Tag Archives: Thriller

Toolbox Murders (2004)

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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.

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Sin City (2005)

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Cannibal teens, psychotic hookers, talking dead bodies, yellow skinned child rapists, and a disfigured psycho with an affinity for trench coats. The third corner of hell? No, it’s all mundane in Sin City, thus is the oddities presented in the Frank Miller created series of graphic novels. Miller set forth a legacy in 1991 when he created a series of incomparable visionary graphic novels called “Sin City” which had no superheroes, no intergalactic madmen, and no demonic entities, only the horror of mankind and the back alleys of the worst city in the world.

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Mansquito (2005)

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This is the hybrid we’ve been waiting for, the combination of the mosquito and man that not even the best filmmakers could manage, Mansquito! I can just imagine the pitch meeting for this film at the studios. It’s comedy gold. Regardless, this is the kind of shlock drive-in movie you would have loved to see back in the fifties, though it follows along the vein of past movies plot-wise. The premise sounds cheesy even after considering it came from the Scifi channel who are now known for cheesy flicks, but it’s actually an interesting movie. I didn’t hate it. I was surprised also that Lorenzo Lamas wasn’t in this flick since he usually is in about every other Scifi Channel flick… maybe he was holding out for more money. After a new strain of disease rivaling west nile hits a worldwide epidemic, scientists are now working on a new antidote researching mosquitoes. A convicted murderer is being transferred to the lab to become a guinea pig for the antidote, but when he breaks free he raises hell in the lab and ends up being doused with experimental liquids.

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Man on Fire (2004)

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ManonFireThe remake of the 1987 obscure action flick with Scott Glenn, Denzel Washington takes the mantle this time around as Creasy, an ex-soldier whose committed gruesome crimes and is desperately trying to seek penance and is constantly haunted by the fact of his crimes. He applies for a job to guard a very important business man’s daughter since there have been a rash of kidnappings under the rule of a mysterious mob boss, but when she’s Creasy is ambushed, shot down, and blamed, the girl kidnapped. he’s now on the hunt to find her and will stop at nothing to make all the people involved suffer miserably. I’ve never seen the original film starring Scott Glenn, so advantage: Hollywood, but that doesn’t mean this movie was anywhere near a ball to watch, especially since it’s far from anything I expected. You know, like a movie with a plot? What, you say, there is a plot! Show me it and I’ll credit you.

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Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)

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exorcistthebeginningwsr“The Exorcist” is my favorite horror movie of all time and to this day no matter how much I see it, it’s still the most intelligent, character based horror film I’ve ever seen; the rest of the series? Not so favorite of mine, but regardless, after a lot of hype about this movie and the constant problems, we’re given this. After nearly five years of filming and constant problems (Original director dying, Original star dropping out, and so forth), this film basically bombed big time with both critics and movie-goers despite moderate success in the box-office. The original director Paul Schrader — who was kicked off the production (You’re morons Hollywood execs) in favor of Renny Harlin (Again, morons!) — directed his own version before being forced off, and while I imagine it can’t be as bad as this, I hope it’s at least an improvement.

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Abandon (2002)

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This is a movie that is so murky, so dark and so dreadful on the eyes that it’s remarkable if the viewer sits all the way through up until the last moments. There are a whole lot of nonsense here you have to sit through until you get to it, and by then you’re not surprised because you’ve either been so bored you gave up on caring, or you fell asleep. “Abandon”, despite its marketing, is a drama, not horror, not thriller, no sir. The worst thing is this tries desperately hard to pass itself off as horror or at least a decent supernatural thriller. Only by the second half does it tend to actually become a supernatural thriller.

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Oldboy (2003)

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This is a revenge flick. But it isn’t your typical revenge flick. If you think you’ll know how the plot will turn out and how the characters will eventually fare, you’re basically wrong in every aspect as I was. “Oldboy” is and should be the demonstration of how to take such a tired genre and twist it and turn it until you have this freaky amalgam of this insane film. Garnering rave reviews at film festivals and attention from master Quentin Tarantino, “Oldboy” is that type of movie where you’ll ask yourself, “Are you sure this isn’t Tarantino?” because this has the look and feel of films like “Kill Bill” and “Pulp Fiction” but it’s a lot more twisted. If that’s possible.

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