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tomcon22
Reviews
The Cottage (2008)
This is terrible and boring
I had mild hopes of this film being at least entertaining. WRONG. It features a plot that goes nowhere and cutesy British humor that gets old fast. Every seen has a "suspense" moment where someone is creeping around the corner or looking with fright at some horrific sight that we've yet to see. Finally, when the horror starts to happen, it's old, recycled, predictable, and uninteresting. They try to set some things up early on and then leave you hanging. I was hoping there would be some payoff but no such luck. I agree with another reviewer who remarked that he was waiting for the twist, only to find that there was none. The story starts out promising but it sinks within no time. I'm always looking for some decent horror and I'm always willing to give films a chance. I understand that everything can't be as good as, say, Psycho, but it seriously took me all my strength not to turn this off and watch baseball, or the news, or ANYTHING else.
Diary of the Dead (2007)
Disappointing and preachy
I have been a huge Romero fan since I first saw Night, Dawn, and Day when I was a kid years ago. But I just cannot get behind this one. Save for a couple of laughs and scares, Diary of the Dead is not entertaining on ANY level. It is more preachy than a Spike Lee movie and less thrilling than watching paint dry (for lack of a better analogy). Great premise terribly executed. And enough with the social commentary already, George. We get it now. We get that the media is one big, evil, greedy, manipulative monster. We get that rich people always receive their just deserts. We get that, if the country falls apart, the government won't be there to rescue us or put it back together. We get it, now go and make a SCARY movie please.
Masters of Horror: Chocolate (2005)
I thought it was really boring.
In fact, now that I think of it, I find anything directed by Garris to be very boring. This episode starts out with an interesting premise, and then goes nowhere with it. Maybe Garris didn't realize he only had one hour to tell this story!
This episode, in typical Garris fashion, seems to have been made by robots. There is nothing exciting about it. It grabs you at the beginning, then slowly lets go, amounting to nothing. I kept looking at the clock, wondering when something was going to happen to forward the story and heighten my interest. No such luck. I don't understand why Mick Garris is depicted as a horror veteran when he has failed to create anything memorable in any of his series or movies,(at least the 6 or so that I have seen).
So far, from I've seen, my favorite from this series has been "Dreams in the Witch-House," directed by Stuart Gordon who was behind "Re-Animator." Check it out!
Salem's Lot (1979)
DON'T GET "THE MOVIE" VERSION
Just finished watching the "edited" movie version. Hadn't seen this film in a long time and started wondering where certain scenes were that I remembered from before. Then I realized that "Salem's Lot: The Movie" is an over edited piece of junk. This version provides no time to get to know characters and thus we feel nothing when bad things happen to these characters. Also, situations with certain characters arise and then are not addressed again for the rest of the movie. Weak, weak, weak....and I was looking forward to being scared.
Make sure you get the actual FULL LENGTH MINISERIES version, which is 183 minutes long and hopefully much more effective.
I sure wished someone would have warned me!
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Slitherndiesldorfer baloney
I must be one of the few people left who cannot (and will not at this point) swallow this Harry Potter nonsense. Both the first movie and the sequel are boring, uninteresting drivel. What eats away at me is the whole style and lingo surrounding this blockbuster baloney:
The goofy names (dorferwhositsslitherner) of everyone and everything are repeated over and over throughout the movie, but mean absolutely nothing to me. Most of these words have little to do with the actual plot (plot, you say?) of the film, but are thrown in the audience's face time after time, as though doing this may trick viewers into thinking this garbage has some degree of creativity or sophistication. Not so.
Also, the overall goofiness of characters (adults, children, and the like) really made me want to lose my popcorn all over the giddy adult men in front of me. The Weasley character constantly has that goofy, "duh" look on his face that made me want to throw random objects at the screen. In general, the characters are paper-thin, 2 dimensional plot-forwarding (there's that word again) vehicles. In conclusion, plot and characters were just a weak excuse for some elaborate visual effects and scenery, which were impressive at times.
When I share this viewpoint with others, they reply, "Well, you really should read the books...." A movie should stand on its own as a well-made, effective work whether or not it is based on a book. I'm sure the film company intends this film to reach even a larger audience than fans of the books. Didn't reach this viewer.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Completely explainable....and brilliant
David Lynch is a director whose work is not concerned with detail or explanation. He does not give the viewer a complete picture of characters or situations. He does not go out of his way to spell out the intent of a character or explain the meaning of certain events in his movies. There are many effective movies that explain everything and provide complete answers, but it's just not Lynch's style.
David Lynch once referred in an interview to the danger of over-analyzing everything around us. Once we begin to overthink something that has a positive or negative effect on us, that thing begins to lose its effect. The moon was much more mysterious before man walked on it. Life, in general, is full of unanswered questions. Sometimes we have feelings or emotions that are unexplained, pleasurable or not. Many times we have dreams that cannot be explained. Lynch completely manipulates these feelings, emotions, and dreams with Mulholland Drive by providing us with situations, characters, and images that are pleasurable, frightening, and everything in between.
If you did not like this movie because no answers were provided, I would urge you see it again at some point. Believe it or not, this movie DID make sense to me although not after the first viewing.