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Lurking 2022 ★★½
A slow burner that picks up towards the end.
The first part focuses on the razzle dazzle filmmaker Kurt Duplass (apparently a nod to Creep) and his reluctant partner John.
It's only when they find a walkie talkie and get in touch with "Travis" that things get intense. The bit in the tunnel is intense and the part with the "finder" is well done.
Have I seen better in the genre? Sure. But it's still a nice addition to your collection.
Critters 3 1991 ★★★
DiCaprio (to his father): I hate you! I wish you were dead!
Crites: Well... THAT can be arranged.
The perfect dose of cornball fun you could expect from a horror comedy sequel. Not as out there and gory as the first two and the cover pulls a bit of a Jason Takes Manhattan. But overall, it's still fun, with all the silliness they have going on.
The Critters look a bit more sneaky than in the first two installments. But they still get in the same food related shenanigans. And we get a West Ham United-Critter, who's forever blowing bubbles.
The characters are as silly as you can expect, but still enjoyable. I like how Marcia is portrayed like a take charge kind of character, even though she gets into her share of silliness. And DiCaprio only gets the "annoying kid coming around"-arc.
Patient Seven 2016 ★★★
I went in with low expectations, but Patient Seven turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
Doctor Michael Ironside going through mental patients supplies us with the background for the separate stories. My personal favorites are British Dexter and Icelandic zombies. The twist at the end of the haunting story was pretty sweet too.
Near the end, it pulls an Identity-like switcheroo on us, except that this one is more predictable. Which keeps it from going beyond entertaining. But entertaining nonetheless. And available on YT.
Hostel 2005 ★★★★
I fed my inner gorehound today.
Eli Roth deserves credit for bringing gore back to the horror mainstream after a slew of PG 13 horror films. Sure, Paxton may not be very likable, but then again, that's not really the point either.
But the pay off worked and that's the point more than anything else.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later 1998 ★★★½
The opening kills are both entertaining and insightful. Where Jason-fans appreciate the creativity with gardening tools, Michael usually tends to stick to traditional stabbing. Which is why the ice skate skill is a nice switch from the usual.
You would think this would be bland and forgettable, but it's actually pretty entertaining. Steve Miner brought his experience from Friday to the table. The characters are okay. While the kids have bits of sarcasm here and there - the seed for the 2000s snark is perhaps already present - but for me, the balance tends a bit more towards the positive side of the line. And the funniest moment is the scene with Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, where the prior talks about getting "maternal".
Quite a bunch of talent in this one, mind you: Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, LL Cool J,... How you rate them individually is a matter of taste, but they all went to do big projects. Hartnett shows his potential as a heart throb and LL kind of goes back and forth between comic relief and black Ben Tramer.
The atmosphere is definetily present. Best example being the shot on all the box covers of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers with just a door between them. The kills are okay too, though some are offscreen. The final confrontation between Laurie and Michael makes for a worthy ending to the franchise.
The Redwood Massacre 2014 ★
The most fun about this one was trying to pinpoint the accent(s).
Are these Scots? Or Englishmen trying to sound Scottish? Or was there perhaps a Manchester accent in there as well? Or somewhere else up north? Or Irish?
As far as the rest is concerned, the keyword is bland. Bland plot, bland kills and bland gore. Bland across the board.
Though I will give credit for the mask. Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow meets The Punisher. That looked kind of cool.
The Purge 2013 ★★★
People reviewing have been pretty harsh on this one, claiming it was nothing more than just a home invasion movie. So is is that or does it offer relevant social commentary?
I on my end would be somewhere in between. I would like to point out that it does hint at the consequences. Think of the man describing his loss in the end credits. Or the fact that the homeless man that the kids are chasing is a black man. Hinting at an excuse for racists to "do their thing".
I also liked the idea of looking at things like the guy wanting to kill his boss, or the envious neighbours. In my opinion, this sort of petty motives for killing are probably a lot closer to what a real life purge would be like. Callous businessfolk and ditto politicians would be safe, but that one guy who cuts me off in traffic? Oh, he's getting it. Or the dad standing in the way between me and my girlfriend.
Or of course the conflict the Sandinds find themselves in. Do we take in the homeless man? Do we hand him over to the killers?
This is often done not too subtly, but then again, subtlety is not really Platinum Dunes' strong suit.
Are things to be said about The Purge? Certainly. Pretty much everybody agrees on the intriguing starting point AND that more could have been done with it.
The story focuses too much on the Sandins alone. In order to really do social commentary, you could have focused on more families, or more parts of the Sandins. Aunts, cousins, grandparents,... A few live in Canada, a few live in poverty,... The runtime would be a bit longer, but with only 85 minutes, that should not be a problem. You can even keep the subplots about the jealous neighbours and flesh them out more.
The characters are a set of clichés: the self made man, the trust fund brats going out to do some killing, the weird son (who turns out to be the soft one),... So yeah, they could have used more nuance and subtlety, but like I said before...
That said,I would like to end on a positive note. This one may not have fully lived up to its potential, but it did open the door for the sequels to do so.
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