Movie Review – Page 122

Insidious: the Last Key trailer

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Yesterday the new, much anticipated trailer for Insidious 4 dropped and I’m happy to report I found new intrigue in what I saw. Admittedly I never saw either sequel because the trailers or word of mouth sparked the desire to do so but this trailer intrigued me enough to want to see it. From what little I could gather, 4 will follow series regular, elderly medium Elise as she returns to the house she grew up in and scary shit happens. I got a eerie vibe from the imagery and a sense of some decent WTF moments I enjoyed about the original. I can’t say much from one trailer and the fact I’m unfamiliar with how the rest of the series plays out but I’ll keep an eye out for more… may the gaming gods bring you glory as always.

Little Evil

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Little Evil is a horror comedy new to Netflix that admittedly I watched for two reasons, 1. Adam Scott is hilarious. 2. step dads being abused by children is funny. This movie did not disappoint me at all. The movie starts with the step dad being legit buried alive. We then go back a week to see how we got here. The acting is top notch, and has a few cameos I won’t spoil. As the movie moves on it takes an odd but fun turn. For example in retaliation for burying him alive step dad fills the kids floaties with sand and sends him down a water slide because hey, the kid is literally the Antichrist. There is much more to the movie but I really don’t want to spoil such a great experience.

Comedy horror movies are usually pretty bad but this one gets my full recommendation for all comedy or horror fans. It pretty much has everything you would want with the exception of a standard horror movie sex scene but honestly its not even needed. Go give it a shot, an may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Within (2016)

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I watched this movie as a sort of joke. The idea sounded so basic I figured I would watch this have some laughs at the bad movie, come on here bash it a bit and move on.

Here is the very basic plot. A man moves his daughter and new wife to a new place for a job and away from the daughters sorted teenage past. The family soon finds out about some murders and strange disappearances in the home and odd things start happening. See pretty basic. The acting is nice, the script solid and the visuals and sound are well done. While I admit my purpose was to insult this movie I can’t. Its not perfect, and the start is pretty slow and at times seemingly without purpose. Tho with those complaints aside, the movie was still solid enough to be worth watching and the ending was one of those rare things I did not see coming. That alone was worth the time to me. So get out there and give it a watch, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Beast of Xmoor

This the the story of 3 people hunting a rare large cat in Europe. Georgia is for lack of a better way to describe her a sort of journalist of rare animals while her boyfriend Matt is a camera man. Georgia receives a a call from an old friend she met in a bar named Fox, a hunter and tracker of creatures and has helped Georgia in the past find creatures thought not to exist.

This particular hunt however takes an odd turn. The creature they are hunting isn’t a large cat after all, but what Fox believes to be a serial killer. The movie itself has some odd yet fun twist and turns while the characters may be a little one dimensional at times they are still interesting enough to get the job done.

My only real complaint is that the movie takes place mostly in the woods at night which is fine, but many of the scenes are so dark they are at times painful to watch. That aside it was a pretty fun movie for a B movie found randomly on Netflix and had a solid twist ending that wasn’t just done for the same of having one. i would recommend checking it out sometime, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Secrets Of Emily Blair

Aside from being another typical demon possession movie in pretty much every way imaginable, for fans of the Star Trek and Highlander T.V. shows there are some cool things involved. For example you get to see O’Brian (Star Trek) be a priest or Duncan McCloud (highlander) call a demon a mother fucker.

Ok now that my favorite parts of the movie are out of the way, this is the story of a nurse that gets possessed by a demon one night while at work. From there the slow descent into madness and possession starts. Small things at first, she blacks out for example a cuts a kids finger with a pair of hospital scissors. Then she cheats on her fiancee and finally murders someone. The acting is pretty well done and the visuals are average as are the sounds and music. The only part I can say I honestly disliked was the very very stereotypical exorcism scene. Tied to a bed priest doing priest things lies being told etc. The movie itself wasn’t bad nor was it good. It simply is. If you need to see a demon movie there are better out there. Have a good day and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Zombieland

Oh Zombieland. This is one of those movies that if you walked up to me and pitched it I would most likely call you insane. Add in Woodie Harrelson with some soon to be A list actors and you got yourself a flick.

The basic premise is typical. Zombie apocalypse happens strangers get together in various ways but this time instead of this being a serious survival movie they loaded it up with comedy right down to small details like a guy with a cowboy hat painting the number 3 on all of his trucks to finding guns in a hummer and yelling “thank god for red necks” they really attempted to make it comedic but not outlandish. The zombies actually look pretty good for what it is and the movie basically starts out with some Metalica (for whom the bell tolls if you care) this is another great movie blessed by the gaming gods, and may they also bring you glory.

Insidious

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This is a weird A for effort kind of thing. It’s not your standard ghost story or possession story…well it is but isn’t or is but infused with LSD. Seriously if Dr Strange walked into this story and started fighting the lipstick demon I wouldn’t question it. So we start with typical happy family who move into a new house and weird shit begins to happen. The youngest child goes comatose. The family is now torn but holding, ditching that new house because for once they do what every horror movie family should- get the hell out of the house. But the occurrences continue still. It’s the son we discover is the problem. We discover the father and son share a unusual gift that’s explained by an old psychic lady, they can breach into the Further- a world/ dimension of the dead on the astral plane. The boy’s caught in a bad out of body experience by a demon with long ass nails, enjoys weird old time music, and looks like Darth Maul’s cousin. This demon wants to take over the child’s body. So the father has to dive into the bad acid trip of the Further and save his son’s inner self…

The first time watching it, I wasn’t a fan but the second and third time it grew on me. I have a lot of respect for James Wan, who you can tell put his heart into this and really appreciates the genre. It’s interesting how the story goes from haunted house to possessed child story to something reminiscent of Suspiria if it was the Alice in Wonderland remix. The settings, imagery, and music blend together excellently. The characters are good. I recommend giving it at least two viewings in case the first doesn’t sit right right with you.

Death Note (Netflix) 2nd opinion

So me and Torsten decided we would both review this one. Why? Well he has seen the anime and I have not. So he shall review it pretty much based on that side of things and I shall review it having very very little knowledge of it.

The start of the movie reminds me of most teen movies. Light is a whiny little emo brat to be honest. And L? He reminds me of one of those nerds in highschool that watched too many cartoons and randomly tosses Japanese words out there on occasion because he is to lazy to actually learn the language but wants to sound smart.

With the horrible acting and annoying script out of the way, I can appreciate the attempt to modern/Americanize it, hell its not even uncommon for other countries to change things to make it fit in with their culture. The biggest issue the movie has however is how badly they half assed the attempt. Change the location but leave all the names but toss a weird pronunciation on them? Makes very little sense.

On the bright side of things, the movie does look nice and the story itself is solid even tho I think the actual script needed work. Many of the issues I have heard basically boil down to it wasn’t done how people wanted.

Anyway if you have not seen the anime despite my complaints the movie is solid and entertaining enough to be worth watching. Hope you all enjoyed and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Death note

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So in the fabled year of 2014 when life was Ok and I was almost another person in almost another life, a close friend and original battlebuddy SniperElitest gave me an amazing B-day gift: the complete Death Note anime collection and after that I got hooked into anime. Many people who stereotype anime as violent cartoons full of flashing lights and tall haired buff people that fight and kill each other need to watch this particular anime. Duke, thought Dragonball Z was drawn out and boring so thinking outside the box I introduced him to Death note and he fell in love with anime too. Death Note is the story of bored genius teen Light Yagumi who one day comes across a mysterious notebook called “Death Note” that falls from the sky. He takes it home with him and reads the rules inscribed in it: the first being that anyone’s name whose written in the Death Note will die as long as the owner can picture the victim’s face in there mind. Light is visited by a strange creature, a Shinigami- a death god named Ryuk who sheds light on the situation and helps explain the power of the note, urging Light to try it. Light discovers it’s power are true, watching a robber die just how he wrote it. Light decides to use the Death Note to rid the world of it’s evil people, acting as the “god of the new world” under the moniker Kira- or “Killer”. The world becomes enthralled with the phenomenon, murderers, corrupt officials, warlords, terrorists, child molesters and rapists all magically dropping dead or coincidentally succumbing to fatal accidents. Light’s father is in charge of the task force in charge of hunting down Kira, but on there own they are no match for his intellect. Until L comes along, a odd famous investigator that reaches out to the police to help them catch Kira. From the start, L proves to be a match for Kira’s intelligence, suspecting Light is Kira from the get go. He keeps tabs on Light, watching every move he makes but Light manages to prevail. But a disturbing revalation comes to both L and Light when a second Kira emerges with another note of there own. Enter Misa-misa, a air headed model and pop culture sensation obsessed with Kira who falls madly in love with Light. Ryuk tells Light of a special “deal” the owner of a Death Note and a shinigami can make- in exchange for half the owner’s life span, the owner can borrow there sight and suddenly see the full names of anyone he sees. Misa made the deal with hers. Light charms her into being his accomplice while him and L clash wits and minds as the new world unfolds…but who will come out on top?

The anime is great, not one of my favorites but amazing all the same. It drags and being 37 episodes that says something but it’s full of complex thoughts between the main characters so I can understand. The music is catchy as hell; the animation is gorgeous. Definitely watch it…

So the Americanized Netflix movie? Eh…I hated it. It took the basic premise of Death Note, took out most of the twists and turns and gave us a emo teen romance story. Light Yagumi went from a character starting out as someone with good intentions that becomes a relentless murderer with a god complex who will do ANYTHING to reach his goal. In fact, when he freaks out over the very idea of killing his dad killed the movie for me; in the anime, when push came to shove he did and didn’t have one shred of remorse for it. Mia (formerly sweet, idiot Misa-misa) was more of what Light was supposed to be like. Another huge problem I had was that Ryuk was clearly the villain and actively tried to screw Light where the anime made Ryuk a grim spectator, unable to interfere with the note. The score is replaced by music that reminds me of a more emo John Carpenter knock off. Willem Dafoe is by far the best part of this thing as the voice of Ryuk and the dude who plays L is ok; there’s some decent Final destination style kills but that’s about the best it’s got to offer for me. Don’t watch this if you saw the anime first, you will get pissed.

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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (explained badly)

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Look i’m not making any money on this, so I shall do what Hollywood could not and combine this into 1 review. Now I must admit I had a lot of fun doing these reviews, mostly because they were very out of the ordinary. I doubt I do anything else like this unless people start asking for them. So without further delay I give you Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, apparently by George R.R. Martin.

Seriously that last part wasn’t a joke. These movies have a legit body count that would make Game Of Thrones proud. It starts with our favorite abuse survivor being escorted away from his Aunt and Uncles house by a small army of look a likes sort of like Saddam Hussein. A dew minutes later his owl is dead and so is Mad Eye.

A bit later they get some free goods from the will of Dumbledead that seems quite useless like a book of kid stories a golden snitch and a zippo that puts out lights. At some ones wedding there is another attack and I can only assume more people die. What follows is a weird obsession with finding a dudes old stuff just so Harry and friends can break it so they can kill him.

So as the magical camping trip wraps up the crew is captured and saved by dobby the good old house elf. Yea he dies now to.

I’m skipping around a bit but hey I forgot to mention. Half the first movie Ron is listening to the radio where they announce dead people from the war with the man with no nose.

I’m just going to skip ahead to the battle at Hogwarts. Look this battle is epic as hell. Our boy wonder and friends kick Snape out of the school to find the last couple items,oh yea Snape? Really was a good guy. Aaaaannnd he’s dead. Also one of the ginger twins is dead. Tonks? Dead. Her husband? Dead as fuck. Rons fling from a few movies back? Yea she is dead . After a bunch of death we get a happy ending of course.

But before I go here is something that always pissed me off in both the book and the movies. When Bellatrix killed Sirius Black Harry got pissed and used the forbidden torture curse. And I get it screw her. Later on at Gringots both Ron and Harry use the mins control curse. Again I get it, no harm no foul. Now we get to the final fight with Voldy boy. A man that has killed uncounted people and is responsible for even more. He has tortured more and hunted Harry and friends..and yet in the final duel when its all or nothing for the fate of the world the only person using the killing curse is big daddy V? That shit just makes 0 sense to me and never will. Feel free to mind control and innocent goblin, hit a crazy murderer chick with a torture curse…not quite willing to kill the greatest evil in the world. All that aside I hope you guys enjoyed, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.