It’s weird how the biggest houses with the most windows at the top of a hill on the countryside always manage to somehow be the darkest. I live in a large apartment with many windows and it’s often too bright, but somehow the setting here is dark and gloomy even in a beautiful house such as the one in “Darkness”. “Darkness” is unequivocally one of the most embarrassingly derivative “horror” films I’ve seen in years. It’s a film that borrows and yanks elements from other better horror movies just to tell the nonsensical and utterly pointless story we see here. You could guess the story before I even spelled it out for you. A small family, relocating to a job in Spain where seemingly no one speaks the native language, moves in to a great house haunted by ghosts. Cue an unnecessarily large back story, many obligatory plot twists, and surprisingly bad acting from the great cast featured.
Crusades: Crescent & the Cross
“The Crusades”–most recently depicted in the epic “Kingdom of Heaven”–is the focus of yet another documentary in the History Channel’s sprawling documentary epic called “The Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross”. The Crusades was the ultimate holy war, one the world is experiencing now, but it was less a war of religion, but more a journey to prove their religion wasn’t in vain. As an interviewee declares, it was less of a search and more to prove their love of their religion, and ultimately futile effort that would prove later on.
Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor) (2004)
And then when they said there’s no more original ideas, out comes “Nochnoy Dozor”. If you’re unfamiliar, “Nochnoy Dozor”–or “The Nightwatch”– it is a Russian fantasy epic, the first of a planned trilogy that just finished smashing box office records in Russia becoming the highest grossing film of all time there beating out “Spider-Man 2”. Though it’s not as if Russia is a Mecca for light-hearted epics, “The Nightwatch” has made quite an impact there, and will soon be released and then remade here in the US. Before the Hollywood butcher shop decided to hack their way in to a crappy remake, I decided to grab a hold of the original film, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Red Siren (La Sirene Rouge) (2002)
This is a film that could work. It could work as a film, and it could work as a separate entity. As a film that involves such an elaborate plot, it could work as a purely engrossing thriller, but the problem is it doesn’t work. About half of the time, the film is beaming with potential and possibilities that are completely misfired with another half that just can’t get it at that level of sophistication. “The Red Siren” bounces back and forth with a hackneyed plot that is both confusing and un-involving while presenting sub-plots that are hardly ever developed. So much seems to be happening during this, but none of it is ever fleshed out in to anything completely coherent. “The Red Siren” could also work were it not such a shameless retread of “The Professional”.
The Batman vs. Dracula (2005)
“The Batman” is one of the only series featuring Batman that hasn’t been animated by the well known and widely accepted form of Bruce Timm’s design, and as a series it’s always been a very poor successor in simple fact that it’s only basically been invented to cash in on “Batman Begins”. The series was created and rushed in to premiere showing on the WB network months before “Batman Begins”. The series as a whole is terrible; it’s bland, lifeless, and often uneventful. “The Batman vs. Dracula” is the first animated film from the Batman franchise that didn’t feature artwork from Bruce Timm et al. But this isn’t the first time Batman and Dracula have crossed paths, any respectable comic fan knows that Batman and Dracula are pure rivals, and this makes the distinct hinting that this is the first time they’ve ever crossed paths.
Wolves of Wall Street (2002)
Potential filmmakers of America, or any country, listen up: If you’re going to make a vampire movie, show vampires, if you’re going to make a slasher movie, show some murders, and if you’re going to make a werewolf movie, show some actual fucking werewolves! I don’t care how you show them, just show them! Claymation, animated, bad CGI, anything, but if you’re going to promise us werewolves, give us werewolves! I can put up with bad acting, irritating characters, horrible direction, and a sloppy narrative, but when you have a rushed storyline that leads up to nothing, you best be prepared for a paddlin’. And lookin’ at my paddle? Oh, you best believe that’s a paddlin’.
The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Soon will begin the long debate about which film is better “The Devil’s Rejects” or “HO1K”. I’m all for “The Devil’s Rejects”. What this has over the first film is basically everything from characterization, a fascinating plotline, and most of all a coherent narrative that was severely lacking in its predecessor. The first film was the mark of a fan boy who was more concerned with paying homage to his favorite movies than telling a story, but ultimately “The Devil’s Rejects” is the redemption of that fan boy as he finally gives the audience a competent story with excellent action.