Tag Archives: Horror

Cube (1997).

An initially gruesome watch in an almost delightful way but it ran out of steam.

A high-concept slice of manky that precursors the Saw franchise, it knows how to ramp up the claustrophobia, a motley company of strangers stuck in a booby-trapped cube of nasties.

Sadly, the characters end up biting the dust (either physically or as characters) just as they start to demand our interest/respect. They are second fiddle to the tension and contrivances that are unbearable at times and I’m guessing that was the point. 

It’s great for 45 mins. Sadly, it proceeds into the rubbish. Why are they in a cube? What was really happening? Why was I losing interest the longer this story went on? I wanted answers; I got none.

A cube does not warrant 90 mins. 

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Leprechaun (1993).

Warwick Davis and a pre-Friends (one would hope) Jennifer Aniston in a movie called Leprechaun which is incidentally about a leprechaun on a murderous rampage. I can’t believe at times that these flicks exist and haven’t been erased from history, but here we are. Today, in our distorted, feverish universe of … wokeness, you wouldn’t have a midget playing a leprechaun. There would be uproar, short and tall people picketing screenings because a midget is playing a midget with bad tendencies. But then you’d get the same if the leprechaun would be CGI. “Midgets deserve work.”

Anyway, it’s rubbish. It is, after all, about a leprechaun on the loose.

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The Exorcist (1973). Total garbage.

I desperately wished to like this because of William Friedkin and his mostly fabulous work but it wasn’t meant to be. I absolutely hated it.

It starts with this film-within-a-film narrative and the suggestion appears to be that making movies is a sin and invites possession. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

There were extended shots of leaves falling in this for no reason and it bothered me, like the leaves were attempted symbolism. Maybe it was an augury for bad things, like how the writing progressed. The most baffling aspect of this whole escapade was the fact you have a wee child on the verge of death in a cushty Georgetown house of a famous actress and not a single cop, nurse, social worker, doctor ventures into it aside from a chain-smoking Priest and his spiritual benefactor.

The horror? It’s not scary, just nasty. You’re merely viewing sadism, with very boring actors and a story so nonsensical there should be a Muppet waltzing in with a musical number. Lighting was terrible, framing something out of a TV show (a bad one), and the sound mixing was crushingly theatrical, but not backed up by anything visually memorable.

Horror is some poor bloke getting stabbed over an argument about football teams or having to work 37.5 hours a week in a supermarket, not this shite.

Pointless motion picture.

Anyone who thinks it is good needs their head examined.

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The Final Destination (2009).

The Final Destination (2009), and I don’t know what number this is in the series. I’ve lost track.

Despite being, well, shite, they are perverse and disturbing and addictive as you know something is going to happen to these highly annoying folk and they don’t. 

Ascribing all of the blood and guts to Death than merely to the accidents of the world gives the franchise a sadistic edge, especially considering how unsympathetic and irritating the ‘characters’ are.

Get the popcorn out. Forget the tissues. 

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If you designed the perfect blockbuster The Mummy (1999) would be it.

There’s a deep and thoughtful longing – which I very much approve of – at the moment for the return of Brendan Fraser, and it appears to have been massively aided by this GQ article, the piece a rarity of this sort in how well written and insightful it is. The lad is captivating, refreshingly honest, and an actor who was simply great in everything – believable, relatable, but with an edge. He always gave me the impression that he had been parachuted into the film and we were there to follow him on his journey. A stoic naïveté was strong with this one. Is that not what a reluctant hero is?

The Mummy (1999) is awesome, Fraser pulling off the Indiana Jones role with aplomb. It was awesome at the time but now it has been elevated. I’d sum the never-boring riot as good old-fashioned popcorn entertainment which uses CGI in a productive way, i.e., you can see the point of its use. It works and without it the movie wouldn’t succeed to the extent that it does. A fine juggling act is mastered between live action, the digital effects, pacing, and characterisation. It is a silly affair but a good silly.

Even John Hannah isn’t that annoying. And he annoys me in everything. Aside from this, where he is only slightly annoying. Special mention to Kevin J. O’Connor whose Beni Gabor steals the show, an apparent weasel of greed, self-interest, and opportunism, yet somehow in the most underwritten role he squeezes out the comedy and, dare I say it, the pathos. Almost everything he does, I’d do the same in his shoes.

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone.

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Prometheus (2012) revisited.

When this came out nine years ago I must confess I was blown away and wouldn’t accept any criticism of it. The arty-farty Ridley visuals and production design did it for me as well as the religious and philosophical themes at work. I figured it a sci-fi horror that actually asked probing questions, though offered no answers.

Another viewing and I think I was a bit (very) wrong about this movie. It still holds up remarkably well on a technical level and does indeed comprise a few of the mankiest scenes you can imagine, especially a rather gruesome moment featuring an incubator, Noomi Rapace, and a squid … thing (you know what I mean). But it’s just so utterly stupid. Not just the premise but the incomprehensible characters and the daft things they do. I’ve frequented many a supermarket so know there are legit dumbbells out there, but the folk in this are dumber than a box of rocks. Everything they do is nonsensical. And they’re meant to be scientists and geologists and engineers and pilots!

I was so frustrated with the mass idiocy on display that I put a dent in the laptop. I could go on for a million words but it’s all best summarised by this classic Honest Trailer:

That’s brutal. But correct.

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Doctor Sleep (2019) isn’t shite and I am almost shocked.

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I never found The Shining (1980) scary on any level. Instead, it remains after about 20 viewings an endless fascination. It’s the meticulousness of it, the banality, the … pointlessness of the whole affair. It isn’t about anything except pure aesthetics, a director exerting his OCD over every painterly composition. There isn’t even a single character in it and perhaps that’s the point.

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Doctor Sleep (2019) does things the right way: it barely has anything to do with Kubrick’s number yet makes subtle allusions to the picture, knowing the audience will understand the references. It also has three-dimensional characters, which I never expected to ever find associated with the Overlook Hotel. A decent movie with nothing specifically annoying going on is a rarity these days. Well done.

More shock: I did not know until this week that the Stanley Hotel in Colorado (location of the Overlook) is also the plush dwelling where the demented Harry and Lloyd stay in Dumb and Dumber (1994), blowing their noses with Mary Swanson’s cash.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/why-does-stephen-king-hate-the-shining-movie-stanley-kubrick-doctor-sleep-2574226

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-shining-1980

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The Wicker Man (1973) is still shocking.

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The most disturbing thing about this bonkers movie is that it’s all a setup, almost every scene a parade to the unsuspecting cop getting burned to ashes. It’s a harrowing last 20 minutes because on first viewing you gradually realise what’s going on yet our protagonist doesn’t. Edward Woodward, though – what an acting job this is. He is captivating. I give it 5/5, … and I hate everything.

One scene makes no sense: Britt Ekland dancing about in the nip (body double, I hear) to a tune I recall remixed by Sneaker Pimps for the underrated Hostel (2005), The Equalizer stood there like a wee bairn in his jammies when she’s banging the walls for a bit of carnal action. There is no reason for that scene to be there but it’s weirdly memorable.

I’m not dipping into the Nicolas Cage remake because the awfulness of the movie is beyond a keyboard description and the snippet of scenes here speak for it all:

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Halloween (1978) at 40.

 

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Halloween (1978) is always watched on Halloween in my Gorgie palace of peculiarities. It’s tradition, much like how Jingle All The Way (1996) – the best worst Christmas movie ever – is viewed on Christmas Day with a bottle of hard liquor artfully concocted in a budget supermarket car park. It’s 40 years now that John Carpenter’s revolutionary horror has been kicking about. It has unfortunately spawned an absolute smörgåsbord of pale imitators; almost every horror in a multiplex today uses Halloween (1978) as the template. This is, however, a common theme throughout genre cinema. Die Hard (1988), for example, takes the same role for action movies (Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard on a plane, etc).

The film has the creepiest atmosphere and is just masterfully shot; one gets the feeling that every single frame was storyboarded to perfection à la Hitchcock. There’s a complete lack of gore – it’s not needed, and that old cliche about imagination trumping the visceral is on full display here. And it’s that William Shatner Captain Kirk death mask. Who the hell came up with that? Michael Myers sans the mask just wouldn’t work. Mass entertainment auteur cinema, and the original ‘slasher’ if we place Psycho (1960) in the high-art basket, Halloween (1978) makes Halloween more Halloween.

 

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