Friday, October 27, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Shaun of the Dead, 2004 - ★★★★★
I watched this with the official option to play "Fun Facts" during the movie. It listed music cues, inspirations, foreshadowing and much more.
The final fact of the movie, coming in the credits, reads
"Fact: Shaun of the Dead is based on a true story"
I don't know what to believe anymore...
Monday, October 16, 2017
Frontier(s), 2007 - ★★½
I went into this with pretty high expectations since I loved Martyrs and High Tension, movies from France around the same time.
Similar to both those movies, the gore is great. The special effects are really well done. There were many shocking scenes that I have no idea how they did them.
Sadly, the story didn't really manage to grab me. Martyrs had good characters and a great concept. High Tension had great characters and a perfect ambience.
Frontiers ... did not. I never really cared for any of the characters. On the other hand, the bad guys were kind of generic evil Nazis. So even though the blood and gore affected me, it was more of a disgust than feeling sad or fearing for the characters lives.
One little Nitpick from the perspective of a German: They cast a French guy as the old, main guy. I'm not sure if that was the plan, that even the Nazi leader wasn't an actual Nazi but more or less loving the people. But if he was supposed to be German while he tried pretty hard, his German still sounded kind of weird.
All in all, I didn't hate the movie, but I didn't really care for it either. A few times I actually thought about turning it off and just watching something else.
So if you want to get into French horror from the early 2000s, maybe try some of the others and skip this one. I'm rating it 2.5 out of 5 stars because of the great gore and it was pretty well shot.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Alps, 2011 - ★★★½
It's clearly a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, you can see it in every scene, hear it in every line uttered. I love that.
I'm not going to talk about the plot because I think, just like every other Lanthimos movie, it's best experienced blind. It was made between The Lobster and Dogtooth, wrapped in two awesomely weird movies.
Sadly that's kinda how it felt. It felt like a transitional movie. It was interesting and weird, but something was missing. Something that made the other two movies even weirder but also more enjoyable to me.
Maybe I just expected too much...
That all being said, this was a fun movie, beautifully shot, with an idea very far out there. And I liked it. I just didn't love it like the other ones.
I'm not sure if I can say anything about the acting, because everyone acts and behaves very stoic. But then again, that is all wanted. That's how every character acts in his movies. Maybe that's just how greek people are.
All in all, Alps is a fun movie, but don't expect to much, it makes sense that this is not as talked about. I'm rating Alps 3.5 out of 5 stars and a like.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Monday, October 2, 2017
Rings, 2017 - ★★½
I didn't wanna go to the cinema to watch this but now it was free on Amazon Prime Instant so hey, let's see.
And I'm probably not saying anything new here. I liked the premise, the professor tricking the system by just having more and more people watch it. But as always, these smart systems beating ghost possessions are usually ruined by stupidity. Or bad scriptwriting, I don't care.
There was not enough Samara in this movie. At all. Was this even a Ring movie? They kinda started just searching for someone else and had basically nothing to do with Samara.
Also if you think about it, the ending is pretty stupid.
Yeah, I didn't expect much and that's what I got. It still looks pretty good, and I always like seeing Vincent D'Onofrio so I'll rate it 2.5 out of 5 stars.
It, 2017 - ★★★★★
This is actually the first movie in forever that I watched in a packed theatre. There were almost no free seats, that's just not happening anymore these days.
And I gotta say I loved this movie. I've read the book. I saw the TV-Miniseries at an inapproproate age and it is probably one of the reasons I am into horror right now. And not only was I not disappointed by this movie, I actually really really loved it.
The characters felt true to me. Richie, the group clown (pun intended) was one of my favourites with his jokes that just killed it, the whole cinema was laughing. Also they didn't feel like movie jokes, but they felt real. My favourite of the kids was Eddie though, he had the best lines, and his friendship with Richie was heartwarming and made me think of my childhood.
Bill Skarsgard actually managed to take Pennywise, a clown everyone knows and everyone is scared of, and put a new take on him. He isn't really like Tim Curry's version, but he also doesn't feel wrong. He fit this movie perfectly and I loved it.
While there were jump scares, they were perfectly utilized. It's not like most recent horror movies that jus try to ad one jumpscare to the next and make you annoyed by them. Instead it more tries to set a tone, make you scared anyway and then add jump scares when necessary or to really pay off.
I loved this movie. So much. I have to rate it 5 stars just because I can't stop thinking about it and I actually want to watch it again. I thought about just staying and watching the next screening right after the movie was over. Can't watit till this comes out on BluRay.
Zee-Oui, 2004 - ★★★
Another movie in my Horrible Collection list.
This was a random buy, the cover looked cool and it was not even 1 Euro, so I decided to buy it. I haven't seen many Thai horror movies, and I had never even heard of this one, but the title (Der Kannibale, German for The Cannibal) had me intrigued).
It's not what I expected. It's probably more a disturbing drama than it is a horror movie, but I'll totally count it as horror anyway. It's about Jee-Oui, who is mispelled Zee-Oui when he crosses borders from China to Thailand. Through mishaps and abuse through many people, he starts murdering children and eating some of their organs.
It's based on a true story which makes this all even more horrible. You really feel for the main character, wish you could help him in any way. But sadly you just sit there watching.
It's well acted, especially by the lead, you feel for him all throughout this movie.
It isn't as brutal or gory as you might expect, it's actually pretty tame in comparison.
Still, it's a well done movie about a sad and scary story.
I'm rating Zee-Oui 3 out of 5 stars and a like.
The Club, 1994 - ★½
Another early movie in My Horrible Collection 2: Shock Harder list. As I had to watch the DVD that is in my possession I have to ad that this was the German version, not that well dubbed.
At midnight, time freezes, or rather a group of kids seem to travel back in time, because suddenly it all turns medieval. And one of them is not who they think he is.
Yeah, I don't know. The movie didn't even get me hooked to begin with, so I found myself drifting to checking my phone or doing other things, having it on in the background.
The acting was no good and for the most part, so was the movie. One guy looked a bit like a young Conan O'Brien.
I have to say I liked the bad guy, who goes full on Robin Williams as the Genie in this by doing different characters, having his fun. Those scenes had me a little excited that maybe the movie would take a turn for the better. Sadly in the end it didn't pay off.
So yeah, not much else I can really say about this movie, it wasn't great really, but I've seen worse. I'm rating this movie 1.5 ouf of 5 stars.
Cry-Baby, 1990 - ★★★½
It was about time that I watch my first John Waters movie. So I finally did.
I still know very little about John Waters and his movies. I know he is crass and trying to shock. I know he had Divine eat shit on Pink Flamingos. And I knew he has a cameo in Lonely Islands "The Creep". But that's about it.
For some reason I had never heard of this movie up until it came out on Netflix. I guess when people talk about John Waters it's either Pink Flamingos or the Hairspray Remake. So I was surprised to see Johnny Depp in that kind of movie.
In this take on the Greaser-Musical genre, he plays Cry-Baby, the cool bad guy who is the lead in a band loved by all the cool kids. And there's this one girl, one of the good kids, who falls in love with him.
It's the basic plot we've seen a billion times of forbidden love and class differences. But this time it's played up to a level I could never imagine. It's all parody and most importantly, weirdness. There's no normal people in this.
The songs were actually pretty good, I couldn't sing any of them right now, but they were enjoyable enough to keep me hooked. Also it wasn't too many songs, just the right mix, if you ask me.
I enjoyed this movie even though it was crazy and weird, or maybe because it was. I rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars and a like. It's surely not for everyone, but it's a movie to check out for sure.