Day 5, Recreate the Fear

Heyyyyyyyyyy welcome to the final part of the 5 movie reviews, and I’m such you guys have been looking forward to it, or at least me. Anyways since today is the last part, I’ll be talking about my personal favorite and revisit the world of zombies, Zombieland 2009.

This movie is about how 4 unlikely people survived in the apocalyptic world where everyone else had turned into a ‘humanhappymeal’. The movie had a good amount of violence and gore, comedy, suspense, and romance. But the best part of it all is that the director Ruben Fleischer is able to balance it all very well. To end of on a good note SPOILERS AHEAD, all 4 of them survived and they manage to accomplish their dreams.  It’s been a long time since I watched a horror movie with a good ending. Directing wise is great, it’s done in a first person recount of events and present times, and the special effect is simply great I won’t even want to spoil it for you.

This zombie horror movie is simply too good that it quickly became the top grossing zombie film in history. A must watch for any horror movie lover, and it’ll be the new gauge for zombie flick in time to come.

Fear factor 6, Originality 8, acting skills 8, Plot/directing 9

Day 4, Destroy the Fear

Heyyyy today we’ve finally come to part 4 of 5 movie reviews, and I’m actually getting a bit tired of this. But oh well for the assignment. Today let’s look at 2 special movies, Cloverfield and [Rec]. There is really nothing special about these 2 films in terms of scare tactics, plot or acting, but it is the way in which the film is made, and both films used a first person view through a camera.

Using such technique is not only creative, but is also puts the audiences into the camera holder’s shoes and makes them feel like actually being in part of the story. One of the benefits is also the film’s budget can be reduced by a substantial amount.

Once again I’ve to say that this reviews are really base on personal experiences, because many audiences also slam this 2 movies for making them feel like puking (blame it on their own motion sickness). And if any of you readers are planning to watch [Rec], please remember to watch the Spanish version, I find the acting way better, or maybe it’s just the way the lead actress speaks.

Fear factor 6, Originality 9, acting skills 7, plot/directing 7

Day 3, Spread the Fear

Heyyyyyyyyy welcome to part 3 of 5 horror movie reviews, and today we shall be covering something to closer to home, Asian horror. Asian horror movies in general rely mostly on visual techniques to scare the hell out of its audiences. And long haired lady moving with speed hack have been the in thing (think Sadako and Natre).

Personally I find that Japanese and Thai horror films are the best. Movies such as Ju-on provides enough scare through the good use of sound, lighting and making-up, without having the need for its audiences to think through the plot too much. They also often have kawaii actresses. The recent Thai horror film Coming Soon 2009 will also change your movie viewing experiences (especially those late night horror shows alone or with your pretty girlfriends), and most importantly it also due with piracy, think new media heh.

But for every good movie, they will of course have some bad ones too. And the perfect way to waste your time and money is to watch Korean horror films. Some of them that I watched are Wishing Stairs, and The Cell (or whatever the title is), and yup they are so bad that you ponder hard over why did you watch such a show? Even the plastic actresses aren’t good enough to save the movie. I think Korea should just spend its money investing in pop stars and not make so many horror movies; after all you got to be necrophilia in order to like seeing pretty Korean stars covered in blood.

 
Hmm since I didn’t really talk about any movies in particular, I’ll conclude that Japanese and Thai horrors are your friend, while Korean horror are a strict no, well at least for now.

Day 2, Act the Fear

Heyyyyyy welcome to the second of the five part horror movie review. Today we shall examine the Western trend changing horror movies, namely The Others and Sixth Sense. Both this movies are considered to be psychological horror, because there really aren’t many visual shocks. But the important thing is the twist that makes you oh that is something new. Or ‘damn I’m so dumb to not see that coming’.

Ever since this 2 horror movies popped out, many directors both in Asia and Western countries had tried making horror movies with a twist. Some are considerably successful such as Thai horror show The Sisters, but others sink like a submarine like The Village (ironically this movie was written by the same author as Sixth Sense, perhaps his initial success had coz the public to place such high standards on him).

Both movies also have superstar actors and actresses namely Bruce Willis and Nicole Kidman. So how bad can the movie go?

So for The Others and Sixth Sense, they are going to get the same score, Fear factor 6, Originality 8, Acting skills 8, Plot/directing 8.

 

Day 1, Feel the Fear

Heyyyyyy welcome to the first review on horror movies. Let us begin with the classic zombie cult horror of Night of the Living Dead 1968. Yup I watch both the black & white and the colorize version, and I’ll say both are extremely good.

Story wise you can wiki it, I’m sure there are many entries. Despite the lack of gore and violence, the movie is good to me because it keeps the viewers in suspense. A horror fan like me couldn’t really guess what is going to happen in the next scene on the first viewing.

The movie also had its doses of dark humor, SPOILERS ALERT, for example, the daughter eating her dad, the sole survivor getting killed by rescuers instead of zombies.

Acting wise it is convincing enough, with some dialogues reportedly being improvised to better suit the situation than what was written on the script. Also there is enough character development to understand why each person acted the way they did, and I can empathize with them.

In short this movie is a must watch for any horror movie/zombie flick fans.

Fear factor 7, Originality 8, acting skills 7, Plot/directing 7.