I don’t want to say “A Monsterous Holiday” feels like a throwaway episode of “Jimmy Neutron,” but our main character is a scientist wunderkind with goofy brown hair and a robot dog. You do the math. “A Monsterous Holiday” is less a monster comedy and more a friendship tale about a scientist who wants to create life, and a monster that learns how to live.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
For the sequel to the creative but utterly underwhelming “Urban Legends,” director John Ottman and the writers basically ape “Scream” by taking the premise and much of the film’s general concept to the world of filmmaking. This time around “Final Cut” centralizes its story on a film school where a bunch of wannabe directors and actors are being knocked off by a serial killer with a fencing mask. Granted, I’m not a fan of the “Scream” films, but often times “Final Cut” feels like a poor man’s version of the Wes Craven series. A bunch of glamorous young folks in their thirties play aspiring Hollywood artists/college students, all of whom are being offed one by one by a masked killer in some of the most grotesque and anti-climactic ways possible.
Urban Legend (1998)
I never understood why, if “Urban Legend” is set in New England, does the killer wear a heavy winter coat that drapes over their face during what looks like the early Fall season. You figure the killer would opt for something sleeker and more compact, as well as something that doesn’t directly cut off peripheral vision. But that is one of the many irritating aspects of “Urban Legend” that demands a lot from its audience in the way of suspension of disbelief. This is a world where suddenly everyone owns a winter jacket with white fur lining once we’re aware of the killer’s garb. Even swimmers who happen to be wearing swimsuits decide to wear it while walking along an in-door pool. Only in this universe does that make even the slightest bit of sense.
Shocker (1989)
Wes Craven creates Freddy Krueger. Again. This time rather than invading the meta-reality of dreams, maniac Horace Pinker can travel through televisions. That said, “Shocker” is basically like “Nightmare.” There’s a maniac, a main character linked to him through dreams, a secret that the main character’s neglectful parent is hiding, a major supporting character that dies thanks to the maniac that allows the main character to face off against the maniac, and a final showdown where the main character turns the tables on the maniac.
Labyrinth (1986)
Director Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” is one of the many epic fantasy films of the eighties indirectly influenced by George Lucas’ “Star Wars,” and while it never aspires to be anything more than a standalone tale, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t possess epic potential from beginning to end. Director Henson unfolds a very unique and entertaining tale of a young girl who learns how to grow as a person through a menacing adventure through a massive labyrinth. Much in the realm of “Alice in Wonderland,” or “Wizard of Oz,” young Sarah finds herself confronting many monsters and menaces, and becomes a hero in the end.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
It’s pretty sad that at the end of the day, director Sam Raimi had to waste his talents on what is basically a regurgitation of the classic “Wizard of Oz” 1939 film adaptation. He doesn’t even get to think outside the box and offer up his own vision of Oz. Basically, “Oz the Great and Powerful” is yet another version of the movie, but in the view of the all powerful Wizard. The Wizard of Oz is one of cinema’s great macguffins, a big goal the characters work for in the 1939 movie, that they find out was nothing but smoke and mirrors.
The Children (2008)
As much as I wanted to love Thomas Shankland’s horror film “The Children,” it’s yet another genre entry that’s all build and no bang. In fact the first hour of the whole film is nothing but build-up and off screen chaos, and there’s almost no pay off to anything that occurs. Whenever Shankland has a chance to blast the audience with carnage and havoc, it’s all so abruptly ended. You assume a movie about a mysterious chemical that turns children in to rotten maniacs merciless in their pursuit to murder adults would be straight forward and frantic. In reality it’s very slow, and there’s nothing straight forward about anything here.