All posts in “Reviews”

Trilogy of the Dead

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: dawn of the dead, day of the dead, george a romero, night of the living dead · Comments Off

It’s 5:57 AM and I just finished watching the three classic zombie movies by George A. Romero.

Night of the Living Dead

Released in 1968 this is the first movie in the Dead Series, it’s shot in black and white and is seen by most people as the defining influence on the way zombies are portrayed today. The setting is simple, a group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a rural farmhouse. Before I start criticizing the movie I should mention I have a hard time seeing popular, old movies in the perspective they deserve. A movie like Night of the Living Dead would, of course, be horrible if released today but 40 years ago it was very popular and extremely gory. So, even though the editing is ridiculously bad, the acting is horrible and the zombies are quite comical it’s still worth a watch.

Dawn of the Dead

The sequel came out 10 years later, in 1978. Once again we follow a group of people, this time seeking refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Compared to its predecessor it focuses more on the effects a zombie apocalypse would have on society, and it’s also a lot more comical. I quite liked the 2004 remake and I’ve been wanting to see the original for a long time. As mentioned, the movie isn’t really about a struggle against zombies, sure there are lot of run ins with the undead, but they never seem threatening. They are extremely slow and clumsy, and never seem to be able to bite even though they’ve grabbed somebody. Still, the movie is pretty awesome, I should mention I love post apocalyptic movies, and Dawn of the Dead really nails that part. It’s longer than the other two, appr. two hours and 20 minutes, but I was never bored, even though you just follow the characters around in the mall, barricading stuff and exploring. The make up and special effects are also very well made, even though all the zombies are painted in weird blue or green colors. The gore is very explicit, all gun wounds result in exploding cascades of blood, no matter where the zombies are hit, so you’ll definitely have a laugh watching it.

Day of the Dead

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I knew nothing of the third movie in the series, and didn’t expect much, but it was surprisingly good. This time we follow a group of scientists and soldiers in a military base underground, the scientists’ leader, Dr. Logan, is determined to make the zombies behave as we want them to, as killing all of them is impossible. The soldiers are growing weary and impatient of the lack of results. The movie’s setting is very cool, although you begin to miss nature scenes, especially after watching Dawn of the Dead. The base is built in a huge cavern, most of it is closed off, a huge maze of caves, and that’s where they bring zombies, so whenever they need new specimen to examine they can bring them in like cattle. The special effects are mind blowing, they would be acceptable even today, and this movie is more than 20 years old. Since this was released seven years after Dawn of the Dead they’re now using realistic looking blood instead of the weird ketchup-red stuff they used before. This also makes the zombies a lot scarier than in its predecessor, that and the fact that they’re actually a threat. They still move slow, but whenever they get a hold of somebody you’re done for, this movie has some of the most violent zombie killing scenes I’ve ever seen, and Rodriguez was obviously heavily inspired by this movie when he made Planet Terror. For instance, Doc Block looks exactly like one of the scientists in Day of the Dead (he can be seen at 7:58 in this clip). The movie is mainly interesting because of all the theoretic talk about how zombies work and how they can be manipulated, and one zombie, Bub, has a pretty big role in the movie.

Review: Stardust

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: robert de niro, stardust · Comments Off

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Spoilers ahead!

After watching The Seeker (or The Dark is Rising, or whatever you wanna call it) I was actually looking forward to Stardust. It seemed like a more mature fantasy movie compared to most of what’s on the market now, ie. it hasn’t got a kid in the lead role. The plot is quite simple, in a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man, Tristan, makes a promise to his beloved Victoria (Miller) that he’ll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. Inside he meets the star, in the form of a girl, Yvaine (Danes).

I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that varies so much between really good and extremely bad. The script could really have used a couple of rewrites, the movie would’ve been a lot better. All in all, the movie suffers a lot under the writers taken advantage of creative licence. On the other hand, the movie is funny as hell, and the fight scenes are awesome; for example, the protagonist has to fight a corpse being controlled by the main antagonist, a witch (Pfeiffer), who’s manipulating a wax figure, one witch is hit by a flying sword making her crash into the wall and a goat-turned-human tries to head butt an unicorn, which also sets him flying into a wall. Also, Robert De Niro’s character Sheakspeare, a flying pirat who collects lightning, is very cool. You’re initially totally convinced he’s a psychopath who’s gonna rape Yvaine, but as it turns out he’s a fruity transvestite. Another antagonist is one of the seven heirs to the throne, Septimus, who’s searching for a ruby Yvaine’s got, which will make him king. The entire story line about the heirs is very entertaining as well, it starts out in their castle with the four remaining sons of the king, who explains that the son who finds the ruby will be the king (although the tradition is that the last surviving son will be the king), so the four sons set out to find the ruby and kill their brothers, a killing spree that starts of in the king’s chamber as one son is pushed over the balcony and the king laughs hysterically. Also, the sons have blue blood; a nice little touch. One of the really bad and clichÃ© parts though, is the fact that Tristan is the last heir to the throne, because his mother, who’s been imprisoned by a with since he was born is the long lost daughter of the king (all the sons die).

There’s also a lot of clichÃ© crap, for example, the witch, who’s trying to kill the star, thus being able to live forever. She has at least three chances to kill her but doesn’t. As mentioned the writers also took advantage of their creative licence, there are a lot of coincidences and stuff that doesn’t make sense, for example the part with the witch not killing the girl when she’s got the chance. The ending especially ruins a lot of the movie, first of all, after Tristan falls in love with Yvaine he goes back to the real world to tell his former love, Yvaine misunderstands this so she thinks he doesn’t love her, and the setup is just ridiculous. Afterwards Tristan is fighting with the witch, she is about to kill him, but then she cracks down because her sisters are dead and she has nothing to live for anymore, at this point you could literally hear the cinema go ‘WHAT?!’ Seconds later, as the couple is leaving, she starts laughing and shuts all the doors with her magic, okay, it was just a trick, stupid. Then Yvaine hugs Tristan and suddenly a blinding light from within her disintegrates the witch… Apparently she couldn’t do this before, because ‘she needed Tristan’, kinda dumb.

All in all it was a bit disappointing compared to what I had hoped for, but I’d still recommend it.

Stardust: 6/10.

The Seeker is a piece of shit movie

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: crappy movies, the seeker · 4 Comments

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I feel compelled to blog about movies that suck ass, and that's why I'm here today. I'm frustrated and getting your frustrations on paper usually help, so here we go. Synopsis: "On his 14th birthday Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) finds out that he is the last of a group of warriors – The Light – who have spent their lives fighting against evil – The Dark. Will travels through time to track down the signs that will enable him to confront the evil forces. The Dark is personified by The Rider (Christopher Eccleston)." The movie starts off pretty good, Will seems like a good guy, and the setting in a small, English village is pretty nice. The suspense start when Will is kidnapped by two security officers. As they investigate him about the signs, they slowly turn into monsters and eventually crows, that fly after him. It's a nice, scary scene, but after that it goes down hill very quickly.

The Powers
I was pretty excited when one of the Old Ones, Merriman, tells Will that he has super powers, but that feeling goes away pretty fast. He's got super human strength, telekinesis and the ability to control fire. He uses these powers to push his brothers, flirt with a girl and blow cars and stuff up when he's angry. Why give him powers if he doesn't use them? Also, when he's told he's got powers, he goes "can I fly?", and you just have time to think "fuck, that'd be awesome" before the other guy says "of course not." Meh.

The Signs
Apparently who ever hid the signs "all over the world" didn't really give a shit and hid them at random places around the village. Places where Will just happen to be at the right time. The first sign is a necklace inside a big mall, for fucks sake. Also, the last sign is not an object, it's something that "isn't hidden from him", and what do you know, the last sign is himself. Wauw, I didn't see that one coming. Fuck you, script writer. Another thing, they have a castle The Dark can't enter so why didn't they just hide the signs in there?

Time Travel
Will travels through time to find the signs. Initially it sounds pretty cool, but it actually sucks. The first time travel is to a dark church in the 13th or 14th century, and all you see from this time era is from within the church, it would've been cool to actually see some more of this world, but I guess not. In the scene the group is attacked by something, one of the Elders thinks it's a dragon, and you immediately go "holy shit, it would be awesome if they were attacked by a dragon", but alas, the director would rather disappoint the audience once again, so he sends in an old lady who turns into snakes. Snakes that don't really attack anyone, but just kinda cuddle with you. Oh, also, Will is saved by a corpse. No, it doesn't make any sense, and yes, the director is an idiot. The next time travel is to some village being pillaged by vikings. One of them seems to be the chief, and he's got one of the signs on his shield, so Will follows him to his boat, and the chief sees him and throws him into the water. The chief picks him back up and it looks like he's about to cut his head off, but then Will's digital watch starts beeping, and apparently the chief wants it, so Will fucking trades his watch for the shield. Why THE FUCK didn't the viking just kill the snotty kid, take the watch and go back to raping stuff? So, in the next time travel he goes back to a small market place in 1690. The sign is a small object attached to a feather, it seems to be the prize of a cock fighting competition. He goes back to his own time, and in the bar that had the competition he find a glass case with a plate saying "Champion – 1690" and the winning chicken, stuffed. Don't ask me why they chose to stuff this very cock (it couldn't have been the only competition, right?), don't even ask me why they would stuff the fucking cock in the first place.

The Dad's Thesis and The Rider aka. The Dark
Will had a twin brother, who disappeared when they were infants. At the same time the dad was writing a thesis about light and darkness, we see his documents about this several times throughout the movie, and the father seems troubled about continuing the work. It seems obvious that it's got something to do with The Dark, but you never get to know what it's about, and he's apparently only hesitant about his work, because he feels that's the reason he didn't protect the twin in the first place. What's even more ridiculous is the fact that The Rider kidnapped the twin, and held him hostage for 14 years! He says himself that he's annoyed he took the wrong twin, this raises a lot of questions. First of all, how the hell did he know that one of the twin brothers was the last member of The Light? Also, why did he kidnap one of them, why not just kill them both? Throughout the movie he's got a lot of opportunities to kill Will, but he doesn't, until the end. He's supposed to be this incredibly evil guy, who's trying to destroy the world, and all he had to do to accomplish that was to kill the boy. Instead he tries to force the boy to give him the signs, since the boy is the only person who can find them (which is why he should get it over with and kill him). He's also one of the least intimidating villains I have ever seen, when he's not dressed as The Rider, he's this geeky doctor with glasses.

The Ending
In the end we have the cliche battle between good and evil. The Rider has started a snow storm (again, why not approach the boy and slice his head off?) so everyone in the village is hiding in the Old Ones' castle, a place The Rider can't enter. But apparently he can still use his powers inside the house, because he creates these big icicles in the ceiling, and instead of just letting them all fall, killing everyone in the room, he lets them fall one at a time, so they have enough time to wake up and run. We also know that The Rider has an accomplish, and once again the script writers takes a dump on the plot line and reveals the incredibly cliche and pretty fucking stupid fact that the sweet girl-next-door was actually an evil bitch. Will is almost convinced to hand the signs over to her (because he's a twat), but she gets aggressive so he decides not to. Smart move. Then we get to the final battle, they're in the same castle, just back in time, as mentioned, The Rider can't enter the premises, but he masks his voice and acts like he's Will's family, and since Will is retarded and seems to have no will to live, he opens the door. When you think The Dark has won (all the Old Ones and Will has been thrown into a hurricane of shadows or something like that) Will realizes he's the last sign, with all the signs he can now defeat The Dark. The Rider is triumphantly enjoying his victory when Will walks into the room saying something like "I am the last sign, I am the seventh son of seventh son", I wasn't really paying attention, since I was laughing hysterically at this point. As he says it The Rider falls off his horse… Then Will swallows the darkness with this hand (yes, it's very anticlimactic), the twin is saved, and everything is fine.

The Seeker – 2/10.

Real Men Love RoboCop

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: paul verhoeven, robocop · Comments Off

It is an indisputable fact, and I’ll tell you why.

The Killing Scene

When someone mentions RoboCop this is probably the scene most people think about. It’s surprisingly brutal, first Murphy’s hand is blown off, then his arm, and finally he gets a bullet in the head. The gore is typically Verhoeven, it’s exceptionally well done, and a great way to introduce the antagonist. You rarely see gore that explicit these days, and real men love explicit gore. Fact one.

The Transformation

This is one of the coolest introductions of a character I have ever seen in a movie. Murphy’s mutilated corpse is transferred to a hospital, we follow the events from his point-of-view, starting with him being declared dead, then the mounting of the LED on his vision, a list of commands, short bits of conversations between the scientists, and then eventually, probably many months later, his official awakening, he gets up and for a moment we see a glimpse of him in a monitor, then we follow the other officers frantically trying to get a view of him and finally we see a big shot of him, relieving the suspense that’s been build up since his arrival at the hospital. And he looks awesome, the suit is incredible, probably the best-looking cyborg after the The Terminator. As Morton says in the movie, he’s just a bad motherfucker, and to emphasize that point the transformation is followed by 15 minutes of RoboCop kicking ass. Real men love bad motherfuckers. Fact two.

The News and Commercials

Another trademark of Verhoeven, the news segments that gives us more knowledge about the world we’re watching, thus making it a lot more interesting. And the commercials, the only humorous part of the movie, work perfectly. Then there’s the ‘I’d buy that for a dollar’ line which is repeated through out the movie, by the low-life criminals as well as the big shot executives, a small thing that adds another layer to the dystopian world and makes it seem even more realistic.

The Stop-Motion

RoboCop and RoboCop 2 have some of the most incredible stop motion I have ever seen. The guy in charge of it was academy award nominated Randy Dutra, and that really shows. The ED-209 isn’t just an inanimate object, it’s got character with its small tics and curious movements. Some of that is also contributed to its dinosaur-like sounds (remember its whining when it falls down the stairs?), but in my opinion its mainly the incredible animation that gives it character. Kane, in the sequel, is even more fantastic. Effects like these are just awe-inspiring, especially now a days when everything is just made with CGI. Real men love stop motion. If you disagree go watch Army of Darkness, if you still disagree you’re not a real man.

The Soundtrack
DUDUDUDUDUUUUUUU, DUDUDUDUUUUU!

That’s all for now, I’ll write some more facts later if you’re not convinced, for now I rest my case. RoboCop – 9/10.

Review: BioShock Demo

Posted 19 years ago · Tagged: bioshock, xbox 360 · 4 Comments

The demo for upcoming horror-game BioShock was released to Xbox Live Marketplace today. I haven’t really paid attention to the game, looked like a standard first-person shooter with some interesting environments, but I wanted to try the demo. I’m glad to say I was positively surprised, the demo starts off with the protagonist crashing on an airplane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you swim to the surface and look up at a huge tower in the middle of flaming wreckage. Inside the tower the retro propaganda for the underworld city Rapture starts to appear. It quickly becomes apparent that a man named Ryan created this world to get away from the powers that control the western world. As you descend into the abyss you quickly realize that something isn’t right, a man is killed in front of you by a mutant-like female, and when you step into the departure hall from the elevator, protest signs bearing slogans such as “Ryan doesn’t own us” are seen littered all over the floor. At this point you already feel deeply emerged into the fascinating storyline, throughout the rest of the demo you are guided by a man named Atlas, as well as several tape recordings that explain more about the underworld. Apparently something went wrong at New Year’s Eve in 1959, and the hallways of Rapture are now inhabited by the mutated Splicers, the creepy Little Sisters, and their protectors, the robotic Big Daddies.

The combat is actually quite refreshing; you quickly gain some of the game’s powers, so called Plasmids, that lets you fire electric bolts, and you learn to use combos, for instance, if you stun an enemy with a bolt you can kill them with one hit from a melee weapon. The combat system reminded me of the one in Condemned, with a faster pace (Splicers are fast as hell!). You also learn how to hack security robots and make them your allies, which is done by completing a mini-game by connecting tubes from the start to finish entries, before water runs through. Speaking of water, there’s been a lot of talk about how great the water looks in BioShock and I have to agree, it’s incredible. Especially the scenes with water running down stairs, etc. The game is quite scary as well, although the horror seems to be more sophisticated than the average horror-games out there. It’s a bit more Silent Hill-like, with focus on traumatic and horrific scenery and stories, just as much as enemies jumping out from behind a wall.