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Reviews
Begotten (1989)
Not the WORST movie I've ever seen
If you have a weak stomach and/or don't think very deeply about things usually, you may be scarred by this film. Personally, I found playing Silent Hill 2 to be much more scarring visually, aurally, emotionally, and intellectually. Hell, a Marilyn Manson music video from the Antichrist Superstar days is more scarring. The film isn't helped by the director's apparent desire to hide the film. I suppose he thinks if you can't see it, you must assume it's stunning and he's a genius. From what I'd heard of this film, I was somewhat afraid to watch it. I was hoping for something truly moving and revolutionary. Something disturbing and scarring but not in a cheap and tawdry sort of way. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Maybe if it'd only been 20-30 minutes long it at least could have been a contender.
Recipe for making your own art house style "brilliant film" ala "Begotten": Take your digital video camera (with a built in light), a few packages of raw meat (opened), a couple of Spawn action figures, a Barbie doll, some chocolate sauce and some rocks, throw them in your clothes dryer and film for 30 minutes (you'll be playing it at half speed in the final cut). Splice in a clip from a Japanese hari kiri film or the first Guinea Pig film (if you don't want to copy Begotten TOO much) and randomly splice in some highly zoomed in frames from a BDSM porno movie throughout. When done, use Adobe Premiere's filters to make the result two-toned (not greyscale, it has to look like it came out of a fax machine). Take a few sound effects from Quake and some crickets (maybe a few fart noises, too) and mix (pun intended). Make credits where you name the toys something potentially controversial (Muhammad would work exceedingly well, especially for the Barbie doll). Add your name and post online. Congratulations. You're now a genius filmmaker.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Overrated snoozefest
I just watched this (I finished it like 5 minutes ago) and I agree. This movie could have been pretty decent (for a 1978 film with bright orange-red tempur paint looking blood) if it were around 90 minutes long. At 140 minutes, there's just way too much boring stuff. The characters are completely unlikable and barely smarter than the zombies. The first 20 minutes was decent enough because there was a lot of action. I'm not entirely sure what the action was about, but there was action, and heads exploding and cops. Then it was boring for a while. Then one of the main characters flails strangely at a zombie that wasn't bothering him. Then it's boring for a very long time and the characters have time to show you how annoying and stupid they are. I'm starting to think at this time that I was supposed to be cheering for the zombies. Then, with about 25 minutes left, something interesting happens and the movie gets watchable. People say the movie is full of social commentary (hopefully they're not referring to the "der, shoppers are like zombies" crap), but the only time I saw it was in this end part, and it was far from subtle. And this is the only part of the movie (apart from the couple of minutes in the beginning) where there's any halfway decent gore.
Not funny. Not scary. Not creepy. Not very exciting. If there was any useful "social commentary" value or interesting dramatic irony in it, as there was in Night of, I sure didn't see it. I'm willing to give it the benefit of a doubt and say maybe back in its day it was good, but it certainly doesn't hold up. This is why they make remakes, and give me the remake over this original any day.
Flatland (2007)
A travesty of film making
Flatland is one of my favorite books, thus I was looking forward to this film. Unfortunately, the film is absolutely horrible. The dialog is so bad it sounds like improv half the time. The new storyline makes me think they took the book and a couple of newspapers, threw them in a blender and used what came out for the screenplay. It's a disgrace to the book and independent film making. The only reason I even managed to get all the way through the film was my hopes that it'd get better. Unfortunately, it only got worse, climaxing in a really retarded ending.
That's not to say EVERYTHING about the movie is bad. The CG is acceptable, in a 1990's "Reboot" sort of way which I assume is what they were going for. And I suppose you can't go wrong with "people" getting chopped in half and gushing blood all over the place.