Quick Review - My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Quick Review - My Bloody Valentine (2009)

Rating: Meh

Themes/Genres:    Horror/Slasher, Revenge Kills

Main Characters:   Tom Hanniger, Sarah Palmer, Axel Palmer

Director/Writer/Publisher: Patrick Lussier, Todd Farmer/Zane Smith, Lionsgate

Summary:

Ten years after a horrifying event with a vengeful miner, Tom Hanniger returns home to sell his family’s mine and finally be done with the town.  Unfortunately for him, the events from ten years ago are starting back up again and he’s wrapped right up in the middle of it.  With a town angry at him for his decision to sell, a sheriff jealous of his previous fling with his now wife, and a pickaxe murderer on the loose, Monday’s a long ways away.

Review:

Honestly?  This movie’s just kind of dumb.  It’s not the dumbest, by far, there are some bad movies out there, but this one isn’t particularly great, either.  It raises a ton of questions without ever really answering any of them and the Valentine theme has so little to do with anything it just confuses you instead of adds to it.  I mean, sure, it all falls on Valentine’s Day, but that’s so irrelevant to what happens that the only way it’d make sense is if you looked up the original movie, a Canadian film from 1981 about a killer based on a folklore surrounding the holiday.  But then the bad-reboot roots start showing.

Gore-fest... really, how else do you start a horror movie?

But really, an accidental cave-in on Valentine’s Day?  That’s how you pick your theme?  The date is so utterly pointless it feels shoe-horned in for the sake of the title.  I have a world of problems with the title and theme, but I’ll just leave it at that.

I mean... really.

Right from the get-go you’ve got the obvious self-indulgent excessive blood and gore, which, frankly, I can’t fault that too much.  I’m a horror movie fan, blood and gore is part of why I’m here, but it is a little excessive in this movie.  On top of that, you’ve got a potential setup for a mysterious killer that just falls flat on its face when it’s revealed who it is within the first three minutes.

Then throughout the movie you have the annoyingly obvious 3D parts, a huge mistake for movies around the big 3D-boom.  The moments are so blatantly thrown in for the sake of the effect that it honestly ruins the movie if you watch it in anything but, which, let’s be real, is how most people probably saw it.  It looks cool in the theater with the big screen and the fancy glasses and the surround sound, but the second you pick that up on DVD and watch it at home all those “super terrifying” 3D moments just look ridiculous.  Luckily, it’s died down a lot since 2009 but let this movie and its silly “BY THE WAY, I WAS MADE FOR 3D” moments be a constant reminder of how NOT to do 3D movies.  Ever.  Unless you want it to be silly and immersion-ruining.

This is where you realize... you're watching a 3D movie... even when you're not

Finally, you get some sort of twist-ending half pay-off at the end that… I’ll be real, is one of my favorite twist endings for horror movies.  But it doesn’t feel worth it at all in this movie.  It’s a good twist, there’s actually semi-decent buildup around it, making you fully expect it to be the other guy… but because of the bullshit you have to slog through to get to it, it just doesn’t have the effect it probably should have.  It didn’t feel worth it.  It’s a good twist… in a sub-par movie.

It’s not a movie that makes me vehemently angry with how bad it is, as most do since I have no mercy for ‘so bad, it’s good’ movies, but it got a bit irritating at times.  It never even bothered explaining why any of it happened in the first place.  Why did the original killer start killing in the first place?  Why was he so hell-bent on coming back and continuing?  Who knows!  It’s never explained!  That’s probably what bothers me the most.  There’s so little that’s actually explained that needs to be that I’m just left confused and irritated.

Overall, not a great movie.  The obvious 3D moments are dumb, the questions pile up with no answer, and the twist doesn’t feel earned.  It could certainly have been worse, but it also could have been better.

The real reason to watch this movie, though: Jensen Ackles

Top 5 Zombie List

Top 5 Zombie-Related Media

Overview

July 16th marked a dark day for horror fans and especially those with a love of the zombies.  George A. Romero, the Godfather of the Dead, and the origin of the modern zombie and reason for them being the phenomena they are, died at the age of 77.  Romero set the gory stage for the zombie apocalypse and changed the game for independent films everywhere, horror wouldn't be what it is without Romero and the loss of his brilliant mind is a heavy one, indeed.  Therefore, in place of this month's usual review, I've decided to a do a list of my Top 5 Favorite Zombie-related media.  From movies, to games, to anime, zombies can be found in all forms so let's take a look at my personal favorites from each genre:

Keeping in mind, these are only things I've personally watched/played/read at this current time.  There's still a lot out there that I haven't gotten to so this list will probably change over time.

List (ordered by genre)

1. Live Action Movie: Land of the Dead
• Fourth in Romero's series of six 'Living Dead' movies, Land of the Dead focuses on the creation and holding of a class system in the middle of the apocalypse.  While the zombies around them adapt and learn, the living and breathing are thrown back into an archaic system of "protect the monarchy, let the peasants die", creating animosity and growing rebellions from the general populace.  But it all soon comes crashing down when the undead break into the sanctuary, leaving all in their path equally devoured in the brutal, bloody ways only Romero can achieve.

Big Daddy and Gang emerging from the river to fuck your day up

1. Animated Movie: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island
• Despite the shit they're pumping out nowadays, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island was one of the best direct-to-video movies to grace the series, it was also the first.  Reunited after a year-long hiatus, The Mystery Gang meet up on a remote island said to be haunted by that of pirate named Morgan Moonscar.  However, as they work to uncover the mystery, they find that, for the first time ever, they're faced with real monsters (zombies!) and an unexpected villain.  With as silly and campy as Scooby-Doo has always been, Zombie Island was a nice change of pace that still kept the characters recognizably themselves, despite how different the situation was.

The Late 90's: When Scooby-Doo gave you nightmares

1. Anime: School-Live!
• [Spoiler] - If you haven't watched this yet, just watch it.  If you have... you know why this is here.

...

1. Manga: I Am A Hero
• Hideo Suzuki is a middle-aged mangaka struggling to balance his return to the manga limelight with a new series, a relationship, and his mental delusions when an outbreak spreads across the country.  Suddenly, everything he was struggling to deal with becomes irrelevant as his new need to survive takes over, making him more of a hero of his own story than he ever thought he could actually be.  It's a uniquely wild ride of a manga that only gets better (read: more insane) the further in you get.

Total Dweeb Turns Hero in Not-So-Local Manga

1. Video Game: CarnEvil
• A late 90's rail-shooter arcade game, CarnEvil takes already terrifying carnival clowns and makes them a million times more horrifying by zombifying them.  The only thing more terrifying than the game, itself, is the Game Over screen after your face gets bitten off by whatever horrifying creature you failed to kill in time.  Because who doesn't love a long-fanged, bodiless jester laughing at your failure, right?  This game scared the shit out of me for the short period of time it was at my local Bowling Alley and it'll always hold a special place in my zombie-loving heart.

Because 'Fuck You', that's Why

Final Note: Seeing as this is replacing the review I was planning to do this month, I'd like to give a brief addition for the content I originally planned: Ghost Stories.  Some of you may be familiar with it, but most who are will only know it for its English Dub (i.e. the Canon Abridged Series), but I intended to review the original Japanese subbed version for an explanation as to why the English Dub is so notorious.  However... after watching it, I only have this to say:

             

The Gallows Review

The Gallows

Rating: Forgettable

Themes/Genres:    Thriller/Horror; Supernatural, Vengeful Spirit/Theater Ghost

Main Characters:   Ryan, Pfeifer, Reese, Cassidy, Charlie

Publisher/Director: Blumhouse; Chris Loffing/Travis Cluff

Overview:

Hype can be a dangerous thing sometimes.  More often than not, in fact, too much hype kills entertainment rather than helps it.  Sure, it gets that initial burst of sales, but as soon as people experience it, with a bar set way too high by imaginations and expectations running wild, it ends up falling flat.  There’s a rare occasion of it being exactly what people had hoped, and there’s even one or two cases of it turning out even better… but ‘The Gallows’ is not one of those cases.

Before its release, ‘The Gallows’ caught attention with trailers that showed very little and a marketing campaign that ended up going viral.  It had a ‘Cloverfield’ effect where, there was so little shown and so much was left to the imagination, that audiences were left wondering and trying to dig into it as much as possible, creating mystery-hype.  Leading up to the release, it was a huge deal…. But then it came out… and immediately dropped off the map.  It was never mentioned again and, I admit, I completely forgot it even existed until it popped up in the ‘cheap movies’ section at Walmart.

Part of the marketing was to draw back to popular 80's horrors, insinuating it would be another major horror star

So let’s find out how, even with viral trailers that were grabbing the internet by the balls, ‘The Gallows’ fell so hard off the map and out of everyone’s memories so quickly after release.

Summary:

The movie begins with high school stage play in 1993, which ends up going horribly wrong when the lead actor dies in a prop-gallow-related accident.  Years later, in 2013, the high school decides to try and resurrect the play, headed by actress Pfeifer.  However, when the easily-swayed and unsure male lead gets talked into breaking into the school at night with his two friends to sabotage the play, hoping to keep the play from happening at all, and running into their leading actress in the process, they soon find themselves trapped in the school and at the mercy of the ghost of the theater.

Plot:

• Coincidence-ridden, most of which lessen the effect of the story rather than help and are ultimately unnecessary
• Predictable, very basic 'vengeful ghost' story
• Dicks around too much in the beginning
• Doesn't explore backstory that it should have, could have benefited from more moments involving Reese's father
• The only good twist, in a story ridden with cliche 'what a twist!' moments, was the revelation about Pfeifer's involvement
• The final scene involving the police raid of the house was just drastically unnecessary

Once the story actually gets started, it stays relatively on-track with the basic story, but the beginning could honestly be cut out entirely and probably make for a better experience.  However, the story, itself, is just a bit too basic and way too predictable to make any sort of impact whatsoever.  Person dies in an accident, ghost is out for revenge, douchebag characters die, one girl lives.  The concept of a theater ghost, especially, is nothing new and the movie, itself, explores no new concepts or ideas, whatsoever.  The plot is full of horror movie tropes, the jump-scares are extremely predictable, the similarities between the past and present play are groan-worthy, and it all adds up to a really boring experience. 

The ending scene... that you could see coming from a mile away.  Obvious setup was obvious

Characters:

• They're all douchebags
• Almost every single character is an unrealistic stereotype of some kind
• Reese is the only even remotely likable character by even he's way too easily swayed to do stupid shit by shitty friends (the true horror of this movie: peer pressure)
• There was a whole lot of "I'm acting!" (i.e. really bad acting)
• Dialogue is clunky and extremely unnatural most of the time, Ryan and Cassidy are amazingly stupid, even for teenagers

Here we see King Douchebag, douching it up and just asking to get killed by Theater Ghost

Seriously, the characters are so unbelievably stupid or such unrealistic jackasses throughout the movie you’re just waiting for them to get killed off already.  Instead of feeling horror, like you’re supposed to in a horror movie, you just feel relief when they die.  The entire first section of the movie, instead of building up the backstory and subtly hinting at what’s to come, just spends way too long showing you how much of a dick Ryan is and wishing Reese would just get better friends.  You feel no connection to the characters whatsoever and thus, their struggle, panic, and anxieties get no emotional response from the viewer because you honestly just don’t care what happens to them.

Visuals/Cinematography:

• 'Found-footage' style really worked against it rather than for it
• Certain moments of non-chronological order editing just comes out weird
• Does at least show most of the action when it finally happens, instead of leaving you staring at a black screen or everything happening off-screen

An attention-drawing scene for a trailer... but was way too 'Blair Witch Project' in the movie, including annoying up-the-nose camera angles and one of the most 'I'm acting!' moments in the entire movie

There isn’t a whole lot you can say about found-footage movies when it comes to visuals.  Normally I love them and I feel like they’re just a fun way to shoot horror movies, but this is one of those cases where even I have to say, it would have been better as a normal movie rather than found footage.  On the one hand, it doesn’t leave you with several minutes of pure black screen like the original ‘Blair Witch Project’ and it doesn’t leave the best action entirely and unnecessarily off-screen like the ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies love doing, you get all the action, even if the editing comes off a bit weird.  But on the other hand, there was so much there that just wouldn’t have been filmed, even by an incredibly stupid teen, that it just feels unnatural to be in the found footage style.  A normal cinematic-style filming would have been much better in this case.

Final Thoughts:

While this movie was, overall, incredibly boring and I can see now why it was so quickly forgotten upon release, there is one thing that I would like to mention: the actual tactics behind filming the movie.  For those that simply saw it in theaters or bought the DVD and never really explored the Special Features section, there’s a commentary about the filming of the movie from the Directors, as there always is, but this particular one held a unique bit of information that, despite the movie, on its own, not panning out to much, there was an impressive amount of effort put in behind the scenes.

The directors went to great lengths to get as authentic a reaction as possible out of both their audiences and their actors, even going so far as to film on an actually haunted location and plan out certain scenes in a way that would get real scares from everyone on set.  Some of the best acting in the movie wasn’t acting at all, they legitimately scared the crap out of their actors, and they went to a lot of trouble to do it.   It’s effort that I have to commend, even if the movie can’t stand on its own, knowing what they went through to film it gives it its own credibility.

Ultimately, it’s not a terrible movie, but watching it, on its own, without knowing anything about the filming, it’s boring, it’s clichéd, and it’s forgettable.  But I’ve certainly seen worse.  Is it worth picking up?  Maybe for a couple bucks, just to watch the Special Features, but nothing I’d plan for an actual spooky-filled evening.  It’s not going on anyone’s Halloween Night movie list, that’s for sure.

Alice: Madness Returns Review

Alice: Madness Returns

Initial Rating: Instant Fav

Themes/Genres:    Action-Adventure Platformer, Psychological

Main Characters:   Alice Liddell

Developer/Publisher: American McGee/Spicy Horse; EA

Overview:

Everyone remembers the Disney movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and it’s cute, bright colors and carefree tones.  Based a novel by Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, it follows a young girl named Alice through her dreams in a world called Wonderland, where she meets a whole cast of colorful characters and has to deal with the world of riddles and rhymes that have no real answers.  Alice is a uniquely creative young girl with an imagination that just doesn’t stop… but what happens when an overactive imagination meets a horrifying incident and a world so grey and bleak even the most dull and mundane of businessmen would be diving through the nearest rabbit hole?  That’s exactly what we’re facing down with American McGee’s beautifully morbid creation – ‘Alice: Madness Returns.’

(Alice's first weapon, the Vorpal Blade, pre-bloodied, of course)

Summary:

The sequel to the 2000 game ‘American McGee’s Alice’, Madness Returns does just what the name suggests.  Even after defeating the Queen of Hearts and supposedly saving Wonderland, and herself, from the suffering and decay caused by her family’s death in the first game, Alice faces no easier a time upon her release from Rutledge Asylum.  Over time Wonderland becomes corrupted again and Alice must once more traverse the terrifying landscapes of her mind to discover the truth about the fire and face her guilt about surviving.

(I do love the Hatter's Domain)

Along the way she meets many familiar, though warped, faces, discovering lost memories and battling the twisted creations of her own damaged mind.  Just like the first game, the Cheshire Cat is back as the witty, grinning clue-giver that more or less accompanies Alice amongst her journey, though only appears when he deems it necessary.

Gameplay:

• Gameplay is both lightweight but still fun and involved
• Movement is smooth and efficient, switching between weapons is fast, which is essential for some enemies and bosses
• Dodging is equally smooth, though it can sometimes make you take off in the wrong direction
• Platforming is efficient and rarely gets difficult, it does, however, get creative
• Overall gameplay gives a challenge without getting too difficult, keeping the momentum going and the focus on the storytelling
• Relatively straight-forward pathways, with frequent opportunities to explore and find secrets in hidden areas

(The world is there, but it also keeps it obvious where you actually need to go)

While sometimes I prefer a more open-world style game where I can explore and dawdle around, with such a plot-heavy game like this one I much more appreciate the simpler gameplay.  The world past the invisible walls are just as detailed as the path your walking in so it still feels like the world is there, but you can keep the story going without getting lost or getting stuck in an area for too long.  There are still plenty of challenging moments and bosses, but nothing that’s going to make you rage quit and wait three months to finally finish the game, completely forgetting whatever parts of the story you had gotten through before.  It stays focused on the story, letting you therapeutically hack and slash your way through all manner of terrifying yet intriguing enemies, ease your way through disappearing platforms, all while uncovering the secrets and details of Alice’s life given to you by the world around you.

(Whether it's a bridge, a platform, or a pathway, you're not likely to get lost, but there's still plenty of scenery to look at)

Level Designs/Visuals:

• Unique, details levels
• Environment builds past reachable parts, keeping immersion relatively consistent despite invisible walls
• Areas are equally as disturbing as they are beautiful, even when subtly so
• Each level explores a new area of Wonderland while telling a different part of the story
• Different dresses for each new area, starting each of them in the basic dress so it's kept in the limelight (my personal favorite is the Siren dress)
• There's a stark contrast between the dreary real world and the vibrant (even when violently so) Wonderland, keeping the two worlds so very far apart, despite their inherent, sometimes ot-so-subtle connections

The level designs and overall visuals are easily one of my favorite parts about the American McGee Alice games and this one takes it so over-the-top that it’s hard not to adore, as a horror fan.  It’s disturbing, it’s brilliant, it does a wonderful job of ‘disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.’  The cinematography during important moments and the styles of the drawn cut scenes are amazing.  I can’t sing its praises enough on visuals.

(The Red Queen in one of the drawn cut-out style cutscenes, looking as batshit as always)

Music/Sound Effects:

• Music can get repetitive
• Does have some nice tracks, the opening theme is easily the strongest, anything with prominent violin is great
• Atmospheric music does fit each area
• Most satisfying sounds are probably the weapon noises, they're just nice
• Enemy noises are fittingly terrifying

(You can almost already hear the terrifying screech that comes from this thing)

While the music is easily the weakest point of this very strong game, it isn’t inherently bad.  Each area has fitting music and it does build the environment, a lot of tracks just get a bit repetitive.  Sound effects and background noises, however, are great.  It’s a soundtrack that mostly works in the game, but not one you’d go look up to listen to later, with the exception of maybe the theme.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Alice: Madness Returns is a great game.  It’s got a strong sense of pacing and story-telling, the gameplay is smooth and relatively simple, the enemies are brilliantly designed, the bosses are goddamn terrifying, and the environments are some of the most creatively horrifying I’ve seen in a game.  The overarching story is intriguing, the happenings in Wonderland just get curiouser and curiouser, and the minor plots within each level keep the player desperate to know more.  It’s hard to believe EA had anything to do with this game, despite publishing it.

I can’t recommend this game more, if you haven’t played it.  If you haven’t played the first, either… well, good luck.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Review

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni - Review

Higurashi (When They Cry)

Initial Rating: Instant Fav

 Themes/Genres:    Mystery, Horror, Psychological, Supernatural, Thriller

Main Characters:   Keiichi Maebara, Rena Ryuugu, Mion Sonozaki, Satoko Houjo, Rika Furude

Overview:

Good horror is always difficult to come by, moving into smaller subjects narrows those choices down even further.  Anime is no exception; for every series that thinks having some dead bodies means horror, you get the sparse legitimately compelling and brutal ones.  Higurashi is in the latter area.  Based on a series of video games and their multiple endings, Higurashi’s imagery horrifies after putting your guards down with adorableness and childish fun, while its story snags you and keeps you guessing.  It’s a series of differently focused mini-stories as each arc reveals more about the major storyline, though often brings up more questions than it answers.

In this review I’ll only be taking a look at the first anime season so storylines and plot relevance from the games and the later seasons will be left out.  So let’s take a closer look at the sections of the series that make it the confusing, brutal, bloodthirsty series it is.

Summary:

Keiichi Maebara moves to a new, tiny town called Hinamizawa and promptly finds himself wrapped up in the hectic friendship of a group of girls and their afterschool club.  It’s all fun and games, mostly at his newbie expense, until a horrifying truth about the town's past suddenly surfaces.  As he attempts to uncover more about this truth, he becomes paranoid and mistrusting of his close friends and the hectic, fun-fueled friendship turns into a gruesome nightmare for everyone.  But even once the group faces a horrifying death… time seems to reset and they start over, taking different paths and finding different difficulties each time.  As each reset passes, only one of the group, the shrine maiden with the connection to Oyashiro, seems to have an idea, or even remember, what might be happening.

Opening/Closing:

The opening theme of the series starts the series off strong with a beautiful yet dark song and animation.  The song, itself, is a low grumbling mixed with high vocals piece, accompanied by a series of short looks at each of the main characters.  Each view of the solo character, while short, hints and reveals pieces of their story without actually giving much away.  Unlike many other anime openings, it’s not using scenes from actual episodes, filling the opening title with spoilers.  The only thing the opening is promising is brutality and madness, a fitting explanation of the series.

The closing theme, on the other hand, is much softer and sadder and instead focuses on vague, yet fitting, imagery and scenery over the characters, themselves.  Some diluted blood here, a swinging knife there, a ‘dead’ cicada to end on.  More indirect glimpses of storytelling that still fit the anime well and both themes unique enough to be immediately recognizable as the series pieces they are, though the opening more so than the closing.  Though the ending theme is beautiful and just as important to the series, the opening is more immediately recognizable, in my opinion.

Plot:

Even though the audience is left guessing most of the time, as any good mystery does, the story unravels slowly and subtly throughout the arcs.  It's confusing and terrifying right up to the end of the first season, but in ways that keep you wanting to know more.  Considering the fact that the anime is based on a game and all of its multiple endings, it’s relatively well put-together.  It keeps you curious to the overall story, but the ending of each arc feels final enough that you know it was an ending.

There's even very little filler, if any, in this series as each arc is only 4-5 episodes long and they need to reveal just enough to give you pieces of the puzzle, but leave enough for the next arc to fill in more.  Since it only has 26 episodes to tell you as much as it can, the episodes only show you what you need to know to get a handle on the story.  There isn't too much or too little, as long as you take into account that there's a second season to finish explaining what the first didn’t finish.  Beyond that, there are hints and double meanings all over the anime that, while you probably won’t catch the first time through, a rewatch or two will reveal.

Animation:

While the animation may not always be the most proportionally correct, with itty bitty limbs and very large heads, the show has such a unique style to it that the odd proportions work in its favor.  Certain artistic choices, such as details in the eyes and face when 'Oyashiro' seems to be taking over, are especially noteworthy as they really give Hirgurashi its own feel, setting it easily apart from the many, many others.

If there’s one thing that’s vital to horror, is that it has to have its own unique style, especially so if it’s animated.  Outside of the actual scares, that’s what I love best about horror anime, it never looks like just another anime and therefore can’t feel like just your average, run-of-the-mill anime.  There are, of course, exceptions to that; there are series that doesn’t want you knowing just how fucked up it is until the brutal deaths start hitting you in the face, but Higurashi is not one of them.  Higurashi is a fucked up, bloody series that takes little time to get into the action so the art style works well with that.

Ending:

The series doesn't reach its final ending in the first season, having several games and arcs to work off of, so the ending of the season can easily feel unfinished before you watch the second arc.  It does, however, go through each of the stories for each of the main characters, exploring their different "bad endings" and managing to find a hopeful note to end on while also telling you there's still more to learn.  Many of the mysteries are still left to unravel, including why the world is repeating, in the first place, or even what, or who, Oyashiro even is.

It has a decent season finale, even though things still don’t feel completely wrapped up.  You feel hopeful for their future, seeing the possibilities that they can solve the mysteries around them, if not in the final life of the first season, then at least in their later reincarnations.  There are still burning questions that need answering, of course, but it’s to be expected when the first season and thus, the first set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Question’ arcs.  Luckily, the second season, and second set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Answers’ arcs, so the answers lie ahead.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, or When They Cry by its English name, is one of my absolute favorite anime.  It's brutal, it's bloody, it's relentless, and it's decently well-written.  It's a full-blown 'who done it' mystery but also a brilliant supernatural horror at the same time.  Even the harem-like undertone can be tolerated considering most of the punishment and ridiculous outfits, courtesy of the group’s after school club activities, end up on the main male character rather than the females.

The entire group loses at club games at times and faces equal levels of embarrassing punishment for it, so there isn't an over-bearing amount of unnecessary moe.  I couldn't recommend it enough… as long as you can tolerate brutal deaths and an anime that keeps you guessing.  Though I do warn, this anime is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.  Other than that, it’s one that I’ll happily watch several more times.