Anabelle: Creation Movie Review

The Pitch

I was a fan of The Conjuring but I had very little interest to catch it's spin off, Annabelle. It felt like a cash grab for the company that is behind The Conjuring series. The critical reaction to the first Annabelle movies seemed to confirm my gut instinct about this spin off. I wasn't expecting another prequel to the first Annabelle movie (but it made a lot of money) and I wasn't expecting to hear so many praises for Annabelle Creation (from both the critics and my friend).

The good vibes made me curious about Annabelle: Creation and I heard good things about Annabelle: Creation director's previous movie (Lights Out). You know what they say ... Curiosity kill the cat.

The Plot

A doll marker and his wife lost their daughter in a tragic accident. 12 years later, they invite a group of young orphans girls and their nun from a shuttered orphanage into their home.  They soon realized that there is something sinister going on the new place and the doll marker's creation.

The Perspective

Annabelle Creation was a freaking disappointment. If this is an improvement over its predecessor, I am staying the hell away from the first Annabelle movie.

What went wrong with Annabelle Creation?

For someone who watched one too many scary movie, it was plodding along with cliche scare scenes and this movie seem genuinely afraid to tell a good origin scare story. Annabelle Creation was skimming through it's origin that when it was finally revealed, it was short and failed to have any impact. In fact the movie felt like it was just created to snitch some scare scenes together and they had to hasty slap a  origin story to this demonic doll saga. Or perhaps they want the audience to buy another ticket to watch another prequel to the Annabelle series.

The next issue I had with this movie was how the characters were handled in this movie. The characters felt disposable and it's really hard to root for them or feel for them when they are in a terrible situation. The six orphan girls could be reduced to two and the movie could focus on making them relatable (instead of setting up another meaningless scare scenes with one of their character).

Last but not least, I been told that Annabelle Creation was "wickedly terrifying" and it "manages to conjure some effective scares". The cliche scare scenes were quite boring for me. They offers no genuine surprises or decent scares at all. They were predictable and I found myself listening to the next boo scare. For a real scary atmosphere in a horror movie, it's still the Conjuring and Insidious that tops that category in recent horror movies.   

**
 

Horror Stories | 무서운 이야기 [ Movie Review ] ★★★

Horror Stories 무서운 이야기

"If you want to be alive, then tell me... Horror Stories 무서운 이야기"

The Pitch

It's hard to find good horror movies lately. After the disappointing introduction to Paranormal Activity franchise, the crave for a good eerie and sensible scary movie still lingers. The trailer for the Korean omnibus of short horror movie segments (that befittingly titled) Horror Stories seems to be a promising cure for the Paranormal Activity 4 hangover.

The setup for the main frame narrative reminded me of One Thousand and One Nights / Arabian Nights. A female protagonist has to resort to telling stories to stay alive. The fable setup might just work in a horror movie.

Plus I am also a fan of the recent Thailand horror movies that were structured in similar omnibus format. Movies like Four, 4bia and it's sequel Phobia 2 remained etched in the mind long after the credits rolled. They were testaments that some good horror stories are most effective when it's short and sweet. They are not constrained in feature length movie time frame and they branch out in different areas of creativity.

Personally, I can't wait to see what the Koreans have to offer with their omnibus of horror stories and Thanks to InCinemas, I will be watching this movie a day before it even sneaks in Singapore.

Paranormal Activity 4 [ Movie Review ] ★★

The Pitch

I have never watched the first three Paranormal Activity movies. The idea of watching long still shots of surveillance video for sudden burst of jump scares just didn't appeal to me. It's like a bad mutation of the shaky cam genre. Plus I am a fan of the Saw franchise and was kinda pissed that the Paranormal Activity franchise replaced it as the king of Halloween box office in recent years.

But I was lucky enough to be picked by UIP for the Paranormal Activity - WANT IT contest. I am not sure why I took part in this contest in the first place. It's been a long time since I caught any movies that is really scary and I guess I crave for a real good scare.

I am also wondering what's with the longevity of this franchise? Why is it still doing so well after three installments? Just last week, Paranormal Activity 4 topped the US box office with $29 million (although last year this weekend, Paranormal Activity 3 opened with $52.6 million) while outside of America, Box Office Mojo is reporting an average increase of 11% over it's predecessor. What the secret behind it's success? Is it really that scary that it's bringing enough audience back to make such an impressive debut on the box office?

Money aside, I am definitely looking forward to be spooked like the New Zealand test audience in this video.

Hong Kong Ghost Stories [ Movie Review ] ★★1/2

The Pitch Touted as the return of Hong Kong horror, "Hong Kong Ghost Stories" features two spooky tales from director Wong Jing and Patrick Kong. From the good o' classic such as Mr Vampire to the crappy cheaply made ones like the Troublesome Night franchise in the nineties, it's been a long time since there's any comedic horror movies from Hong Kong.  But can Wong Jing (King of low brow entertainment) and Patrick Kong ( Director of Mr and Mrs Single) revived this once popular genre for the Hong Kong film industry? Or is this just an excuse to put straight to video quality movie on the big screen to earn some quick bucks? The Plot The first story, "Classroom" is written and directed by Wong Jing. It stars Jennifer Tse (Nicolas Tse's sister making her acting debut) as Miss Yip, a substitute teacher who is returning to the teaching field after breaking up an abusive relationship with ex-boyfriend Chung (Pakho Chow). But she is not getting any break as her new class is unruly and her ex-boyfriend keep pestering her for a patch up. Things got worse for Miss Yip when she saw some of her students going for compensated dates. Her offers to help them were met with threats and acts of defiance from her students. And since this is a horror movie, Miss Yip subsequently got locked up in the toilet with slamming doors and flying blades (courtesy of the exhaust fan). Miss Yip soon discover that this is not your usual unruly class. It's the supernatural horrific type that wouldn't allow Miss Yip "abandon" them. To "entice" Miss Yip more, it seemed that there's a victimized student that would need rescuing. Could Miss Yip survive her class from hell? Patrick Kong wrote and directed the second story "Travel" in a non-chronological manner. It started with the funeral wake of Bobo (Chrissie Chau) that attended by four of her friends (Charmaine Fong, Jacqeuline Chong, Harriet Yeung and Rose Chan). They spent their time playing cards and recounting their first encounter with Bobo and policeman Jack (Timmy Hung) at a recent tour trip to Thailand. Halfway through the wake, Bobo's lover Karl (Him Law) arrived to pay his last respect to the deceased. The four girls quickly befriended him and invited him over for a steamboat dinner to talk about Bobo's last few days at Thailand. Karl then revealed some startling information about Bobo and his wife, Phoenix (Stephy Tang). Things are not what they seemed and it's twist galore with this segment. The Perspective  Comparing these two segments, Patrick Kong's Classroom was much more entertaining to sit through. There were some genuine funny moments that were delivered by the four female friends of Bobo. Ranging from digs at TVB / ATV (the two Hong Kong TV stations) to their rendition of extremely horny predators, the laughs kept coming to distract the rather weak performance from the rest of the cast (especially Chrissie Chau who got top billing here but was noticeably missing most of the time). The climatic twist galore was mildly enjoyable even though it's filled with plenty of plot holes. It could have ended earlier with the strongest twist but it went a little too far with the finale revelation and in the process diluted the impact that it had going. "Travel" won't be the next gem in the Hong Kong comedic ghost genre but it's definitely more enjoyable out the two stories that Hong Kong Ghost Stories had to offer.. Wong Jing's Classroom was rather unremarkable. It's not the worst material that he had put out and neither was it one of his better works. It's like a bland functional time wasting TV program. There's a major twist at the end which was also ridden with plot holes. One of the enjoyable bits of this segment was to see how it tried to justified the revelation with contrived explanations. The other noteworthy aspect of this segment would be that it provides a chance to check out if Jennifer Tse could act or not. Surprisingly, she wasn't as bad as her brother when he had just started out as an actor. Plus she looked like a young Gong Li to me and that makes it easier to follow her role as a protagonist in a rather uninspired horror story. It would be interesting to see what kind of choices she makes for her movie career. Bottom line, both Classroom and Travel are as scary as Hong Kong comedic horror goes (which is to say that it isn't). Not exactly the type of show that you should fork out hard earn money for but it wouldn't be that terrible if one actually like this genre and actually paid for this. If you could wait, I am pretty sure that the cable TV or dvd rental for Hong Kong Ghost Stories would be out soon after it's taken off the cinema screens. Otherwise, it isn't a big lost if you give this movie a miss. Rating: **1/2

11-11-11 [ Movie Review ] ★★

The Pitch

11-11-11 seemed like a gimmicky way to make a horror movie. Using this date to set up the ominous doomsday scenario just have a desperate feel to it. It might appeal to those who likes to find mystical meaning in numbers. Other than that, there's nothing really of any significant about this date.

It makes me wonder if 11-11-11 would loses it's novelty once the special date had pass. I can't shake off the feeling that this movie would be desperately finding ways to link any form of horror inclination to 11-11-11. Even before watching the movie, It got a "dated convoluted film product" sentiment set against it.

But apparently Darren Lynn Bousman (director of Saw 2, 3 , 4) thought otherwise. Personally I liked his Saw movies and would like to see what he could do after leaving the Saw franchise. Fellow Saw franchise director James Wan's Insidious was impressive and personally I hope that Darren Lynn Bousman could equally good. Let's see what he could cook up for 11-11-11.

The Plot 

Joseph Crone (Timothy Gibbs) is a successful author who lost faith in God when his wife and son died in a fire. After surviving a car crash, he started to notice a trend with the number 11 and it seemed to be plaguing him with nightmares and horrific events. Returning home from hospital, he got a call from his wheelchair bound priest brother Samuel (Michael Landes) and found out that his father was dying. Although they are in an estranged relationship, he decided to travel to Barcelona, Spain to meet his religious dad and brother.

However upon arrival, Joseph began to encounter more weird occurrences involving the number 11. He started to research on this special "number" and discovered that there are some who believed that entities from other realm would be entering earth on 11-11-11. It might even be the end of religion. Not only that, his dad also revealed that both Joseph and Samuel would have a part to play on this predicted apocalyptic date. The atheistic Joseph started to question his lack of faith and wonders if there's some truth with the "religious" prophecies on this date.


The Perspective (11-11-11 Movie Review)

11-11-11 turned out to be a rather weak horror flick as one would expect. With only Joseph as the only main character in the movie, it's not hard to figure out that no harm will come to him for most part of the movie. Therefore for most part of the movie, it's laden with plenty of those silly "spook a moment" scenes that felt cheap scares and pointless.

The subplots and characters were weakly established to bring any emotional resonate to the main story. Joseph's grief and beef with God were so superficially setup that it was cringing to see Timothy Gibbs go through the motion as 11-11-11 required of him. There was a supporting character Sadie (Wendy Glenn) that was supposed to provide emotional support to Joseph and to showcase the power of the other worldly entity. But at the end of the day, I find myself asking what the point of this character.

The whole linkage with the unique date of 11-11-11 felt rather forced and silly. Just imagine part of Joseph's research to the date was watching "youtube" videos of people talking about what they felt and expect would happen on 11-11-11. While some excel in making something out of nothing (eg. The Blair Witch Project), 11-11-11 handling of the special date just drew more attention to how hollow the material they have at hand.

The best aspect of movie was the climatic "twisty" finale. However movie fans should not have any problems figuring it out half way through the movie. It could have been as impactful as movies like Sixth Sense or A Perfect Getaway but due to the lackluster handling of the lead up to the finale, the payout came off as a whimper instead of a bang.

11-11-11 reminded me of the old school scary atmospheric that Insidious had going but it paled in comparison when it comes scarring the audience and providing a satisfactory wrap up in the end. There are some decent scares during the movie but those scares are largely silly and forgettable. The  draggy pace and the revelation of the movie certainly didn't make the wait felt worthwhile either.  11-11-11 didn't had the potential to start with and faltered in many ways that were expected. I don't think this horror movie would be remembered after it's expiry date.  Not Recommended.

Rating: **

The Cat | 고양이 : 죽음을 보는 두 개의 눈 [ Movie Review ] ★★

The Plot

So-yuen (Park Min-Young) works at a pet shop as a groomer. After tending to a cat, she started to see a mysterious bob-haired young girl. She didn't put too much thought on it as she suffered from claustrophobia due to a traumatic childhood incident and was still getting treatment for it.
When the cat owner mysteriously passed away in a lift, So-yuen happened to coincidentally passed by the building. A police officer Joon-Suk (Kim Dong-Wook) who was at the scene and was tasked to handle the cat, coincidentally turned out to be her good friend Bo-Hee (Shin Da-Eun) ex boyfriend that she had a crush on. The police officer requested her to take care of the cat and that's when the supernatural troubles started to escalate for So-yeun.

The Perspective 

The Cat smelled like another generic Asian horror flick that derived it's horror and storyline from the classic Japanese horror The Ring (Ringu). The trailer and plot synopsis reaffirmed that there will be no surprises in this tired genre.


You get a pretty lady as the protagonist who is having some sort of trauma from before. So-Yuen (played by the pretty Park Min-Young) is one such person. Something happened to her before and now, she is claustrophobic with a eerie dad. A convenient set up so that it would give her the excuse to freak out more often than normal people.

She would come across some form of supernatural device that would kill the people around her but not her. After the video tape in the Ring, we have seen Asian horror film makers desperately trying to throw anything and hopping that it would stick. There's been cellphones, wigs and even cinemas. This time round, the filmmakers are throwing the Cat at the audience. Cats could be morbid creatures but here it's just a another plot device at horror.

The scare tactics used in The Cat had been recycled so often that it's hard to be terrify. It's also easy to spot who are the "would be" victims and that lessen the element of surprise. Additionally, these dis-likeable characters were scripted so that the story could waste time in killing them off in the most uninspired fashion and it does nothing much to advance the plot or build up the characters. Last but not least, the climatic revelation behind the haunting felt like a blatant copy of The Ring without the fitness to execute it properly.

I would say that the only saving grace in The Cat would be Park Min-Young as eye candy. Otherwise everything else here is a rehash of the usual Asian Horror films. Unless you are a new to this genre and couldn't get enough of the same stuff, this kitty is avoidable.

 Beyond the Movie
The direct translation for the long Korean movie title literally means Cat: Two Eyes That See Death.

Trailer

Final Destination 5

The Plot

In “Final Destination 5,” Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of coworkers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse.

But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister agenda.

Plot outline from Final Destination 5 Facebook page

Coming Soon (25th Aug 2011) 

Four | หลุดสี่หลุด [ Movie Review ] ★★★★

Four innovative demented suspenseful comedic horror stories. This Tom Yum blend of Twilight Zone rocks.

In recent years, my personal favorite Thai horror movies have been the Phobia series (4bia and Phobia 2). It shows that good Thai horror might be in form of short stories and a collection of them brings in diversity and horror in the right dosage. When the trailer for Four appeared on my radar, it felt like a weak copycat aping the success of the previous two omnibus of Thai horror. But surprisingly, the only thing that was bad about this movie would be the trailer and Four was equally good as the Phobia series.

Think of it as a Thai Twilight Zone movie and you get the right level of scariness. It offers some intriguing concepts that probably would lose it's appeal if the each individual idea was to be expanded into a feature length movie.

Here's the lowdown on the plots of the four short stories and my thoughts on them.

The Noob's Human Holocaust | เกรียนหลุดโลก

Four kids hanging out at a mall, talking about Global Warming and how earth would benefit from some form of genocide. Their choice of mass massacre? It would be a virus without a vaccine. They started to diverge to how the virus could be spread through computers and other form of electronic devices. 

As their conversation gets weirder, one of the group member started to ask the most important question. Who organized this gathering?

On first impression, The Noob's Human Holocaust looked like a film school project with cinematography that felt amateurish. But for folks who are into films and film making, it won't be hard to spot that the entire segment was done in one take. That means one continuous shot of this segment with no NGs and no cuts. There was a moment whereby the camera floated away from the conversation and pans to the second level of the mall before making it's way back to the boys' table. The unsteady camerawork gave the used of handheld Steadicam away but extra points should be given to the filmmakers and cast for their various background works and coordination to make it possible to capture the whole story in one shot.

Technical details aside, the whole global cleansing conversation between this four kids was rather interesting (depending on your personal views). It felt rather nihilist and bleak but there's some truth in the overpopulation issue that these teenagers touched on. Their choice of virus seemed far fetched but innovative in it's own ways. The execution of this grand plan was both comical and horrifying. Needless to say, capturing this story in one shot just helped make it even more spooky. Eakasit Thairaat, the scriptwriter for all the four stories in Four and Paween Purijitpanya's "4Bia: The Deadly Talisman" directed this piece and personally, I will be keeping an eye on him, looking out for what is he doing to do next.

Last but not least, I personally digs how they used the virus as a form of subtle PSA (Public Service Announcement) to turn their handphones off during movies. Pretty niffy way to start a movie. this review belongs to filmsblitz at blogspot. please do not shamelessly copy it and use it as your own

The Gift Shop for the People You Hate | ร้านของขวัญเพื่อคนที่คุณเกลียด

Thada (Pakkorn Chartburrirak) had just been promoted to manager in his company. While everyone is celebrating for him, there's a disgruntled colleague that had some nasty stuff to say to him. After the incident blew over, Thada decided to go for a walk and look for gifts to give his colleagues as part of his promotion celebration. He came across a shop with the name "The Gift Shop for the People You Hate". Puzzled by the shop name, he went into the shop and was told by the salesperson that this is the place to get back at rivals or enemies. They carry umbrella that comes with a lightning rod and perfume laced with the deadly tiger wasp stingers. They even provide services to sabotage individuals up to the degree that the customers wished. 


Thada dismissed the salesperson's pitch and wanted to leave. The salesperson then mention that someone already bought six gifts for him and warned him to watch out for products with their company logo. Thada naturally didn't believe that and went on to enjoy his promotion. The fun starts when he starts to unwrap and uses his promotion gifts. 

Think of it as Stephen Chow's Tricky Brains that's less playful and more mean spirited. It's innovative in the ways that they came up with those whacky gifts. The suspense here would be to see how Thada could figure out which gifts are life threatening. The beautiful of going to the movies is so that we could live vicariously through these unfortunate protagonist.  The characterization for Thada felt uneven at times but that was easily forgotten with the delivery of one heck of a comeuppance twisty ending. This piece directed by Kongkiat Khomsiri (Muay Thai Chaiya  and Art of the Devil 2 & 3) is bizarrely entertaining.

The Night to Lose Your Mind | คืนจิตหลุด

After unwittingly shooting a pregnant lady during a robbery, Neung (Ananda Everingham) became a changed. He became a reckless trigger happy manic who is causing destress to his partner Joe (Thitti Vejchaboon. Even though they were wanted by the police, Neung insisted on carrying out another robbery and bringing his brother Song (Peerapol Sehnakol) along. Joe was reluctant but was forced at gunpoint to carry out their final robbery together. 


After their robbery, they encountered a police roadblock and decided to hide in a old abandon hospital. They were about to split their booty when they encountered someone or something that lurking around. Neung in his maniac mood swing felt that his authority had been challenged and decided to chased after the shadowy individual.  Resulting in a night that ripe to lose one's mind.

Arguably the weakest installment of the whole lot. This segment relied heavily on Ananda Everingham's performance to keep this segment going. While he did a decent job, it's hard not to feel that it dragged the story out a bit too long for it's own good.  It felt like an rendition of the Saw franchise which was enjoyable and decently filmed to get the type of reaction to torture porn.  The twist at the end was somewhat predictable but still satisfying even after the long wait. 


Who R Kong? | ฮูอากง

The grandfather of a Thai Chinese family had passed on but before he died, his last words were "Don't burry me or cremate me until...". His children obeyed his last wishes and left his corpse in his ancestral home. Years later, the family had problem hiring maids to watch over the body as it tends to walk around, scaring the hell out of the maids. 

They hired a fortune teller / exorcist to solve the problem and the family was told that the grandpa wanted to pass a message to his favorite grandchild. The message was said to contain hidden treasures in the ancestral home. The head of the household then decided that all the grandchildren would stay over to look after the grandfather's body.

The grandchildren were made up of an effeminate guy who refuse to admit that he is a homosexual, a brainy doctor who is quite an asshole, a internet porn addict teenager and a little girl who is constantly texting with her blackberry. Lastly, there's Song (Alice Tsoi), the granddaughter who seemed to be the most decent and sensible among the bunch.

This segment got the whole cinema laughing out loud and stomping their feet. The over the top comedic performance and situations made it hard to sit through without laughing. The effeminate grandson will bring the house down with his dance moves and his strenuous denial of his homosexuality. In between moments of laugh out loud comedic situations, there's the suspenseful ones involving one grandpa who can't keep still even after he is dead.

This "homedy" segment is wonderfully directed by Chukiat Sakveeraku (who also directed Love of Siam, one of my fave movies of 2009).  It's impressive that he was able to deliver a well blend of scary horror and riotous comedy. In an unexpected way, he was able to close this whole segment with a sweet ending. Personally it was a terrific way of ending a fun rollar coaster ride.

Insidious [ Movie Review] ★★★1/2

The Pitch

James Wan and Leigh Whannell first burst into the Hollywood scene with the original Saw movie. That low budget "torture porn" became a surprisingly hit and went on to spawn six sequels. Their next collaboration as director / writer didn't fare that well as Dead Silence received mostly negative reviews and was a box office bomb . Insidious would mark their third collaboration and even though it poaching on the overused haunted house / possessed kid elements, this movie might just mark a return to form for them.

Beside the Saw franchise creators, Oren Peli, the guy who wrote and directed the latest horror box office phenomenon Paranormal Activity would be performing producer duties for Insidious. Can the creators of the two highly successful horror franchises come together to create another horror hit or perhaps another horror franchise?

Looking at Insidious US box office collection, this $1.5 million movie went on to earn a gross revenue of $51,681,000 (as of May 15th). That's around the ball park of the first Saw box office collection. Does a healthy box office collection equate to a good horror movie? Read on to find out...

The Plot

The Lambert family just moved into their new house. Things appeared to be normal until the night when Dalton heard noises in the attic and decided to investigate. He had a fall while trying to turn on the light. His cries caused his parents Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne ) to rush up the attic.

The next day, Josh tried to walk Dalton for school but Dalton was unresponsive. The panic stricken parents rushed Dalton to the hospital where the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with him. Dalton remained in the unexplained coma and the parents decided to bring him home. That when the spooky eerie stuff started to escalate. Renai had enough of these paranormal activities and wanted to move out of the house. Feeling helpless with the chain of events, Josh agreed but the haunting kept taunting Renai.

Josh's mother (Barbara Hershey) believed that the haunting that Renai encountered were true and introduced her friend Elise (Lin Shaye) who specialized in supernatural exorcism to them. Elise and her team went into Dalton's room and she quickly identify a red face demon who was watching over Dalton comatose body.

Sensing the direness of the situation, Elise revealed the truth behind Dalton's unnatural coma and attempted to rescue Dalton's spirit before it's too late. But the demon turned out to be too powerful for Elise to handle. Running out of options, Elise revealed a past that Josh had forgotten and seek his cooperation to attempt a dangerous rescue mission for his son .

The Perspective

Insidious started out in a slow and mundane fashion. It might be a bit of wait but when the haunting escalate, it's one heck of a scary ride that don't stop till the end. The spooky moments are well set up that it kept me on the edge of my seats and some scenes stood out for it's eeriness.

The revelation of what happened to Dalton and Josh past was a refreshing change from the usual horror flicks. While it's a bit of stretch, the filmmaker made it work for Insidious. Personally I also enjoyed Lin Shaye's performance as the exorcist and the "inventive" exorcism.

But there might be complaints on how unoriginal Insidious was and to a degree, it's true. There are traces of Poltergeist, The Exorcist and Paranormal Activities but personally, the film was such an entertaining ride that comparison of the similarities came only as an afterthought and it didn't diminish the enjoyment of watching Insidious.

If it's anything, it was the ending that was a bit of a let down. Personally I felt that they tried to be too smart for the audience and while it's chilling, it contradicts a couple of things that were set up during the movie.  Otherwise, it's a good o' school horror school with plenty of scary moments. Insidious comes highly recommended.

Scream 4 [ Movie Review ] ★★★1/2

The Pitch

In recent years, old successful franchise had been making making a comeback after a lengthy absence. Series like Indiana Jones, Rambo and Die Hard series had seen a new installment to their trilogy after many years. The common thing about these 4th installments would be that they weren't that good or generally hated by the fans.

Scream 4 has certain indicators that it might just be like those movies mention above. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette didn't have much of a movie career after the Scream trilogy. It would be hard to name one movie that Kevin Williamson wrote in recent years.

Plus it's a good idea to bring Ghostface and all the stabbing back? The first one was a refreshing touch on the whole slasher genre, setting down some ground rules that identify the overused cliches of a slasher flick. The second movie marked the start of decline for the franchise and the third one was even more forgettable than the second one.

Director Wes Craven stated that he won't be directing Scream 4 if the script wasn't as good as the first one. The movie makers also made promises that this installment will be an updated with the slate of what's happening with the slasher genre (cum torture porn and remakes + reboots) these days. Would be interesting to see if the gang could actually bring something new to this franchise?

The Plot

It's the 15th anniversary of the first Woodsboro Ghostface serial killing and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) are all back in town. Sidney Prescott had overcome her traumatic past and wrote a self help book about her slasher magnet experience. The book became a success and oddly enough, she chose to return to Woodsboro on the eve of the anniversary for her book tour.

Gale Weathers and Sheriff Dewey Riley are married for 10 years and are currently residing at Woodsboro. Sheriff Dewey Riley had settle in nicely with his role as Sheriff of Woodsboro. Gale Weathers on the other hand, is having a major writer blocks of her writing career and resents being stuck in a small town where nothing much happens. She craves for something to happen so that she could be inspired to write again.

It's not going to be a happy reunion as Ghostface is back too. As every installments of the Scream franchise, Ghostface won't just be terrorizing the Scream franchise survivors. There will be new victims and this time round, the new targets comes in form of  Sidney's cousin Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) and several of Jill's high school friends.

Like Sidney, Jill having trouble with ex boyfriend Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella) (the bad boy type that invokes memories of Billy in the first Scream). Her good friends Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) and Olivia Morris (Marielle Jaffe) helps her to deter Trevor attempts to contact her.  Rounding up the list of potential student victims, Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin) and Robbie Mercer (Erik Knudsen) are the new movie geeks that helps provide the rules of surviving a horror movie (as what Randy did for the first three Scream movies).

Beside the students, there are other potential victims/killers around. Sheriff Dewey has an admirer in his office and it's pretty obvious that Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) does not really like Gale Weathers. Deputy Judy also happens to be Sidney high school classmate except Sidney could not recall who she is. She is even a high school classmate with Sidney but Sidney could not remember. A strange coincidence or a designated red herring?

Rebecca Walters (Alison Brie), Sidney's publicist who got a lot to gain when Ghostface returns to haunt Sidney. Even Jill's mom Kate Roberts (Mary McDonnell) didn't seemed to be the normal mom/aunt figure. Could she bear some grudge against Sidney or Sidney's mom?

Like in all Scream movies, the potential victims (and even dead or wounded) could turn out to be Ghostface. Just as one of the quotes in the Scream movies, Everyone's a suspect... even the veteran survivors.

The Perspective

The opening act for Scream 4 was the weakest  one in the franchise. The numerous false starts felt tedious and a cheap parody of slasher flicks. It felt gimmicky and overly done till the victims became what they were making fun of ... the torture porn cardboard characters that you didn't care for.

But nevertheless, things got a better after the opening act. Characters and relationship were quickly established. It felt a little too familiar but kudos to the cast, writer and director, it was adequate to keep things interesting and the suspense tight for the audience.

The thing that made Scream 4 stood out from the last two sequels would have to be the revelation of the motive behind all the gory killings. Scream 4, in my opinion nailed the finale pretty well. Well enough to convert the average slasher flick into an instant favorite.  It was unexpected and it has a natural flow of logic to it. Unlike Scream 2 and 3, the revelation in Scream 4 does not felt forced and done in a manner for no other purpose but to outwit the audience. Scream 4 revelation also contain the best social commentary from a slasher flick and that was pretty awesome in my books.

In closing, Scream 4 felts like the true sequel to the original Scream movie. It's witty, intense and was a gory fun time. The best part would be how they didn't try to overcomplicated matters by making unexpected (far fetch) revelation. If the upcoming Scream 5 and 6 could be as good as Scream 4, count me in for the next two installments.

My Ex : Haunted Lover | แฟนใหม่ [ Movie Review] ★★

The Pitch

My Ex ( แฟนเก่า Fan Kao) was one of the top ten worst movies that I have caught in 2009 and now we are getting My Ex : Haunted Lover (แฟนใหม่ Fan Mai ). But apparently the original made a lot of money in Thailand (came in top of the box office on the opening weekend) and well received enough to get this sequel greenlighted. This sequel My Ex: Haunted Lover also did very well at the Thai Box Office. The same director Piyapan Choopetch who did the original film is back to helm this BGR gone supernaturally wrong movie and I got no idea what made me want to watch this movie. Perhaps it was to see if the director could improve on what didn't go well in the first movie or I was simply possessed.

The Plot

My Ex : Haunted Lover (แฟนใหม่ Fan Mai ) starts literally at the end credits of My Ex ( แฟนเก่า Fan Kao).  Cee (Ratchawin Wongviriya) and her girl friends just finished watching the first My Ex movie and they were there to support Cee's sister Bowie (Bowie Atthama Chiwanitchaphan ) who got a small role in that show (remember that school girl who was killed by a truck while making a phone call to her ex boyfriend?). They went on bitching about how rotten the male lead character in the show was and almost immediately, they spotted Cee's boyfriend behaving intimately with another girl at the cinema.

Someone Behind Me Again ?!?!?

The couple started to quarrel at home and her boyfriend Aof (Thongpoom Siripipat) assured her that there's no love between him and that girl, Ying (Marion Affolter). He is simply broke and needed to borrow money from her. Ying overheard what Aof said and was so heartbroken that she apparently jumped from the building.

After Ying's suicide, Cee broke off with Aof and started to pursue a film career with her sister Bowie's help. During work, the sisters were introduced to Karn (Pete Thongjua), a rich resort owner who is financing their new film project and loaning his resort for the shoot. When the good looking ladies mix with a good mannered rich man like Karn, a potential love triangle is bound to happen.

However before Cee could put her mind into starting any form of relationship with Karn, she got a loser ex boyfriend who constantly bugging her with calls, seeking reconciliation. Cee is also getting harassed from the supernatural forces too (courtesy of the recently deceased Ying). It all boils down to a showdown at Karn's beautiful beach resort.

Who would you look at? Me or that Fugly Bitch behind me?

The Perspective

My Ex : Haunted Lover (แฟนใหม่ Fan Mai ) certainly wasn't an improvement over the original film. In fact the gore / scare factor was pretty much tone down and the story was just as bad as the first one. The spook factor here felt meaningless except to remind the audience that this is a horror movie. You get the usual sudden loud sound effect with the sudden visual pop out scares. Nothing as scary as compared to the first one and the first one wasn't breaking any grounds in the spook factor.

Gone were the gruesome scenes like manager's "spectacular" death scene and the schoolgirl, phone booth & truck sequences. In place of it, we get the Ying's fall from a tall building and landing head first on the concrete beside a pool. It sound more gruesome than it's actually is. In fact it's quite silly if you think about it. A fall at such height with the head landing first would have done way more damage than it was portrayal here but hey we can't do with a headless ghost in Asian horror film nowadays.

Don't think for a moment that the series is shifting it's focus to the story build up. Wrestling screen time with the obligatory scare sequences, My Ex Haunted Lover didn't have much time or effort in building up these characters and the conflicts between them. They are pretty to look at but their character felt like one dimension characters. Such as the unspoken rivalry between the sisters were missing through out the whole movie until the final twisty revelation of the movie.

I'm Bored of You

Yes twisty revelation! The norm for most supernatural horror movies these days. While there are some great ones and some average ones, there are some that literally pulls the rug off your feet in a bad way. My Ex Haunted Lover twist belongs to the latter group. The twist just came out as an U-turn to all that's been established in the show so far. While 6th Sense twist was impressive, My Ex Haunted Love felt like they are forcing the twist down the throat and expect you to go with it. The excuse that this movie might give would be that the twist is the reason why Ying is haunting Cee instead of that loser they both "loved" but it's just so hard to believe why Ying is taking so long to take exact her vengeance and why is she doing it at the beach resort.

There are also subplots such as the dead woman that drown nearby the resort and how Ying is related to the resort owner that are conveniently forgotten as the show progress. One might argue that they are red herrings but personally, they felt like unnecessary padding or the director couldn't decide how to add those subplots into the story.
 
Like it's predecessor, My Ex: Haunted Lover is a forerunner for my list of top ten bad movies of 2011. Let's just see if there's other ten other movies that could top it's placing. But since both two movies did so well in Thailand, there's room for the third one and the final scene in the movie might just be the link for the third one. It's a cameo scene that is akin to how Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild ended but here, it's just felt like a desperate hook to drum up people interest for another sequel. Strangely I might just catch the third one if it stars that actor who did the unexpected appearance in that cameo scene.

Here the trailer if you are still interested about the movie.

My Ex Haunted Lover poster from Malaysia

Pete Thong-jeur

Exorcismus | La posesión de Emma Evans [ Movie Review ] **

Exorcismus is about The Possession of Emma Evans. A teenage girl who happens to have an uncle who is a priest. The same priest who happened to fall from grace recently due to a failed exorcism. When Emma Evans started to show signs of possessions, who are you going to call?

It's not hard to figure out who going to help exorcise Emma's unholy squatter.  But it took so long to get there as Exorcismus had to wrestle with Emma's adolescent angst. When things finally became too much for Emma to ignore, she finally turned to her uncle and together, they discovered that there's supernatural force at work here.

Strangely, Emma was left on her own to convince her skeptic parents about her plight and the need for exorcism. Expectedly, her parents turned her request down and the runtime gets padded even longer. It made one wonder why don't they just left the parents see how a holy cross could fly across the room when it was place on Emma's hand. No sane parents would think that it's a medical condition after witnessing that kind of phenomena. It just felt like an unnecessary to drag of screen time until the inevitable happens.

But that's not the worst bit. When we reached the exorcism bit, it felt like a series of dental extractions with plenty of breaks in between. The exorcism just didn't seemed like it's such a big deal here. There are painful attempts to extract the devil but in between extractions, the victim was allowed to roam freely and basically left on her own with minimum supervision. Not quite your usual exorcism movies where the possessed individual would be either tied up or confined in one room till the devil's been extracted. There's no sense of urgency and needless to say, the possessed Emma went out to cause more grief and mayhem. Kinda hard to feel sympathetic for Emma's latest victims when the characters in the movie don't even seemed to care.

The better parts of this movie would be the twist at the climatic finale when the truth behind this possession was finally revealed. It managed to achieved an innovative twist to this tired genre. It did helped to explain some of the loopholes that were found in the main bulk of the movie but then again, the explanation does not really cover the weakness of the scripting. The problem with this  "shocking" revelation turned out to be just another silly adolescent tantrum gone too far. That took the shine off the innovative twist to the game and that's the only saving grace of this movie.

There are plenty of exorcism movies around and even though the formula been well defined, there are some good ones around and some not so good. The Exorcist is the classic that no other exorcism movie could touch. The Exorcism of Emily Rose / Requiem were quite good and Exorcismus would come in at the spectrum of "not so good". Weak plotting and zero on fright made this movie felt like a telemovie that could not be channel surfed.

Saw 3D [ Movie Review ] ***

In the 7th installment, there's basically two stories going on at the same time. The main story would be on Bobby Dagen, a man who claimed that he is a JigSaw game survivor and learned to embrace his life more after the traumatic experience. His book made him famous and he started reaching out to the other survivors. Obviously that didn't please Jigsaw and soon, Bobby Dagen found himself "back" in the games. This time, it's a series of games which he must accomplish to save his colleagues and his wife.

Meanwhile, Jill Tuck (Jigsaw's ex wife) is trying to escape from the latest Jigsaw killer. After the incident in the previous movie, she seeks help from the police and the Jigsaw is trying to find ways to kill her. The thing is that his identity had been revealed to the police and he could no longer use the perks of being a police detective to achieve his mission as Jigsaw.

The thing about this installment would be that it's a last ditch effort to regain the high turnover at the box office as the previous five movies did. To entice the audience, the filmmakers are throwing in the 3D gimmick and removing the 7th from the movie title, hopping that unsuspecting folks might just get the tickets without knowing that there's a long history.

Bad news for those unsuspecting folks cause the whole Jill Tuck's story arc is somewhat rooted in what went on during the first 6 movies subplots. To understand why the latest Jigsaw is so hellbent on killing Jill Tuck, you need to know what happened in the climatic finale of Saw 6. Then there's the return of Dr Gordon, a character from the 1st Saw movie that had not appeared since then.

Fans of this series might be disappointed too. The return of Dr Gordon felt like an awkward insertion to the storyline. Not much is done on the part that he play in this franchise except the possibilities of expanding this series further with the involvement of this character. If fans had embrace the previous retcon (Retoactive Continuity) as a mean to deepen the series mythos, the retcon of Dr Gordon just felt rather repetitive and tedious.

Similarly Bobby Dagen's journey felt like what happened with the main "victim" of Saw 6 and Saw 3. One solo guy going through a series of sadistic tests to save others who are trapped in deadly contraption. It's all been done before and in more interesting fashion.

If this is the final chapter to the Saw franchise, then the series had ended not with a bang but a whimper.  There are still some open threads ways that would allow another sequel to be made but it would take a movie with a calibre of the 6th movie to make the Saw franchise interesting again.

Ironically the director of Saw 3D is the same as Saw 6. It just make one wonder how did he did such a bland job out of it. Perhaps he is still unhappy about being pulled off from Paranormal Activities 2 to direct this movie. Or perhaps the 3D technology took time away from crafting a stronger story (refer to Saw 6). Or even perhaps the script was that weak that the director couldn't do much to savage it. There might be hope that a Saw VIII might give the Saw franchise a proper finale but given the poor box office collection, that unlikely to happen. It's just a pity that the series would end with such an average installment.

Was it worth the 3D price?

There's some gimmicky 3D tricks of having some body parts and blood flying towards the audience. It was more comical than gruesome. The depth of field is nothing worth mentioning and watching this movie without the 3D gimmick would have been better. In fact  Instead of making it 3D, more effort could have spent on making this one heck of a finale. Save that extra 3 bucks.

The Haunted House Project | 폐가 [ Movie Review ] **

Blair Witch Project ~ Kimchi Style

The Haunted "Insert you choice of residence" movie is a popular horror film choice. Especially in Asia film industry where you can easily find a handful movies that use their location as the horror device. Needless to say, it's already a very overdone horror genre. In order to "differentiate " itself from it's Asian peers, The Haunted House Project took the Blair Witch Project way.

Ironically it does not "differentiate" itself too much from the Shaky Cam genre that The Blair Witch Project had established many many years ago.

Like many Shaky Cam horror genre, there will the initial setup of how a tape was found from a haunted venue and we are viewing what had happened horribly to some folks with a videocam. In The Haunted House Project, we get a group of six (a producer, a cameraman, a sound woman and three members from a Korean paranormal online club) investigating the haunting of one infamous location.

Rumor has it that this haunted premise has a horrible past. A successful businessman was caught having affair and it was said that the wife killed her husband lover. Dumping her in a pool nearby their factory, the ghost of the lover came back to massacre the couple and their kids. Ever since then, residents had reported weird sightings at that location. Authorities tried unsuccessfully to clear the pool. The place remained unsold and avoided until this group of six decided to venture in for some spooky adventure.

The problem with this type of shaky cam horror movies would be that it has a very rigid structure to follow and it can get rather boring (not to mention un-cinematic to watch) if you have your fair share of shaky cam horror movies. Since we are watching a tape that found at the haunted house, it's quite obvious that no one will be making it out alive. The victims can't die too soon as the panic mode (or I call it the shaky ground / feet shots) will occur and viewers won't be able to see much. Therefore we get the introduction, the exploration and the occasion spooks (which would not result in any fatality) to fill up the bulk of the movie.

Another problem with a Shaky Cam film would be the aspect of incorporating realism of an actual documentary filming gone bad. It made a mistake of adding mosaic effects to cover up possibly  objectionable images. Now while you can do it with a editing software, I am pretty sure that up to today, there isn't one videocam that could mosaic certain portion of the film so nicely (as it did in the film).

But then again, it's not that bad. The "scare a min" tactic in this film was quite well done and timed to get the maximum spook from audience. The comeuppance for this intruders were fun to watch but it's too late and too short to make it more enjoyable. There were also a few eye candies in the cast that helped make following the major bulk of this movie less dreadful.

Perhaps it's a personal dislike for this type of movies making. Using realism as an excuse, it's a cheap way of making money. Just find a remote location, a bunch of unknown actors and some camera tricks, you get a cheaply made horror flick that could rake in lots of money. In today's youtube generation that are accustom to such video would probably have no problem with it or even embrace it. There will also be fans of horror genre and this type of filming that have no problems lapping this up. For me, the novelty factor of Shaky Cam had worn off since the Blair Witch Project and REC and should be put to rest soon (that is unless they managed to find some ways to break this mold).

Drag Me To Hell [ Dvd Review ] ***

The plot device for Drag Me to Hell has always sound illogical and silly to me. Why should a loan officer be cursed with such deadly curse for rejecting a loan extension. It's not exactly her fault even though she did it for the sake of a potential promotion. The old lady already had two loan extension and it makes one wonder if she is so powerful to make such an awful curse, why didn't she used some of her power for her own financial management?

It just didn't sound right or logical even in a supernatural way.

Further more, this is more or less haunting of one person, it's kinda obvious that harm couldn't happen to her for the main bulk of the movie. It make the whole haunting experience for 3 days seemed a little pointless. Why is the demon toying with her and not drag her soul to hell sooner?

Nevertheless, Drag Me to Hell wasn't that bad afterall. In fact, it was quite an entertaining horror with a certain 80s feel to it. It didn't take itself too seriously and surprisingly, the over the top haunting were far more humorous than scary.

Although the start up for the plot still feels rather silly to me, I liked the remedy of the curse. It reminded me of Robert Louis Stevenson's the Bottle Imp in which they tried to give away the bottle that will doomed the owner to eternal hell. The dilemma that comes in choosing who to pass the curse on and the knowledge that you send that certain person to horrible fate was intriguing to watch.

Last but not least, the unflinching ballsy twisty ending was rather enjoyable. Although it was pretty obvious what's going to happen (specially if you have seen movies like the Ring), it's going to be one of the more memorable endings in recent Hollywood horror movies.

Movie: ***

Dvd Extras [ Code 1 ]


Unrated & Theatrical Version - After watching the Unrated version and skimping through the Theatrical Version, there isn't any radically different scenes or alternate take of the movie. The Unrated version simply show more details and spent more time in the gory factors.

For a more detailed take on the differences between the two edition, check out Movie-Censorship's page for Drag Me to Hell

Production Video Diaries - Basically segments of the "making of". Covering the behind the scenes for sequences like The Bloody Nose and the Nightmare. There are some segments that cover the actors / characters profile but the more interesting bits of the Production Video Diaries would be how the special effects were done for the supernatural scenes.