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Reviews
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Down at the Mall with the Dead
"Dawn of the Dead" is the 1978 sequel to Romero's zombie classic "Night of the Living Dead".
The story takes place several weeks after the first movie's events. The zombie attack is only getting worse. Two reporters (Francine and Stephen), and two SWAT team agents (Roger and Peter), steal a helicopter to escape the urban environment and find a place to hide till the crisis is over. They come across a secluded megamall in Monroeville, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. They clear out the zombies and secure the mall entrances and exits.
Barricaded inside the mall, they sit and wait out the attack. Unfortunately, the undead are on to them bit time and attacking in hordes from outside. What follows is a lively splatterfest and action flick that is a pretty good sequel to "Night". It is highly entertaining, especially if you're into the zombie sub-genre of horror, and it is by far superior to the 2004 remake.
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Good day at Black Rock
This is a movie from 1955 that still works pretty well and is not dated at all. Spencer Tracy (who plays J. Macreedy) is a one armed man with a secret purpose. He gets off the train in Black Rock, in the middle of the desert. The locals give him the cold shoulder to say least. The hotel doesn't want to rent him a room. The garage won't rent him out a car to use. The drunk Sheriff won't get up the guts to protect Macreedy.
Obviously the locals (including Borginine and Ryan) are hiding a deep dark secret. It's revealed that McReedy is there to speak to a Japanese American farmer, Kamoko, who it turns out was killed by the locals years ago. Now, Macreedy is sure to be next. They try to race him off the road and intimidate him to go away or die. But Macreedy is stubborn and won't give in. He has to convince at least a few of them to get on his side. When Macreedy finally does fight, he's much better at judo than anyone suspected! This is a classic that stands the test of time.
One Missed Call (2008)
Should have missed it
One Missed Call didn't scare at all. Leann Cole gets a voice mail from the future detailing the time and the day she will die. She is killed by a supernatural entity at the exact time the message said she would. Then Leann's friend Beth meets up with Brian, Leann's boyfriend, who is killed also after getting a message from the future. Beth's roommate Taylor gets a call too. Then Beth tells Detective Andrews, who believes her since his sister was the first to die this way.
They investigate the connections of the deaths, and discover it's coming from Marie Layton, a woman who was an abusive parent to her daughters. Beth, with help from Jack, must race against time to stop herself from dying on the appointed day and time. This is another Japanese remake, much worse than others I've seen like the Grudge series. While the basic story isn't all that horrible, the way the movie is made is just too predictable.
Dementia 13 (1963)
Dementia 13
One of Coppola's first movies, Dementia 13 is a 1963 low budget horror movie.
John Haloran dies of a heart attack. Then his wife finds out she won't get any inheritance when Lady Haloran passes away if her husband died before. The wife, Louise, writes a fake letter from her husband. She misleads the family into thinking he's only away on a business trip to New York. She then goes to the Irish castle to find a way to get some of his inheritance. Once there, we find out John's sister had died in the nearby pond. Strange rituals and creepy things begin to happen.
I found this movie engaging but just all right. There are some very scary images and the mood is downright creepy, but the film is a bit on the long side. It's not as entertaining as some of the other low budget horror films of that time like The Haunting or House of Wax. However it is very worthwhile seeing, since it shows Coppola as a remarkable budding talent gaining mastery over his craft.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Way better than Blood Simple
"No Country for Old Men" is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy and made by the Coen Brothers.
Llewelyn Moss, a hunter, discovers the carnage of a drug runner gun fight that went wrong. Instead of calling the cops, he steals a suitcase with two million dollars. Soon a psycho gun for hire named Anton is following him to get back the money. Moss outwits him for most of the movie, but then in a very anti-climactic way, gets killed by Anton in a seedy motel.
At the same time, Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is investigating the crimes. He tries to get to Moss before anything worse happens. Of course, he's too late. I haven't been this scared by a Coen bros movie since Blood Simple. This movie is one of the best they've done in a while, combining Hitchcock-like suspense with dazzling gunfights and special effect. The resulting movie is quite good, all while being very off the beaten path while still being highly entertaining. 9/10
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Pretty good thriller
I actually liked Stir of Echoes. As far as acting goes, Kevin Bacon was fine as Tom Witzky. Katherine Erbe did a very convincing job as his wife Maggie. There are a few really decent stand-out scenes. One is when Witzky is first hypnotized at the party. That was really creepy. Another one was when he discovers the woman in the wall.
The digging for the body under the house was spot on for a horror/thriller, exactly what you want to see in this type of movie. The whole cover-up plot of the killing that occurred in the past was cleverly executed and well-done in my opinion. The final shoot out took me by surprise. The only thing I was lukewarm about was the ending when Jake hears voices from each house.
But other than that, a pretty good movie for the most part and recommended to check out if you like thrillers.
Friday the 13th (2009)
A nearly worthless remake
Friday the 13th fans beware of this one. The scares just weren't' there. Why does Jasons run now? And why does he think out his traps and all that. That is not how Jason is supposed to behave. He is supposed to be slow and scary and without thinking out plans and warning systems. Also, it makes no sense Jason would take prisoners. The killings are not memorable either. Not that it matters much, because no one is even slightly likable. They are all pathetic stereotypes that are more idiotic than the original characters. By the way, it was so laughable the way Jason held the girl because she resembled his mother. Seriously, unless you want to see a classic horror film destroyed, skip it, or if you must see it, catch it for free on TV. I was hoping this would at least have some good scares, but I was let down. Even the TCS remake was better than this and that is not saying much.
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
anthology of halloween horror
This horror movie was better than most movies that go straight to DTV, it was really more like a comic book than a movie. It's an anthology of five interwoven stories that happen on the same street on Halloween.
I don't want to give away too much because it will spoil the fun, but the five stories are: there's a couple who find out the hard way the terror that happens when they blow out a jack o lantern before the midnight hour; there's a scary high school principal who's actually a serial killer; a college virgin might have met the right man; an old hermit is visited by a mysterious trick or treater that no one would want a visit from; a group of teens go too far in a prank.
My favorite scene by far was the school bus crash with the special weird kids, definitely one of the better scenes I've seen in the last few years in horror movies. The negatives were that the actors were decent and okay but not great by any stretch. The positives was the stories were exciting and in some cases pretty scary.
Hit and Run (2009)
Delirium of horror
Interesting plot, pure minimalist horror. It starts off well when Mary Murdock (played by Laura Breckinridge) drives home drunk from a party and has a near-accident on the road. She thinks she just missed a tire in the road, but she has another thing coming. Later, she discovers a half-alive dude dangling from her bumper in the garage.
He tries to kill her, then she accidentally kills him and then her whole life and all her plans turn upside down. Some have compared this to a similar-themed movie "Stuck" or "I Know What You Did Last Summer", but beyond the obvious plot of the beginning, I didn't see the similarities. For example, in "Stuck" the girl knows she's hit a guy and doesn't do anything about it. In this movie, she doesn't realize till later and ends up being stalked by him.
The action sequences were not bad, some very exciting. It had some eccentricities and odd things that made it stand out from the usual fare. Like the whole thing with her being tied to the bumper... I hadn't seen that before in these kind of movies. One thing is there could have been a bit more suspense in the middle part. It seemed like the film went into her 'delirium' mind so much we lost touch there for a while with reality, but maybe that was the point. The actors are fine (Kevin Corrigan as the wacky bi-polar psycho is freaking weird), creepy mood and there are some unexpected moments.
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Not a very good one
The best thing about the film is portrayal of Elizabeth Short by Mia Kirschner. She was whacked out, truly good and highly sexy. Unfortunately the rest of the cast really sucked in this. Josh Hartnett gives a fairly dull, rudimentary boring performance and Scarlett Johansen, who usually is very sensual in most movies is totally devoid of any real sexuality here.
The story is so twisted with so many tangent sub-plots that you don't know what to focus on. I really think De palma missed the boat on this one. The main thing which could really scare us was the mutilated dead body of Elizabeth Short, to bring home the point of how horrific this murder was, but we see the body all of like 5 seconds in total, and in a really anti-climatic way.
It could have been so good.
I am a huge Brian DePalma fan but I found myself stunned by how uninteresting this adaptation was. First off, i have to admit I didn't think the book was that great either, but the story of the black dahlia, and her tragic life, itself is very fascinating.