The crime “Cry_Wolf” commits is that its safe, it’s completely void of scares, any risks, and it’s completely dry if you catch my drift. It attempts to be taken as a slasher film but it’s not a slasher whatsoever, it’s a gigantic tease. It starts off as a mystery, then forms in to a slasher, and then a mystery yet again. With great writing, and very good directing, the constantly shifting themes could have served for a brilliant and utterly engrossing horror entry, but with hackneyed writing and utterly broad characterization, “Cry_Wolf” goes limp. Like having a vasectomy and contemplating sex, it seems fun, but in the end it does nothing but fire off blanks. It wants to be the murder mystery of the computer age, but it comes off more like a lame-brained “Scream” and that’s not saying much, I can tell you that.
Four Brothers (2005)
I was surprised to discover how much I really enjoyed “Four Brothers.” Even for a remake. “Four Brothers” is a worthy successor to the original film, and with a dose of cheese every so often it really accomplishes the slight camp from the original film. What made it a more enjoyable experience is that Singleton and the writers turn this in to a modern western. Gladly, this is a modern western in every sense of the word with some great elements from the genre, and some of Singleton’s style thrown in for good measure. Like a cowboy on horseback, Wahlberg’s character Bobby makes his entrance in to the inner-city of Detroit with old school soul playing in the background. Wahlberg becomes the basic drive here (the replacement for John Wayne) who enters back in to his stomping grounds from a life of business to mourn the loss of his foster mother who was killed viciously in a store robbery.
Venom (2005)
Know this film? You probably don’t. As a matter of fact, not a lot of people really know what exactly “Venom” is and that it had a very short run in theaters. And bombed in spite of its good cast and Kevin Williamson helping to fuel the film. Once called “Backwater”, then called “The Reaper”, and now “Venom”, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I’d heard. It’s no masterpiece, but hey, it beats “House of Wax” by a couple of inches.
Campus Ladies
To get in the mind set of “Campus Ladies”, you’ll have to imagine a really bad sketch from “Saturday Night Live” and then imagine that instead of it being a five minute sketch, it’s extended in to a half hour show, and that half hour will now be a series. Now granted, I was never a fan of “Oxygen” and its programming, I approached “Campus Ladies” with a very open-mind, and then after I was finished with it, I wanted to jam my fingers in to my eyes until I reached my brain and then spin. “Campus Ladies” is possibly one of the most unfunny, and utterly irritating comedies I’ve ever seen that tries so hard to resemble a BBC comedy, it’s not even funny.
Serenity (2005)
Brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, I am here to preach the gospel, the gospel of “Firefly”, can I get an amen?! Like you I was once lost and now I was found by Joss Whedon’s amazing and brutally bastardized television series “Firefly” which was taken much too soon before its prime, can I get an amen?! Much like you, I was turned on to the “Firefly” series by word of mouth. A friend told a friend who told me, and I gazed upon the glory that is “Firefly” and I am now a brown coat, one of legions of fans, can I get an amen?! I then spread the word and made it my mission to do so! What, you dare doubt the power of “Firefly”?! Well, I cast you in to the damnation of “Harry Potter” fandom you heathen, and I tell you, that “Firefly” is the beginning, the middle, and the end of what a masterpiece is and should be! Can I get a fucking amen?!
Bram Stoker's Way of the Vampire (2005)
Vampire movies are perhaps the easiest of the horror genre to make aside from zombie films. Some fake fangs, contacts, immense over acting and voila (watch the actors here attempt to mutter their lines through fake teeth!). You can go to an online store and simply type in “vampire” and you’ll come up with about seventy to a hundred vampire films. What’s rare about vampire films though, is that it’s extremely difficult to find a vampire movie that’s actually worth watching. I can think of only a few. “Bram Stoker’s The Way of the Vampire” is no exception to this rule.
Shallow Ground (2004)
So, a young naked boy covered in blood emerges from the woods and stumbles upon a sheriff’s office. No, this isn’t the start of a potentially funny riddle, but the opening of the lackluster and misfired “Shallow Ground” a film that though graced with an original concept, is completely botched from beginning to end. “Shallow Ground” consists of a very loud and irritating score that basically follows wooden acting, forgettable performances, and interchangeable characters I knew nothing about, and had no interest in knowing. At first, the set-up for “Shallow Ground” resembles basically any other horror film, but writer-director Sheldon Wilson attempts to become more esoteric and lays out the ground work for a more meaningful horror flick that tries too hard.