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Reviews
Surveillance (2008)
Revealed its cards too soon
This is a good, solid, serial killer thriller (didn't mean to rhyme) but one that hinges on its mystery and whodunnit nature. Unfortunately, the movie makes it blatantly obvious who's to blame for what a good 20 or 30 minutes before we're supposed to know. Because of this, it's less suspenseful, and more an exercise of "great, now I'm just sitting here waiting for the rest of the characters to catch up."
I'm not at all being condescending to the movie's intelligence. I never went in looking for clues to figure it all out to see how smart I am. If you watch the movie, you'll know exactly the point I'm talking about when it occurs. I guess it was supposed to be subtle, but really, it was like being hit with a car. Once that realization occurs the movie effectively runs out of steam. Which is unfortunate, because up until this it was rather enjoyable for what it was - a grotesque little mystery.
Once there wasn't a mystery anymore, you realize it really wasn't all that grotesque either.
Impact (2009)
Check your expectations
That's the best thing you can do. It's a made for TV movie, and believe me it doesn't transcend that stature, nor does it really try to. Once you get it through your head that it won't have the production values of a Michael Bay movie or the big name stars, it's actually alright for what it is. It's a globe spanning disaster movie with a pretty cool premise - the moon hitting the planet.
Because it's on TV, the only thing it asks of you is your time. Honestly, if you don't like it (and you'll know immediately whether or not) you can just as easily click away. I won't blame you if you do, but if you're up for a disaster flick that's halfway decent and free to watch, you can do much, much worse. Yes, the acting can be, well, bad at times, but for the most part it's serviceable. After all, you just need the characters to act shocked and sad at the news and events so yes, they do that well enough.
If I had to pay to see something like this, yeah I'd be upset. But it's free and with the summer TV season in pretty bad shape it's a nice way to blow off four hours. It's completely inoffensive and that's leagues better than most made for TV movies.
Hostel: Part II (2007)
Neutered
*Some spoilers* I don't know what happened to Eli Roth, be it corporate influence or just a softening of sensibilities but this move is TAME. Unlike the first one, this one doesn't have nearly the visceral impact nor the necessary sadistic streak to allow this type of film to appropriately succeed to its core audience. Call me crude, but I wanted buckets of blood and gore. What I got was a mild drizzle.
The storyline itself is pretty much identical, only replace Paxton, his friend and Oli with three American girls. The beginning of the movie does a good job tying up the first film, showing Paxton's fate, but all it did was eliminate the most interesting character right off the bat and only leaving the crap left. The fact that it looks into the business side of the Hostel torture industry only elminates all sense of mystery that could have helped build up the suspense.
For a story focused on torture and murder, its a SLOW burn. It wasn't until maybe 60 minutes into the movie that the first girl is offed (in an admittedly cool Elizabeth Bathory inspired sequence). Seeing that the movie is barely 90 minutes long, that doesn't leave a lot of time for things to be resolved and for people to be killed. There were maybe one or two "WTF" moments before the credits (one including cannibalism and another with a kid being killed) but none of them were as strong as what happened in the first Hostel.
I think the last act deserves mentioning because that was where everything happened. I'll leave spoilers out but suffice it to say there was nothing even CLOSE to the badassness of Paxton's escape. It all kind of just dwindles down and a deus ex machina so blatant it almost hurts rears its head. I know it was eluded to earlier in the film but how it was implemented was pretty ridiculous.
All in all, the first Hostel still rates as one of my favourite horror movies. This one? It feels like the Saw sequels - quickly put together with all the passion for the project seemingly gone.