I love slasher films, I go ape shit for them, and when I read about “Haute Tension” I went nuts especially after watching the trailer when I went to see “Saw” in theaters last year. Modern slasher films have been incredibly watered down with very little gore, and just nonsensical casting, hiring young hip actors to portray the victims. I always say that these days the best films are the foreign films, and the best horror films are indeed the foreign ones, and “Haute Tension” is no exception. This is a great film that was just so reminiscent of Argento’s gory style, with a killer that is awfully scary.
Tag Archives: Horror
The Amityville Horror (2005)
This does have some great elements that is a gleaming example of what this movie could have and should have been per the generous rating. Admittedly, I’m a real fan of Ryan Reynolds. He was good in that crap “Van Wilder”, and he was my favorite aspect of “Blade: Trinity”. He’s a genuinely good actor who has the ability to become one of the many huge over-exposed actors of the time. Reynolds gives a good performance and was convincing, and he’s really menacing when he begins going nuts. There’s a particularly great scene when he’s chopping wood and he’s making his stepson hold the wood and it’s so well directed and edited I was thinking “that’s how this movie should have been!”: tense, gritty, creepy, and just plain character-based.
Man-Thing (2005)
The premise to “Man-Thing” is nonsensical and is mostly comprised of bits of many different subplots that never add up to one fluid plot in a movie. There’s industrialists digging for oil in a swamp somewhere in the South and people are being killed off in the mysterious swamp. A new sheriff comes on-board and begins investigating the murders and discovers an evil force is offing the local residents… and there’s an Indian thrown around the movie somewhere, who knows? What they did drop the ball on was the plot which I found often fascinating.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)
What I really liked about this movie is it managed to take a clever satirical horror film with a twist and add some lore and depth to it. Whether or not “Ginger Snaps” needed to progress beyond the first movie is open for argument, but this film does manage to add some creative and some times engrossing lore to the whole “ginger snaps” story with a similar tale being told in the past century, and it kept me interested the whole way through until the dynamite conclusion. Two sisters traveling abroad the Canadian country side, Ginger and Bridgette, travel through the forest horseback and get lost. When Bridgette accidentally gets caught in a bear trap, Ginger goes to look for help but they’re discovered by a Native American hunter and taken to a local fortress where they’re taken in by a group of soldiers awaiting orders and supplies.
Blade: Trinity (2004)
This review is being written at a good time for me, not only because I dug the last two Blade films, but because of the lawsuit Wesley Snipes has just waged on the studios about this movie. Snipes is a known diva, if you’ve read the past issues of “Fangoria” and “Starlog”, though his co-stars and director Goyer don’t openly admit it, Snipes is known for being a diva, and now he seeks retribution for a movie he claims he didn’t want to make, for starring along side people he didn’t want to star with being directed by a director who he says was forced on him. Regardless, I didn’t think “Blade 3” would live up to the first two. People often say there’s hardly any sequels that are as good as the first film, but I have something better for you. How many second sequels are better than the first film?
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) (2001)
“Spirited Away” has had the unfortunate distinction of being compared to “Alice in Wonderland”, and while they bear similarities in themes, characters, and oddities, but Miyazaki’s animated tale is highly superior. Miyazaki takes us into an incredible land of creatures, landscapes and spooky villains, along the injecting truly heartfelt emotions, and thematic undertones. Miyazaki’s animation and storytelling bear an aspect sorely missing in American animated films, which heart, and true sincerity. Chihiro and her parents are on the way to their new home, and while driving they stumble upon a weird tunnel. Curious, they enter the tunnel and end up in a magical field and begin journeying into a village. But when Chihiro discovers her parents have been turned into pigs, she finds that there may be no going back where came from.
Toolbox Murders (2004)
I’ll admit “The Toolbox Murders” will never win any awards in the horror field, but as a piece of pure mindless horror with gore galore, I dug it a lot simply for its schlock value, and so-stupid-it’s-good fun. When Nell and Steven move to Hollywood after Steven, a doctor gets a job at the local hospital, their apartment building is less than luxurious, and Nell has an instant uneasy feeling about the vibe of the building and has no idea there are murders going on all around her. She can hear and feel its bad atmosphere despite the landlord’s boasting that it’s just a Hollywood landmark, but once she begins suspecting her friends being murdered around her she delves into the shocking underbelly of the landmark and discovers its grizzly secret.