Fear Is A Place

Instead of movie night this week, we had our annual Halloween party. So I've been trying to find time all weekend to watch a movie to review. I forgot how hard it is for me to find free time if it isn't previous designated. Luckily for the sake of this blog, I got sick...on Halloween (as I seem to do every year), and found some time to watch a movie I've had on my que for Netflix for nearly a year: Session 9. I figure, A) it's Halloween B) I need to get this movie off my que!

This one is going to involve a little bit of background. As I've stated in the past, I'm weird. To further solidify this, I LOVE abandoned mental institutions. I haven't figured out quite what draws me to them, but I love them. Furthermore, I love Batman and H.P. Lovecraft. So H.P. Lovecraft wrote about Arkham Sanitarium which is believed to be based on Danvers Asylum, the setting for Session 9. The Batman Arkham asylum is based on the Arkham Sanitarium. This was my one and only draw to this movie. I wanted to see the institution, especially since a few years ago (2005) they tore down Danvers and built apartments on the lot. And, in creepy story telling fashion, they had "mysterious" fires that burned down a good bit of the apartments.

The plot is a little less interesting. Some guys who do asbestos removal are hired to do a job in the abondoned asylum.  The institution starts to do it's damage, big suprise.

Things I Liked:
1. The Hospital. They actually filmed in the Danvers asylum. Apparently it was only a very small portion of it, but all the same, I like it!
2. Story. It was actually a very intersting story, it just wasn't done quite as well as I would have liked.
3. Jurian Hughes. The voice of Mary Hobbes. She does a great job switching between voices. For some reason, some adults are able to do creepy children very well.

Things I Disliked: 
1.Suspense. Fail. You think I would learn. Read movie description. If it says "suspense" in any form...do not watch it. Nope, not me. I never learn.
2.Confusion. I understand wanting to unsettle or leave your audience slightly in the dark but this movie was a little too confusing for me. It was all over the place. This movie couldn't seem to figure out what direction it wanted to go in and stay that way.
3. Music. At the end there is this random twinkling of very kiddy sounding music that does not fit anything in this movie at all. It was only a few seconds, but it was enough to seriously bother me.

Overall this movie was okay. Nothing I would ever look to watch again. It has it's good ideas, I just don't care for the execution. There was nothing scary about it. It was even slower than Alien and The Thing. The story was splotchy but I enjoyed the general idea. Characters were mostly two dimensional and the only one with any real depth has some vague references to something we never find out what ACTUALLY happened.

On IMDB this movie got a 6.7, and I agree with that. Though, I'm not even sure who exactly this movie would cater to. *Sigh*

There Is No Defeat In Death, Master Bruce.

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Oh Batman & Robin...the bastard child of the Batman movies. Due to the release of Batman Arkham City the video game, it was decided we should watch this atrocity this week. If you look at it in terms of a 90s movie, it passes as a decent cheesey movie. If you are a fan of Batman at all, you see it as a disgrace to the story and characters. But how could you possibly go wrong with Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Chris O'donnell, Alicia Silverstone, and Uma Thurman? Let me name the ways...

To start, the things I liked:
1. Costuming. Most of the costumes are actually really nicely done. Minus the anatomically correctness of them. I really think we could have done without the nipples. Apart from a few pieces of Ivy's costumes (what is with those green monster gloves with built in nails???), I think the costuming department was pretty spot on.
2. Alfred. Everyone always loves Alfred. I'm glad that Michael Gough returned again to reprise his role. He's such an awesome Alfred.

Things that are so laughable it's disgraceful to the series:
1. Mr. Freeze. Why so cheesey??? I don't understand the idea behind his character being so unreasonably cheesey. Everything that comes out of his mouth makes me want to slam my head into a brick wall. Make him stop talking!
2. The overall feel of the movie. I've gotten used to how directors portray comic book characters and settings in movies. Colorful. Surreal. Slightly cheesey. I feel up until Christopher Nolan, comic book movies have been, in a way, poked fun at. This one in particular ups the anty on the cheese factor. It's like one giant joke. Not the funny kind either.
3. Cartoon Sound Effects. To double up on point 2, during one of the fight scenes, they literally used sound effects that would be found in a cartoon. *smh*
4. Footage Rewind??? Seriously, there is a section where Robin is coming out of the water and gets dragged back in...or that was the idea. He couldn't just go back down? We had to rewind the footage???
5. Bane. One of the most overpowered characters with the highest intelligence, and he was dumbed down to a manservent for Ivy?? He doesn't even get any real lines. In the comics, Bane does the most physical damage to Batman in the whole series. So why is he being portrayed as such a monkey?

I'm a huge Batman fan. I actually don't hate this movie as much as everyone else I know. But in comparison to everything else out there, it's a joke. The more I watch it, the more it aggrivates me. If you are looking for a Batman movie you have so many choices that this should only be an option if your looking for a drinking game. If you want a feel good Batman, go for one of Tim Burton's. If you want a serious and darker look, go for the ones Christopher Nolan has done. But this one is really a waste of time.

Chariots of the Gods, man.

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This week we watched "The Thing". I didn't realize I had tried to watch this one in the past and fell asleep during it. Big suprise...it happened again. But I almost made it through this time! It was like a ten minute mini nap. You can probably already see where this is going to be heading.

Things I Liked:
1.  Jed. < That's the name of the dog actor since the dog was not given a name. Is it bad that my first point is an animal??
2. 80's animatronics. They walk a fine line between super cheesey and pretty amazing. I did enjoy the animatronics in this one, though "the thing" is pretty cheesey.

Things I Didn't Like:
1. Pacing. Soooo sloooowwww. The parts with action are pretty good, but it's so slow for most of the movie. Now here is the problem...it's supposed to be. I'm just not a fan of suspenseful horror. I get bored so easily. "Alien" is the same way and I fell asleep during that as well. Both are classified as cult classics. But they are just not my thing.

Yeah, not much to say about this one. I'm kind of indifferent to it. If you like suspenseful 80's horror and you haven't seen this, it may be worth a watch. Otherwise, it's great for naptime! I love horror, but I need somewhere between 80's suspense and 90s/2000s blood gorefest. Oh the days of Pinhead are so far gone. *whimper*  So overall, not impressed.

Here's to hoping that next week will bring something better.

This isn't a comedy...it's a horror film

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I hate the Scream series. I really do. I seem to have this distaste for American "horror" films. So much senseless blood and gore that is overdone for shock value. There is no "horror" in horror films anymore. Even though the Scream series is combination of horror and satire, I've never been able to get into it. So when I was told we were watching Scream 4, my whinning was just short of a 5 yr old's temper tantrum.

Sidney decides that after pulling herself out of the horrors of what happened in the past, writes a book, and then decides to head back home, where it all started, to talk about her book and fight to overcome in. In classic horror fashion, guess what happens! If you guessed it all goes smoothly, the end, you have obviously never seen a horror film. Ghost face is back, and she again needs to fight for her life.

Things I absolutely hated:
1. Weak females! Why are all the females in these movies absolutely useless?? Seriously. The only woman with half a brain is Neve Campbell's character who has somehow managed to live through all the past movies to get to this point. And even that seems to come in waves. One minute she's kicking some serious ass, the next moment she's pathetic once again.
2. Predicatable scares. I think my inability to tell whether or not Wes Craven was trying to make this movie a serious version of the past movies was making it hard to tell if these scares were supposed to be that way or if he was honestly trying to scare people. I jumped once. And it was a cheap loud noise during a quiet scene scare. What a waste.
3. Terrible Acting. C'mon guys. I know it's a horror film, but can't we find some decent actors? This has a lot of big names in it too and it's still painful.
4. Anna Paquin. She's so hot, but only if she's not talking. She perpetually sounds ignorant since even when she's trying to hide her accent she slips back into it and NO ONE EVER FIXES IT. She's ruined too many movies for me that I cannot forgive her.

Things I didn't absolutely hate:
1. Courtney Cox. Campy, yes. Entertaining, definitely. She plays a bitch so damn well, you have to love her for it.
2. Kristen Bell. I don't want to ruin the scene because it was kind of awesome. I don't care for her normally, on sheer female principle. Little bite-sized blonde that my boyfriend loves. Not a fan. But regardless, she gets props for her scene in this movie.
3. Action. Finally. There is some legitamite action in a Scream movie. And it's well choreographed. Finally, they figured it out! Some moments I even found myself getting into it. I love a good fight scene, and this had a few of them!
4. Culkins. I don't know why, but if you put a Culkin in a movie, I love them, regardless of their ability to act. They looked drugged out of their minds all the time. There is really nothing thats actually good about that family, but it's like my guitly pleasure. *shrugs*

Two things I've learned from this movie:
1. Having a chain lock on your front door serves absolutely no purpose when your house is full of full length windows and glass doors. Why is the front door the only wooden door in the houses in this town? Seriously?
2. Properly lighting your house and streets is not top priority when you have a perpetual state of murders running around. Your neighbors might be able to help you if you kept the lights on, or bought some brighter bubls, since your houses are made of 80% glass anyways. *Ugh* Bad designs..

This was significantly better than the other Scream movies, but in my eyes, that is not enough of a redeeming quality. I was still pretty bored through it and have no intentions of ever watching it again. That town seriously needs to get some outside help because they obviously cannot help themselves. Maybe they can go with the Buffy the vampire slayer tactic and destroy the whole town. Might help...couldn't hurt.

Next week: The Thing...or so I'm being told.

21st Century Cure! Finance Your Kidneys!

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I'm starting to notice a pattern already with the movies we've been watching...Geeky and Deranged. Yeah, those are the words I'm going with. This week we watched Repo! The Genetic Opera. Let's get this out there, I LOVED IT. Even with Paris Hilton playing a minor role...and not dying.

In the year 2056, the human race begins to suffer from organ failure. Not to fear! A savvy, though shady, business man to the rescue! Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino, Goodfellas) has created a business around organ replacement. But if you can't pay for your new fancy pants organs, you wont get to keep them. They also wont be removed as nicely as they were put in. Enter in the Repoman. He hunts down the fugitives and takes back what belongs to Mr. Largo. This is just the very basic idea of this movie. Lots of blood, lots of rock music, not so much Paris Hilton so not so much sex.

Five things that I love:
1) Sarah Brightman. She plays Blind Mag, and if you don't know who she is than you probably never heard the original recordings of Phantom of the Opera and shame on you. This was her first acting gig, but she is a classical opera singer and the hottest 50 year old woman I've ever seen.
2) Rupert Giles...whoops, I mean Anthony Stewart Head. For anyone who has seen Buffy, you may have noticed that sir Giles has one sexy voice for such a geeky man. Seriously, look it up. He sang Behind Blue Eyes, and it was drool worthy...moving on. He's absolutely amazing in this movie.
3) Joan Jett???? Damn straight. A uncredited quick cameo during one song, but it was so exciting for some reason. Like a little easter egg hidden away in this movie.
4) The music. It will get caught in your head even longer than Dr. Horrible.
5) The Graverobber. Nuff said.


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This movie is not for everyone, which is upsetting because I loved it sooooooo much. If you don't like Rocky Horror, then don't bother. If you don't appreciate humor drenched in blood and gore, don't bother. This movie is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Sound familar? Try Saw II, III, and IV. One of my friend's, who granted, is the girliest girl I think I've ever met, could not find one redeeming quality in this movie. Which is upsetting. She may be banned from my house for awhile, while I cope. But if your inner goth kid, or outter goth kid, needs something besides Rocky Horror to cling to, this is probably exactly what you need. Seriously have listened to the music nonstop for the past week. I just want to watch it again. And it's another movie from 2008. I must have been sleeping that year. Let's see what other goodies I can find!