Written while King was recovering from his tragic accident in which he was hit by a car, “Dreamcatcher” follows many of the themes of his traumatic event, even featuring a main character being violently hit by a car in the middle of the road. It’s unfortunate for King, that “Dreamcatcher” is one of his many onscreen misses. “Dreamcatcher” is a formula gone horribly wrong with plot elements and a story so contrived that it’s hard to watch this while not thinking about other stuff this borrows from. Borrowing from John Carpenter’s variation of “The Thing”, four men go up to a cabin in the woods to meet after years of separation and must take on an alien entity that can possess bodies; and borrowing from “Invasion of the body snatchers”, many people are getting overtaken by an alien that uses spores to enter one’s body and take over them.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
In 1978, George A. Romero followed up his classic “Night of the Living Dead” with an even bigger horror hit known as “Dawn of the Dead” this time showing the world only weeks after the outbreak where society is now overrun by the undead and carnage ensues as people struggle to comprehend what is happening and how it happened. True, director Zack Snyder’s re-working of “Dawn” is a lot slicker than the original, but ultimately it lacks the truly sick and sometimes twisted satire and jabs at pop culture and the consumer era.
Long Time Dead (2002)
After a night of partying a group of friends decide to play with a Ouija board, maybe the CD player was broken, who knows? But once they begin playing, they accidentally unleash a mysterious demonic entity who is now stuck in our reality after someone breaks the link. Now, it’s up to the group to discover who out of them all is possessed by the demonic force before each and everyone in the group keeps being killed off. I said it once before, and I’ll say it again: Foreigners make the best horror films, now before you start calling me anti-American and begin dumping your French wine down your toilet, hear me out. Foreigners are rarely ever people who buy into hype and rely solely on something that Hollywood lost years ago… what’s that called? Ah, originality.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
One can’t deny that “The Passion of the Christ” was a bulldozer of endless publicity, and endless debate, and controversy, and uproar and anger and discussion, and feuds and so on and so on. Regardless of which blockbuster that was spawned on the American audience, “The Passion of the Christ” was a highly hyped and much publicized film, because it deals with religion. Religion takes brothers and sisters and family and divides them, it angers people, motivates them, inspires them, and causes them to commit heinous acts in the name of it. Thus explaining the Crusades, the search for the holy grail, and the war we are experiencing now. Religious wars. Religion, regardless of how you cut it is important, if an unnecessary and somewhat defunct part of the human condition that should be removed. Religious films aren’t just films, they expose a part of the human soul called religion, something many people live by and swear by. For better and for worse.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Twas once a skeptic to the quality of the film now am a believer that Disney can still trot out quality films. My Mea Culpa was to assume that even with such a cast as Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp aboard that this would be a stinker, but once more I was wrong. Gore Verbinski who did an excellent directing job in the recent thriller “The Ring” conveys the true spirit of swashbuckling films in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, a film that is very reminiscent of the old Errol Flynn Pirate epics that stunned audiences in the early 1900’s in its truest essence; the swashbuckling film genre is dead only recently being brought to the screen with the bland “Cutthroat Island” a film that had style but little substance.
From Justin to Kelly (2003)
Brothers and sistas, mothers and fathers, I come to you today not only as a megalomaniacal egotistic movie critic but as a fellow movie go-er! Thus I have witness the plight that is “From Justin to Kelly”! Can I get a amen?!
If I asked you (the reader) who watches “American Idol” I’d probably receive an onslaught of hands raised followed by cheering; but if I asked you how many people went to see this film, I’d without a doubt be welcomed with deafening silence and a few mutters, thus Americans finally knew the extent FOX was willing to milk their cash cow known as “American Idol”! Can I get a amen?!
American Wedding (2003)
I’m a fan of “American Pie”; I loved that movie, I thought it was very funny and the closest we’ll get to a classic comedy of the modern era, I mean what other movie featured such a hilarious sight as a guy having sex with a pie? Then there was “American Pie 2”, not exactly a creative title for a sequel, and all in all it was a mediocre film with a mediocre plot. There were minimal laughs, obvious jokes and puns, and nothing else to feature, then with a further saturation, there’s “American Wedding”.I was strictly against a third film in the “American” series, and now it’s clearly evident my instinct was right all along.