February 2009 Archives

"Friday the 13TH". What can I say? It's a classic still today. And this is the ultimate collectors edition. Now is it scary to a modern audience? Well the problem is that I don't count. I'm a horror freak. To me it's something you watch with awe, the dawn of an epic movie series. This thing spawned eleven sequals. Most of them crap. But not this one. It's a classic.

If you have been living under a rock at crystal lake the story goes like this. A new owner and several young counselors gather to reopen camp crystal lake, where a young boy drowned and several vicious murders occured years earlier. They ignore the locals warnings that the place has a death curse..and one by one they find out unlucky the Friday 13th can be as they are stalked by a violent killer.

 

Now when you watch this put on your rose colored glasses and imagine it's 1980 and you are in the theatre watching this. You would be scared out of your mind.

The lighting, the story, randy teenagers, the twist in the plot + the suprise ending. All this was new and scary at the time. And it's still a good story today. And this it he ultimate DVD of this by Paramount. This includes Commentary by Sean S. Cunningham, The Friday the 13th Reunion, Fresh Cuts: New Tales from the Set, Lost Tales from Camp Blood, and the man behind the Legacy: Sean S. Cunningham. These are great, well produced and a lot of fun. It's great to hear the actors stories from Savini shooting arrows, to how they cloned Halloween, to why they chose the make-up for Jason.

All in all this is a classic for any collection. And enjoy the special 3D cover. Rent it or buy it today. I give it A.

"Dark Reel" starts off cool enough. We open in a Film Noir setting where a Hollywood producer type picks up a starlett. He takes her back to his studio and proceeds to muder her on film. Then we are pitched 53 years into the future where Edward Furloung, Lance Henriksen and our cast of low budget actors take over. So the b movie plot goes down like this.

Our hero (The ever goofy Edward Furlong) has won a walk-on role in a film produced by movie chief Connor Pritchett (Lance Henriksen is amazing) and featuring Tara Leslie (Mercedes McNabb). Thinking his luck has changed our hero suddenly find himself the star of a real life struggle to survive a series of on film set murders. Kinda a tired plot already and it only goes downhill from there. I just never got into this film after the cool start. All of the spfx were very 3rd rate it seemed and the cgi they did was totally 4th rate (is that a term?).

Plus they had what looked like Sugar Ray as a metal band. And I'm not going to lie. Edward Furlong just kinda creeps me out. I don't know if he is acting or is just creepy in general. He just kinda has a weird face I guess. The actor who played the on set sound guy is Hilarious though. Also I know plenty of people that would be creeped the hell out by "Gnome Killer". Also if people are really riding in a convertible their should be some hair blowing in the wind at least. Just some random observations on a less than memorable horror flick. It was a screener so no behind-the-scenes.

Over all I give it a D. It at least made me laugh some. Avoid renting or buying this DVD. But if it's on VOD give it a whirl if your bored.

Hmmmm Babylon A.D. huh? Another vehicle film for Vin Diesel or is this a legitimate Sci-Fi story? Someone let this guy know. In either case it's another film that didn't exactly stay in my memory banks. I do love me some good outer space sci-fi films. I'm just more of a Space Odyssey 2001 person instead of Battlestar Glactica or that Star Trek non-sense.

Babylon A.D. is the story of  a mercenary named Toorop (Vin Diesel) accepts a contract from a Russian mobster, Gorsky, who instructs him to bring a young woman only known as Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) to New York. In order to reach his goal, Gorsky gave Toorop a variety of weapons as well as a UN passport that has to be injected under the skin of the neck. Toorop, along with the girl and her guardian nun Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), travel from the Noelite Convent where they lived across Russia to reach America, etc, etc.

Once again we have a film that looks sleek and modern. The film even has an amazing opening sequence. The sets and special effects are pretty amazing as well and their is some real explosions in the film that are quite impressive. They stay away from the the standard fake looking space scenes and concentrate on terrestrial action which is where the film excels. I can't really say Vin Diesel acted bad in this. I even liked the story. It's just the ending totally threw the film in the meh category for me.

The behind the scenes were actually a big plus for this DVD. Great interview with a stunt coordinator who talks about creating a car chase in ten days that should of taken twenty. Amazing camera cranes that operate on cars as well as remote control Range Rovers. Be sure to check out the snowmobile stunts from Sleddogs as well. Very radass behind the scenes footage here.

All in all I give the film a B. The behind the scenes footage really pulled it out for me. Go rent this one when you can. No space fantasy crap here.