Like it or not, “Paranormal Activity” was the indie success story of the decade. After the big take off of “The Blair Witch Project,” director Oren Peli proved a valuable successor to the end of the twentieth century sensation by providing a horror film for the digital age where the chronicling of a couple at the mercy of a demon was filmed through HD camcorders and the advent of the then seasoned instrument of the worldwide web. “Paranormal Activity 2” commits what is almost an impossible task. It completely compliments the storyline of the original film while also adding to it.
Tag Archives: P
The Puzzle (2008)
For what it intends to pull off, director Davide Melini’s short thriller is entertaining and bold in that it can tell a story in under five minutes and still feel complete and spooky. There isn’t a lot of explanation toward the puzzle or why the puzzle is so prophetic, but then I doubt the puzzle is supposed to be taken as a literal plot device. Instead it’s supposed to be more a metaphor for what the woman in this tale realized much too late. Besides, if we saw our fates, could we do anything about it? In our attempts to change fate would we instead just walk right in to it unwillingly?
Official Psycho Parody (2011)
Porn parodies are everywhere. Right now with the industry looking for customers porn parodies are what’s in and surely enough they’re big money makers and headline grabbers. It’s just shocking that somewhere down the road someone thought “Psycho” would make a good porn parody. I mean who would have thought a movie about a cross dressing psychopath with an obsessive Oedipus complex and possible incestuous relationship with his mother who mutilated hapless female travelers would make for something of an entertaining and arousing porn flick. Factoring in the thought that “Psycho” was already a fairly sexual film with thick overtones and a sexually repressed man who could only react to an attraction to a woman with aggressive homicidal behavior, and you’re already headed for a dead end. “The Official Psycho Parody” is up for the challenge though as a movie that seems to try very hard to mimic the style and atmosphere of Hitchcock’s masterpiece, while also presenting it’s obvious purpose for being a hardcore porno first and foremost.
The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships (2008) (DVD)
“The Price of Pleasure” essentially has its intent kept under its belt from minute one. It’s an attempt to completely demonize and stigmatize pornography and the porn industry by only exploring the more exploitative aspects and demonstrating the ill effects of such a craze in America where money is made off of sex. The imagery is striking and disturbing, the editing is tricky, and the movie essentially seeks to turn the porn star in to something of a low life, never really remarking on how most of the pornography stars are voluntarily exploiting themselves and making a living out of something they don’t normally perform in life. Every business is exploitative, every business suffers casualties, and garners individuals who have been affected by it for better or for worse.
Piranha 3D (2010)
Alexandre Aja’s latest remake feels so utterly lazy and muddled and idiotic that it seems like the studio just threw a few million dollars his way and asked him to just throw as much blood and guts to the screen as humanly possible. And I imagine it was the easiest payday this man ever saw. From minute one Aja’s film wants to be taken on so many levels. It wants to be a political commentary, a schlock cult film, and a satire of schlock films, it doesn’t take itself seriously, but it depicts violence so realistically.
Psycho Shark (2009)
At only a little over an hour long, “Psycho Shark” (or as it’s being called in some circles “Jaws in Japan”) is probably one of the zaniest most deliriously bad movies I’ve ever come across mainly for its wacky directing style. Not much in this movie makes sense and director Hijiri John is such a fan of holding takes, that some shots are awkward. Any competent director will cringe at his knack for shooting people only below the waist and at one point holds a shot in the sand for over a minute after his actresses have left the frame. But take my advice, wait a while, be patient because I guarantee you by the second half… absolutely nothing will have happened. Don’t get me wrong, I love movies about frolicking Japanese girls, but if it’s a horror movie only a little bit over an hour, then you have to have some sense of forward progression in plot and this has none of it.
Pieces (Mil gritos tiene la noche) (1983): Two Disc Deluxe Edition (DVD)
“The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a water bed.”
Armed with perhaps two of the funniest, most demented, and rapid fire twists in possibly all of film history, “Pieces” is one of the most insane horror films I’ve ever seen, a movie so rife with cheese and over the top splatter that it’s just impossible not to enjoy. I found myself disgusted, and cringing all the while laughing at the top of my lungs at scenes so poorly orchestrated that it’s just so easy to sit and watch without being bored. It’s impossible to pick a starting point in this review because I’m currently comprehending what the hell I’d just seen before my eyes.