Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

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.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Posted on March 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

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.

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A Man Apart (2003)

Posted on March 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Diesel stars as Sean Vetter a DEA agent who with his friend Demetrius Hicks are in the midst of taking down a brutal drug cartel led by Memo Lucera (Geno Silva); after busting him and taking down the crime ring that they’ve spent seven years investigating, Sean finally can take some off-time. Enter wife Stacy, the loving beautiful wife to the character of Sean. By now, if you haven’t seen the movie, you can guess what will happen next, and do I even have to tell you anything else besides the fact that she becomes a motivation for vengeance? Watch the trailer and you won’t even have to see the movie. Simply because the plot twist is predictable and formula.

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Phone Booth (2003)

Posted on February 29, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Master horror director Alfred Hitchcock had a theory that continues to apply to thrillers even today, he theorized that if you take a tense moment and stretch it out as long as possible you can keep the audience on the edge of their seat, biting their nails and sweating at the thought of an oncoming jolt, that if you stretch it long, it will have more of a lasting effect on the audience than if you hit them with one instant jolt which they will inevitably forget. Many of today’s horror and thrillers prefer to use the latter which, despite always getting a reaction, isn’t always effective, “Phone Booth” uses Hitchcock’s method in the most purest sense and gives a fond remembrance of the days when a thriller actually used its title “Thrill”, and what “Phone Booth” does is surely thrill in rare form.

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Open Range (2003)

Posted on February 15, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Based on the novel “The Open Range Men” by Lauran Paine, Charley is a free ranger along with his superior whom he calls boss; the two friends are teamed with two other young employees and live a simple life out on the open range as nomads herding cows for a living until one of the young employees is badly beaten and imprisoned in a town. When Charley and Boss go to retrieve him they come across a crooked Marshall and town mayor and upon their arrival to their campground, they’re soon being watched and stalked by masked men upon their return to their home, but when Charley and boss decide to take it upon themselves to stop the stalkers, they return to their home ravaged beyond belief and their friends hurt badly.

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Dog Soldiers (2002)

Posted on February 15, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

What if Steven Spielberg and Stephen King got together and decided to mix “Silver Bullet” with “Saving Private Ryan”? You have a rather large hunk of horror/action fare for any movie nut to chew on, and this is some film to chew on. Take a group of completely different people, store them in a confined space with very little and/or limited weapons while they’re forced to fend off against ravenous monsters who are lurking at every corner while they’re forced to deal with each other, as paranoia inevitably ensues. “Dog Soldiers” is one bad mutha of a horror film successfully following that formula and creating an experience for viewers that will linger on your mind forever.

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The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003)

Posted on January 25, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Out of all the films out there “The Hitcher” wouldn’t be my first choice for a sequel, as a matter of fact, there’s not really a need for sequels these days, yet Hollywood continues to pull them out despite big budget or small budget as is revealed in this inferior straight to video sequel to the eerie chiller from 1986. It’s hard to set up a story for a sequel that wasn’t really necessary; we have B queen Kari Wuhrer as C. Thomas Howell’s girlfriend Maggie, Howell’s character Jim from the original film is now grown-up and sports a bad five ‘o clock shadow and a scratchy deep voice to better accentuate his manly persona, Kari Wuhrer plays the inept girlfriend to Howell’s Jim whom is never truly informed on Jim’s horrible past, but urges him to seek professional help… why would she suggest he get personal help when she doesn’t know what happened to him?

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