Post by GL on Jul 30, 2012 8:41:51 GMT -8
Seen during the site's hiatus:
The Possession of David O'Reilly-Visiting a group of friends following a nasty break-up, a man finds their house under assault by shadowy, grotesque beings that are utterly remorseless in trying to get at them, forcing them into a long, bloodsoaked night to fend them off. Yet another in a long, long, long list of utterly terrible British horror efforts, this one featuring all the hallmarks of their lame films in a pace that features no energy, momentum or excitement, a series of seemingly scary scenes ruined by the irritating camera that won't stop moving to give you a clear idea of what's going on, a decided lack of explanations as to what's happening and a large number of scenes that offer up hardly anything in terms of scares that leave large portions of the film utterly boring. It's almost impossible to find anything in here worthwhile, but at least some of the attack scenes at the end were pretty intense, what could be seen, so overall this one isn't really worth it.
Bear-Going through a shortcut in the woods, a family group get stranded in the area and must fend off a mother grizzly bear's relentless, retribution-fueled attacks as they struggle to survive the animal's continuous antics. A rather surprising creature feature at times and frustrating at others, as sometimes this manages to be quite entertaining and enjoyable due to the film's rather brutal and relentless attacks, which are helped along by the high-action content of the scene and where it's going. Then, though, the film manages to feature something so irritating and aggravating that this overcomes the positives, and the majority of this comes from the cast as they're constantly snipping at each other so they're hardly fun to watch, then it spends the last twenty-minutes in an annoying twist that does nothing for the film as a whole. It's not that fun and really brings the film down as a whole.
Wolf Town-Hoping to use a spur-of-the-moment camping trip to win his dream-girl, a couple of friends tag along and stumble upon an abandoned mining town that serves as the home to a pack of vicious, killer wolves, forcing them to fight off the creatures to get away alive. Somewhat decent effort here, mainly because so little of it really stands out as being all too impressive. Whereas the creepy ghost-town setting and the rathe clever twist to make the creatures plain old wolves was pretty unique, the fact that there's such a small body count of potential victims that the film really can't do anything with the wolves to showcase their killing skills, drastically reducing their fearfulness and instead relying on the pack to generate the fear. Also problematic is that this leaves so much of the film devoid of wolf attacks because there's not a lot that can be done with them as is that it feels pretty dragged out in spaces. While it's not a terrible film, there's some problems with this one.
Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings-Getting stranded in a freak snowstorm, a group of friends seek shelter in a supposedly-abandoned asylum only to find it still inhabited by cannibalistic inmates and must find a way of getting away from the vicious killers. Rather fun and entertaining entry in the series, managing to feature even more of the usual elements found in the last entries to become that much more entertaining. The gore and kills here are both over-the-top here, featuring numerous amounts of splatter and carnage which allow the film to be pretty brutal at times with some innovative torturing methods. The stalking and hunting on display are quite a bit of fun, and the large, cavernous structure with it's long, looming hallways, tight quarters and hidden rooms are used to good effect in both creating effective atmospheric locations and perfect areas for them to display their cruel tactics. While it's finale does seem to run on forever and get old after awhile since it's not really all that clear what's going on, this here is a blast and quite enjoyable.
Seen over the weekend:
Added uncut copies of The Unholy and Evil Eyes to the collection.
Exorcismus-Realizing that their daughter's strange behavior is being brought about by a demonic possession, a family hires their troubled priest brother-in-law to perform an exorcism that should drive the being out. Not only did this one turn out to be a lot of fun, but it's also one of the few recent-vintage British horror films that hasn't been a complete waste of time. One of the film's best tricks is that it manages to contain the necessary ingredients for the possession early on, practically in the first few minutes which makes this film just fly right by. The quick pace is perhaps the best example of why this works so well, as well as the fact that the exorcism scenes are quite extensive and really fun. As well, the scenes showing the possession are a great deal of fun, with the crazed behavior, unnatural antics, distortions and much, much more that give this a pretty creepy feel since they come out of nowhere. Despite the fact that it stumbles a bit in the last half with an overwrought guilty-conscience/ulterior motive plot-twist, it's still quite a bit of fun.
The Possession of David O'Reilly-Visiting a group of friends following a nasty break-up, a man finds their house under assault by shadowy, grotesque beings that are utterly remorseless in trying to get at them, forcing them into a long, bloodsoaked night to fend them off. Yet another in a long, long, long list of utterly terrible British horror efforts, this one featuring all the hallmarks of their lame films in a pace that features no energy, momentum or excitement, a series of seemingly scary scenes ruined by the irritating camera that won't stop moving to give you a clear idea of what's going on, a decided lack of explanations as to what's happening and a large number of scenes that offer up hardly anything in terms of scares that leave large portions of the film utterly boring. It's almost impossible to find anything in here worthwhile, but at least some of the attack scenes at the end were pretty intense, what could be seen, so overall this one isn't really worth it.
Bear-Going through a shortcut in the woods, a family group get stranded in the area and must fend off a mother grizzly bear's relentless, retribution-fueled attacks as they struggle to survive the animal's continuous antics. A rather surprising creature feature at times and frustrating at others, as sometimes this manages to be quite entertaining and enjoyable due to the film's rather brutal and relentless attacks, which are helped along by the high-action content of the scene and where it's going. Then, though, the film manages to feature something so irritating and aggravating that this overcomes the positives, and the majority of this comes from the cast as they're constantly snipping at each other so they're hardly fun to watch, then it spends the last twenty-minutes in an annoying twist that does nothing for the film as a whole. It's not that fun and really brings the film down as a whole.
Wolf Town-Hoping to use a spur-of-the-moment camping trip to win his dream-girl, a couple of friends tag along and stumble upon an abandoned mining town that serves as the home to a pack of vicious, killer wolves, forcing them to fight off the creatures to get away alive. Somewhat decent effort here, mainly because so little of it really stands out as being all too impressive. Whereas the creepy ghost-town setting and the rathe clever twist to make the creatures plain old wolves was pretty unique, the fact that there's such a small body count of potential victims that the film really can't do anything with the wolves to showcase their killing skills, drastically reducing their fearfulness and instead relying on the pack to generate the fear. Also problematic is that this leaves so much of the film devoid of wolf attacks because there's not a lot that can be done with them as is that it feels pretty dragged out in spaces. While it's not a terrible film, there's some problems with this one.
Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings-Getting stranded in a freak snowstorm, a group of friends seek shelter in a supposedly-abandoned asylum only to find it still inhabited by cannibalistic inmates and must find a way of getting away from the vicious killers. Rather fun and entertaining entry in the series, managing to feature even more of the usual elements found in the last entries to become that much more entertaining. The gore and kills here are both over-the-top here, featuring numerous amounts of splatter and carnage which allow the film to be pretty brutal at times with some innovative torturing methods. The stalking and hunting on display are quite a bit of fun, and the large, cavernous structure with it's long, looming hallways, tight quarters and hidden rooms are used to good effect in both creating effective atmospheric locations and perfect areas for them to display their cruel tactics. While it's finale does seem to run on forever and get old after awhile since it's not really all that clear what's going on, this here is a blast and quite enjoyable.
Seen over the weekend:
Added uncut copies of The Unholy and Evil Eyes to the collection.
Exorcismus-Realizing that their daughter's strange behavior is being brought about by a demonic possession, a family hires their troubled priest brother-in-law to perform an exorcism that should drive the being out. Not only did this one turn out to be a lot of fun, but it's also one of the few recent-vintage British horror films that hasn't been a complete waste of time. One of the film's best tricks is that it manages to contain the necessary ingredients for the possession early on, practically in the first few minutes which makes this film just fly right by. The quick pace is perhaps the best example of why this works so well, as well as the fact that the exorcism scenes are quite extensive and really fun. As well, the scenes showing the possession are a great deal of fun, with the crazed behavior, unnatural antics, distortions and much, much more that give this a pretty creepy feel since they come out of nowhere. Despite the fact that it stumbles a bit in the last half with an overwrought guilty-conscience/ulterior motive plot-twist, it's still quite a bit of fun.