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LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated A Christmas Horror Story (2015) in Movies
Dec 24, 2020
As far as anthology horrors go, A Christmas Horror Story is so-so. It tells four seperate tales, all connected to each other in someway, not to dissimilar to Trick R' Treat in terms of structure.
They vary in quality of course. One of them is a ghost story, as three students go about exploring the abandoned crime scene of two people murdered in ritual sacrifice on Christmas the year before. This one was plain boring. It was creepy in places, and is presented occasionally in a found footage style. The characters here are pretty unlikable, and doesn't really offer much to the overall film bar a couple of predictable jump scares.
Another revolves around a couple who's child goes missing whilst chopping down a Christmas tree for their home. They find the child, but eventually find out that he is in fact a shapeshifting troll. Chaos ensues. This one was ok, some good performances by Adrian Holmes and Olunike Adeliyi certainly help it carry more gravitas.
A third story revolves around Krampus preying on a family trying to make amends with some long lost relatives. Again, this one was ok. It's quite visually pleasing in its setting, but it's a pretty standard short revolving around a story we've already heard a hundred times. Krampus looks good enough considering it's a dude in make up.
And the the fourth story is easily the best of the bunch. It revolves around Santa fending off his elves in Christmas Eve when they succumb to a zombie style virus. Santa stomping around decapitating zombie elves by the bucket load is exactly what I signed up for. It also has the films best twist, which is pretty damn bleak, and features a Santa vs Krampus showdown. The film's worth watching for this segment alone!
Overall, A Christmas Horror Story is entertaining enough to justify a Yuletide watch. It has half decent production values (if you ignore the occasional piss poor CGI), some passable gore, and all the stories are inter cut by mother fucking William Shatner of all people, who actually seems to be having a good time here. Don't go in expecting a masterpiece and I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy.
They vary in quality of course. One of them is a ghost story, as three students go about exploring the abandoned crime scene of two people murdered in ritual sacrifice on Christmas the year before. This one was plain boring. It was creepy in places, and is presented occasionally in a found footage style. The characters here are pretty unlikable, and doesn't really offer much to the overall film bar a couple of predictable jump scares.
Another revolves around a couple who's child goes missing whilst chopping down a Christmas tree for their home. They find the child, but eventually find out that he is in fact a shapeshifting troll. Chaos ensues. This one was ok, some good performances by Adrian Holmes and Olunike Adeliyi certainly help it carry more gravitas.
A third story revolves around Krampus preying on a family trying to make amends with some long lost relatives. Again, this one was ok. It's quite visually pleasing in its setting, but it's a pretty standard short revolving around a story we've already heard a hundred times. Krampus looks good enough considering it's a dude in make up.
And the the fourth story is easily the best of the bunch. It revolves around Santa fending off his elves in Christmas Eve when they succumb to a zombie style virus. Santa stomping around decapitating zombie elves by the bucket load is exactly what I signed up for. It also has the films best twist, which is pretty damn bleak, and features a Santa vs Krampus showdown. The film's worth watching for this segment alone!
Overall, A Christmas Horror Story is entertaining enough to justify a Yuletide watch. It has half decent production values (if you ignore the occasional piss poor CGI), some passable gore, and all the stories are inter cut by mother fucking William Shatner of all people, who actually seems to be having a good time here. Don't go in expecting a masterpiece and I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy.
Darren (1599 KP) rated A History of Violence (2005) in Movies
Jun 20, 2019
Story: A History of Violence starts as we meet mild-mannered Tom Stall (Mortensen) working in his local diner with his own family, wide Edie (Bello) and child Jack (Holmes) and Sarah. One evening two men arrive in his diner trying to rob and kill the people inside, Tom’s quick thinking kills the criminals making him a local hero.
The act of heroism brings gangster Carl Fogarty (Harris) to town who claims Tom is from the criminal underworld hiding out with his older brother Richie (Hurt) waiting for him to return back to the criminal world.
Thoughts on A History of Violence
Characters – Tom Stall is a quiet man, running a diner having a loving family, he steps up to protect his customers and friends makes him a local hero. Now he has drawn a target on his chest with his past coming back to haunt him. Edie is the wife of Tom, she works in law bring home the bigger pay checks, she supports Tom, until she learns the truth and must decide where she stands with him. Carl Fogarty is the mysterious stranger that arrives in town claiming to know Tom from a previous life, he brings the danger back into Tom’s life with the past he wanted to run away from. Richie is the crime boss and brother to Tom, he has been searching for his brother for years and now sees the chance for the connection.
Performances – Viggo Mortensen is outstanding in this leading role we see how he keeps his character perfectly calm in everyday life and how the switch can make him a deadly killer, this is an ability that not everyone can achieve. Maria Bello is strong in her role as a woman unsure who her husband really is. Ed Harris and William Hurt in the supporting role are fantastic both take over the screen with their presence adding much needed tension to everything.
Story – The story here follows a mild-mannered man whose past comes back to haunt him after protect people he loves and cares about. This is almost like the story that follows up one of the gangster films where we see someone leave the life only to get drawn back years later against his will. The film like to use the idea of violence being the breaking point for relationships between husband & wife, father & son and two brothers which gets played out perfectly. There is an air of tension from start to finish in the film which leaves us only wanting to see where things would go next.
Thriller – The film uses the tension to keep us feeling uneasy through nearly each moment in the film never knowing what would happen next.
Settings – The film is set in a small town which Tom makes safe and happy, if would make sense for his character to be there too, it shows how media can expose anybody’s secret.
Scene of the Movie – The first crime rescue.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The bullying side which isn’t the most important thing we see.
Final Thoughts – This is one of the best modern thrillers you will see, you have four stunning performances and shocks around each corner.
Overall: Stunning thriller
https://moviesreview101.com/2018/10/21/viggo-mortensen-weekend-a-history-of-violence-2005/
The act of heroism brings gangster Carl Fogarty (Harris) to town who claims Tom is from the criminal underworld hiding out with his older brother Richie (Hurt) waiting for him to return back to the criminal world.
Thoughts on A History of Violence
Characters – Tom Stall is a quiet man, running a diner having a loving family, he steps up to protect his customers and friends makes him a local hero. Now he has drawn a target on his chest with his past coming back to haunt him. Edie is the wife of Tom, she works in law bring home the bigger pay checks, she supports Tom, until she learns the truth and must decide where she stands with him. Carl Fogarty is the mysterious stranger that arrives in town claiming to know Tom from a previous life, he brings the danger back into Tom’s life with the past he wanted to run away from. Richie is the crime boss and brother to Tom, he has been searching for his brother for years and now sees the chance for the connection.
Performances – Viggo Mortensen is outstanding in this leading role we see how he keeps his character perfectly calm in everyday life and how the switch can make him a deadly killer, this is an ability that not everyone can achieve. Maria Bello is strong in her role as a woman unsure who her husband really is. Ed Harris and William Hurt in the supporting role are fantastic both take over the screen with their presence adding much needed tension to everything.
Story – The story here follows a mild-mannered man whose past comes back to haunt him after protect people he loves and cares about. This is almost like the story that follows up one of the gangster films where we see someone leave the life only to get drawn back years later against his will. The film like to use the idea of violence being the breaking point for relationships between husband & wife, father & son and two brothers which gets played out perfectly. There is an air of tension from start to finish in the film which leaves us only wanting to see where things would go next.
Thriller – The film uses the tension to keep us feeling uneasy through nearly each moment in the film never knowing what would happen next.
Settings – The film is set in a small town which Tom makes safe and happy, if would make sense for his character to be there too, it shows how media can expose anybody’s secret.
Scene of the Movie – The first crime rescue.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The bullying side which isn’t the most important thing we see.
Final Thoughts – This is one of the best modern thrillers you will see, you have four stunning performances and shocks around each corner.
Overall: Stunning thriller
https://moviesreview101.com/2018/10/21/viggo-mortensen-weekend-a-history-of-violence-2005/
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Cold Pursuit (2019) in Movies
Mar 15, 2020
Comments on revenge are best kept on the screen.
I'd completely forgotten the furore about Liam Neeson's comments back last February during the press-tour preceding the film's release. In discussing the destructive feelings of revenge experienced by his character, Nels Coxman, Neeson revealed something he did 40 years ago: after the rape of a friend by "a black man", Neeson went out on the streets to find another "black man" and do them harm. (As a fellow Ballymena-born man, David Moody (from the "Mark and Dave" blog) has an interesting theory about this... that it was not a "rascist" statement in the true sense, but something else entirely. See here - ).
The comments undoubtedly impacted the movie at the box office. Which is a shame. Because in his catalogue of bonkers and violent revenge-porn flicks, this is one of Neeson's more entertaining ones.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. And where colder to serve it than in the ski-resort of Kehoe where Nels Coxman is the local snowplow operative and "man of the year" for his services to the community. But the tracks are about to fall off his orderly life. For his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson) winds up dead through a drugs overdose and his strained marriage with wife Grace (Laura Dern) disintegrates. (One of the most cutting and best-written "Bye" notes ever seen in the movies).
With revenge in mind, Coxman pursues the Denver-based drugs lord Trevor Calcote (Tom Bateman) who dished out the drugs to his son. But he inadvertently manages to stay just below the parapet as he sets in train a gang war between Calcote and a Kehoe-based native-American drugs gang led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). The snow turned progressively pinker as the body count rises.
Calcote (aka "Viking") is painted as a colourful family man, with an annoyingly bright son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) that he controls with a rod of iron. Viking is estranged from wife Aya (Julia Jones), who seems completely unafraid of him and happily embarrasses him in front of his men. This relationship never really works. Since given all the terrible and irrational things Viking does to people, whether they obstruct him or help him in equal measure, putting a quiet bullet into Aya's head seems to be to least he could do!
Where there is fun to be had is in the "Stockholm syndrome" linkage between young Ryan and Coxman. When his father insists on controlling his diet, feeding him the same insipidly healthy meals morning, noon and night, the alternative of being kidnapped and fed burgers seems eminently more preferable!
The film is at times really difficult to follow. There are lots of inexplicable leaps of logic and really inexplicably bonkers scenes that you can only patch together later. It's as if the filmmakers randomly filmed 5 hours of footage and then tried to edit it all into a cohesive plot!
As one example of this, the relationship between Coxman and "Wingman" (William Forsythe) was poorly introduced such that I was left baffled by a later plot twist.
In another scene, Neeson smashes the head of enforcer "Santa" (Michael Adamthwaite) into his steering wheel, but in the next scene collapses with him utterly exhausted in the snow. There was clearly a significant fight here that was cut out of the finished cut. But as a result the final cut makes no sense at all!
Of course, the local law enforcement team are average at best. Average because although young and keen-as-mustard detective Kim Dash (Emmy Rossum) is hot on the trail of the truth, her partner Gip (John Doman) is f*ckin' useless... wanting to do nothing but drink coffee and eat donuts in true Simpsons style.
Normally with these sort of films, it's difficult to keep track of the body count. No such problem here. Every death is celebrated with a tombstone graphic so it's easy to keep count! Needless to say, there are a lot of tombstones registered.
Directed by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, it's all good violent cartoonish fun, that keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek for most of the running time. The snowy setting, the partly native-American cast and the presence of Julia Jones brings to mind the truly excellent Jeremy Renner / Elizabeth Olsen movie "Wind River". But there the similarities (and quality levels) definitely stop. It's not a clever movie; it's borderline bonkers for most of its running time (never more so than with a totally bizarre "joke" final shot); but it is entertaining. As a 'park brain at door' action comedy it just about makes the grade.
(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/15/one-manns-movies-dvd-review-cold-pursuit-2019/. Thanks.)
The comments undoubtedly impacted the movie at the box office. Which is a shame. Because in his catalogue of bonkers and violent revenge-porn flicks, this is one of Neeson's more entertaining ones.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. And where colder to serve it than in the ski-resort of Kehoe where Nels Coxman is the local snowplow operative and "man of the year" for his services to the community. But the tracks are about to fall off his orderly life. For his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson) winds up dead through a drugs overdose and his strained marriage with wife Grace (Laura Dern) disintegrates. (One of the most cutting and best-written "Bye" notes ever seen in the movies).
With revenge in mind, Coxman pursues the Denver-based drugs lord Trevor Calcote (Tom Bateman) who dished out the drugs to his son. But he inadvertently manages to stay just below the parapet as he sets in train a gang war between Calcote and a Kehoe-based native-American drugs gang led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). The snow turned progressively pinker as the body count rises.
Calcote (aka "Viking") is painted as a colourful family man, with an annoyingly bright son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) that he controls with a rod of iron. Viking is estranged from wife Aya (Julia Jones), who seems completely unafraid of him and happily embarrasses him in front of his men. This relationship never really works. Since given all the terrible and irrational things Viking does to people, whether they obstruct him or help him in equal measure, putting a quiet bullet into Aya's head seems to be to least he could do!
Where there is fun to be had is in the "Stockholm syndrome" linkage between young Ryan and Coxman. When his father insists on controlling his diet, feeding him the same insipidly healthy meals morning, noon and night, the alternative of being kidnapped and fed burgers seems eminently more preferable!
The film is at times really difficult to follow. There are lots of inexplicable leaps of logic and really inexplicably bonkers scenes that you can only patch together later. It's as if the filmmakers randomly filmed 5 hours of footage and then tried to edit it all into a cohesive plot!
As one example of this, the relationship between Coxman and "Wingman" (William Forsythe) was poorly introduced such that I was left baffled by a later plot twist.
In another scene, Neeson smashes the head of enforcer "Santa" (Michael Adamthwaite) into his steering wheel, but in the next scene collapses with him utterly exhausted in the snow. There was clearly a significant fight here that was cut out of the finished cut. But as a result the final cut makes no sense at all!
Of course, the local law enforcement team are average at best. Average because although young and keen-as-mustard detective Kim Dash (Emmy Rossum) is hot on the trail of the truth, her partner Gip (John Doman) is f*ckin' useless... wanting to do nothing but drink coffee and eat donuts in true Simpsons style.
Normally with these sort of films, it's difficult to keep track of the body count. No such problem here. Every death is celebrated with a tombstone graphic so it's easy to keep count! Needless to say, there are a lot of tombstones registered.
Directed by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, it's all good violent cartoonish fun, that keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek for most of the running time. The snowy setting, the partly native-American cast and the presence of Julia Jones brings to mind the truly excellent Jeremy Renner / Elizabeth Olsen movie "Wind River". But there the similarities (and quality levels) definitely stop. It's not a clever movie; it's borderline bonkers for most of its running time (never more so than with a totally bizarre "joke" final shot); but it is entertaining. As a 'park brain at door' action comedy it just about makes the grade.
(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/15/one-manns-movies-dvd-review-cold-pursuit-2019/. Thanks.)
Angelicalynnn (21 KP) Jul 6, 2018
iamsara (130 KP) Jul 19, 2018