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dkhulegaard
Reviews
Paranormal Home Inspectors (2011)
Terrible Beyond Description, Yet Extremely Watchable
Let's be honest with ourselves here: this show is terrible. Just awful, really. So bad, in fact, that you'll want to purchase a DeLorean on the off chance it has a working flux capacitor that might allow you to travel back in time and punch your past-self in the face for watching.
That said, I happily consumed all 13 episodes. Couldn't stop myself, actually. That in itself could be classified as proof of paranormal activity.
Why is it so bad? The concept is interesting enough: home owners present claims of unexplained phenomena, and an unorthodox team with varying expertise assemble to try and find an answer. Sounds kind of awesome, right? The problem is that Brian, the certified home inspector, is the only one that can make a legitimate claim to having anything close to resembling expertise. The rest of the team? Yowza.
I should state that I am a believer in the paranormal, however, I am extremely skeptical. Michelle and Nadine, on the other hand, can't be bothered to make a skeptical observation. Nope, every house in Canada is apparently haunted. Whether someone was murdered "real close" to the house, or the house was built on top of an old Indian burial ground, this team is able to pinpoint with 100% accuracy what's going on within the distressed owner's home.
To back up such bold claims, you'd expect to see a lot of evidence, right? Well, don't hold your breath. Michelle and company conduct what only barely passes as a paranormal investigation. A toddler sticking a digital voice recorder in it's mouth is about as scientific as anything this team tries. And wouldn't you know it? They capture "hard evidence" on every investigation. EVPs? Full- bodied apparitions? Moving objects? Nope. More like knocks, bangs, and lights turning on and off "on their own." You know, hardcore proof of life after death kind of stuff.
Sure, the show is phony to a point well-past complete absurdity, but how they manage to fill those 22 mins per episode is hard to walk away from. It's so unintentionally hilarious that you can't help but stick around to see what happens next. And I did... for 13 episodes.
If you're a die-hard Ghost Adventures or Ghost Hunters fan, you can safely skip this without fear of missing out. In fact, the unprofessionalism of each investigation is likely going to make your eye twitch just moments before your head explodes. On the other hand, if you can appreciate shutting off your brain for 22 mins and not take the ridiculousness too seriously, there's gold just waiting to be discovered here. Pure Canadian gold.
The Romantics (2010)
Textbook example of poor film making
Anyone who has ever seen a movie is familiar with the term "low budget." While it's easy to appreciate what a great film maker can do with a low budget, it's frustrating to see what a poor film maker can do with that same budget. The Romantics falls squarely within the latter. This movie is a disaster from the very first frame and never recovers.
What went wrong? You could start with the amazingly generic plot. This movie was only Gillian Jacobs stumbling her way through a British accent away from being the same movie as Helena at the Wedding. I have not read the book that this movie was based upon, but I would wager that it's an unfathomable improvement.
I could forgive the generic plot, and I could even forgive the stilted acting performance from 90% of the cast, but what really makes this movie an unenjoyable mess is the high school production quality of it. The director chose to shoot by hand rather than use a tripod and as result, each scene is a herky-jerky, poorly framed exercise in abysmal cinematography. In fact, if you suffer from motion-sickness, I guarantee this movie will require you to look away at times. As badly as I wanted to pay attention to the movie, I was continually distracted by this fatal flaw. Low budget or not, the first thing the director should've paid for was a tripod. It would have made more sense than the one lone scene where he called for the use of a crane to get a 15-second overhead shot in a scene that was completely useless in the movie.
Lastly, without providing any spoilers for those still brave enough to try this movie, the last five minutes are laughable. The plot comes to a fiery head (finally) within the last five minutes, only for the final shot to cut to black without providing the viewer with any answers. At that point, it's unlikely that you really cared all that much about those answers any way, which is yet another reason why this movie is more of a joke than anything else.
This movie would be perfect for a film school instructor trying to teach the do's and don'ts of film making to a young class, but outside of that, watching it would be a complete waste of your time. The only laughs you'll get from it won't be intentional.
Helena from the Wedding (2010)
An Idea Removed from the Oven too Soon
Helena from the Wedding is a classic example of a film written with a single idea in mind, then stretched out to fill a 90-minute run time. In this film, eight seemingly happy friends spend New Year's together in a cabin in the woods, though over the course of the story, we find out that the characters are each struggling with different levels of unhappiness. In this type of story, typically the characters go on a journey of self-discovery that leads to personal growth by the end of the film. In Helena, however, nothing ever really happens. The writer does a good job of fleshing out the different character's mental anguish, but then fails to deliver on the follow through on their collective stories. As soon as the credits started rolling, I scratched my head and asked: "Soooo... what happens now?" That's not really a desirable place to leave a viewer at the end of a film. Especially one that wasn't intended to leave an opening for a sequel. It was a valiant effort, but I think the writer/director can do better.