Month of Horror Reviews
Carrie (2002) // The Remake from Hell
Lets face it, Netflix is pretty damn awesome. For shut ins like me, it brings me movies without having to go outside and interact with anyone. Avoiding social situations for the win, I say. And like the video stores of yesteryear, Netflix has got some weird shit. So I figured, why not take a look at some of the stuff I’ve found while browsing the world of Netflix.
This should be fun.
Or not.
Lets start with Carrie. But wait, your saying, Carrie isn’t new. Well, this isn’t the fun 1970’s version. Nope this is the shot for shot remake from 2002. I can almost guarantee you haven’t seen this version. You lucky bastard.
Okay, a little back story time. Carrie originally began its life as a novel written by Stephen King. The story itself is pretty simple, which for Stephen King, is kind of impressive. Social outcast gets supernatural powers. Girl goes bonkers. Girl kills everyone and makes the town go bomb. Its kind of a thing with King.
It didn’t take long for a movie to be released. Its pretty good, as far as film adaptations go. The acting was decent, the effects were good for a film with basically no budget.
I’m actually it surprised how long it took for a remake to happen, and no, I’m not referring to the one being released next year. I am talking about a film that was made over twelve years ago.
This film is terrible. I cannot express how absolutely terrible this version is. Let’s start off with the way this movie looks. I’ve seen some bad looking films, and this one is high up on the list. It looks like it was shot on someone’s camcorder. There’s a weird looking blur effect on all the shots. It looks like a mix between a crappy Lifetime and a crappy Syfy channel movie.
Its just an incredibly ugly movie.
Lets delve into the story?
With this remake, they decided to take more from the book than the first film (though they did have a habit of pulling dialogue from the original a lot). Their decision to do this was not exactly a good one. They didn’t have the budget so the effects looked bad.
At the beginning of the film, we see that Margaret White in bed having just given birth to Carrie. And once she’s given birth, the rocks start falling from the sky and hitting the house. And yes, the effect looks straight out of an Asylum film.
We then follow Carrie who, as a teenager, deals with the taunts and general bullying brought on by the fact that she is religious and looks like she always three seconds away from falling on the ground and foaming at the mouth. This is where setting the film to a more recent period of time is stupid. If the film were in the 1970’s, I could buy some of the attitudes displayed in the film, like when the gym teacher assaults one of the students, or Carrie’s complete lack of social understanding. But in the age of the internet, as well as political correctness, some of this stuff just feels pretty unbelievable.
For one, if Margaret wanted to keep her daughter from sins, freaking home school her. And the gym teacher’s assault would’ve gotten her fired the minute she put a hand on a student. I know, some schools even in this day and age are lax, but I kind of doubt it.
The main actress who portrays Carrie is pretty good. She isn’t Sissy, but she gives it her all. I wish I could say the same for the others. Wow is the acting bad.
Many of them read the lines like they have a set of cue cards in front of them.
To be fair though, much of the movies “original” dialogue is pretty bad. Sue Snell has a particularly uninspired bit of lines about religion that made me want to reach through the screen and choke her (dogs playing poker? Are you fucking kidding me?).
That also goes into my next point, which is the characters themselves. Sue Snell in the book was just your average teenager, who just wanted to do one nice thing for the school pariah. She didn’t try to play martyr, she just thought she was helping. In this version, she comes off as a real witch. She seems just as mean spirited as Chris.
Overall, if you like Carrie, stick to the book or the original film and just avoid this piece of shit.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Movie Review // Promet.... oh fuck me its a Alien Prequel
The Alien franchise. Ah, the glorious Alien franchise. I'll admit it now, I'm not a huge fan of the world of Alien. I saw the first movie in high school and never got around to seeing the others. So I went into this not sure how it was going to go. And oh my God, I was not prepared, I was so not prepared. Prometheus is fucking awful
The basic gist of it is this: two scientists find a map to a planet out in the middle of the space. This planet may hold the answer as to who created us. And the basic plot follows. Yeah, this plot is basic. Humans go to planet to discover lost city, blah blah, get eaten, blah blah.
That's actually a really good way to sum up this movie, a whole lot of meh.
Before I delve to deeply into my hates of this movie, I would like to give the film a few props.
The Good:
One: the cinematography is gorgeous. Now, granted, there isn't a whole lot of color, but it looks stunning. The camera does a lot of sweeping of the landscape and its really nice looking.
Two: The actors were all decent. I bought all of them as their characters. I loved Charlize, I love Naoomi (I think that's how you spell her name). Almost of them all did fantastic for what they were given. I said almost.
The Bad:
Plot:
The plot of this movie is pretty generic. It feels like we've been in this pool before, and frankly, I'm sick of swimming in it. I won't rag too much on this aspect though, because it is an Alien prequel and these follow that type of plot.
Actor:
I mentioned in my good section about how almost all the actors were decent. Sadly, not all of them did a decent job and my number one was Michael Fassbender. Don't get me wrong, I love Fassbender but he was so damn lifeless in this movie. And I know, he's a cyborg, but he just did nothing.
Characters:
I have never seen more dull and lifeless characters in a movie in years. I don't remember a single characters name, they were that boring. They were simply put, canon fodder. They all pretty much had "I'm gonna die" written on their foreheads. The only character who has any sort of development is David, and he's a friggin cyborg.
The Story:
Man is there a lot of questions that don't get answered in the film. The beginning with the alien makes no sense, why they want humans dead is never explained. We get absolutely nothing in two hours except surprise, it's an Alien prequel.
Final thoughts:
While the film looks gorgeous there isn't enough substance. At two hours, its painful to sit through and that's really disappointing. I wanted to like it, and overall, it was just meh.
Final Score 2 out of 5 face huggers.
The basic gist of it is this: two scientists find a map to a planet out in the middle of the space. This planet may hold the answer as to who created us. And the basic plot follows. Yeah, this plot is basic. Humans go to planet to discover lost city, blah blah, get eaten, blah blah.
That's actually a really good way to sum up this movie, a whole lot of meh.
Before I delve to deeply into my hates of this movie, I would like to give the film a few props.
The Good:
One: the cinematography is gorgeous. Now, granted, there isn't a whole lot of color, but it looks stunning. The camera does a lot of sweeping of the landscape and its really nice looking.
Two: The actors were all decent. I bought all of them as their characters. I loved Charlize, I love Naoomi (I think that's how you spell her name). Almost of them all did fantastic for what they were given. I said almost.
The Bad:
Plot:
The plot of this movie is pretty generic. It feels like we've been in this pool before, and frankly, I'm sick of swimming in it. I won't rag too much on this aspect though, because it is an Alien prequel and these follow that type of plot.
Actor:
I mentioned in my good section about how almost all the actors were decent. Sadly, not all of them did a decent job and my number one was Michael Fassbender. Don't get me wrong, I love Fassbender but he was so damn lifeless in this movie. And I know, he's a cyborg, but he just did nothing.
Characters:
I have never seen more dull and lifeless characters in a movie in years. I don't remember a single characters name, they were that boring. They were simply put, canon fodder. They all pretty much had "I'm gonna die" written on their foreheads. The only character who has any sort of development is David, and he's a friggin cyborg.
The Story:
Man is there a lot of questions that don't get answered in the film. The beginning with the alien makes no sense, why they want humans dead is never explained. We get absolutely nothing in two hours except surprise, it's an Alien prequel.
Final thoughts:
While the film looks gorgeous there isn't enough substance. At two hours, its painful to sit through and that's really disappointing. I wanted to like it, and overall, it was just meh.
Final Score 2 out of 5 face huggers.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Review the 1st - Men in Black 3: Doctor Who Timey Wimey Addition
Wow, hard to imagine ten years ago I was sitting in a theater ready to throw my popcorn at the screen. But it was true. Ten years ago Men in Black 2: Electric Boogaloo was released and it was, well, crap. I mean, compared to Wild Wild West, it wasn’t horrible, but it was just, not good. I could go into reasons of its suckage, but I think for the sake of all those involved, I’ll just skip it.
Cut to ten years later and we receive word that there will be a third Men In Black movie. Really? After ten years? I mean, I’ve heard of sequels taking awhile to be made, but this was kind of overkill. It was also being released in May, something I haven’t seen for a Will Smith movie. Though I could understand not releasing on July 4th, due to the whole, ya know, Spider Man thing being released that same weekend.
Going into the film was sort of like going to see the doctor. You know its not going to be good, he’s going to give you shit about losing weight and you’ll cry, but you have to do it. It felt more like an obligation for me as a Will Smith fan to see this film. Lord knows I wasn’t going to run out and see the movies his kids were in, or listen to their music. I may be loyal to the guy, but I’m not that loyal.
So I went and it was… okay. Let me make something clear, if we’re comparing this to the second one, its friggin Shakespeare. It does what the second one didn’t. The story was about Agent J and K. There was no love interest, the dumb little aliens got dropped back to cameo status, the damn pug was not in it, save two shots of his ugly mug, and the product placement was lowered a few notches.
Unfortunately, this movie is also coming out the same month as a certain other movie was being released, so admittedly Mr. Smith and crew were going to get kind of lost in the shuffle.
Lets start out with the basic plot, and no spoilers here my friends. The basic premise is that an alien escapes from jail and plans to kill the man that put him there, in this case, Agent K. But he goes one step beyond the normal “SMASH TIL EVERYONE DEAD RARG!!!” and decides to go back to time and kill Kay and fuck up the future in the process. I have to give this villain credit, he’s slightly more creative than your average.
So Agent J, whose the only one who knows that K was supposed to make it to the 21st century, goes back in time and attempts to rescue his buddy.
I’ll start out with the good of this movie. Will Smith has cranked his Will Smithness up to 11 and manages a really good performance, easily stepping back into the shoes of agent J. He’s still snarky, he’s still rude, but there’s a genuine kindness there. He also manages to hit all the good emotional turns well.
Then there’s Josh Brolin who takes on the role of young(ish) Agent K. I’m not this guy’s number one fan, but he does a real good impression of Tommy Lee Jones and I give him credit for having a pretty tough role playing an established character.
Tommy Lee Jones does a pretty good job, for the few scenes he was in. One scene that really struck me is the scene where he calls J out of the blue and starts to get emotional.
The 1960’s part of the movie looked really nice and detailed pretty well. And this is of course another movie to have historical moments helped by supernatural forces.
The story itself is pretty silly, but its Men In Black, so it doesn’t come out of left field or anything.
But with all good things, I gotta talk about the bad, and there was a little. First off, the CGI in this movie is a freaking joke. I mean, if they were purposely going for that cartooney, this-looks-worse-than-most-15-dollar-videogames, then they succeeded. Some of it looked pretty okay, but man, the human CGI was particularly jarring.
My other major complaint is the villain himself. He’s pretty damn forgettable as far as villains go, although he looked pretty cool. Yeah, I don’t even remember the guys name. At a certain point in the film, you know the villain is pretty much toast, and with that, a lot of the major tension leaves the film rather quickly.
Overall, this was better than I suspected, but with a summer filled with Avengers, Spiderman, Batman this film is more than likely going to get swept under the rug pretty quickly.
Final Score: 3 Dancing Chickens out of 5.
Cut to ten years later and we receive word that there will be a third Men In Black movie. Really? After ten years? I mean, I’ve heard of sequels taking awhile to be made, but this was kind of overkill. It was also being released in May, something I haven’t seen for a Will Smith movie. Though I could understand not releasing on July 4th, due to the whole, ya know, Spider Man thing being released that same weekend.
Going into the film was sort of like going to see the doctor. You know its not going to be good, he’s going to give you shit about losing weight and you’ll cry, but you have to do it. It felt more like an obligation for me as a Will Smith fan to see this film. Lord knows I wasn’t going to run out and see the movies his kids were in, or listen to their music. I may be loyal to the guy, but I’m not that loyal.
So I went and it was… okay. Let me make something clear, if we’re comparing this to the second one, its friggin Shakespeare. It does what the second one didn’t. The story was about Agent J and K. There was no love interest, the dumb little aliens got dropped back to cameo status, the damn pug was not in it, save two shots of his ugly mug, and the product placement was lowered a few notches.
Unfortunately, this movie is also coming out the same month as a certain other movie was being released, so admittedly Mr. Smith and crew were going to get kind of lost in the shuffle.
Lets start out with the basic plot, and no spoilers here my friends. The basic premise is that an alien escapes from jail and plans to kill the man that put him there, in this case, Agent K. But he goes one step beyond the normal “SMASH TIL EVERYONE DEAD RARG!!!” and decides to go back to time and kill Kay and fuck up the future in the process. I have to give this villain credit, he’s slightly more creative than your average.
So Agent J, whose the only one who knows that K was supposed to make it to the 21st century, goes back in time and attempts to rescue his buddy.
I’ll start out with the good of this movie. Will Smith has cranked his Will Smithness up to 11 and manages a really good performance, easily stepping back into the shoes of agent J. He’s still snarky, he’s still rude, but there’s a genuine kindness there. He also manages to hit all the good emotional turns well.
Then there’s Josh Brolin who takes on the role of young(ish) Agent K. I’m not this guy’s number one fan, but he does a real good impression of Tommy Lee Jones and I give him credit for having a pretty tough role playing an established character.
Tommy Lee Jones does a pretty good job, for the few scenes he was in. One scene that really struck me is the scene where he calls J out of the blue and starts to get emotional.
The 1960’s part of the movie looked really nice and detailed pretty well. And this is of course another movie to have historical moments helped by supernatural forces.
The story itself is pretty silly, but its Men In Black, so it doesn’t come out of left field or anything.
But with all good things, I gotta talk about the bad, and there was a little. First off, the CGI in this movie is a freaking joke. I mean, if they were purposely going for that cartooney, this-looks-worse-than-most-15-dollar-videogames, then they succeeded. Some of it looked pretty okay, but man, the human CGI was particularly jarring.
My other major complaint is the villain himself. He’s pretty damn forgettable as far as villains go, although he looked pretty cool. Yeah, I don’t even remember the guys name. At a certain point in the film, you know the villain is pretty much toast, and with that, a lot of the major tension leaves the film rather quickly.
Overall, this was better than I suspected, but with a summer filled with Avengers, Spiderman, Batman this film is more than likely going to get swept under the rug pretty quickly.
Final Score: 3 Dancing Chickens out of 5.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Post the first - In Which I lay things out
Hello and welcome to Bloody Pit of Reviews. My name is Cat and I am your tour guide to some of the most bizarre shit I've seen over the years. I figured that before I post any reviews, I would give some of my history in order for people to understand where I am coming from in terms of reviews.
I'm an avid watcher of pretty much anything weird. Nothing seems to really offend me in terms of what I seen. I started at an early age, with Steven Seagal movies at the tender age of nine.
My main genre's of focus are horror and action. But I'll be hopping around. What can I say, I'm a whore of a reviewer.
So enjoy, and stay tune for my first review post on June 1st.
I'm an avid watcher of pretty much anything weird. Nothing seems to really offend me in terms of what I seen. I started at an early age, with Steven Seagal movies at the tender age of nine.
My main genre's of focus are horror and action. But I'll be hopping around. What can I say, I'm a whore of a reviewer.
So enjoy, and stay tune for my first review post on June 1st.
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