Movies, movies, watchin' more movies...
Happy Birthday to Me <------ Link to more detailed thoughts
A young woman returns back home and back to school, after recovering from a horrific accident that caused her serious brain damage. But once she's back in school, several of her friends start to disappear one by one. What's worse is that she keeps having dreams that she's the one killing them, but because no one can find them she starts to think she's going crazy...
I've put off watching this movie for years because I thought that shish-kabob boy on the poster looked kind of silly. But it turns out that this was actually a very solid little slasher. Although, maybe I shouldn't call it little, since it's over 2 hours long and trying desperately to be a giallo, just without all the pretty colors and snazzy furniture. The deaths are varied, but sometimes silly, and the film looks absolutely lovely. The downsides are that some of the characters, most of which are supposed to belong to the "really smart kids" crowd, are actually hella
dumb most of the time, and that the twist at the end (both of them!) is so silly that it'll make you want to roll your eyes. But I think this is still a good one, even with the oddities.
Virus
After they loose their cargo while traveling through a hurricane, a tugboat captain and his crew come across an abandoned Russian ship floating adrift in the eye of the storm. Thrilled to find something that could be salvaged and easily make up for their lost cargo, the captain fully intends to bring the ship in hoping for a rich reward. But the more they explore the ship the more the crew realizes that the Russians may have found something that they shouldn't have and that there was a very good reason for them to abandon that boat.
Goodness, what a great cast to use on such a mediocre movie. Don't get me wrong, I actually liked quite a bit of it, but mostly because of how cheesy large swaths of it were. The premise and effects though? Those were pretty great. See, the Russians accidentally picked up some form of alien AI, and after examining all the data about Earth the AI determined that humanity is a virus upon the planet (which....yeah) and that we're only good for spare parts. So it kills everyone it can and merges them with the machines, turning them into very creepy cyborgs. Neat. And they used mostly practical effects with minimal CGI, so it all looks pretty good. And of course the acting is well above grade, cause you've got Donald Sutherland and Jamie Lee Curtis heading up the ranks. Unfortunately though, the plot is pretty predictable. I don't know how to describe it, but the movie came out in 1999 and it 100%
feels like it. Does that make sense? I just feel like there's a certain vibe around films from that particular era that makes them so easy to figure out. Like you can see the plot points coming before they even set them up. Captain goes crazy,
another guy goes crazy, the one chick is the only sane one in the bunch, pointless self sacrifice, things go BOOM! Yeah, that kind of movie. Overall a fun little popcorn flick, but not much more than that.
Wer
While in France, a American defense attorney Kate Moore and her team are asked to defend a murder suspect, who is charged with with brutally killing a visiting tourist family. The attacks were so vicious that the victims were torn to shreds. Convinced that her client is being set up due to his haggard appearance and a growing conspiracy she's discovered that suggests the police and other officials are trying to take her client's land, More and her team set out to prove that the crime was the work of an animal and not a man. But when they take their client to a clinic to get him tested for porphyria, Moore discovers that both her and the police may have both been right in their assumptions about the crime.
I rather liked this one. They decided to forgo much of the whole "transformation" aspect of the werewolf, so instead of turning into an actual dog or some kind of two legged variant, our wolf friend just gets a lot hairier... and
mean. Which I actually think is pretty effective, because then instead of a wolf you're dealing with a very violent human, one that can't be reasoned with and is working on pure animal-like instinct. Except he still has the smarts of a human, and all the super strength and nigh-unkillability that you'd expect from a monster. It's actually very effective and very chilling. Especially when this dude does things like leaps from an 8 story building, lands on all fours, and then slowly stands up and glowers at you through that mass of scraggy hair.
The only small ding against it is that I think that the story could have used a little more polish, particularly when it came to the police. The movie was simply trying WAY too hard to convince us that all of the police looked at those wounds and were 100% convinced that a man did it, when even most laymen would have looked at them and thought an animal was to blame. Even after they shoot a fucking bear (a
BEAR!) that they were completely surprised to see and they admit shouldn't have been in the area, they're still pushing the human theory. I mean, WE know they're right, but that's not the point. I'm just saying they were being a little too obvious with their ulterior motives, is all. One should really be more subtle in their evil conspiracies, after all.
Revenge of the Pontianak
In 1960 Malaysia, Khalid and Siti are getting married in Khalid's small home town. Everyone is invited and seems to be having a good time. Except for one very specific person who Khalid and his friends thought was gone and out of their lives forever. But now that person is back and intent on getting the revenge they so justly feel they deserve. Leaving Khalid and his friends to finally face the consequences of sins they thought they'd long since buried and forgotten for 10 long years.
This one is a Singaporean-Malaysian revenge horror that has been sitting on my watch-list for quite a while now. And honestly, though I feel like it's pretty average, I still rather liked it. The pacing is pretty slow, most of the characters were kind of dull and I don't think there was really enough plot here to justify the 92 minute runtime. But I also thought the setting, imagery and camerawork were quite lovely, as was the coloring when the film thought to use it. Some descriptors call the Pontianak a 'vampire', and while that may be an accurate description of the monster in some Malaysia folklore, that's not really going on here. So you shouldn't expect to see this chick going around biting people and draining their blood. This is just a ghost who's supremely pissed off and out to get the people who hurt her and anyone else who gets in her way. But she's also not without mercy, so she doesn't kill the poor wedding singer who happened to witness the first death, even though she easily could have. So the movie's not that scary and not as dickish as it would have been with a Japanese ghost (I'll never let that go).
But it's got a good sense of style, and I did enjoy the bloody ending where she was just sucking people into the forest left and right because "fuck you idiots, get out of my way." Gal was on a mission and was not at all perturbed by your angry mob, Khalid. Ya gotta respect her for being so focused. But you also really needed a much better plan. Then again, that douchebag royally
sucked at planning to begin with, which is what got him into the whole mess in the first place. So at no point should you feel any sympathy for that idiot anyway. Seriously, that guy sucks. Best to just root for the "vampire" in this one.
Assuming my counting is right, my movie total for the month so far is now: 27
