Reviews

I disagree strongly with dispel from Melbourne's review of "Watch Me". I bought it a package with fourteen other horror films which I'm slowly working through. Thus far it's easily the best: excellent camera work, very effective building of suspense, very effective music. I appreciated the absence of nudity – all the more so in a movie about porn films. With perhaps one exception, the actors and actresses are adequate to better than adequate … I didn't say "great", but quite sufficient. The plot is a little hard to follow at times, though that may partly be to problems that I still have comprehending Aussie lingo. At points, especially towards the end, the motivations of the principal characters are baffling: in their situations it would need no menacing background music to make me GIT. However, the movie's underlying idea/gimmick is excellent, and it's carried out splendidly … right down to the end!

Being a kindly old thing and easily amused, most of my other reviews thus far have been more or less favorable towards low-budget movies that other reviewers have panned. Not this time. Given what they had to work with, the actors and actresses in Slaughtered were mostly adequate. The gore was appetizing. But the plot was extraordinarily confused, inconsistent, and self-contradictory. Even worse, as another reviewer has pointed out, the emotional states of the characters after they had witnessed appalling murders were ridiculous. The chicks, being chicks, of course had bouts of incoherently babbling hysteria, but then they returned to reasonably cheerful barmaid normal. The males sought to keep the terrible things that were going on secret. I'm not sure why, though there was some talk of wanting to protect the bar's reputation. Minor concerns: I doubt that the Australian police are nearly as slow to respond as they were depicted, and also doubt that they would have sent only one officer when phoned about massive bloodshed. The actress whom I felt to be easily the most attractive was one of the first to be Slaughtered. Oh well, the advice that I've given my son is "Ask yourself whether her conversation still be interesting thirty years from now." I know nothing of the actress herself, but in the case of the character she portrayed the answer would clearly be No. All that said, the mask worn by the Slaughterer was excellent.

After having been reasonably well entertained by "Marked", I found its 2.7 overall rating unfair. Fortunately, slaym666's review IS fair. I'd add that Mark Colson gives a fine performance in his rather crucial role as Dr. Frederickson, that Tara Carroll rather good as Diella, and that none of the other actors are really poor. As other positive negatives, the f-word isn't used very often and there is neither nudity nor semi- nudity, nor any simulations of fornication at all. Yes, the plot is confused and confusing, but it never really drags. Its score is good. Its references to the Apocrypha can be confusing to those familiar with actual Biblical literature, but even these fit a non- standard sense of the word that's briefly mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha. I found the scenery beautiful and appropriately ominous; many of the gore effects appealing to my unsavory tastes, and the white makeup on the ghostly gentleman splendid. I wish that I could smile as he does. I watched "Marked" in 20-30-minute segments as relaxation from doing work on my laptop. It could be that is the best way to watch it.

Sure, even as I watched this film I was aware that some of its details of how an airliner operates were unlikely, that if a satellite armed with a laser could accomplish what this movie's did there would have been no need to send Seals after Mr. Bin Laden, that when airliners chop off the summits of tall buildings and monuments with their wings those wings are unlikely to survive, that the attractive Secret Service brunette could have used her handgun much, much earlier than she did … but I also agree with Big Bwana's review. Defects and all, this is an exciting movie, sufficiently well-acted, and with special effects that worked well enough on my laptop's screen. Had its overall rating been a 4 or 5 I'd have felt no need to add another review. However, I enjoyed Airline Disaster and believe that it's being treated unfairly.

I'm a fan of what might be called lesser horror movies. Generally I review them when I believe that other reviewers have been unjust to them. However, although I enjoyed Skeleton Man, it has some problems. The biggest one is that its main episode, involving the skeleton man's inconsiderate treatment of the eight special forces members, is accompanied by briefer "supporting" episodes that just don't support what's going on in the main one. For instance, how does a rather nasty Native American find black garbage bags to wear, and also find an invulnerable horse? Another is that these experienced military people discover fairly soon that the skeleton man is invulnerable to bullets, yet keep firing at him/it. Firing so much and so often that I'm surprised that they could possibly have packed in all that ammo. Finally, what possible successful effect could the fiery conclusion have had?

That said, some of the we-have-been-warned Violence scenes are excellent, the mountain scenery is lovely, and enough gore is spilled to fertilize these woods for some time to come. The explosions are generally fine, and … despite what some reviews have written … the acting was acceptable

Having just spent a mostly-happy evening watching it on my laptop, I'm forced to disagree with those who gave Final Spawn such a low rating. James Horan, as the corrupt policeman and protagonist, gave a convincing performance. Despite what one reviewer claimed. The minor players who portrayed leaders of Buenos Aires crime were adequate, and the gore was adequate, too. Sure, the plot was silly but it never lagged, and had this been a straight serial-killer detective movie instead of a horror one, it would have been a medium-fine one. So, generally I agree with Kittysafe's review.

Keeping in mind that this film was made in Argentina and reading lips as I listened, I was fascinated that most of the actors and actresses (except for the one who had been mute since childhood) spoke unaccented American English. Another reviewer referred to poor dubbing; again I beg to disagree. Nor did I find the use of hand-held cameras distracting.

My only real complaint? The poor green Dying God was so Skinny!

As usual, I seem to be in the minority around here. More so than usual, though, this time. Although this film was a bit confusing in places, its special effects were splendid, its acting fair to quite good … I was pleasantly surprised by how well Daryl Hannah handled her two-persona role, and its story was engrossing. Excellent chase scenes, a nightmarish lab set, fine underground abandoned subway sets (loved those dangling roots!), and pretty good sustaining of tension. Twenty or so years ago, the notion of a pervasive cover-up plot involving governments at all levels would have seemed ridiculous paranoia. Not today, gang! Even though I have had fine experiences with our local police, I follow the national news, and a plot in which the police are armed, dangerous, and menaces to all good people is no longer ridiculous either. Even the inconsiderate ambitions of the aliens were, to this since-the-early-1940s sci-fi fan, quite plausible. In most reviews I make wise cracks, but not this time. Congratulations to cast, crew, computer techs, producer and director! I intend to watch this movie again.

Well, on the positive side I learned two things about vampires that I never knew before. (1) Besides drinking blood vampires also chew and swallow flesh. Until now I'd thought that only zombies did. (2) when stabbed, fatally choked, or exposed to sufficient sunlight, vampires catch fire. My advice to young people is to make your first date with anyone in the sunlight. While not surprised by the amount of beatings that vampires can take, I was amazed by how much damage human martial arts men and women can sustain without being seriously hindered. Also, though this is also true in many crime and Western movies, how severe beatings leave them unbruised. On the negative side, the dozens of martial arts dances (or whatever one calls them) were boring from the start and remained so. Such movies as the Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer? series demonstrate that this need not be so. The camera work was extremely jerky. So was the music, and often it didn't seem to "fit" what was going on. I'm a bit puzzled why a policewoman would wear stiletto heels when sneaking through a window into a dangerous building, but at least her doing so made it easier to recognize her in the subsequent muddy photography. I was amazed by the number of bullets that ordinary-seeming hand guns can hold. As is also common in crime movies and Westerns, their users also tend to be amazingly poor shots. Mercifully, the actors used the f-word rarely, though (less mercifully) most often in connection with maternal incest.