review

Review: The Strangers (2008)

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The Strangers (2008)
Starring: Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler
Directed by: Bryan Bertino
Written by: Bryan Bertino
Rated: R
Rating: 1/2 (half star out of five)

A young couple who are having temporary relationship issues return home after a friends wedding. They are then terrorized by three people in masks, who haunt their every turn until the ending we pretty much saw coming before we bought the tickets.

To quote Roger Ebert in his review of this movie: “What a waste of a perfectly good first act! And what a maddening, nihilistic, infuriating ending!” He then describes how he read an interview with the director who said it was his first directorial job ever. This prompted Ebert to bump his review up 1/2 a star because he felt the director at least had the “chops” to make a movie. I disagree.

There was nothing original about this movie; there was nothing that I hadn’t seen before in another film that did it one-hundred times better. I hate to say it, but I was bored. First, let me pick apart the bulk of the film.

Funny Games (the original in 1997, not the remake) was brilliant, in my opinion. Daring, original, and truly frightening. Except for the quirky twist during the climax, the film was startlingly realistic — there were no scenes of people behind you with a knife one second and the next they are gone. If those bad guys were behind you with a knife, you were going down.

Where The Strangers fails is it’s attempt to scare the audience instead of it’s on-screen victims. While getting a movie-goers pulse pounding is important, theres a certain sweat that grows when you know what you’re witnessing before you is real, it’s possible. This one wasn’t. While some shots were simply creepy (namely the first time we see the masked male when our “heroine” is in the kitchen), they quickly loose their appeal. There’s one scene where Liv Tyler is crawling on the ground and for a split-second, there’s a menacing figure with a knife behind her, then it’s gone — and Tyler doesn’t even see it. It’s a scare for us, not for the character, which renders the scare pointless.

I wanted to say that the beginning of the film was good, with some decent building of suspense and drama. Unfortunately, the filmmakers had to ruin it with a terrible voice-over and awful, just plain awful, captions telling us this story is supposedly “based on true events.” Had the filmmakers started the the movie with Tyler and Speedman driving home from the wedding, the first act would have been fantastic (hence Ebert’s comments).

I never expected the end of it to be anything less than mediocre at best. Instead, they went for three or four cheap, cop-out moments that either make the audience scream or go “Oh, how dumb.” Most said the latter.

The only scares this movie has to offer are a few creepy moments at the beginning, and then a bunch of extremely loud crashing noises that would make anyone jump in their seats. And, as horror fans know, those don’t count as true scares. It’s mediocre at best, terrible at it’s worst. Boring overall.

Mini-reviews: AVPR, Astronaut Farmer, Fracture

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Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
Starring: Steven Pasquale, John Ortiz; Directed by: Colin and Greg Strause
Rating: 1/2 (half star out of five)

Summary: When an Alien managed to destroy a group of Predators, including impregnating one with a little gut-busting baddy, the ‘head’ Predator on the hunt seeks revenge. They meet in a small town in the US, whose residents range from a do-good sheriff, an ex-con, his brother and the girl he likes, and a bunch of other people who die. Carnage ensues as the Predator hunts down the Alien, destroying humans who get in the way.

Thoughts: Boring. The original AVP, which was only PG-13, was much better than this one. With an R-rating, one would assume the extra gore would bring a new level to the story … but no. Disappointingly, no one makes any use of the alien-predator hybrid that is being hunted. When the Alien face-hugger implants the Predator, the damned thing that bursts from it’s chest cavity is a hybrid between both species. How cool of a creature could that be? Unfortunately no one seemed to realize this had potential and it was much to the films detriment. In a word: Utter disappointment.

The Astronaut Farmer
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen; Directed by: Michael Polish
Rating: ** (two stars out of five)

Summary: Charles Farmer has a dream to be an astronaut. So he builds a rocket in his barn with the plan to orbit once around the earth then plummet back down into his backyard, all safely. His son has been working with him and training to man the command center as his father orbits. His family, though in debt and in foreclosure, endlessly support Farmer, stressful as it is. As does the town, at one point even buying advertising on the rocket itself (a la NASCAR). And then he tries to buy 10,000 gallons of fuel. In comes the FBI worried he’s building a WMD. In comes a regulatory board which does all it can to ground Farmer. But they can stop a Dream? (Dream is the name of the rocket).

Thoughts: Not as touching as it should have been, and the lack of any scientific explanations will likely turn of most people. Where he got his equipment, his physics and math skills, and, most importantly, the knowledge to build a rocket with it’s complicated engine, structural design, and ‘advanced’ electronics (‘advanced’ is something of an understatement as the technology in Dream itself harkens to the Gemini-era). The end is also choppy. So why give it two stars instead of one? It was original — what a fantastic idea! I was sold on it when I first saw a trailer, even though I knew it wouldn’t be quite as good as I wanted. In a word: Great idea that falls extremely short on execution.

Fracture
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Anthony Hopkins; Directed by: Gregory Hoblit
Rating: ** (two stars out of five)

Summary: Ted Crawford is an artist who has discovered his wife is cheating on him with a police officer. So he shoots her in the face and cleans up the murder scene. When the cops arrive, the man she was messing around with is the head detective; Crawford confesses to him. Enter Willy Beachum, a top-notch young lawyer for the prosecution. Can he play Crawford’s game? Or will someone get away with murder?

Thoughts: Just plain average. Both Gosling and Hopkins give good performances, but there isn’t much to any of the characters for these two great actors to truly build anything upon. The actual details of the case and the plan that Crawford has to get off are incredibly predictable. So, once again, why two stars instead of one? Because Gosling and Hopkins were good, and the direction actually wasn’t bad. It was the script that was lacking, not the overall film. In a word: Predictable yet somehow well made.

Review: Diary of the Dead (2007)

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Diary Of The Dead (2007)
Starring: Joshua Close, Scott Wentworth, Michelle Morgan
Directed by: George Romero
Written by: George Romero
Rated: R
Rating: **** (four stars out of five)

Romero revolutionized horror films with his classic (I’d say timeless) Dead trilogy: Night Of The Living Dead (1968), Dawn Of The Dead (1978), and Day Of The Dead (1985). The trilogy chronicled mankind’s attempt to survive a never-ending onslaught of slow-moving, flesh-eating, brain-loving zombies. Needless to say, the movies are bloody and full of fantastic scenes of gore, but they also contain a significant amount of social commentary, but this review isn’t about that. In 2005, Romero brought us Land Of The Dead, which failed to meet the expectations of most fans, mine included. Thus, while I love Romero, when I heard a new Dead movie was to be coming out, I was extremely hesitant.

Fortunately, I loved it.

Taking a page from the modern filmmaking cliche of using handheld cameras for a first-person POV, Romero has crafted a fine zombie flick. While Cloverfield (2008) failed with it’s nauseating over-use of the handheld style, Diary avoids that same pitfall by mixing in static security camera footage and stable news shots in with the first-person perspective. It’s put together extremely well as far as that goes — my only complaint with the technique was that the editor use the “blip” effect way too often, streaking snowy lines across the screen for some effect that missed. Anyone who’s shot in HD knows that the digital cameras don’t “blip” like that.

The premise is all to simple: A group of college filmmakers at the University of Pittsburgh and their sophisticated, alcoholic professor, document the arrival of the undead as they attempt to travel to ones family home. Simple, but enough to throw in some zombies. Deb (Morgan) is concerned about her parent’s well-being and they begin driving towards Scranton, PA, in their friends RV. The characterizations are obvious, from the unbeliever to the softy-who-can-kill-when-needed.

The worst case of unoriginality is Jason Creed (Close), who is the man behind the camera for much of the 95 minute runtime. He inability to empathize and his refusal to set the camera down is painful to listen to at times. However, this is Romero throwing in his subtext again. This film is partially about our numbness to things and the way that numbness grows. While Creed is unoriginal and largely boring, his character does, admittedly, serve a purpose.

There have been few horror films recently to bring any new witticisms or frights to the screen. Most of the garbage put out today just recycles the well-known jumps, scares, and gross-out effects, and (subtext aside) we have become numb to them. Thank God for Romero and his touch of dark originality. There are some unique scenes in this movie, and one or two that I will remember for a long time. Everyone knows at this point that destroying a zombie’s brain is the only way to take it down (would it then the un-undead?). Most movies stick with bats, guns, and sharp things to achieve this. Romero had the audacity to ask “What about highly concentrated acid?” And most movies stay away from children zombies, let alone watching them get brutally re-killed. Again, thank you, George Romero, for saying “to hell with that tradition.” My favorite scene is with Samuel — I will not ruin it, but Samuel has a fine introduction and a glorious finish.

I recommend this film, whole-heartedly, to the horror lovers of the world. Is it perfect? Nah. Is it somewhat heavy-handed? Yep. Is it still worth watching? Yes! The unique scenes that Diary bring to the screen are worth it alone.