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Reviews
Dark Remains (2005)
Coulda been great but got confused
Acting was weak, but in a horror flick, I can live with that if the story is good. It wasn't. The initial event was an clumsy and obvious ploy to exploit most people's adoration of kids. OK, fine. Fast forward to the "place in the country" where they will recover emotionally. I like the revelation of the ghosts. OK, cool--this will be a supernatural kinda horror story, with rotting things partly in our world partly in...where ever. Then the action starts pulling like a three headed dog in a flurry of cats and birds--Is there an evil force trying to attack them directly? Is there an evil force trying to attack them INdirectly--make people do awful things they wouldn't really do? Oh, wait, no, maybe the whole REGION is some kind of psychic echo chamber where ambient discord can reverberate into murder? OK, hold on--maybe it's really just one little mentally tangled "Delbert"-style redneck boy who misses his Mommy and is on some kind of spree like a K-Tel Norman Bates knock off? Oh, yeah--extra points off: the only Black character seems to be the grandson of an "Our Gang" pullman porter. The actor plays it as straight as he can given the crummy dialogue, but the fact is, his purpose is "Y'all done betta get outa heah, Boss!" At least they wrote him smart enough to GTF outta there. The bit with the little girl being silenced and pulled away was definitely creepy, as was the chick in the shower. Those were just two of quite a few really delicious tidbits in this movie. The problem is that they are combined in disharmonious ways, like a bite of steak, a bite of chocolate and a bite of a Gummi bear. Each is great on it's own, but mixed up? Bleah! Such potential. Wasted.
Red (2008)
Like winding up for a sneeze that never comes
This movie disappoints in several areas.
First off is Noel Fisher's ham-handed performance in the opening scene. It gets a tiiiiny less awful as the film goes on, but the tone is set. He is the evil opposite of Brian Cox in the script as well as in performance. Cox, Plummer and Englund all turn in good performances. It's a pity they should be stuck with such an awful script.
Which leads to Disappointment Number Two: Believability. Lemme get this straight--we're in a rural Oregon town that looks like it could have been used for the summer scenes of Northern Exposure, and Cox manages to tail these teenage thugs without them noticing until he gets out of his car (parked directly behind them) and he gets out and calls after them? These guys are sociopaths, not idiots. Then, there is the action itself. Right on the back of the DVD I was suckered into renting It says: "...seeks justice and redemption"..."must avenge himself by any means necessary". Three punks try to rob Cox at gunpoint and when they find he has nothing to steal, they kill his dog out of pure meanness. And laugh. I'll get right to the point--there is no justice, no redemption and mostly there is no vengeance. I absolutely cannot believe that this guy is going to go to the parents and only ask for that the boy be made to apologize. I can't believe it would go down like that for ANY dog, and certainly not a dog who is his only remaining connection to his late wife. OK, it's a small town--you can't just go 'round kneecapping little punks for "only a dog". Still, I'd expect him to be more than just quietly, passively sad when the little punks throw a brick through the window of his home and then burn his store to the ground. At that point it's clear that they are going to hurt HIM in very short order.
The director scores the hat trick of disappointment with the "climax" and ending. If I had a climax like this at the Mustang Ranch I'd demand my money back. The cruel unrepentance of the dog killers' families escalates to the point of attempted (human) murder, once, twice, THREE times and still Cox's character is sticking with this stoic "All I want is for you people to do the right thing" nonsense. JUSTICE would be something JUST like Death Wish or The Brave One, and PRUDENCE dictates a preemptive strike. Simply put, once somebody tries to rob you, kills your dog, throws a brick through your window when you complain about the first two, tries to beat your brains out, burns down your store, shoots you in the head, runs you off the road, clubs you and leaves you for dead, it's time to start killing stuff. Cox doesn't. And I. JUST. CAN'T. BELIEVE. IT.
We watch movies like this for one reason, and one reason only: good ol' fashioned catharsis. You watch Death Wish or The Brave One and you can almost be OK with calling 911 instead of grabbing a gun and cutting out the middle men in the jury box. This film is a total let down there. Cox's character tearfully says"...two boys DIED.." Waaaah. OK, at this point, I'm already annoyed that I've lost an hour and a half of my life to this wussy tease of a revenge movie, but then comes the awful saccharin "After School Special" ending? Makes you envy the dog--HE was able to get out during the first 10 minutes of this steaming pile of Why-Did-I-Sit-All-The-Way-Through-That. If you get a chance to see this, go watch Torch Song Trilogy instead--at least THAT guy had the (fill in your choice of small spherical objects here) to take any guff when attacked.
20 Years After (2008)
92% Bad
Let's start with the positive: Far and away, the best thing in this movie is Tara Nevin's AWESOME performance of "Stars Fell on Alabama". And Azure Skye is very nice to look at. The story leaves way too many questions not only unanswered but not even acknowledged. Like "What really happened?". "How come everyone is so clean and groomed if the water is (and has been for 20 years) full of toxins?" All the exposition comes in one big clump at the end, and it's totally non sequitur. Imagine a slightly less ridiculous explanation for everything than in Silent Hill. A guy who looks like he could be Lionel Richie's gay brother goes blathering on about some pseudo magical nonsense as he leads a pack of refugees into what seems to be a latter day low budget Burning Man camp. Bah! Once the movie got that far along I was only looking for more good music. When the ending comes, it's abrupt and hokey/smarmy, as if the filmmakers suddenly ran out of money or they just realised that it was a lost cause.