DREDD 3D

To be completely forthcoming, I really liked the Stallone Judge Dredd. I did. I'll admit it. I didn't mind the "I am the law"s or Rob Schneider, even as annoying as he was. Because I like comic book movies, even if they are horrible. What can I say?

DREDD on the other hand, was not a horrible comic book movie. DREDD was a Karl Urban kick your face off and you say thank you sort of movie. I loved it, even in 3D, which i normally attempt to avoid at all costs.  

DREDD sticks to the story you know . It's the future and society is run by all sorts of bad folks. The good people hide and struggle while the gangs and criminals run the streets. Enter the Judges - the new police force who are enforcer, judge, jury, and executioner all in one. They have the ability to enforce the law and pass down a sentence in the streets, removing the need for a lengthy trial and jury process. (Gotta love cost saving measures that take away civil liberties, yo.) Karl Urban is Judge Dredd, who is sent out for the day with a rookie Judge, Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirby). It's her field test, and one mistake can cost her her badge and her future as a judge. As these things go, the two Judges are called to Peachtree tower to investigate a murder, only to stumble upon something even bigger - Ma-Ma (Lena Headley) , her ruthless gang of miscreants, and the center of the trade of a new, very popular drug called Slo-Mo. When Ma-Ma decides it would be easier to just kill the two of them than deal with the possibility of arrest, she locks down the tower, trapping the Judges in with innocent people and her gang members, who will stop at nothing to keep them from leaving the building alive, no matter what it takes.

What I liked:

• Karl Urban played Dredd without campiness, and we know how easy that part can spiral in to camp. 
• Lena Headley as Ma-Ma. Of course I could watch her read a phone book and I would be happy, but she was ruthless and ugly and cold - so much of what I don't associate with her. It was a nice change. 
• The setting: Locking them in to this tower made the action and plot more tense and concise. It kept the audience from having to take in too much of the outside world. You could concentrate on the fact that this building exists rather than having to deal with a whole futuristic world. It really ratcheted up the tension and action. 

What was meh:

• Almost too many Slo-Mo scenes. It was cool seeing everything bright and glittery like they did, especially during an explosion scene. They played really nicely in 3D, but I saw one more I would have been bored. 
•  Olivia Thirby - I haven't seen her before really, so I don't have anything to really compare her to. She was a little blank at first, but warmed up in the end. She's really borderline to me. I could see other people playing the part, but not any one in particular. It's just that sort of part I guess. 

I'm glad we saw it in 3D, and I'm glad we caught it in the theater instead of waiting to watch it at home. I'm kind of a gotta see action on the big screen sort of gal, and this one was well worth it, instead of say, the Total Recall remake. This one was much, much better than that.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrrs. Ma-Ma is not the law. I am the law.

Piranha (2010)

I finally got to the theater to see Aja's remake of one of my all time favorites- Piranha. (I watched the original on Bruce here on the way back to DFW Friday, so the it was fresh in my mind.) To sum it up- it was one of the funnest, goriest, boob-fests I have seen in a very long time. From the very opening scenes with a clap-worthy homage to one of my other favorites, Jaws, to the hilarious and somewhat gratuitous "wild wild girls" & the spring break partiers, to Jerry O'Connell eating up the screen as the soft-core porn producer, it seriously was just so much fun. Even the various comments from the Tweens in the row behind us could dispel the fun.

Elizabeth Shue plays the town sheriff with a teenager who shirks his babysitting responsibilities to give the wild wild girls a tour of the best spots to film. This filing includes a lovely amount of nakedness, including an underwater ballet scene that had me tears and wishing we had seen the movie in 3D after all. Dina Meyer has about 2 seconds in the film, along with Ving Rhames. I kept seeing people and saying- hey look at that, there's so and so (including Eli Roth, who seems to be cameoing in every movie rather than hurrying up and filming Thanksgiving. Dude, hurry up.) the plot is still pretty much the same as the original, you know, hungry fish attack people in an Arizona lake. Lots of chomp chomp. Lots of blood. Lots and lots of gore. Plucky heroine, wry humor from the main hero.

I have really liked Aja and what he has come up with, even Mirrors, so when I saw he was remaking Piranha, I knew it was in good hands. I was not wrong.

Rating: 5 Purrs: Really, seriously you should just go see it. It was awesome. I might even see it again in the theater.

- Posted using BlogPress from Bruce

Nightmare on Elm Street (remake)

The original Nightmare on Elm Street scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it. Freddy Krueger was terrifying. The idea of being attacked in your dreams, unable to wake up, unable to fall asleep because you might die. Yikes. The remake doesn't change much of that formula, which was nice, but it changed enough that it wasn't a complete retread.

Things I liked:

• I jumped several times in my seat. Sure it might have been because of the loud Boo! music, but I jumped.
  
• Kellen Lutz! The opening scenes with him are tense.
• They didn't puss out with Kreuger. I thought they were going to, but they didn't. If they had, I would have not liked this movie at all.
• Jackie Earle Haley. Wow. While he was pretty much replaying Rorschach, he does it well. Creepy.
• There were plenty of homages to the original, but not complete re-dos.
  

Things I didn't like:

• Why oh why don't they use real special effects any more? Why do movie makers these days feel so compelled to CGI the shit out of everything? I want real fake blood people. Not CGI blood. It never looks real.
  
• Why oh why does Nancy have to be emo chick? Why can't she be the sweet, scrubbed up teen like the first one?
  
• I hated her little booties she wore. Ugh. I know, I know. A shoe complaint in a horror movie. I'm a girl. Sue me.
• No Johnny Depp death scene. Not even close. Dang it.

Overall, it was a decent remake. You can't recreate the atmosphere of the original, no matter how hard you try, but these guys did a decent job of remaking Texas Chainsaw Massacre and they did a decent job this time. I would of paid full price for this one, but I am a bit of a horror junkie, as you know.

Rating: 4 Purrs

The Stepfather (1986) vs. The Stepfather (2009)

"Wait a minute, who am I here?"

I had only seen the original The Stepfather in bits and pieces, so naturally I couldn't watch the remake without seeing Terry O'Quinn in all of his glory (and surprisingly enough, all of his glory actually is onscreen at one point - Hello John Locke).

Both movies are pretty much the same: lonely mother of troubled child finds the man of her dreams, or so she thinks. Little does she know that Mr. Too Good To Be True is in fact, way too good to be true. Actually, when he realizes you and your family are not Leave It to Beaver, he will decide to murder you and the kids and move on to some other chick. In a nutshell, that's it.

Why is the first movie better than the remake? Well besides the fact that the original usually is, the Final Girl is named Stephanie, so of course I liked it best. How can I not? She's the troubled daughter who has this idea that new daddy dearest just isn't right somehow. Second, the tension between Jill Schoelen and Terry O'Quinn is very well played. She's not some eye candy with no acting ability (eyes you Stepfather remake), she acts like a teenager with a new stepfather a year after he dad died. It's believable. The opening scene where Terry O'Quinn is stripping his former self and getting ready to move on is chilling, especially when you get to the part where you realize the entire family is dead as he walks out the door, refreshed and peppy.

The sequel - well it had the mom with 3 kids, two of which are non-existent and the other is fresh out of military school (and Gossip Girl). None of which are interesting enough to hold your attention. The most interesting characters are the "aunts," the lesbian couple that actually show some true affection for each other (kudos to the writers for making their relationship subtle and kind, rather than some way to add salaciousness to the movie). Otherwise, you might as well sleep throughout the movie because there is no tension, little blood, and really no character worth caring about.

So, rent and watch the original Stepfather and skip the remake. Even the bikini scenes can't save that one.

The Last House on the Left (remake)

I loved the original Last House on the Left. Wes Craven truly was a seriously horrific stroyteller back in the 70's and 80's. The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Serpent and the Rainbow are some of my favorite horror movies. I loved the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. It didn't change much, and it felt very gritty and gross, just like the original. Luckily, the people responsible for the remake of The Last House on the Left took a page out of that book and kept the feeling, flavor, and horror of the original and made a great movie.

Mari and her parents have come up to their lake house to spend the summer, and Mari soon borrows the car to go meet her summer friend Paige to hang out and just be teenagery together. If you have ever watched a horror movie, you know this bodes not well for the two girls. They soon meet Justin, a hapless underage kid trying to buy cigarettes. The girls go back to hang out with Justin at his hotel, and unfortunately for them, Krug and the Gang show up and they are none too happy. Once the girls are tortured, raped, and sliced and diced, the gang takes refuge at Mari's lake house, where Mari's unsuspecting parents take them in during a horrible storm. Soon the parents discover just who their guests are and what they have done, and that's when the good stuff happens. Beware the parents who must fight for their child. They seek vengeance, y'all, and boy is it bloody. It's pure gore, sloppy violence. None of this insta-hero with super strength suddenly becoming Rambo. These people discover a revenge streak they never knew they had, and even thouogh they are clumsy, fall over, get beaten up, they still keep fighting. It's glorious.

I really thought the actors were excellent. Krug and the Gang (ha ha) really are creepy and Justin is such a sad character. The violence is truly horrific, although I remember the original being a bit more violent regarding the torture of the two hapless teenagers. The rape scene is awful; I couldn't watch it at all. My eyes were closed and I had my ears shut as tight as they could be. I watched the unrated version, so maybe the rated wasn't as bad. Let's just say it made my skin crawl right off. If you can get past all of that build up, all of that tension, the last half of the movie is well worth the wait. Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter exact a revenge worth watching, and I cheered as the bad guys had the tables turned on them.

If you can make it through the torture scenes, you might enjoy this one. I am glad I watched it, but I won't be watching it again. It was just too much to get through that lead up.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for making me really uncomfortable and then giving me a chance to cheer for the good guys as they kick ass.

Horrorfest 2009 - How many horror movies can I watch? Part 2

Sunday Night' s Viewing Extravaganza:

• Blackout: Found this on on NetFlix Watch Instantly and watched it on my Roku. It's actually not that good. In fact, it got kind of icky squeamish at the end but then it was just blah. Three strangers are trapped in an elevator in a deserted apartment building with little hope of rescue. All of them have some place to be, but only one of them needs to dispose of a body. That's right, one of them is a serial killer. It's pretty obvious right off who the bad guy is going to be and it takes forever to come to a head.
• House of Wax: God, I love this movie! Giant house built out of wax, roadside attractions, icky, icky deaths, creepy twins, the list goes on. This is an awesome remake, well re-imagining really, that no matter how many times I watch it I still get spooked and cringe.
• Shaun of the Dead: Okay so this might be more of a horror comedy, but it still counts. I love these guys, plus Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran...well this is just about the best horror comedy ever.
• Land of the Dead: Keeping with the Zed word, and the Edgar Wright Simon Pegg team (cameos!), I figured I would watch Asia Argento and Simon Baker kick zombie ass. This one isn't as good as Dawn of the Dead, but I thought it was better than Diary of the Dead and Day of the Dead, especially the Day of the Dead remake (which was downright painful).
• Shark Attack 3: Megalodon: This movie is so bad is awesome. Seriously, it might be the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. Manos Hands of Fate was better. John Barrowman (Capt. Jack Harkness) is one of the harbor patrol at a Mexican resort. Big, prehistoric shark shows up and starts chomping away. When I say big shark, I mean like a great white they have forced perspective on or taken in Photoshop and stretched it so it can *swallow people on boats whole.* Like I said, this movie is so bad it is awesome.
  

Horror Classics Remade: Friday the 13th, The Uninvited, and My Bloody Valentine

I couldn't have been happier to hear they were remaking My Bloody Valentine, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Friday the 13th. Well, maybe I was less excited about Friday the 13th, since it's probably my top 1 or 2 in my list of favorites, but I was really interested to see what they would do the TofTS and My Bloody Valentine.

My Bloody Valentine: In 3-D! I really liked the original because it felt so real. The people cast in the film actually looked like people who would live and work in a mining town (think less WB Dawson's Creek and more like Norma Rae), the mine and other settings were spooky, and there was plenty of good old killings. The remake has the added bonus of being in 3-D, so it was extra fun to watch with the pick-axes swinging out at you and the like. The cast was prettier this time around (Gotta drool on Jensen Ackles. Delish.), but filming in Pennsylvania certainly gave it the mining town feel. The remake was bloody and gory, with some good shocks. The story was pretty close to the original, with enough deviations to make it worth remaking, but not enough to make it feel like a completely different film. I am not really sure I liked the ending, but well, it could be that I am partial...

Rating:  4 1/2 Purrs Loved it!

The Uninvited: This remake of A Tale of Two Sisters was a big old disappointment. The original blew me away, with high levels of creepiness, a twisted plot, and a holy shit did that just happen ending. The Uninvited brought nothing really new to the table, but the actors were good and the setting was beautiful. Elizabeth Banks brings a nice amount of creepiness to the wicked step-mother role. I probably would have liked it better if I had no idea what was going on, so the twists would have been less obvious to me. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs - I probably would have liked it better if I hadn't seen the original. 

Friday the 13th: Let's just say that even Jared Padalecki couldn't save this movie. It's like they took the original 4 in the series and squished them all into one film, so basically any plot or minimal character development on any of the "extra" characters is lost. Plus, how do you have a Friday the 13th movie with minimal time at the freakin' Camp Crystal Lake? Jason was good, but really, why do all of the characters around the lake have to be rejects from the hillbillies-r-us casting agency? I am glad they didn't just reshoot the movie almost shot for shot from the original, but I really liked the "camp counselors at the camp" enties in the series. Why deviate from the tradition so soon? Wait for the sequels at least, and stick to the original formula for the first in the reboot. You can bring something new to the table without ignoring what made the original so great. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs...Man, I wish I could reboot this reboot. 

Mirrors

"Mirrors are just glass and silver, Ben. That's it. There's nothing behind them. "

Alexandre Aja has finally made me spooked to look in a mirror. He's finished what Poltergeist,  Clive Barker, and Candyman started. This movie made me jump. Repeatedly. Pandabob found much amusement in it when from the other room, he heard me jump and squeak. In fact, the creepiness in Mirrors made me wish that maybe Aja had filmed Mother of Tears. 

Mirrors is about an ex-cop, Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland), who is moonlighting as a security guard at an old burned out department store. The guy he replaced commits suicide, and when Ben finds out, he investigates, especially when he starts seeing things in the mirrors at the store that shouldn't, couldn't be there. Who or what is in the mirrors? Is he just going nuts or are he and his family really in danger?

It was gory. Amy Smart's bathtub scene, which you see part of in the trailer, is absolutely skin crawling. Ugh, and yet awesome. It was spooky. What wouldn't be with a huge, dilapidated,  burned out department store as a main setting? I was torn with the desire to explore the place and yet, also to maybe just stay away because the place kind of freaked me the frak out. The whole idea of evil, haunted mirrors is just way cool in my book. The plot got a little wonky there in the end, but I still couldn't help but love it. 

I didn't realize when I rented this that Mirrors is a remake of a South Korean horror film called Geoul sokeuro (Into the Mirror). Now I have another Asian horror film to add to my NetFlix queue. 

Rating: 4 Purrs. I can see that Kiefer's got a bit on the heavy-handed with the acting here and the plot does deviate into a convenient solution, but not nearly as badly as Aja's first film High Tension (which was also awesome until the end got all well, you know.)

The Lost Boys: The Tribe

"Your sister's a suck monkey. " - Edgar Frog

Boy, rarely do I see a horror movie that makes me sad. It's happened occasionally, but I can't think of one on the top of my head. The Lost Boys: The Tribe made me cry. It was so bad, I can't even explain how bad it was. I like bad horror movies, generally, but damn, this was bad in a way you can't even MST3K.

In TLB:TT, we meet Chris, a former surfer, and his sister Nicole. They've just moved to Luna Bay, CA hoping to start a new life with their Aunt Jillian, but unfortunately, she's not being as generous as they had hoped. They are having to pay rent for their broken down house she is leasing to them, so now the siblings must find work. In the process, Chris meets another former surfer, Shane, and tries to get a job with Edgar Frog working in his board shop. One night at a party at Shane's house, Shane takes an extra interest in Nicole, and she ends up drinking something special. You know the drill. Once Nicole and Chris realize something's up, Chris seeks out Edgar again to help save his sister. Can he save her?

Everything about this movie was bad, from the extra cheesy special effects to the piss-poor acting. I know The Lost Boys wasn't all that Oscar-caliber, but it has a special place in my heart. We used to run around quoting the damn thing. "You can never grow old, you can never die, but you *must feed.*" Ha. Such fond memories. Why, oh why did they make a sequel? It was a very pale imitation of what could have been. The Reign of Frogs comics were better than this (they walk through the events leading up to the film). If only they had made the sequel in comic form, but even then, unless they improved the story and added to the whole vampire as hippies type myth that The Lost Boys started, it wouldn't have mattered. I look for more than just a redux in a sequel (which this pretty much was, albeit a very poor, colorless redux). I want to get more of the story, more of the myth. Think Friday the 13th Part 2. There you get a similar story overall, but then you learn more about Jason (plus, hello, Amy Steel). 

Anyway, just avoid this if you liked the original at all. Trust me, you'll just be disappointed.

Rating: Hiss. Hiss. Phooey on you for coloring the memory of one of my favorite vampire films. 

April Fool’s Day (remake)

April Fools Day is hands-down one of my favorite 80's slasher films. It stars Deborah Foreman and Amy Steel, two of my favorite horror actresses (plus who can forget Deborah Foreman's memorable scene in Real Genius? Not I.) I rented the "remake" of AFD knowing it would in no way meet my expectations, but I guess I am just a glutton for punishment because this was way beyond bad.

This new version of April Fool's Day has none of the spirit of the original. The whole film is shot on video and has that shiny, crisp feel. The characters aren't interesting or sympathetic, and none of the actors are half as good as the originals. Scout Taylor Compton isn't nearly as good as Amy Steel. There really isn't anything about this movie that makes it worth watching, from its silly prank to death beginning to the twist ending that's not even close to a twist. This time around it's not a murder mystery weekend set up, it's a killer back to avenge the accidental death of a friend a year before set up. Even the deaths are so choreographed you can see them coming a mile away.

I don't know how this even got made, but I can tell why it went straight to video. I have seen Sci-Fi Channel Originals starring Casper van Dien that were more entertaining than this.

Rating: Hiss Hiss Hiss. This just makes me sad that they even tarnished the original by pretending this was a remake.

The Eye (Remake)

I really liked the original Hong King film, Jian Gui, so I thought I would give this American remake a chance. Unfortunately The Eye was almost the exact same as the original, and I just hate it when a remake doesn't bring something new to the table. On the other hand, the remake stars Alessandro Nivola, and I'll pretty much salivate over that guy in anything he ever does (including singing and dancing in Kenneth Brannagh's Love's Labors Lost), so I can't be too down on the film regardless of how much I would like to be.

In The Eye, Jessica Alba plays Sydney, a blind violinist who receives a corneal transplant. Finally, for the first time since she was very young, she can see. While she is getting used to seeing the world again, she realizes that some things that she sees aren't real. Some of those things are ghosts, and they want something from her. Alessandro Nivola plays her doctor, who sort of ends up falling for her and helping her uncover the mystery. Why is this happening? Who was her donor, and why, now after all of this time, is she seeing these ghosts? Are the visions real, or is she losing her mind?

Long story short, I liked the original better. This one had some nice atmosphere, but overall I think the original did it all better. It was spookier, the ghosts were more forboding, and well, even with avingt o read subtitles, the acting was far better. I would probably feel differently if there was something new and fresh brought to the story in the American remake, but there really wasn't. I liked Ringu and The Ring because I thought each really stood on their own. The Ring was similar enough to the original and yet still had a feeling of its own. The Eye didn't really have that.

Rating: 3 Purrs for some creepy ghost scenes and Mr. Nivola, but that's pretty much it.