Search

Search only in certain items:

40x40

Alex Proyas recommended The Exorcist (1973) in Movies (curated)

 
The Exorcist (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
1973 | Horror

"Friedkin film; one that has actually inspired my current movie. You always dream about making the ultimate horror movie, and I think The Exorcist is it. The fact that it’s about such a dark and bleak subject, and yet it leaves us with a sense of hope, is something that I’ve sort of tried to do with my current movie. Again, it has this fantastic sort of sense of dread throughout the film that kind of takes you to this place you’ve never been to before in a movie. It’s totally believable; somehow it makes you believe that this young girl is possessed by the devil, which is no mean feat, I have to say. But you buy it, you know? And it’s also done in such a simple technical way. You know, [it was made] before the age of CGI, and yet it’s as potent today as it’s ever been. It’s extraordinary."

Source
  
Silent Hill (2006)
Silent Hill (2006)
2006 | Action, Horror
As visually perfect a cinematic representation of this franchise as we're ever going to get - really knockout stuff to look at (the CGI is sparing but amazing even by today's standards, practicals are godly). Corroded aesthetic, stiff acting, lots of extended cutscene-like exposition and sequences of people picking up/memorizing stuff... exactly like the games. Though, the seamless emulation only really translates to style, as I feel this doesn't really 'get' what makes the franchise's writing so special. The changes this makes to the lore seem very arbitrary, and the story is in big 'I don't care' mode. Too long to justify that, truthfully - but it ends with a fuckton of crazy cultists getting ripped apart by barbed wire and roasting people alive. So I'm pleased. Mitchell and Bean are madly boring, Ferland and Krige *slay* (literally and figuratively). Sidenote: I found it very amusing that there was a profession listed in the credits called "Senior roach simulation T.D.".
  
Men in Black International (2019)
Men in Black International (2019)
2019 | Action, Sci-Fi
Sub Standard CGI (1 more)
No chemistry between the 2 leads
The original MIB movies were fun and had that great constantly at odds with each partnership between smith and jones,while this movie is the complete opposite of what came before it.

In this film we get the usual bog standard story (aliens chase after powerful weapon,mib get it then lose it then get it back again) and of course the good guy turns out to be a baddie at the end reveal.Whoever wrote the script for this movie obviously couldn't come up with an original idea of his own and just recycled parts from the other films together.

All the chemistry thompson and hemsworth had in their ragnarok is taken away here,they seem bland and uninterested at certain points in the film.

This franchise has had its day in the sun and we really dont need to see it ever again.
  
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
2019 | Horror
A great looking and fun horror film that leans too heavily on jump scares
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark - the overall plot of this film is a fun one, and the nature of it revolving around short stories enables the movie to explore different creatures and dangers without having to worry too much about plot connection.

There are some really creepy shots throughout (The Pale Lady in the red corridors will definitely stick with me) but the scares end there. The movie relies on cheap jump scares a bit too much, with many scenes of uncomfortable silence before a SUDDEN SCARY THING! pops out at you. It becomes tiresome fairly quickly.

The designs of the creatures themselves are pretty good, and the darkness of most scenes masks obvious CGI effectively.
I'm fact, the films looks pretty good throughout.

As a horror film, it's pretty tame, but it's fun, and I would recommend a watch if horror is your bag.
  
Christopher Robin (2018)
Christopher Robin (2018)
2018 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy
Gentle family comedy-drama probably isn't anything really special, but compared to Peter Rabbit (which it has a number of similarities to) it looks like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Seven Samurai (or whatever you think one of History's Great Films is). Christopher Robin lives through the Second World War, grows up to become an unhappy office drone in danger of losing his soul; Pooh Bear and the other stuffed animals manifest to help him remember the Important Things in Life.

No real surprises, to be honest, but it's well-made, quite well-played, reasonably well-written, and it doesn't try to make Winnie the Pooh 'contemporary' or 'irreverent'. Some parts of it are genuinely quite sweet, others funny (Mark Gatiss' hairpiece always seems about to take on a CGI life of its own). Hardly essential viewing, but the whole family could probably watch this together and have a decent time doing so.
  
Jakob's Wife (2021)
Jakob's Wife (2021)
2021 | Horror
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Let's be honest, a low budget vampire flick lead by Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden was always going to be right up my street.
Jakob's Wife has a lot going for it. It has a well paced and intriguing premise, snappy dialogue, sympathetic characters, over the top and hard hitting gore (seriously springs out of nowhere and caught me off guard), decent creature designs, a good soundtrack, and the aforentioned lead actors (although, Crampton expectedly and completely steals the show)
My main criticisms mainly come from what feels like a confused identity. There's some good humour sprinkled throughout, and some genuinely funny moments, but it does feel at odds with otherwise serious tone on display. A minor gripe, but one that's noticeable (a statement that also applies to the awful cgi rats in that one scene)

Overall, Jakob's Wife is an entertaining splatter fest that should appeal to any horror fan - don't sleep on it!
  
40x40

Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Hellboy (2019) in Movies

Apr 17, 2019 (Updated Apr 17, 2019)  
Hellboy (2019)
Hellboy (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
The script (4 more)
The CGI
The editing
The performances
Everything else
Actual Hell
If the Hellboy 2019 movie has one thing going for it, it's that it's impressive. It is impressive in the sense that it actually made me question the futility of time and why I was wasting my short time on this earth watching this atrocious piece of trash. There were several times when I was watching the film that I actually couldn't bring myself to believe how bad what I was witnessing onscreen really was. This might be the worst film I have ever seen.

It has without a doubt taken the crown of the worst superhero movie ever made from Fan4stic and is downright insulting. I cannot believe that they chose to make this dogshit over another one with Ron Perlman and Del Toro. Almost every single aspect of this movie is garbage and there are hardly any redeeming features.

Let's talk about the main character, this movie's version of Hellboy. We all knew going in that David Harbour had some pretty big shoes to fill left by Perlman and in Harbour's defence, pretty much the only slightly positive aspect of this thing is the fact that you can tell that Harbour is doing the very best with the piss poor material he has been given to work with. Most of his lines are awful and the way that his character is written as a moaning, whiny bitch is actually insulting to the character. Also, the excessive makeup he is wearing means that he is hardly able to emote with his mouth. When he is talking, his mouth simply opens and closes like a puppet and it is painfully obvious that the dialogue has been dubbed in later and it's not even been done very well. The other slight positive in this movie is seeing Hellboy in his full demonic getup with long horns and donning the flaming crown and sword was pretty cool, unfortunately this is only a fleeting glimpse of coolness before we get right back to the crap.

The other memorable part of the Del Toro Hellboy movies was the endearing supporting cast, unfortunately they have been substituted with an insufferable lot of replacements. The actress playing Alice may give the worst performance that I have ever seen in a comic book movie, (and I saw Polar!) Every single line that she uttered was extremely cringe-worthy and poorly delivered. Daniel Dae Kim was almost as bad as Hellboy's other sidekick. Again, a lot of his lines were ADR'd in later and it is really shoddily done. Ian McShane plays Broom, the scientist that found Hellboy and adopted him and he is sleepwalking his way through this role for the sake of an easy paycheck. As is Milla Jovovich, she plays a stereotypical villainous witch and she does nothing here that we haven't seen her do before in other movies.

Over my years of watching almost every comic book movie that releases, I have seen my fair share of cheap, cartoony looking CGI, but this takes the cake. Almost every scene in the movie features some kind of CGI creature and they are all on a similar level of quality to an unfinished student project. One of the moments it really stood out was the giant fight, where we were subjected to not only one bad CGI giant, but three of them. The scene is also shot in broad daylight, which really does the bad CGI no favours. Not once, did anything in this movie look better than anything in the Del Toro movies which came out 10+ years ago.

I'm going to spoil something here, because seriously who gives a fuck at this point? The absolute worst part of CGI though in the entire movie, is undoubtedly during one of the final scenes in the movie where Ian McShane comes back to speak to Hellboy as a ghost. The CG in this scene is genuinely on par with the Rock's CG in in the Scorpion King. Yes, it really is that bad.

The soundtrack is so misused here also. The songs themselves that are featured are all half decent songs, but they do not work in the context of this film and they add absolutely nothing to the scenes that they are used in. The editing is also horrible, there were several times that I was reminded of the cheap editing in shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The last thing that I want to talk about is the tone and humour, (or lack of,) present throughout the film. The movie opens with a flashback scene showing King Arthur chopping up the witch. The scene is being narrated by Ian McShane and it is chock-full of diabolically awful dialogue and insufferably cheesy line delivery. Whilst watching it I thought, "Oh they are really hamming it up here and going for a really corny tone for these flashback scenes." I then swiftly came to the soul-crushing conclusion that no, this was how the next 2 hours of this movie was going to go. The awful sense of humour is actually comparable to that in a poor quality kids film, with gross out burp and kiss jokes to boot. What happened to the darker, more horror orientated tone that we were teased with when the movie was in pre-production? Any semblance of that is sorely lacking here and it is a shame because I would have quite liked to have seen that movie and there is a good chance that it would have been a lot better than this dumpster fire.

Overall, please don't see this unless you hate yourself. It is two hours of your life that would be better spent doing literally anything else. At the end it has the audacity to tease a sequel which, (if there is a God,) will never happen.