It’s almost as if mid-way the writers and producers decided that a horrible virus eliminating an entire small town in a disturbing fever wasn’t good enough. So they inject a crusty scowling military man who has been given orders to destroy the whole town. It’s so rote and typical of Hollywood that it’s jarring to the tone of “Outbreak.” Wolfgang Peterson’s ensemble thriller can never really decide if it wants to be an action adventure thriller or a dramatic thriller. It wants to feature explosions and epic helicopter chases, but it also tries to inject explorations in to military policy, government corruption, and discussion about past events in history that were rationalized as a means to an end.
Tag Archives: Thriller
Waffle (2010)
This is one of the few times in my life where I’ve seen a waffle filmed on-screen and felt a twinge of disgust watching it. Director Rafael DeLeon equates the edible waffle desert with the character Wendy in his short film “Waffle,” and uses it as a symbolic way of revealing her apparent deformity that’s never quite revealed. The local high school alpha queen Dana indulges in a creepy dinner with local science genius and deformed high schooler Wendy and her mother.
Haunted High (2012)
Zombie frogs, demonic exercise machines, ghostly sports jerseys, and evil toilets, they’re all here to be about as moronic as possible in one of the least scary movies I’ve ever seen. RL Stine in his days of “Goosebumps” drew more chills from me than “Haunted High” a film so laughably bad, it’s almost impossible to watch in one sitting. It basically has everything a bad horror film should have. Special effects so bad they seem to have been created in the mid-eighties, a villain so non-threatening he barely registers above a yawn in the spook meter, and did I mention genre favorite Charisma Carpenter gets top billing for a role that’s literally only thirty seconds in length?
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
While deep down Sony engineered a reboot of “Spider-Man” in an effort to secure the rights, “The Amazing Spider-Man” uses the opportunity to correct the mistakes made by previous franchise runner Sam Raimi. Where Raimi opted for camp and schlock with his installments, “The Amazing Spider-Man” launches a more dramatic approach. Where Raimi opted for the traditional Spider-Man, Marc Webb constructs a more radical re-thinking of the Spider-Man mythos. And unlike Raimi, director Marc Webb opts to side step the camp flavor as much as humanly possible. This reboot is much more true to the Spider-Man we all know and love, and thankfully it’s a superior film that promises to age better than Sam Raimi’s films.
Reel Evil (2012)
I’m yelling! I’m yelling very loudly and at the same time as everyone else thus creating the facade that there is conflict in a boring movie! I am angry for some reason! I am lost in a labyrinth of an abandoned insane asylum and am yelling louder for some reason! Watch me yell some more proving there is conflict where there is none! Loud noises! My temper is inexplicably short! It is very scary when people are lost in dark halls for almost eighty minutes only to hear the occasional whisper and no pay off!
The Craft (1996)
The nineties experienced an odd resurgence in the interest of witchcraft for a while. So much so that even I dabbled in it and Paganism for a while. In my ever expanding love for the occult I took to intensive research of the art of witchcraft, and I think it was contagious for a while. There was the hit TV show “Charmed,” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” and of course there were films like “Hocus Pocus,” “Practical Magic,” the revived film version of “The Crucible,” and the rather slick horror drama “The Craft” to help induce the interest in the apparent appeal of the religion. While somewhat fading in to obscurity, it’s still an utterly mesmerizing teen oriented horror thriller and one painfully copied in “The Covenant.”
The Innkeepers (2012)
It’s odd that though Ti West is primarily a director who tackles horror films, that if he ever decided to write a drama or comedy, he could really deliver a near masterpiece. Save for “The Roost,” and “Cabin Fever 2,” director Ti West has proven a master of slow boil horror films that are written beautifully. Featuring rich and well developed characters, director Ti West is a very strong writer and horror director who has offered some unique horror films for indie fans. Though he’s not the juggernaut horror journalists are quick to tout him as, Ti West can write damn good scripts and create likable and charming characters who are involved in horrifying situations. And when he finally delivers the boom after a long session of watching the fuse burn, it’s satisfying and absolutely twisted.