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JT (287 KP) rated Crawl (2019) in Movies

Mar 10, 2020  
Crawl (2019)
Crawl (2019)
2019 | Horror, Thriller
6
6.5 (38 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
I was pleasantly surprised by Crawl. For one, it’s a monster movie. Two, it has a decent plot with characters you care about seeing survive. And three, it’s very well shot with some great CGI. The film opens with Haley (Kaya Scodelario) psyching herself up to compete in the pool, proof that her ability to swim and swim fast will not be found wanting later on.

When her sister calls to tell her that she has not heard from their father (Barry Pepper), Hayley heads towards a brewing category five Hurricane to see if all is OK – which it’s not.

Turns out that daddy has had a run-in with a couple of hungry alligators and only the confines of the underground basement has prevented him from becoming a quick snack. With floodwaters rising by the minute Hayley the ‘apex predator’ has to get her game face on to fend off another impending attack.

Sharks have always been at the forefront of water-based terror so it’s nice to see the alligator making a return. There is some neat jump scares coupled with good amounts of gore, but it rarely raises the tension levels any more than that.

Acting-wise Scodelario and Pepper do an alright job and there is an inkling of a back story to shed light on their slightly troubled relationship and competitive edge.
  
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LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Jeepers Creepers (2001) in Movies

Sep 19, 2020  
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
2001 | Horror, Mystery
6
7.4 (28 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Subhuman dumpsterscum Victor Salva adds absolutely nothing to this as an auteur let alone as a basic director: he shoots it mostly in the most unengaging, dated way possible and the writing - which can at best be described as semi-coherent - feels like a Quibi's worth of material thinly stretched into feature length. Overall a very haphazard, spotty experience that doesn't deliver nearly as much of the goods as it should... but definitely still weird, gross, and funny enough to suffice. That Sistine Chapel-esque lair of mutilated bodies, cobwebs, dirt, and vials of various mysterious liquids is almost worth the price of admission alone (in fact just in general the production is A-class when Salva can actually shoot it right), and Justin Long's one continuous panic attack of a performance is so tremendous. And come on, JC is one *hell* of a killer - running on moving cars, foully scarfing down innards, pulling 180s with his swiss army knife collection of bodily contortions, and whistling jazz tunes like some sort of crowd-pleasing merger of Predator and Freddy Krueger. Shame there isn't enough of him, but I just have to admire how that ending takes zero prisoners. It's fun, nowhere near the classic it should have been though even if there are hints of what it could have been sprinkled throughout.
  
    Dicetopia

    Dicetopia

    7.5 (2 Ratings) Rate It

    Tabletop Game

    Ah, the neon-clad city of Dicetopia lies before you! A seething cauldron of petty thieves, devious...

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Cyn Armistead (14 KP) rated Blood Oath (Nathaniel Cade #1) in Books

Mar 1, 2018  
BO
Blood Oath (Nathaniel Cade #1)
Christopher Farnsworth | 2010
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Blood Oath is an interesting and fairly refreshing variation on the vampire riff. Most of the current tales give us a suave, sexy predator who mesmerizes his or her prey, leaving humans pining for their presence. They might even fall in love with a human. Nathaniel Cade, however, refers to humans as food, saying, "Would you have sex with a cow?" That makes much more sense to me. It's a good thing he isn't interested, either, as the typical reaction people have to encountering him is utter panic, often involving the loss of bladder control.

Cade is definitely a predator, though - an extremely effective one. Farnsworth attempts to explain his abilities scientifically, rather than mystically (I'd classify this book as science fiction if I had to choose a genre, whereas most books featuring vampires and similar creatures are fantasy or horror). The same is true of the enenies he faces.

While I'm not generally interested in socio-political thrillers (which is what this book was, other than a story about a vampire who works for the president), I did enjoy the fresh take on an old trope. While I normally groan when I see the first book from a new author billed as the beginning of a series (do publishers even buy single books any more?), I'm somewhat pleased this time. I do wish they'd been a little more careful with the name of the series (The President's Vampire), as there's another book with the same name: [b:The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America|690096|The President's Vampire Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America|Robert Damon Schneck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177264074s/690096.jpg|676444] by [a:Robert Damon Schneck|368998|Robert Damon Schneck|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. Then again, if Farnsworth's book or series takes off, I suppose there's a chance that sales of Schneck's will as well. I'm sure he wouldn't complain about that at all. I've put it on my to-read list, after all.

I hope to talk my partner, Sam, into reading <i>Blood Oath</i>. If I do, it'll be fairly miraculous, as I don't recall him anything with dragons or werewolves in it other than ([a:Jim Butcher|10746|Jim Butcher|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1205261964p2/10746.jpg]'s Dresden Files) for most of the time that I've known him (12 years as of this writing). After his years at White Wolf, I think many books seem more than slightly derivative. He also did so much research before working on books he wrote for them (like [b:The Book of Nod|416122|The Book of Nod|Sam Chupp|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223664741s/416122.jpg|405290]) that he got a little burned out on certain subjects. Farnsworth's approach really is different enough that I think he might give it a chance. Will you?