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Reviews
The Visit (2015)
Keep your parents locked up
Let me begin by saying, I am a big fan of M.Night Shyamalan. Films like the Village, Signs, Devil, Unbreakable were clever and mystifying entertainment. That being said, I can only say how disappointed I was in The Visit. First of all, it did not seem to carry the Shymalan signature other than the quaint Pennsylvania countryside. The indigenous stone houses with their 18th century interiors are always a joy to see, but no amount of hearth-side chit chat can make up for the sheer silliness of this film. The plot is simple. The two children of a single mother go to visit the grandparents they have never met . Familial falling out and dysfunction have kept them apart until they find each other on the internet and the the precocious offspring are off to PA via Amtrak. The son is a pre teen rapper who is just self conscious enough to make him annoying. The daughter is a young teen, actually very lovely, with little self image who video blogs everything while using big words to describe her situations. They arrive to find two very odd grandparents . I won't give the plot away although you probably can guess it without much retelling. Needless to say,things are not what they seem to be and there is some moments of audience jumping and screaming with a fair amount of eye covering. But it really is all in good fun which is one reason why I did not like the film. A rapping 13 year old white kid is not funny to me, although the audience in the theatre I attended found it immensely so. The girl , I forgave her forced superciliousness, because I am a sucker for aquiline profiles, but she could also get a little tedious with her excuses and her stuffy attitude. Nana and Poppy were horses of a different color so to speak and they did their best to ham up the weirdness. The Mom with her Hispanic boyfriend was a wooden character, whose purpose remained vague. She did a lot of big teeth grinning and acting class pausing, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, the tension does mount during the middle of the film and you think it is going in a good direction, but then ,after all, it falls flat on its face with sheer slapstick and bathos at the end. I am convinced that either M.Night Shymalan or another writer has been experiencing the care of their elderly grandparents and the horror of that prompted them to make this film. Certainly , I can relate .The Poppy with his dirty diapers, the Nana with her nighttime naked romps evokes that sense of disturbance and surrealism that comes when you observe the decline so evident in a person as they grow old. I am sure the film maker , having seen this first hand, felt the scenarios would make a good horror story. And so it would have,if it had left out the teenagers and their adolescent perspectives. The Visit is not a film you should pay to see. Watch it when it comes to Netflix or some other movie site. I am still anticipating another great movie from M.Night Shymalan, this just wasn't it.
Skeleton Man (2004)
Possibly Worst Movie Ever
While browsing through a local Blockbuster,my daughter and I rented Skeleton Man thinking it just might be a mildly entertaining ,eerie film. To say that this presumption was incredibly shortsighted of me is an understatement. This film was so insipidly bad that I actually was about to write a warning note to potential suckers idly grabbing films at BB, telling them this film took movie junk to an all time low. That I did not enclose the message was only a nod to my practical side which realized the clerks at the store would have removed it long before a renter's hand got hold of it. Anyhow, the story behind this clunker,I think, starts with the ubiquitous "wronged Indian" who comes back from some "other world?" to wreak vengeance on "white people?" "army people?" "archeologists?" who knows. I said "I think" that is what this movie was about because, honestly, it was so preposterous that the viewer has really no clue what is going on. The premise must, sort of, maybe, contain the revengeful Indian theme but the film fails to explain why this is so.
Perhaps the biggest guffaw will be prompted by the absolutely riotous costume worn by the Skeleton Man. It really looked like the makers of the film had coupons to "Party City" stores during Halloween, and just went to town with the idea of a "skeleton faced guy in a shawl" thing. Riding a sometimes, brown, sometimes black horse, this aborigine in a cape that sometimes had holes, sometimes did not, was able to fend off the explosives of "Special Operatives" of the U.S.Army while downing a helicopter with a single wooden arrow. Ridiculous as this character was, the "heroes" in this dum-dum tale were just as absurd. Amidst a bunch of army types in T-shirts, the film makers no doubt felt the need to spice up their stinker with a couple of rail thin Valley Girls who could wield machine guns like carrot sticks. Toothy and stupid, they mostly all get their "comeuppance" for the deliberately incomprehensible actions they pursue. Not that the guys are any better. Led by actor,Michael Rooker, who should know better , this gritty crew looks like the Viet Nam era might just have been their salad days. That they were selected for this special mission seems like a conspiracy theory against the aging to me. Anyhow, early on in the film, the army group pummels the Skeleton Man with enough fire power to bring down Mount Rushmore, only to see that these mere mortal bullets have no effect whatsoever on the visitor from beyond, wherever that may be. Yet,despite this obvious setback,they continue throughout the film to shoot at him, of course to no avail.What possessed the maker of this movie to portray the "elite" of American fighting forces repeatedly shooting their guns, often point blank, at a target that constantly eludes them? This was bad enough, but the finale has the endlessly tough talking Rooker ...well, let's just say it has to do with trip wires,and chemical explosions, and flying factory workers.
Skeleton Man takes "watching a movie because you have nothing else to do" to a new low. Honestly, I would have been better off polishing my shoes for school than wasting couch space on this drivel. No wonder not a single actor portraying native Americans in the flashback scenes were native Americans. In fact the shaman, the one whose relating of the tale was as mind numbing as the rest of the movie, had a last name that was definitely Italian. Shades of Frank DeKova's Chief Wild Eagle! So, if your taste runs to plastic skeletons in ponchos riding horseback, plain bad acting, or experiencing unintentional humor then this time drainer might just be what you are looking for.
Sea of Fear (2006)
Definitely dreadful
Despite the fact that I have been a fan of Edward Albert's since a teenager, this film is hardly worth mentioning in his filmography. Albert plays a captain of a sailboat for hire, catering to what looks like rejects from the Laguna Beach set. The movie is pointless, and irritatingly confusing but just silly enough for you to get a chuckle from the fun you are going to be making of it. Of course there is the clichéd scenes dear to every post Jaws rip off that include sharks, and islands. But in this film, these features were especially badly done. One wonders why animal activists didn't applaud the makers of Sea of Fear for making the fish more agreeable than the people. Oh, let me also mention that there is a preposterous "pirate" song rendition added as "atmosphere". I could not understand the words, nor could I possible believe Mr. Albert was at all serious when he gruffs his way through a couple of stanzas. I am not so sure the actor who played "Tom", singing it at the end of the film felt quite the same way. Anyhow, the actors, aside from Mr. Albert are unknown and unknowable, and I hope they did something creative and perhaps compassionate with the money they earned from this stinker. Goodness knows,the producers had no mercy on us.