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Elvira’s Haunted Hills 2001 ★★★
The missing link between Young Frankenstein and Scary Movie sees a crossover between Morticia Adams and The Nanny get into all sorts of shenanigans in a haunted castle.
No brilliant comedy, but good for a few laughs.
The Den 2013 ★★★
You immediately buy into the premise of the happy go lucky college girl who just seems to roll her way through life and into new adventures. So she talks/charms her way into this project about on line culture and you're happy for her when she gets the grant. Throughout all of this, the fact that Melanie Papalia is not hard on the eye does not hurt the credibility either, but it's more a case of good casting rather than just good looks.
This is one of the undeniable qualities this movie has. You sympathize with the main character, it has a number of creepy moments and the ending does manage to surprise you a time or two. Right at the moment when you think “this extra scene is redundant, we can just stop right here, right now”, the story goes a different route. Specific mention: at one point, I expected a Megan is missing-like torture scene to ensue but it somehow turned into an action movie henchmen scene without being laughable. So yes, The Den does a lot of things well.
It's not a FF classic, though. For one, you simply need too much suspension of disbelief to be immersed on that level. Not to mention the practical objections (“why didn't she just...”). And it also does not help that I spent a good chunk of this movie thinking that this could have been perfectly filmed in the “regular” or “traditional” style and that it could have been a solid low budget horror as well.
Knowing 2009 ★★
The Cagemeister and the end of the world? Sign me up.
It was well done and the disaster scenes looked pretty explicit and cool. The type of fire stunts you don't see that often in this type of blockbuster. Compare to the average Emmerich production and you'll see what I mean. And Cage does a good job, keeping the Cage spazzing and screaming to a minimum.
That said, it had a lot of the topical blockbuster tripel, a wuuuh?-finale and a sappy farewell scene.
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