ABC Family’s “The Initiation of Sarah” isn’t an awful quasi-horror film, it’s just incredibly weak and bland. It’s never intentionally a very weak film, it’s just so lost in its own attempts to mimic a certain show about yakking women that it can’t find its own niche. What do you expect from a movie whose heroine has sex to prevent from being sacrificed as a virgin? “The Initiation of Sarah” is like a harder edged “Sabrina,” it’s a PG-13 “Suspiria,” and while that’s not always a bad thing, it’s just never interesting enough to warrant my full attention.
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The Island (2005)
It was no surprise to me that “The Island” was dumb. It was idiotic, it was ludicrous, it was moronic, and it was every other homonym for the word stupid I can think of. It’s Michael Bay for crying out loud. I was actually looking forward to Bay’s most recent shit pile, only because it seemed to have an original concept to it, but man, whatever potential this has to be a story about life, and exploring the world beyond what we’re presented with is thrown out the window thirty minutes in, when it becomes a typical stunt show.
The Ice Harvest (2005)
You’re very well aware at how poorly put together this vehicle is, when throughout the entire film, people are shot in the head with a small hole and a drip of blood from the frontal lobe, yet right in the climax when the villain’s head is blown away, blood and brain matter splatters all over Connie Nielsen. I hated “The Ice Harvest.” I hated its being. I hated its presence. Because—borrowing from a hilarious scene in “The Family Guy”—it insists upon itself. It’s so smug in its attempt to feel like a neo-noir dramedy, and fails in every aspect, and then tries horribly to shove the themes down our throats and never lets up.
I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)
You figure in the world of cynical teenagers, technology, MTV, and the over saturation of slasher films, that the characters in this would be a little less horrified. Hell, they’re all very astonished at the story of a masked killer with a hook who comes after teenagers. And the song goes: a group of teenagers, a prank that goes awry, one year later, they re-unite, and the killing starts. Funny thing is, whether it’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, or some girl we’ve never seen before, the characters here are still very interchangeable. I hated the first two films, so I wasn’t keen on watching yet another sequel, and as I guessed it, “I’ll Always Know” is basically just routine.
In Memorium (2005)
Director Amanda Gusack creates a film very much in the vein of “Blair Witch Project”, and from the get go there’s this sense of pure dread and impending doom that’s presented with a stark gray ambiance. The character Dennis is dying from terminal bone cancer that is eating away at his body. He and his wife (the gorgeous Johanna Watts) move into a new home they then rig with various cameras to film every one of his developments and movements to chronicle and possibly create as a documentary for his legacy and his wife to bank off of. But this documenting is interrupted with something ever more sinister.
I Killed Tom@MySpace.com
What attributes to the current success and immense popularity of “My Space”? I can never really figure it out. I have a personal page and a networking one, so I won’t pretend I hate My Space, but for a site that runs well only half the time, has trouble loading, is incredibly slow, and is down half the time, I wonder why My Space continues to remain such a humongous website. One of the most ridiculous but warranted feuds on the mega website is the subscribers’ feuds with Tom. Who is Tom? Tom runs the entire site.
Infection (Kansen) (2004)
“Infection” is a moral tale in the vein of “The Telltale Heart”; a low rent basically abandoned hospital with a staff of merely five or six people find themselves in the throes of an epidemic one fateful night. An ambulance rushing a diseased man to safety struggles to find a hospital and leaves him at the doorstep of the hospital which refuses to admit him. “Infection” is an often bleak and grim moral horror story about the power of our conscience in spite of our loss of control under circumstances. Much like Poe’s story, “Infection” is the tale of our minds becoming our worst enemies and Mochiai focuses on stark almost flawless shades of green and red to convey the psyche turning on the characters, and express the sense of disgust within the low-rent hospital. Mochiai’s film is spooky and through disgusting and gruesome imagery, we learn of this disease which becomes a manifestation of their guilt, and their dirty deeds.