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Reviews
Night of Something Strange (2016)
Starting to think that the filmmakers encouraged friends to give this movie positive reviews.
Terrible, terrible. The filmmakers didn't take themselves very serious. Which was their greatest flaw. This is what happens when a film is devoid of anything serious; bad decisions are made. There is no sign of serious filmmaking. They weren't serious about casting. They weren't serious about story. They weren't serious about lighting/composition. How can intentional cheesy dialogue be effective when the actor is incapable of delivering the lines? And the cinematography was awful. With zero motivated lighting except to be able to see what is in frame. No redeeming qualities. I am shocked to read any positive reviews for this film. I'm starting to think that the positive reviews were written by friends/family of the filmmakers.
V/H/S (2012)
Will Become a Horror-Classic
Yes! Finally a refreshing take on the exhausted "found-footage" genre. V/H/S was a LOT of fun to watch. Brutal, suspenseful, clever, and most important of all, it felt completely real. I'm going to review each separate story that make up the anthology, rather than reviewing it as a whole movie. It just didn't feel like a ONE whole movie.
Amateur Night: The filmmakers made a good decision of starting it off with Amateur Night. The most original of them all, in my opinion. It was absolutely creepy and eerie. The only bad part was that most of the footage showed way too much of the characters freaking out, and not enough of them actually trying to get the hell away from homegirl trying to eat them. 7/10
Second Honeymoon: The most boring of the bunch. Had a pretty heart- breaking twist. Much of the suspense only took place when the couple were sleeping. The rest of the footage consisted of redundant dialog. Kinda like: "there's a girl walking around out there" .. "what? there's a girl walking around out there? what's she doing?" .. "yeah, that girl walking around out there...looks like she is waiting for a ride." 3/10
Tuesday the 17th: This one took the slasher-teenagers-in-the-woods approach. Fun and violent. But besides the awesome twist, the entire story was forgettable. And the blurriness of the killer was kind of cheesy. 5/10
The Strange Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Young: My second favorite. This one was actually scary to watch, frightening almost. Joe Swanberg out-did himself. It had the most clear and natural dialog. Creepy and shocking. The ending had me maniacally laughing to myself. I really couldn't see any faults or things I hated about it. 10/10
10/31/98: The best out of all of the others by a LONG shot. My toes were clenched the entire time. Puts all of the Paranomal Activity movies to shame. Obviously, they put the best for last. Nothing more needs to be said. 10/10
I couldn't rate Tape 56 because it was the arc of the story. So it really didn't have a "middle" part. It consisted of a beginning and an end, which I do not consider an actual story.
Overall score: 7/10
The Tall Man (2012)
Not that good, not that bad
Just finished watching The Tall Man, and I'm sad to admit that it is a pretty weak film. It starts off with some misleading exposition that is meant to confuse you. The twisty story-line keeps you intrigued but the ending never pays off. Many scenes were painfully dragged on. There was a lot of time spent on Jessica Biel just aimlessly wandering around with no dialog. This was probably done to prolong the movie, which felt even shorter than its actual running time of roughly 1hr40mins. Also, I thought that the narration (done by Jodelle Ferland) was a bit cheesy.
However, the film offered some beautiful cinematography, great editing, a strong performance by Jessica Biel, and of course, Pascal's visceral writing. The conclusion was predictable but some will still find it heart-breaking. I like to believe that the ending was an homage to the haunting last scene in Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder.
Whether you're anticipating another brutal horror film or not, The Tall Man never convinces you that this film should have been made. Worth a watch just to see how Laugier follows up the ever-so-awesome Martyrs. But, you will be disappointed. Not because it's not horror and doesn't convey much violence. But simply because it's not that great of a film.
5/10
*May contain spoilers
Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009)
A Stupid Debut
DHIAT's so-called "originality" did not distract me from its oddly paced, and often disengaging, story-telling. It seemed as if the Soska Sisters abandoned all, if any, logic in their script to boost its own bizarreness and eccentricity. Movies don't exactly demand realism (nor do I), but in this case it resulted in a laughable story that just felt too unbalanced to offer room for its humor to surface. In other words, they tried too hard. Whether they tried too hard to be witty or weird, humorous or homage-y, the Soska Sisters didn't know which direction to take their debut so they ended up taking all of them. Their decision made DHIAT a tangled and stupid effort. The dialogue was so stereotypically and poorly written, it literally had me finishing the sentences the actors were saying. (Ever heard that about a Tarantino flick?? Yeah, so don't go comparing them with QT) The acting, at times, was convincing
But how hard is it to act like a whore, a nerd or a religious douche? I guess I understand why people really like it though; it's a (moderately) violent homage to Grindhouse films, that actually has a pretty fun sub-plot about a masked serial killer that's worth mentioning. The Soska Sisters did their best considering their budget and will be welcomed with open arms in the horror community. Personally, I think they will be receiving a bit more than they deserve.