Hamumu Games, Inc. Hamumu Games, Inc.
 - Home - Games - Blog - Halloween - About - 
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. So, since 2011, I have spent the entire month of October every year reviewing a horror movie each day. I've changed formats many times over the years, and in the past few years, I've even been joined by my wife Solee, as well as the occasional guest. We've got text, drawings, video reviews, audio reviews... we got it all! Wanna check out our reviews? Look below, or use the menu to the left to dig deeper!
All our video and audio reviews on YouTubeSubscribe to the 2018 Podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to the 2018 Podcast on Google PodcastsDirect RSS Feed for the 2018 Podcast

Page 1/4 2 3 4 > >>
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Introduction 10:05 AM -- Sat October 1, 2011  

Welcome, my friends, to Belittling Horror Excessively!

Boy, that acronym was one I struggled over for days. I'm still not really happy with it. Anyway, the point is this! Each day of October, I shall watch a horror movie, and review it! I'm gonna let you know a day in advance (except today you get half a day), so you can watch it too, and add your own review or comments! You'll get the idea when the first review goes up much later tonight, as I've got a whole format set up with a lot of different things to cover. I've got a busy day, so I won't even get to watch it until evening. All the movies will be watched on Netflix streaming, so if you have that, I can assure you the movie is available for your viewing.

Now, very few of the movies I watch will actually be Hamumu-Appropriate. That's kind of how it goes with horror. So don't watch anything you're not comfortable with! I'll try to make the reviews fun and interesting regardless of whether you watched the movie. And of course I won't be actually saying inappropriate things.

The movie for October 1st is... Let The Right One In! Go and watch! It's the only one for this month that I've actually seen already, but I wanted my wife to see it, and later on, you'll see another reason why we watched it (you might be able to guess what that is).

One other thing: would you rather know the entire list of movies, or keep it a surprise day by day? Or somewhere in between, like knowing the next 3 movies? I've got quite a few shocks and twists in there, I'd hate to give them away! But I'd also hate for people to not watch along with me if they would when given more time to do so.
3 commentsBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Let The Right One In 11:21 PM -- Sat October 1, 2011  

Let The Right One In

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: This a bleak, stark, quiet, ponderous movie about a bullied kid who meets a girl who's a vampire. Hilarity ensues! That part's not true. At all.

Scariness Type: Er... not at all? There's a little gore, and a lot of unhappiness, but there are no jump scares, and not even really a feeling that a monster is lurking, despite the fact that many people get killed and technically there is a vampire hunting in this town.

Rating: 4/5 Fangs

Good Stuff: There's some thinking to be done here. I have a feeling there's a lot more meaning in this than I actually discovered myself. For a story about a 12-year-old boy, and a 12-year-old vampire girl, the acting is great. That's always a recipe for cheese, but this is deadly serious and except for one really silly scene, never seems to falter. This is not some cheap piece of junk like I'm hoping to see later this month, it's all very high-end and put together. A lot of emotion, a lot of depth, a lot conveyed with just looks and silence.

Bad Stuff: The one really silly scene where CGI cats attack... it definitely could've been worse, but CGI is always so painfully obvious and fakey looking (not that puppets would've been better!), and the whole premise of the scene was rather absurd. Not that it wouldn't be terrifying and painful to have cats jumping on you and biting you, but I think it would be silly to somebody watching! Unless they knew you. Then hopefully they'd try to help. And it wasn't necessary - they could've conveyed the information that scene gives you (which isn't even really information, more like "more evidence of something you already clearly knew") without ever having piles of cats slapped over somebody like a pointy fur coat. To further this issue, not that I need to keep harping on it because it really wasn't a big deal, I'm pretty sure that this scene was the only reason that apartment had a bunch of cats in it. It was that classic cinema element - if you're going to show a dozen cats in Act 1, they better jump all over somebody in Act 3 (that's a film geek joke, nobody gets it).

Okay, I spent too long talking about a cat attack that really wasn't overtly stupid, just kind of silly. The other bad stuff is that this movie is so slow and ponderous and just depressing and bleak. It has no joy, just very oppressive. It's all about mood - incredibly long shots and sad looks with a lot of violins. And regarding the pace, I really think the same story, with the same kind of mood, could've been told in literally half the time. Yes, it might detract a bit from the sheer oppressive feeling, but how much oppression do we need?

Other Stuff: There is almost no dialogue in the entire movie. Many scenes even where you'd expect people to talk, they communicate wordlessly. There are scenes where people ask questions, and the person they're asking just doesn't answer. And the asker is fine with that! Not that it doesn't convey the needed information - that's the thing with this movie. It's about 80% inferred information. Nobody ever says what's going on, or talks about what they're going to do, they just do it, and you see them do it, so you know it's happening. Which I suppose is all you really need.

Artistic Nonsense: I like to make up a silly theme that I find in these movies, but unfortunately, there is nothing silly here. It has sapped all the silliness from me. Rather, I'd like to point out a legitimate theme I see in it! I'm still not really clear on the meaning of the title beyond a few obvious elements which are too small to justify making it the title. But what I did notice was the theme of perpetual cycles. It comes up again and again in the movie, the idea that things repeat endlessly and you can become trapped in them. The entire movie follows that arc, and within it there are others - the cycle of abuse in a family, and the violent cycle of bullying. That's what I noticed, and I felt smart noticing it! Go me!

My Take: So, a good movie? It is... I'm fairly certain this is the most "quality" movie we'll be watching in this review series. I mean this is Oscar material. But if something is really good at making you feel depressed and miserable, does that make it something good? I don't really want to be miserable. If you do, this will work like a charm. It's along the ponderous lines of The Sixth Sense, but there's definitely an uplifting arc to that movie which is completely absent here. This is just hammering on the unhappiness for two hours straight.

In short, yes, it's good. It's high quality and well done. But I think twice is enough in my life to be subjected to this kind of abuse. It's crystallized misery.

Tomorrow, our film will probably also be quite somber and slow... it's Following, the Christopher Nolan film about a guy who follows people. Sounds innocuous enough!
4 commentsBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Following 08:30 PM -- Sun October 2, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: Well, there's this guy, and he follows people. For fun, sorta. He ends up following the wrong person, and of course gets embroiled in a crazy mixed-up scheme. It's very much a 50's style (made in 1999) noir crime thriller. Black & white even. It feels a lot like episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to me, and it's not much longer than one!

Scariness Type: None. See, here's the deal... when I set out to make this list of movies to watch, first I went through our Netflix queue and pulled out the horror movies already in it. I quickly noticed that there were very few of them, and thought "That's odd, I'm always sticking horror movies in here!" That's when I discovered that half of them were listed as "Foreign Movie" or "Thriller" instead of horror. So I began plucking those out. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I grabbed this one in the process (a Thriller), because even before watching it I knew it wasn't really horror. Anyway, the rest should be much more spooky. In fact, almost all the rest feature some sort of supernatural troubles, with maybe two or three serial killers thrown in. I like ghosts.

Rating: 4/5 Claw Hammers.

Good Stuff: Christopher Nolan doesn't really like things to go in chronological order, and you know what? I as neither well do! When you watch a movie that isn't linear, it engages a whole other chunk of your brain, as you have to put together parts from different scenes and connect it all. I enjoy that. So yeah, this is good with twistiness and all that. It's not a simple movie. It's also quite fast-paced.

Bad Stuff: I don't know if this is really bad because it all makes sense in the end, but it took several back-and-forths of time before I even realized it wasn't chronological. There's no indication, it just goes from scene to scene, with people in different moods, knowing different things, and in different physical condition. The haircut helps give it away. So I don't know if it's my IQ level that's the problem, or if the movie should've been more clear about it. The other bad thing, which I have to say without actually giving anything away, is that the overall plot really is too convoluted to have ever happened in real life. It's one of those kinds of things that nobody would've ever actually planned, simply because they'd know that not everything could possibly go according to plan (and they'd be right!). I don't mind seeing ghosts eat people, but it always grates a little when something is seemingly realistic, but doesn't feel like it could ever happen. Kind of an Uncanny Valley of plot. I enjoy that kind of thing in like an Ocean's 11 movie where it's all silly, but this was a gritty crime drama.

Oh, and lastly, I really think there is a movie you could make about "Following". This movie just had that as the most minimal jumping-off point (it's the reason the main character - who has no name, by the way - gets involved in the situation and meets the other characters), rather than actually asking "What would happen if somebody made a hobby of following other people around?" I really expected to see that, and I think it would be good. Of course he'd end up witnessing a murder, or becoming more obsessive until he's doing worse things... there's a million ways it could go!

Other Stuff: You know the old saying - if an earring goes missing in Act 1, someone better have previously taken it in Act 3!

My Take: I really feel like I don't have a lot to say about this one! It's a good movie, people should see it. Not fantastic, I would say. I think Let The Right One In is a better movie, but this is a much easier one to watch. It really hearkens back to 50's Hitchcock, right down to all the violence being off-screen. But it takes place in roughly the present (there are music CDs mentioned several times). Not that it isn't a warped present with a lot of very old style - the main character uses a clacky old typewriter and there's not a computer or cell phone in sight. There is a cordless phone though.

Artistic Nonsense: I think the moral here is quite simple - don't follow people around! Clearly, it can only lead to you being embroiled in seven layers of schemes and counter-schemes. Ya mook. It's a cautionary tale.

Tomorrow we slip into horror movies proper with a true classic of modern cinema, Jason X. Or as it should've been titled, Jaaaaaason.... Innnnn... SPAAAAAAACE!!
11 commentsBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Jason X 08:10 PM -- Mon October 3, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will outright spoil things this time! So beware of fairly major spoilers of a ridiculous plot.

Synopsis: Jason (don't say you don't know who that is) is cryogenically frozen until he's discovered by people hundreds of years in the future. They thaw him out on their spaceship and actual (unintended, I think?) hilarity ensues.

Scariness Type: Medium gore, teensy bit of jump scares. The biggest shock I experienced was seeing how much of the gore was off-screen! Or not seeing, as the case may be.

Rating: 1/5 Machetes.

Good Stuff: Uh... hmmmmm... I had fun laughing some of the time.

Bad Stuff: This is a straight-up Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie, only for some reason they accidentally released it in theaters. Have you ever seen Axe Cop? Because I think the same person wrote this movie. Or if you're not familiar with that, Half-Life: Full Life Consequences is also similar. Written by a skilled team of seven-year-olds during their recess, this movie does seem to suffer as a result of that design-by-committee mentality. The sets, the costumes, the acting, the effects... wow. Now I like bad movies, and I had some fun in that regard, but it was a little hard to take overall.

There's not enough room on the internet to contain a detailed complaint about every stupid thing in this movie, but let me throw down a couple (spoilers will be happening, but were you somehow unaware of how the plot was going to turn out?)...

- The future people are interested in Jason because of his amazing ability to regenerate. Then when he's killed by an android with a rocket launcher (duh), the future peoples' regeneration technology is what puts him back together. This isn't so much a plot hole as a reverberating echo of incomprehensibility that rebounds off of itself in an infinite loop. Also on that note, if blowing up his head was sufficient to kill him, how did they not try that when they apparently had him in custody for years attempting to execute him in various ways? Did they even try beheading?

- These people! I get more frightened and concerned dealing with a nearby bee than these people do with an unkillable murderer staring at them from five feet away with a machete! The entire movie, everybody is totally blase, and not just in a bad-acting way. There had to be twenty people killed in this movie, and yet still the survivors would just look at him and be like "uh oh, guess we should think about getting away!" instead of screaming in terror. In the future, everybody's on Xanax.

- You know how Arnold Schwarzenegger always has a one-liner when he finishes off a badguy? Well, since Jason doesn't talk, this movie has the victims do their own one-liners. The best is when a guy gets stabbed through the chest and says "It'll take more than that to bring me down!" So of course Jason stabs him with something else. Instead of just dying, he adds "Yep, that'll do it!" I mean, clearly the comedy is intended, but... yeah.

Other Stuff: There's an old showbiz saying: if you show a guy's arm being re-attached by nanobots in Act 1, you better resurrect a serial killer with them in Act 3!

My Take: First off, let me say that there are two kinds of people in this world, plus a third kind that doesn't count. There are Nightmare On Elm Street people, and Friday The 13th people. And people who don't care, which don't count. I'm a straight up Freddy guy myself. He's a goofy guy with personality, who has a claw glove and kills people in their dreams, which automatically means all kinds of strange things will happen and there will be surprises. Jason is a lumbering hulk with zero finesse, who walks up and smashes people in reality, which means nothing interesting will ever happen. Half the kills in this movie were just him slamming somebody into a wall. He's basically a zombie that won't die. So Jason movies are zombie movies with only one zombie. And I don't need to write a thesis to explain why that isn't interesting.

Anyhow, it's clear this was a knowing parody of Friday The 13th movies. I mean, they really didn't even try to scare you. I admit, I haven't seen more than a couple minutes, fifteen+ years ago, of Friday The 13th movies, but I am quite sure they went for the jump scares and the gore. In this movie, you have more action and sci-fi than spooky surprise (and more unintentional comedy than either). So I get that they knew the idea of Jason In Space was silly, and they went with that, but boy... they did a baaaad job. For future reference, I don't rate bad movies 1/5 in general. A GOOD bad movie could be 3/5, maybe 4/5 if it's awesomely bad. But this is a bad bad movie. I considered going up to 2/5 because I like to reserve 1/5 for things I actively hated watching and maybe even turned off early, but that just seemed too kind. I had fun, but if I wasn't committed to watching it for this review, I would've turned it off. Actually I would've let myself fall asleep, I was really tired!

Artistic Nonsense: Rather than a theme, I want to point out the one interesting thought this movie brought me. I thought it was kind of interesting to see the scientific take on this supernatural legend of the monster of Crystal Lake. It's kind of a fun thing to see this closed-in little story (people massacred at a camp, and the police never find anything out), and see what happens the light of day is shone upon it, and the world at large sees it. It is also, however, the exact opposite of horror. When you expose something and examine it in detail (unless it's an internal organ), the clinical nature of that removes any semblance of fear. So that's a fun concept, handled terribly. To be honest, coming from the Jason stories, I don't think it could've turned out well.

Tomorrow, our movie will be Shiver, which I really don't know anything about. It involves a town where lots of people are getting killed, and nobody knows why. Something like that? We'll see.
4 commentsBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: ERROR ERROR 12:07 AM -- Wed October 5, 2011  

Pardon the intrusion... I didn't get a chance to watch Shiver today as advertised. Our power went out for several hours, and when it came back, the internet was down for the rest of the night (until 10pm, at which point I am dutifully telling you this! But I'm not staying up for an entire movie and review). I'm not sure how I'm gonna make up this delay. I really hadn't counted on actually being unable to watch a movie all day. Hopefully it won't happen again, and I'm going to keep the schedule in order, watching this movie tomorrow, and maybe a second movie tomorrow? I will squeeze an extra movie in sometime to get caught up.

Just in case I do, and you want to watch along with me, the correct movie for tomorrow is Dorm, a Thai movie about a kid going off to school and feeling lonely until he befriends a ghost. So it's like Casper!
1 commentBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Shiver 12:38 PM -- Wed October 5, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: A kid who's allergic to sunlight moves to a village that's in a valley so it gets less sun. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this village is being plagued by vicious attacks on its sheep by an unknown entity. The attacks escalate beyond sheep, and hamstringing ensues. This movie is in Spanish and subtitled, by the way, which I didn't realize in advance.

Scariness Type: Jump scares, creepy small-town secrets, and I guess what I'll call "lurking horror". That's where you know something is out there, and while you never quite see it, you're on edge knowing that it's there somewhere. Also a little bit of gore, but your average action movie has more.

Rating: 4/5 Soccer Balls.

Awarded: Most Realistic Use Of Computers In A Movie, Ever. At one point, the kid is IMing with someone, and she sends him a picture, and it even has a pop-up that says "Peer To Peer Connection, Accept?", which I totally remember from old IM days. He also uses perfectly real search engines to get pretty much real results. And not once do we fly through cyberspace.

Good Stuff: I just felt good about this movie from the beginning. It's kind of the classic likeable outcast boy situation. Good acting, good creepiness. There's a lot of twisting to the story, and you truly won't guess what or who the monster is until you see it. It all kind of makes sense in the end, but the logic is a bit contorted (still, only a bit contorted is pretty impressive for a movie). There was also a scene that really got me, where the kid is alone at home, he thinks he sees the monster outside, and he runs around the house locking everything up and then huddles up on the couch, shoved up against a wall, holding a knife (him, not the couch), and he's jittering his legs around with nervous energy. It just felt so much more like what would really happen than what you usually see in movies, it was great. There's a lot of that real feeling here...

Bad Stuff: ...up until the point where they decide to run off into the woods and hunt the monster. Really? The justification is slim at best, and it's classic horror movie "The best plan is for us to split up, head into dark rooms without flashlights, and sit around doing our hair while loudly singing to ourselves so we can't hear anything" business. Otherwise, the only thing I can complain about is the logic of how it all pans out in the end, like I said above. It's pretty questionable, but it made for an enjoyable movie overall, so it works out.

Classic Rules Of Film: If you show a trap in the woods in Act 1, somebody better step in one in Act 3.

My Take: Well, it's a good one. Nothing major or deep, just a little monster movie, but with heart and fun. Provided you appreciate somberness as a kind of fun, because there really aren't any notable laughs or uplifting moments. And there's some good quality creepiness too, in many varieties. In fact, I'd say this movie borrows from a lot of different horror traditions. In one scene, it feels like J-Horror "something you can clearly see is slowly walking towards you and that's scary and why won't it end", and in another it's Stephen King "small town folks are creepy", and then it's Jaws with "we know the monster's out there, we see signs of it, but we can't ever get a good look". Also, it feels a little like Goonies, in ways I can't quite describe.

Artistic Nonsense: This movie is one giant PSA for keeping an eye on your kids. It could be rebranded as an ad for those leashes you see parents use at amusement parks. "Don't let this happen to you [show final scene of movie], keep your kids on a leash."

Later today, I think, or possibly tomorrow, our movie will be Dorm, a Thai movie about a kid going to a new school and not enjoying it until he meets a ghostly pal. I was trying to space out the subtitled movies, I didn't realize today's was gonna be in Spanish!
1 commentBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Dorm 12:04 AM -- Thu October 6, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: A kid gets sent off to boarding school and finds it not to his liking. The other kids tell him ghost stories, then he meets a friend, who turns out to be a ghost himself. And in fact the star of one of the ghost stories. Bromance ensues.

Scariness Type: There are a couple little jump scares, but it turns out this is not the horror movie it was billed to be (tricked again!!). It's a ghost story like Ghost is a ghost story, just with less Whoopie Goldberg.

Rating: 3/5 Vinyl Records.

Today I Learned: Ghosts can't see you if you hold your breath. I think it's like how T-Rexes track movement.

Good Stuff: It's a pretty good movie, a nice story that's constructed well and makes sense. It's got a nice arc to it, kind of a sweet story like some kind of Spielberg movie.

Bad Stuff: As a sweet little Spielberg story, it's kind of nothing special. No major twists or surprises, nothing to really think about. It just was a 'small' story, no real stakes, which isn't technically a problem so much as not what I was looking for.

Classic Rules Of Film: If you show a broken video game in Act 1, and tell somebody you're gonna fix it, you should probably fix it, or that's just rude.

My Take: The movie starts out with some really creepy mood and you think you're in for scary stuff, then it kind of just takes off into Tom n' Huck doing frog races and spying on Becky. It's interesting because it is a really positive story, but it's also depressing, from family problems to suicides to tragic accidents to the occasional dissection. All in all, it was a solid movie, and as an added bonus it included a movie-in-the-movie with a hopping vampire.

Artistic Nonsense: To be entirely unsilly since I had to review two movies today and I am done with thinking, this movie has a repeated theme of the redemptive power of forgiveness.

Tomorrow's movie is Bloody Mallory! Pretty sure that's gonna be an action movie rather than horror, but I count "horror-themed action". It's Halloween-riffic! Anyway, I think it's gonna be a cheaper version of Bloodrayne (which was a cheaper version of Underworld). And that's precisely what we need.
1 commentBack to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Bloody Mallory 11:23 AM -- Fri October 7, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: Hilarity ensues. In French, but with occasional hilarious English.

Scariness Type: I'm scared I might never be able to enjoy a lesser movie after this.

Rating: 5/5 Pink Hearses.

Awarded: BEST MOVIE EVER.

Good Stuff: The beginning, middle, and end. This is like a Joss Whedon movie, directed by Sam Raimi, while both on acid. There are gunshoes, gas pumps full of blood, Indiana Jones traps, exploding lipstick, exploding nuns, dimensional portals, vampires, succubi, ghouls, human wishbones, anime running-at-each-other-with-lines-of-light-behind-you, and a monster that eats sonar beacons.

Bad Stuff: That it ended.

Classic Rules Of Film: If you control the mind of a bat in Act 1, when you get chewed into a coma by ghouls in Act 2, you will return to the mind of that bat.

My Take: I guess all you really need to know is that at the beginning (after a bit of backstory), it introduces the team: Mallory, Leader of Anti-Paranormal Commando; Vena Cava, Drag Queen Explosives Specialist; and Talking Tina, Mute/Telepath. This is very clearly inspired by Buffy, and I suspect they borrowed the actual prehistoric vampires from the last season of Buffy to be the "ghouls" here. I mean they are the same. Plus there were a lot of those costumes lying around. This is all of course totally campy and awesome. I never understood why people did Rocky Horror Picture Show as this big cultural event, but I really think Bloody Mallory should become one. Vena Cava has countless lines (most of these in English) that an audience would love to shout in unison.

Artistic Nonsense: You know how Luke Skywalker is torn between the Light Side and the Dark Side? And everyone's telling him he has to fight and come to the Light Side and not give in to the seductive power of the Dark Side. This is like that, except it turns out the actual best place is the Middle Side, because good and evil are both lame. I'm not sure that's the best attitude... but it's what the movie is promoting! To be fair, I think they're talking about "good" in the sense of "overbearing, rigid and authoritarian" not actually being nice to people.

Today's movie will be Let Me In, the American remake of Let The Right One In, which we saw last week! Haha! You didn't know that was coming.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Let Me In 11:34 PM -- Fri October 7, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Synopsis: That stuff what happened in Let The Right One In? It happens again, like word for word. But in English.

Scariness Type: Whatever I said last time, but with more gore.

Rating: 3/5 Rubik's Cubes.

Awarded: Redundant Award Of Redundancy II: The Repeatening

Good Stuff: This is a tricky ol' review to write! It's incredibly hard to judge this movie just a week after seeing the original. On the good side, it has about 75% of all of the goodness of the original. I think if you hadn't seen the original, this would be just a solid, creepy movie, much like the experience of watching the original.

Bad Stuff: The missing 25% of goodness! It doesn't quite measure up. It really is close to shot-for-shot, and it's not really Hollywooded up. It does have little touches that detract, and again, I think if you didn't see the original, you would just think this was good, instead of "not quite as good". One thing that I found entirely strange is that the movie opens with a flash-forward to a scene that takes place about midway through. I can't actually figure out what that was supposed to add, because it's a pretty meaningless scene until you get there naturally. Maybe if you didn't see the original, it would add the suspense of "oh, how they are going to get to there from here?"

Classic Rules Of Film: If something happens in that other movie in Act 1, the same thing has to happen in this movie in Act 1.

My Take: The dialog's the same, the shots are mostly the same, the plot is almost entirely identical except for one change of note (the cat attack is gone! But the CGI vampire effects are unnatural). But it's all in the subtleties. The biggest thing is that the overall mood is not nearly as stark and harsh, it's much more typical (not that they didn't try, and it is moody, just not as much). I also feel like the original movie left some motivations open that are just pat and simple in the remake. That could just be me not cluing in to things as well in a Swedish movie, though.

Overall, it's so hard to judge this because I can only compare it to the original. Anyway, if you're gonna see one, see the original. You definitely don't gain anything in this version, and I have no idea why they bothered to remake it. It's not bad at all, there's just no reason to see it! They could've saved a lot of money by just buying rights to the original movie and putting it out in the US.

Artistic Nonsense: Art shmart! This is an American remake! It's all explosions and ninjas.

Tomorrow's movie will be Antibodies, a German movie where the police have caught a serial killer, and they're interrogating him. There will probably be fava beans and a nice chianti.
Comment on this entry...Back to top!
  Belittling Horror Excessively: Antibodies 12:59 AM -- Sun October 9, 2011  

This is a movie review... I will not outright spoil things, but if you want to really experience a movie fresh and clean, there is information below that will dirty you up! So beware of mild semi-spoilers.

Note: This movie is completely inappropriate for anyone under the age of 50. I do not recommend the young or anybody who has any moral decency watch it. I liked it though, so that says something.

Synopsis: A serial killer is caught with his latest victim. But there's an earlier unsolved murder, so they interrogate him, thinking he could be responsible. Major personal issues ensue. In German.

Scariness Type: Psychological stuff. Serial killer messing with your mind, you know how that goes!

Rating: 4/5 Red Squares.

In The Tradition Of: Silence Of The Lambs, obviously!

Good Stuff: Twists upon twists. It really is the Silence Of The Lambs kind of thing where the killer is trapped in jail, but somehow still in control, and manipulating the cops to accomplish more even though he can't do anything directly. That's always quite interesting. It's not a copy, by any means. The whole plot and story is very different, it just has that one same device (and the killer actually says "Who did you expect to see, Hannibal Lector?").

Bad Stuff: As I mentioned before, this movie is wildly inappropriate for humans to see. I don't think that's really a problem (as in there wasn't anything so wrong that I wasn't willing to watch - nobody got stabbed in the eye, hooray!), but it really limits the potential audience. Oh, and CGI animals again! Come on! The scene with them could've been done with real animals for like 1/10th the cost at most. And they looked all fake and robotic.

Classic Rules Of Film: If you shoot a dog in Act 1, that's just wrong and I hope somebody points out your personal inadequacies in Act 3.

My Take: I liked it. There's some hard stuff to deal with, like I always hate to see main characters in downward spirals, or arms being stapled. But when Major Twist 1 occured, I was disappointed - it was obvious from very early on. Luckily, that was followed by Major Twist 2, which twisted it right around again and I was pleased. I was also very surprised by the actual ending, which could've gone quite differently.

Artistic Nonsense: This is one of those "good vs. evil" movies (in the psychological sense, not the superhero sense). I'm not a big fan of that, I think it's a very religious as opposed to psychological notion, and this movie definitely layers on the religiosity. It's always a letdown when a villain calls himself evil. I mean really... if you thought an act was evil, you wouldn't do it, that's kind of the definition of evil! The best villains think they are doing something right via some convoluted logic. So yeah, the theme had something to do with the nature of evil.

Tomorrow's movie will be _Thankskilling_, and all you need to know about that is the name. If that doesn't get you watching, you're beyond help.
1 commentBack to top!
Page 1/4 2 3 4 > >>
Copyright 2021-2023, Hamumu Games Inc.