YETI - CURSE OF THE SNOW DEMON (2008)

                                                      

So the story sets off in 1972 when two hikers locate a cave, in the Himalayas,  inhabited by a Yeti, or what looks like a huge white cat having a bad hair day. Apparently mama Yeti didn't teach this guy how to treat guests so...he slaughters them. Stupid kill scenes, didn't even see the second hiker die. What was the relevance of this scene? I am not sure..maybe to alert us early that a big shaggy house cat was missing in the Himalayas.

So next we move on to present day when an airplane full of high school athletes crash lands into the mountains. Peyton Elway (Marc Menard) seems to assume the leader role of this group of survivors, his coach crowned him King before he died. Funny enough he was frozen solid when dying, actually had icicles on his face and Peyton looked like it was a cool spring day!?! So Peyton and the rest of the survivors try to figure out their next move, they argue on and on, out in the cold, instead of in the warmer fuselage of the plane. It is decided by the group that two of them will hike 5 miles to the tail of the plane to recover the second flight radio, and the rest of the lazy asses will sit around fighting, hiding food, and pretending they are stupid enough not to stay warm. These morons are actually wearing coats and hoodies that are not fully buttoned up, and no hoods on!?! God help us!!!! This film continues to get more and more asinine by the minute.
                                  

The two kids who agreed to go get the radio are eventually stalked by the Yeti. He catches up with them and the first guy is killed, kind of a cool kill scene. But the next guy breaks his leg jumping through a hole in the cave and uses his friend's arm as a splint, are they kidding....I mean really, what heart! This poor guy eventually makes it back to the group with two broken legs only to be mistakenly shot by the asshole of the group, and supposedly killed. Who would have guessed? Meanwhile the others have been sitting in the fuselage watching the yeti steal their dead bodies one by one, and in a sense stealing their food source as well, since they have started eating their own.

                                      

Who can help these kids? How about two single rescuers who share one brain, and have guns with not enough bullets to kill more than two rabbits. Do they survive? Will the house cat be returned home? Does anyone give a damn?

You probably guessed I was not thrilled by this film. The stupidity was alarming, and the acting pathetic. I cannot figure out anyway this film could have been saved other than a complete overhaul. The Yeti costume was really fake looking, and his movements were computer generated, and looked placed in after the fact. The kill scenes were kind of kool, but the reaction by the survivors was stunning, they had none. Most of the movie they stood around watching the others get slaughtered by this thing and did nothing. I can't recall if one tear was shed this entire film, though many kids died. Supposedly they were all teammates, where was the loyalty, the friendship, or just plain humanity in these folks.

                                  

The most disturbing part of the film is that they actually tried to steal the thunder from the movie "Alive" from the 1990's, with the whole cannibal thing to survive. I was feeling really ashamed of director Paul Ziller for being involved in this film. I want so bad to say something positive here....so....the lighting was good!


Written by KaT


BaD BiRdS ::    Skip this one

The Woman in Black (2012)

The Woman in Black, based on a book of the same name by Jane Goldman, tells a terrifying ghost story of an evil spirit that steals the souls of children from families that live in an English town outside of London. There is much to like about this movie- it tells a good story, has likable characters, takes place in the spookiest house you could ever imagine, and it is actually quite scary in some ways. Nevertheless, I felt something missing from this movie. Whether it was Daniel Radcliffe's flat acting; the fact that the story, although good, was a little too simple; or the fact that they simply try too hard to scare you at certain points; this movie did not reach it's full potential.

The plot follows a widowed lawyer named Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who is struggling with his firm due to the passing away of his wife (Sophie Stuckey) during the birth of their child, Joseph (Misha Handley). Arthur's boss asks him to travel to a small town to a large house belonging to the deceased Alice Drablow to go through a mountain of paperwork and sort out all of her affairs so that the house can be sold. En route to the town, he meets a man by the name of Samuel Daily (Ciaran Hinds) on the train and they become acquaintances basically. When the hotel he is staying at runs out of room for Arthur, Sam invites him to stay at his house with him and his wife Elizabeth (Janet McTeer). Now, before I get to Arthur actually visiting the Drablow residence, it is clear before he goes there that he townspeople are hiding something from him as they all stare at him weirdly and the Jeromes, Arthur's legal contacts, plead for him to leave the town and the paperwork will be taken care of in London. The attitudes and behavior of the townspeople help to create an eerie environment and actually build a little fear as the audience is curious as to what they are hiding and of course we know Arthur isn't going to listen to them; he's going to go to the Drablow residence anyway. So he goes. While he's there the first day, he sees a woman dressed in all black. When he gets back to town, a little girl dies after drinking lye right in Arthur's arms. The townspeople blame him for the little girl's death, even though it obviously wasn't his fault. He then finds out that every time the woman in black is seen, another child dies.

So why does this woman abduct children? Well it turns out the identity of the woman is Jennet Humfrye, Alice Drablow's sister. Alice had taken Jennet's son away from her as she was deemed unfit to raise him. The boy, Nathaniel, drowned in the marsh outside of the Drablow residence. As a result, Jennet killed herself and now reeks her revenge on the town by empowering the young children that live there to kill themselves and they then belong to her.

So basically, Arthur is now worried about his son possibly being abducted by the evil woman in black and he tries to figure out a way to stop her from abducting children anymore.

So, I like the premise of this film a lot. The story behind the woman in black, who she is, and why she does what she does is actually very interesting. However, they didn't provide enough details with respect to certain aspects of the story that I would have been interested in knowing:

1.) Why was Jennet Humfrye deemed unfit to raise her boy, Nathaniel? The fact that she was deemed unfit and the fact that she lost her child to Alice are pointed out, but we are not given ANY background as to why.

2.) Why exactly did Jennet resent her sister Alice so much for this? Did Alice and her husband neglect or abuse Nathaniel? The fact that he died in their marsh and they didn't even try to save him suggests something of this nature. More details about Nathaniel's life with the Drablows would have added more to the plot as well.

Here's my thing: when it comes to most movies, I like multidimensional plots with many elements interwoven together to create one hell of a story to hold my interest. While the story this movie tells has these characteristics, it's not complete. The facts are told, but they aren't explained. Relevant details are missing. This is not good. However, when it comes to horror movies, sometimes the plot is just so simple that the movie entertains it's audience by simply scaring them. The Woman in Black tries very hard to do both: it tries to tell an intricate story with many parts attached to it, and it tries to scare it's audience through cheap, cliche jump scares and by setting the tone with the really spooky, isolated house surrounded by the disgusting marsh. The movie does do good in both categories; it actually does almost pull it off. However, it falls just short.

Not only was there not enough detail put into the story, but they actually try too hard to scare you, especially when Arthur is in the Drablow house. About 40 minutes into the movie I would say, there is a 15-minute period where Arthur is just moving around the house and basically seeing ghosts and weird shit happen over and over again. At first, it works extremely well! I must have jumped at least 3 times in the first 5 minutes of this period; I was literally quite scared. However, it loses it's effectiveness after a while. For something like this to work, either you need to spread the scares throughout the length of the movie, or you need to at least finish it all off with a horrifying jump scare of some sort. That didn't happen. Most of the scares in this movie happen within these 15 minutes and that's it. But since I did jump, I would still say it worked, but not to its full extent. For example, in a letter Arthur reads, we learn that Jennet had hung herself. Thus, we all expect a scene where he will find Jennet hanging from the ceiling and when it does happen, it does not frighten us because we know it is coming.

Now, there are some aspects of the story that we did get background to, such as how Arthur's wife dies, and the fact that Nathaniel, Jennet's son, died in the marsh at the hands of the Drablows. So that was good!

The special effects and the setting were absolutely amazing. I could not have asked for any better when it came to these aspects of the movie. It is actually because of the amazing effects that the movie almost pulls off the long length of time where it tries to scare the audience over and over again. To start off, the Drablow residence is freaking scary. It literally looks and feels like a haunted house. I probably wouldn't even spend one night alone in that place if someone offered me one million dollars, no joke! Just because the house being creepy wasn't bad enough, it is isolated from the rest of the town by a marsh! So Arthur is ALL ALONE AT NIGHT in this spooky ass house and he has no way of getting back until the tide pulls back away. Talk about setting a scary tone! Next, as I said, the effects were simply astounding and surprisingly realistic which added to the severity and intensity of the scare scenes, and also an additional scene that takes place in the marsh where Arthur actually dives under the gooey mud. In most movies a moment like this would probably look very fake but it looked pretty damn real here! Kudos to Director James Watkins for that!

Now, when it comes to Daniel Radcliffe, I am not really a big fan of the Harry Potter movies so I never got to see his acting performances in this series. However, when it comes to The Woman in Black, I thought his acting was a little flat. Not very flat, but his face and especially his eyes were just so inexpressive at certain points as compared to Ciarin Hinds, the guy who played Sam Daily. Hinds and the woman who played his wife, Sophia Stuckley, did outstanding in this film! They were very expressive of their feelings and emotions and they were very believable characters. Daily's wife at certain times would receive telepathic messages from her deceased son, Nicholas (who died at the hands of the woman in black) and she would draw out what he was telling her to draw. She was really effective in acting out these scenes and making them quite frightening actually. Plus, the pictures are symbolic of the future; keep that in mind as you look at them! When talking to Radcliffe, both actors' facial expressions would vary and their heads would move around a little bit to enhance this but Radcliffe's facial expression simply never changed. His eyes were just dull, kind of like a robot actually. From what I understand though, this type of role is not really what Radcliffe is used to and thus I don't blame him that his performance was not top-notch. Maybe I can better judge after I watch some Harry Potter movies.

Despite Radcliffe's performance not being the best, his character was actually quite admirable. In order to save the townspeople, and his own son of course, he tries to bring peace to the spirit of Jennet by reuniting her with her son (that's when the scene in the marsh takes place). Thus, he acts as a hero and he is brave because even after being scared out of his wits in that house, he still does everything he can to stop the woman in black. In addition, a part of me likes to think that he felt bad for Jennet's spirit. Hey, I would feel bad for anyone if their child was taken away from them. The fact that he may feel sympathy for Jennet's spirit shows his nonjudgmental and selfless side as well and Sam Daily's hospitality towards Arthur is also quite admirable. The woman in black however is simply an evil spirit, and you'll see what I mean by the end of the movie. Any sympathy Arthur had for the woman in the black was not warranted at all. Speaking of the ending, although it's a bit tragic, I personally thought it was perfect. I wouldn't have wanted it to be different; I was 100% satisfied with how it all works out. You'll see what I mean when you watch the film.

Overall, The Woman in Black is a good movie, but it could have been better. The amazing special effects do not make up for details lacking from the plot and the redundancies of the parts that try to scare you. Nevertheless, before it does become redundant, I guarantee you that you will be scared so I do recommend that you give this film a chance, especially if you like a good ghost story.

BaD BiRdS: GOOD BUT NOT GREAT



~MJ Aufiero

LEFT IN DARKNESS (2006)

                                                       

Written by Philip Daay and Jayne Whitney, this film begins by introducing us to our main character Celia (Monica Keena), who is visiting with her best friend Justine. They decide to go to a fraternity party on Justine's campus that evening. While there Celia is introduced to a young man named Doug (Chris Engen), who ultimately ends up drugging her. Then while she is overdosing on the drugs from her drink she is repeatedly gang raped. She wakes up in an abandoned room in the shower only to realize she is dead, as revealed when she leaves her body behind in the shower.

                                              

This is where the plot really begins. Now she needs to navigate in a sort of purgatory realm until she can find the door to heaven. Along the way she will encounter many people and creatures from her past that will tempt her to be swayed in the direction other than heaven. Celia's mother dies in childbirth so she never met her real mother, and her grandfather died before Celia, so these two become important to the plot. Also a constant character is her supposed guardian angel (David Anders), who ends up being less than angelic.
                                     

The acting was really very good on all accounts, but the make-up was so-so. I have seen better zombies on after school specials. The special effects were amateur at best, leaving me unsatasfied. The plot was good but the set couldn't accomadate the need for better special effects. The lighting was not too bad, but there are certain areas that become dark enough to bother you. The end is kind of predictable, but what's wrong with an occasional happy ending.


Written by KaT


BaD BiRdS :: GOOD BUT NOT GREAT

The Wolfman (2010) Unrated Version

The Wolfman is a 2010 horror film that is a remake of the 1940s film of the same name. I personally watched the unrated version rather than the theatrical version so that is the one I will review. The film tells a good story, presents complex characters, and makes use of cheap scares and effective special effects. Nevertheless, the movie holds its own the whole time and proves to be a good one to watch if you like werewolf movies.

Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) returns to Blackmoor, England, his homeland, after receiving a letter and a visit from his brother Ben's (Simon Merrells) fiance about his recent disappearance. When he gets back home, he finds out that his brother has been savagely killed by something. Lawrence decides to stay at home with his father Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) and Ben's fiance Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt) to see if he can find out what killed his brother. While back at the house, horrible memories from his childhood haunt him. When he was a child, he woke up to strange noises outside and when he went to look, he found his father holding his mother in his arms, having killed herself. It is because of this that Lawrence had left home in the first place. While investigating his brother's death, finds out that the Talbot family has a special deal with the gypsies and he thus believes that they may have had something to do with Ben's death. As a result, he visits the gypsies but the wolfman attacks once again and bites Lawrence. Now, he must live with the curse of becoming the beast when the moon is full. Meanwhile, him and Gwen are falling for each other and when she finds out what he is, she must decide whether to kill him and set him free or let him live with the curse. Also, Inspector Aberline (Hugo Weaving) suspects Lawrence is a lunatic going on a rampage and thus tries to hunt him down for the entire film (especially after he finds out Lawrence is a werewolf).

So overall, the story is well-written. Although it starts out very slow, it really begins to pick up during the movie's second half. There is a lot of time where there isn't much happening until Lawrence becomes cursed and I found myself dozing for a bit of a time. There is a lot of dialogue between the characters but it's actually quite relevant to the story actually. By listening to the characters talk, we learn about Lawrence's childhood, we learn how the townspeople dislike the Talbots and believe they are cursed, and we learn about the gypsies in the area and how they contribute to the story line. So although the dialogue seems to drag on a bit, it helps us learn more about the characters and the town of Blackmoor so I found it useful. Now, the werewolf's identity is revealed halfway through the movie after Lawrence is bitten and I know that sounds like a rip-off but it's actually good because through his explanation of why he does what he does, you come to learn how evil this character is and the audience looks forward to the confrontation that is bound to take place between these two (as werewolves by the way) at the end of the movie. So it creates excitement and suspense! It also works because the audience feels bad for Lawrence. He doesn't deserve to be cursed, he hasn't done anything to anyone. Thus, the person who did this to him becomes even more unlikable and we root for Lawrence to overcome him. Also, despite Lawrence's curse, Gwen still loves him and protects him from the authorities who want to kill him. The audience will root for them to get together and live happily ever after at the end. Their romance adds to the already rich and entertaining plot.

The cast did an excellent job. All of the characters were very believable and they used facial expressions and tone of voice to convey the emotions associated with the situations they were win. Emily Blunt and Del Toro did a nice job selling their romance throughout the film as well- the audience can clearly tell the characters feel deeply for each other. Anthony Hopkins put in an outstanding performance; his character was effectively intimidating (hint, hint). Although there isn't much character development, they do show some admirable qualities. Gwen doesn't reject Lawrence even after he is cursed which is always touching, sort of a Beauty and the Beast type of thing. I love that in any type of film. It shows that Lawrence is not evil and enhances the sympathy the audience feels for him. Lawrence himself is a good character as well- he never wants to hurt anyone but all they do is torture him so who could blame him for wanting to tear them limb from limb? Inspector Aberline plays hero as he tries to save the town. We don't really get to know any of the other characters well but these are the only ones who are important.

The special effects are pretty well-done, but the scares are cheap and cliche. Nevertheless, I didn't think this was a bad thing. The werewolf design used in this movie has been used in countless other werewolf movies but its a werewolf, so how many possible designs could there really be? The original werewolf that eventually bites Lawrence is really swift, strong and ferocious. Lawrence himself is not as good, he is actually quite slow for a werewolf but the kill scenes are still very grisly so it does work. The scenes where Lawrence changes from man to wolf are actually fantastic and dramatic! They are graphic and show a lot of detail. In addition, the movie is a gore-fest when the werewolves attack which is always fun to watch. Make sure you watch the unrated version so you get this to its fullest extent. The scares are cheap, but they work!! There's those cliche jump scenes where Lawrence is lying in bed and the wolf pops up out of nowhere and rushes towards him (he was imagining it, it wasn't real) and as unoriginal as this is, I jumped every time. So kudos to Director Joe Johnston for that!

After I watched the movie, I checked out some quite humorous deleted scenes that actually could have been a nice addition into the movie to add some dark humor to the action. Maybe one of these scenes would have been effective perhaps if added, but they would have cut into the action. You watch them and decide whether they should have been added.

I honestly don't have any real complaints about the film. It would be nice if the story moved along quicker in the beginning and it would also be nice if we learned a little more about Gwen and perhaps her and Lawrence's romance could have blossomed a bit more to add more emotion to the story. Other than that, this was a great film. Watch it if you like werewolf movies. Good job Joe Johnston and Universal Studios!

BaD BiRdS: GREAT MOVIE!



~MJ Aufiero

He Knows You're Alone (1980)

He Knows You're Alone is a 1980s slasher flick, although a low-budget one at that. The premise is good and the story does create some suspense, but it is quite boring and disengaging at some points. However, as much as I could complain about this movie, I'm going to try my best to look at this from a 1980s point of view. In retrospect of that, this film does accomplish a few great things.

The film opens in a movie theater where two young teenage girls are watching a slasher flick. One of the girls who is getting married the following week gets murdered by Ray Carlton (Tom Rolfing), the serial killer in our movie. He flees into the night, leaving it up to the girl's friend sitting next to her to figure out she has been killed. Next, we see Carlton's motive for becoming a serial killer of brides to be: when he was in love with someone who he intended to marry, his fiance dumped him and proceeded to marry another man. This incited Carlton into a violent rage and he kills his former fiance. From there on out, he has become a killer of brides. His latest mission is to stalk and kill Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney), a bride to be living on Staten Island. Her fiance Phil has gone away with the fiances of her two other friends, Nancy (Elizabeth Kemp) and Joyce (Patsy Pease). Before Phil, Amy had been in a relationship with a guy named Marvin (Don Scardino) and he wants Amy back. Thus, he acts as a secondary stalker to the killer basically and tries to win Amy back throughout most of the movie, and he actually does make quite a bit of progress. In addition, Joyce has a secret fling going on with one of her professors (James Rebhorn) and Nancy meets a jogger named Elliot (Tom Hanks) and they develop a bit of a relationship as well. So basically, all of these women are cheating, lying, scumbags but hey, for one thing it's the 80s, and for another thing, the plot wouldn't have been as interesting if they were honest and faithful gals. So I was not upset about this at all. So outside of that subplot, Amy is stalked by the killer throughout the movie and he kills those around her before he finally makes a move to try and kill her.

This movie is very much like Halloween (1978) in more ways than you might think. For most, the similarities should be blatantly obvious and many might consider this movie a rip-off because of that. I mean, the killer is so much like Michael Myers it's not even funny. Carlton has one specific person he wants to kill, like Myers does in every Halloween movie, and he stalks that one person for days on end and kills everyone around her, like Myers does to all his victims. Hell, even the music played throughout the movie sounds almost exactly like the Halloween theme song. But hey, most 1980s slasher flicks are pretty much like this anyway, so while it is basically a replica of Halloween, I was not bothered so much by it because Halloween is one of my favorite horror films of all time. Thus, my appetite for fear and suspense was still satisfied (for the most part) by He Knows You're Alone.

So how does the story hold up? It's not bad. There are good things and bad things about it. In essence, Halloween was a lot more engaging and more gripping than this film, but there are things about He Knows You're Alone that I liked better. For example, Carlton stalks Amy for a few days at least. Scenes show him pretty much everywhere that she is. I know this is true for Michael Myers as well, but I thought some of the moments where Carlton is shown standing in the shadows were a bit more effective and more prevalent. One example is when Amy is with Nancy and Elliot at an amusement park and she and her little sister go through the haunted house and Carlton's face pops up as lightning flashes. The sole element of this film that creates suspense and fear in the audience is the continuous stalking of Amy throughout the whole film. You never know where Carlton could be hiding and he could be popping out at any time. Plus, the idea of being stalked by a complete stranger like that is so damn scary to begin with. So it works. He even stalks some of the other people he kills as well, creating even more suspense. I must admit, Carlton was annoyingly slow with actually killing people, but it's really not a bad thing. The premise of a serial killer killing brides to be is quite interesting as well and I like how we are given his motive right in the beginning of the film so we don't need to wonder why he's doing what he's doing. The first murder in the movie theater is also pretty cool- she is stabbed through her seat at the same time as a kill scene is happening in the movie playing on the screen. The ending is also fun- as she and Marvin are chased throughout the morgue by the killer. What a place to have a chase scene!

Now, the film is very slow in the beginning. After the first kill, it takes a while for anything to happen really. The writers try to draw us in with pointless dialogue between the characters and it is boring and ineffective. I felt myself zoning in and out for about the first 45 minutes. After this though, the film really does start to pick up. So don't give up on it in the beginning.

The acting was okay. It's the 80s, so you can't really have your expectations set that high. I got pretty much what I expected from the cast- O'Heaney did a good job playing Amy. She was a very believable character and it was easy to see her fear that she's being stalked by someone. Rolfing was creepy as well so he did a good job playing the killer. Scardino's character was quite enjoyable and humorous as well. We don't get to see much of young Tom Hanks unfortunately as he plays the role of a very minor character.

The special effects are just not there in this film. When Rolfing muders his victims, it isn't really displayed that well and there is little if any blood at all. This annoyed the hell out of me. The Prowler which came out a year later was much better in the way of bloody kill scenes so I was baffled as to why this film had little to know visceral imagery at all. It was because The Prowler had a much larger budget than this film had though, so I really can't bank on the poor special effects because of that. Nonetheless, it still does make the movie a lot less thrilling.

By 80s standards, this film is good- it is scary and it achieves what it is trying to achieve. Although the story could be a bit more engaging, it is good enough that the audience shouldn't lose interest (at least during the second half). If you love 80s flicks and other movies such as Halloween for example, then I recommend you give this one a shot. Otherwise, I would probably not view this one. You could definitely find better slashers to watch.

BaD BiRdS: FAIR



~MJ Aufiero