Death brings out the worst side of everyone

Dementia 13 (1963)

I noticed that there's quite a many Francis Ford Coppola's pictures which I haven't seen yet or seen so long ago I couldn't really remember anything about them. So I decided to start with the first movie Coppola ever made. Louise's husband suffers a fatal heart attack while they are on a midnight boat ride. But Louise has another problem in addition to the body in her hands, she can't get a penny of the big family inheritance if his husband is dead and the lady with all the money is alive. So she convinces the family that her husband had to go on a business trip while she travels to Ireland to see how she could help the early demise of the lady with all the money. Soon however an axe murderer is lose in the Irish mansion and someone seems to have plans of their own to cut down the possible persons in the line of the inheritance. This is actually an early slasher film, but it's not just axe murders and people running scared around the mansion. It's also a proper psychological thriller that's even quite scary at parts. Sure some of the scenes were almost direct ripoffs from Hitchcock, but still Coppola manages to get his own touch in there as well. The low budget and the extremely tight shooting schedule shows quite badly as there are tons of mistakes and a fair share of not that good acting. This is a very good effort as a first movie and was well worth watching despite its flaws.
68%

Fulci on Poe

The Black Cat (1981)

When you think about Lucio Fulci doing an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, what this movie ended up being isn't surely the one you'd first think would spawn from that combination. Funny thing that this movie is one of my favourites from Lucio Fulci even though it's not even close to what he's usually known from. I mean sure it's horror and it does have some gruesome scenes, but nothing like the brutal and sadistic gorefests the man is known for. It's not even the best adaptation of Poe's story, but still it has it's own unique feel to it which I like. So it's really more in the Edgar Allan Poe side of things. The biggest thing is that Fulci is actually taking some proper time for suspension building and not just feasting on the murders. And it seems that when he can focus on something else than the gore there's a very stylish film maker underneath. This movie looks, sounds and feels quite brilliant, even so much that it's quite close to the masters of the genre, Argento and Bava. Sure it has it's flaws like the bad acting and some of the dialog is quite corny, but still the mood saves a lot from the campy side of it. Actually about the acting, the cat itself is the best actor in this one, scary as hell. Well worth watching even if you're not a fan of Fulci.
83%

Psychotic Swan Lake

Black Swan (2010)

First of all, I'm not a big fan of Natalie Portman, I mean she sure is a pretty girl but never seen her as a good actress. Second of all, a drama about ballet dancers really doesn't sound too promising, actually couldn't be any further away from things I find interesting. Well, there's also supposed to be a psychological thriller in there too. Now I'm a bit interested, but still the ballet part ticks me the wrong way. And it's directed by Darren Aronofsky. Now you got my attention. So I was surely looking forward for this, but with a bit of mixed feelings. Funny enough, it turned out to be a mixed movie as well. Right at the top I must say this is the best movie about ballet or basicly any kind of dancing I've ever seen. It's also one of the best thrillers I've seen in a long while. And the drama in it is mostly quite brilliant. Natalie Portman manages to do a great performance and the rest of the cast is quite good also. So yes, it's a great movie for sure. But a few things I didn't like. Some of the themes in it were a bit too common, the rebellion against the mother and the rivalry between the girls among other things. Now sure they were all there for a reason, all working towards the end, which was simply brilliant by the way. The thing is that the movie is not that common, with some quite brilliant ideas in it, so I would have hoped a bit more of a fresh touch on those subjects. Then again as they all work towards the goal in the end it didn't matter that much and the overall feel was quite great. This movie is also surprisingly scary, so the thriller bits work brilliantly. At points it managed to raise proper suspension and that's rare in movies nowadays. This movie didn't make me like ballet any bit more, sure I liked it in this one and maybe kind of got to understand it a bit more, but still wouldn't want to waste my time in it. Then again it's not even trying to make people like it more, it's trying to tell a great story and that it does great. Surely strengthened my belief that Aronofsky is one of the greatest directors of this century. I have a feeling that this is one of those movies which will grow on you when you watch it again later and that's always a sign of a classic.
89%

What happens in the woods should stay in the woods

Winter's Bone (2010)

Missed this at the Helsinki International Film Festival and as I heard good things about it, it went to my wanted list. Finally got my hands on the DVD and watched it. Well it turned out to be a brilliant drama with a lot of thriller elements to boost. It's a story about a 17 year old girl who takes care of her younger brother and sister and a mentally ill mother, while her father has gone missing. Then the sherif threatens that the state will take their house if the father misses his pending court date. So the girl has to go look for him. It's a journey through the backwoods of Missouri and the white trash crystal meth "mafia" who all seem to be someway related to eachother and all unwilling to help her find the dad. The story is quite brilliant and the way it's told is even better. There's a constant feeling of danger as the "rednecks" seem to have their own laws of what can be done and asking around for a missing person is not among them. The cast is brilliant, especially John Hawkes as the isolated brother of the girls father and Dale Dickey is one of the most convincing drug lords I've seen in a while. Jennifer Lawrence does a solid job as the girl who needs to go through a lot more at a young age than most in their lifetime. The movie also looks stunning, the setting is astonishing and the way the movie is shot only brings the best out of it. If I try hard to find something bad about the movie, it's the ending which wasn't as strong as the movie before it, one twist kind of brought it down a bit too much. But all in all a brilliant movie and I really have to take a look at Debra Granik's previous works as she sure has talent.
94%

The art of dying - two giallos from the master

Suspiria (1977)

One of my all time favourite horror movies and a true genre classic. The mood in this one is just unbeatable. It's beautiful and horrifying at the same time with a constant suspense of something bad lurking around. The story is quite basic and actually it seems borrowed straight from another movie by Argento, Deep Red (1975), only the setting has changed. But that doesn't matter as in Argento's movies the camera tells much more than the script. The visual storytelling is this movie's strongest part and makes it a masterpiece in it's class. The music from Goblin only boosts the surreal vision. Simply perfect.
100%



Opera (1987)

Many people say that Argento's career started to go downhill from Suspiria (1977). I don't fully agree with that as even though he of course couldn't top Suspiria (1977) but he still made a couple of great movies. Sure they had a bit of a recycled feel to them but I personally think this is the movie which marked the end of the master and after this started the downhill to the crappy nonsense he's doing nowadays. Anyway this time as usual the story is not the strongest point of the film. An opera singer is stalked by a killer who kills everyone in contact with the young woman. But again the camera tells the real story and some of the scenes are just simply mesmerizing. I actually felt quite sad after seeing this again as the movies the maestro has done after this are from bad to absolute garbage. Last of it's kind from Argento and a brilliant movie in it's own right. Definitely a must see for anyone even a bit into the world of giallos.
90%

Nazi torture ship ahoy!

Death Ship (1980)

When I heard the idea of this movie about a nazi ghost ship hunting for victims in the sea I got quite excited to see this one. Well it turns out it was not exactly what I was expecting. It was low budged and badly made, but not so bad that it would have been a good campy movie which I expected. But actually that didn't matter much as it still did many things right and more surprisingly was even quite scary at points. Just last week I was thinking how nice and original the beginning scenes in Devil (2010) were and then I see the same idea being used in this one, 30 years earlier. So the movie had it's moments like the shower scene and the projector room scene, but it also had a bit too many of those quite bad moments. Was expecting a fun campy exploitation, but got a badly made decent horror movie. Luckily the horror was more of suspense than shock effects. Was worth watching, but don't think I'm going to give it another try.
53%

Masters of Horror season 1

I know this is a TV series and I don't put TV series here, but as each episode is a short movie by itself I'll review them here. Idea of this series is that Anchor Bay has gathered some of the greatest horror movie makers together to make one hour long short movies. The selection varies from poor to very good. Finally had the time to watch them, so here's season one.


Incident on and Off a Mountain Road (2005)

Movie starts off as a quite basic slasher, but towards the end gets some twists to mix it up. Didn't like the flashbacks at start, they were just plain stupid, but as they tell a story of their own which influences the outcome, they were kinda needed. The first half with a survival battle in the woods was quite bad though there were some unintentionally funny moments which kept it entertaining. Towards the end it took a better turn and the twist wasn't that bad either. All in all quite ok movie.
60%


Dreams in the Witch-House (2005)

I like the Lovecraft story but this movie wasn't doing it much justice. There were some ok scenes, but not enough to carry the whole movie. Acting was quite bad and some scenes were just stupid. The man-rat was stupidly goofy and the witch wasn't exactly scary either. In the end not very good film with very little to offer.
20%


Dance of the Dead (2005)

This post apocalyptic vision by Tobe Hooper was surprisingly good, especially knowing what kind of crap the guy has made since the late 80's. Liked many of the ideas in this and it was nicely done. Too bad that towards the end all the momentum it had made falls into the corny plot. Worth the watch and one of the better ones he has made in the last 20 years.
70%


Jenifer (2005)

Dario Argento was at one point one of the best horror movie makers in the world, but has since faded in the vast nothingness. So my hopes were definitely not high for this one. And unfortunately it was pretty much what I feared. The story was ok, though the way the motives were brought up very poor. Rest was below average, even bad at points.
29%


Chocolate (2005)

Kind of an ok movie but with a lot of plot holes. I got the feeling that this story would have worked way better as a book and not a short movie as it rushes things a bit too much.
52%


Homecoming (2005)

Quite a nice film with a very different take on zombies. I can imagine this movie had even a stronger impact when Bush was the president. Still somewhat fresh movie worth watching.
80%


Deer Woman (2005)

The idea is just stupid, but it's more of a horror comedy anyways so it works quite well. This was surprisingly badly made, there were tons of little errors and those weird moments where the editing and dialog didn't really match. Also those crossfaded images were just plain crappy, could have worked in the 70's but not today. But still didn't get bored and it had it's moments. The lady was quite nice.
43%


Cigarette Burns (2005)

John Carpenter's best movie in over 20 years. Though that's not really anything special as he has put out some crappy films lately. Anyways this was a nice surprise and good to see that he can still do it when the story is right. Sure there were some bad scenes and the acting was sub par, but in the end it was entertaining and at points even quite chilling.
78%


The Fair Haired Child (2006)

This was surprisingly good. The demon kid was actually quite well made and looked freaky enough to be scary. The story was nothing special, but it kept me interested well enough. Worth the watch.
66%


Sick Girl (2006)

The leading lady in this one couldn't act at all, really a horrible performance. The story was kinda ok at parts, but the creatures were a bit too goofy to be scary. Nice ending though.
46%


Pick Me Up (2006)

This was total garbage. Bad acting, bad story, bad film. Though at some points it almost was bad enough to be good, but not quite.
2%


Haeckel's Tale (2006)

Clive Barker's story and the director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) sounds good on paper. Well the movie wasn't bad either. Kind of predictable at parts, but the undead love was kind of a nice what the fuck moment.
58%


Imprint (2006)

Takashi Miike is a guarantee for something absurdly disturbing, so this wasn't a big surprise even though there were scenes that were really strong. One of the better from the series and totally in a different world than the rest. Well worth watching.
79%


All in all a very mixed series. Some of the movies were idiotic crap and some actually very good. As a whole it still kind of left a bad taste in the mouth. Is this really the best these "masters" of horror could do?

Crazy remake

Remakes seem to be an ongoing trend in Hollywood and it seems nowadays it's one a week at least. Sure there has been remakes throughout the times, but not nearly as much as now. This time George A. Romero's The Crazies (1973) got remade.



The Crazies (2010)

The idea is the same as in the original, but the somewhat dull slow storytelling has been replaced with a turbocharged violent roller coaster ride as seems to be the modern standard. This is not at all a bad thing as the original was actually quite boring at times. This was actually quite a good movie and a surprisingly good remake, even though it still has some flaws. The horror is mostly the basic monster jumps around the corner cheap scares, but there are a few small scenes with some proper tension as well. Surprisingly it's quite an adult movie that doesn't go for most of the childish solutions most of the modern horror movies tend to go. I mean there's nothing special in it but yet you never get the feeling that this is just too stupid. The cast is ok, except for Timothy Olyphant. I really don't know why he's being cast as anything else than the asshole evil characters he can portray quite well, as a hero sherif of a small town he certainly is not. Even though the lead character is quite unbelievable, this movie was a pleasantly positive surprise.
78%



The Crazies (1973)

Romero's career was going down hill quite fast after Night of the Living Dead (1968) and this movie was kind of a desperate attempt to get it going again. Made with a very small budget and with a similar storyline as Night of the Living Dead this time with crazies instead of zombies. The movie is not exactly a great one. Sure the story is quite nice, even a bit thought provoking and there is some good dialog in it, but it's quite badly made. The at parts painfully slow storytelling isn't helping the poor movie in any way. Worth the watch if you're a Romero fan, but not really for anyone else.
42%

Out of the box insanity

The Jacket (2005)

Well, the plot had more holes than Swiss cheese, but that didn't bother me as this was quite a good movie. Loved the mood in it, the constant feeling that something's not really right looming around. Also it was surprisingly stylish, the compositions were brilliant and some scenes looked stunning. Thou the flashbacks at start, with the choppy editing, were a bit too much, but luckily they calmed down towards the end. The cast was strong, Adrien Brody of course the most notable, but Keira Knightley and Jennifer Jason Leigh were really good as well. Where this movie fails to be a masterpiece is the plot. I mean the idea was quite intriguing, but it had a bit too many holes in it. Luckily it was interesting enough to keep the movie running and me entertained.
81%

Following Christopher Nolan

Following (1998)

A story about a man who likes to follow people to study them for his book. He meets a burglar who teaches him the tricks of the trade. I usually don't put any spoilers on my reviews but this movie's good and bad parts come from the twist in the end that has to be spoiled a bit to tell you what worked and what didn't. I'm just going to say if you liked Memento, you'll probably find this one interesting too and can stop reading here if you want to keep some of the surprise. The movie is built so that it moves in three layers in different times towards the big twist in the end. And the twist is what makes and unfortunately breaks this movie. It's quite clever and all the pieces of the puzzle fall nicely into place, but I just have to wonder why would a mob hitman go through all that trouble. Wouldn't it be easier to just take out the lady if she's trouble and get yourself an alibi. Oh well it's a nice movie, but a bit far fetched. The cast was quite good and you can clearly see the themes of Memento popping up.
66%

I couldn't review the rest of Christopher Nolan's movies with the Batman movies nor with the short movies, so I'll put the missing few here. You can find The Dark Knight and Batman Begins here and Doodlebug here.



The Prestige (2006)

This was a huge surprise when I saw it. I had already seen The Illusionist which is very similar in themes and released at the same time. I didn't really like it that much so somehow I wasn't expecting much from this one either. Well this turned out to be a brilliant movie. The mood, the looks and the cast are all top class with a good story with nice twists to keep it interesting.
90%



Insomnia (2002)

Remake of Erik Skjoldbjaerg's Insomnia. Doesn't bring anything worth while to the old movie, but the great cast keeps it interesting. This one proves the point again that great comedians make the best villains as Robin Williams is quite amazing as the twisted killer. And of course Al Pacino makes a great role as the insomniac detective. But other than the great cast, this offers very little new if you've seen the original and that makes it quite redundant.
68%



Memento (2000)

I think this is a bit over rated. I mean it's a great movie, but isn't really worth all the praise it gets. It's relying heavily on one twist and the fact it's told from the end to the start. If you'd turn the narration around it would be barely average movie, but that's what makes it special. It tells us nothing new, but it tells it in a way we aren't used to and thus making it seem fresh. But that's where it also fails to be a masterpiece. It only works once. Next time you see it, it's the barely average crime thriller, nothing else. Brilliant movie for one watch, but don't spoil it with another.
81%

Bergman on horror

The Virgin Spring (1960)

My personal favourite from Ingmar Bergman. Not the usual Bergman, being even horror at parts, but still there's lots of the familiar elements present. It's the movie which spawned one of the cruelest remakes ever, The Last House on the Left. But where The Last House on the Left focused on the torture and gore, this original handles the subject far superior. It's still brutal and cruel, but it's focusing more on the pain of the parents not only feasting on the pain of the girl. It's a movie about revenge, guilt, sin and purification. Religious themes are used brilliantly to justify and question the actions and the whole religion itself. It's beautifully shot, the direction is flawless and the cast is brilliant. A true masterpiece, one of my all time favourites and one of those movies everyone should see.
100%

The scariest movie ever made?

A Warning to the Curious (1972)

The first batch of the BFI films arrived and I started off by watching this short movie from the BBC series called A Ghost Story for Christmas. A friend of mine highly recommended it to me but at first I was a bit suspicious as it's a short movie made with a low budget straight to TV, is it going to be worth the price of the DVD? Well I ended up ordering it anyways and I have to say it was money well spent. This movie pretty much defines horror, it's a master class on how to build up suspension and create tense scenes. The funny thing is that there's many things wrong in this movie. The low budget shows quite bad on most parts, the acting could have been better, the ghost itself wasn't that scary and overall the time hasn't been kind to it. But you just don't care about them as the movie is built so brilliantly to be as scary as possible. And I'm not talking about the usual boogie man jumps out of the closet scary for a second, it's constantly building up tension to the ultimate finale where it goes on levels rarely seen on any movie. And it's not building up the horror with any of the modern ways of pounding it in your head with visual and audio assault, it takes it's time and carefully increases the level so that you just feel more and more uneasy untill you're scared as hell. Would love to see more of that in modern horror movies too, but I'm afraid that's not really likely. I kind of felt sad after watching this movie as I realized that today's average moviegoer would most likely be bored watching it as it's in such a fine tune with very little to offer unless you look close enough. So if you are going to watch it, take your time and focus on it, I promise it will scare the crap out of you.
99%

There's something Happening in the head of M. Night Shyamalan

The Happening (2008)

After a few good movies and some quite bad ones, the "visionary" director M. Night Shyamalan seems to still have a strong vision. Too bad he doesn't share it with us. This movie was total crap. The characters are superficial, with usually just one look, confused. The depth of the dialog is equal to a cheap children's book. The story is just ridiculous and the twist it has is just something stupid. Some points for the falling workers scene which was quite effective. But it's still not worth to watch the rest of the movie.
21%

And as always the rest of Shyamalan's movies.



Lady in the Water (2006)

One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. It's supposed to be some fairytale for grownups but even at that it fails miserably to be even remotely interesting. Would be tempted to give some credit to Paul Giamatti who does at least some sort of an effort, but I can't recommend watching this even for his performance. Waste of money and time.
5%



The Village (2004)

This had potential for so much more. The idea was quite brilliant also some of the storylines were quite innovative. Too bad it fails to use them for their full potential and thus ends in the vast averageness. Also dunno why but some of the scenes looked like it was from some TV soap opera, the image quality and the image compositions. Didn't fit the mood at all. Good for a one watch, but not likely another.
61%



Signs (2002)

Loved the idea of focusing only to one family and keeping it small while the story would have been up for a juicy special effects extravaganza. Also liked some of the humor in it, the beautiful cinematography and Joaquin Phoenix's performance. But that's about all. The rest is just silly childish nonsense and the ending in all of it's "drama" is just too ridiculous. Wasn't bored, but I reckon I won't watch it ever again.
55%



Unbreakable (2000)

Shyamalan's best by far and really one of the best "super hero" movies ever made. I would even dare to say it's an instant classic.
98%



The Sixth Sense (1999)

Don't get me wrong here this is a good movie, but I just can't understand the hype it had. The story is worth only one watch as it's relying heavily on the final twist of it. Also the acting isn't really the best I've seen and the dialog at times is just plain stupid. But the mood is great thou and it's shot quite brilliantly. Those are the things why it might be worth a second viewing. Far from a masterpiece but still a good movie.
76%

Haven't seen Wide Awake or Praying with Anger so can't comment on them.