the scenes out of the puppets perspecitve, looked interesting and we got many shots, but not too many, it didn't feel overdone.

What stole the show where the puppets though. We have 5 different main puppets. They were all stop motion animated but it was well done. My favorite puppet is Pinhead, who has normal arms and hands, but a very small head. Also he has some of the best stunts. But all the puppets looked great and were well animated.

Also, even though most of the movie isn't that gory, in the end scene we have a great amount of gore that is well done.

Oh and the actor of the dead guy, who is in some dream sequences and ... well, lying around dead, looks so scary, I don't know what it is about him but I had a creepy feeling.

Of course it's still a cheap movie with mediocre acting and a weird script, but it's enjoyable, especially for horror fans.

I rate this movie 3 out of 5 stars and a like.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

In a World..., 2013

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

Watched on Wednesday August 5, 2015.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Unfriended, 2015 - ★★★

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

This movie is crazy to me. I saw a trailer and was super hyped. Then the hype got less cause I realised I shouldn't expect too much. So my expectations went down to where I almost didn't go.

Now, it wasn't as good as I hoped but also not as bad as I expected. It was just pretty mediocre.

One year after Laura Barns kills herself, some friends are skyping together as Lauras old Skype account logs into the conversation. And then one after the other dies.

First the good things. The whole movie is set on one computer, the Max of the main girl. We see it like if she was filming her desktop the whole time. The idea in a whole was pretty good, everything plays out on the Mac, she goes to different websites like facebook, youtube and even some weird forums that everyone finds but no one seems to use. And it's set up well, she has a real userface, with bookmarks that a young girl her age would probably have.

Also the moral of the story is a good one: Mobbing, especially Cybermobbing in this day and age, sucks. You should not do it. Not at all.

Lastly, some of the ideas of the "ghost" are pretty good, like the drinking game they are playing or the printing scene.

But now there is a big but.

After a while it got pretty boring. There were many parts that went on too long. Also the girls chatting was pretty annoying.
And I don't even want to start with all the faults. I use skype, I use facebook, I don't use iMessenger but I don't think it deletes the last few messages. There are so many little faults that bug me as a person who uses that stuff more than they probably should. But I really got annoyed.
There aren't many jump scares (luckily) but some of them were really annoying where I just wanted to get angry at the director.

Also, they decided to change what could have been a great moral ending into a cheap jump scare which probably annoyed me the most.

I rate this movie with 3 out of 5 stars, it's an interesting concept but could have gone better. Another entry into the skype horror films that was, in my opinion, done better is one of the segments in V/H/S, if you liked Unfriended, you should watch it.