Posts

Showing posts with the label monster

ANNIHILATION - VLOG REVIEW

Image
Talking about the movie Annihilation today.

SPLIT SECOND - REVIEW

Image
Review available on the new website .

THE RITUAL - REVIEW

Image
A Netflix-distributed release, The Ritual is a British horror film about a group of friends who decide to go hiking in Sweden (and soon find more than they bargained for) following the shocking death of one of their friends when a liquor store robbery goes off the rails. The lost-in-the-woods subgenre of horror movies is one that tends to either surprise (for better or for worse) or fall completely flat. The Ritual aims to be a modern take on The Blair Witch Project crossed with Deliverance  as the protagonists encounter strange twig-made structures in the woods then get picked off one by one by an unknown element. The film mercifully doesn't attempt a hand-held shaky-cam style of storytelling: this is a well paced and acted movie with some excellent cinematography throughout, especially near the climax. Some dream sequences give certain scenes a surreal quality but, unfortunately, they fail to add much in the way of substance. And this is probably the film's biggest sho

IT - REVIEW

Image
A convenient 27 years after the memorable miniseries, we are finally treated to a movie adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel IT with Bill Skarsgård taking on the role of creepy killer clown Pennywise made iconic by Tim Curry back in the day. The film focuses on the child characters, a group of seven friends who are each terrorised by random sightings of Pennywise years after the latter abducted a child called Georgie by luring him into the sewers. Georgie's older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) has been trying to find him ever since and this becomes his and his friends' main goal. Unfortunately, particularly dangerous bullies, crappy lives at home and specific fears brought up by Pennywise get in the way of their mission. Like an ingenuous mix of Stand By Me and The Goonies with some  Stranger Things thrown in, IT is both an effective coming-of-age story with a group of very different but equally likeable kids at its heart and a supernatural horror film every

THE MUMMY - VLOG 06/07/17

Image
I finally talk about Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster The Mummy .

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN - REVIEW

Image
Before Tom Cruise battled it out with Universal's latest Mummy, James McAvoy was Victor Frankenstein in this 2015 Frankenstein reboot. The film was a flop and another failed attempt at building some kind of new monster movie franchise or universe. Daniel Radcliffe plays a hunchbacked circus clown (need I say more?) who suddenly develops a passion for medicine (don't ask) and becomes mad genius Victor Frankenstein's colleague under the name Igor. They first attempt to make a living being out of various dead animal parts then move on to bigger, and more familiar endeavours. There's something consistently unclear about this movie: is it a prequel to the original classic or is it a prequel to a reboot Frankenstein movie that doesn't and will never exist? Of course it's the latter but the film's early claims that we all know Frankenstein's story along with various references to the iconic original constantly clash with the new interpretation of thes

DR FRANKEN (GAME BOY) - GAME REVIEW

Image
Previously a Halloween-themed video for 1MoreCastle.com , here's my review of Dr. Franken for the Nintendo Game Boy.

LIFE - VLOG 28/03/17

Image
I talk briefly about new sci-fi horror film Life .

LIFE - REVIEW

Image
A few months before the release of Alien: Covenant ( Ridley Scott's latest entry into the long-running sci-fi franchise), comes Life : another creepy space-set horror thriller in which a group of astronauts are forced to face a thoroughly unpleasant monster. While some reviews for this movie might not go much further than mentioning how derivative it is since it is essentially a mix of Alien , The Thing and Gravity , one could argue that what it lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer terror and, in fact, surpasses some of the aforementioned films in some ways. Life may seem like a B-movie but it is so well made that dismissing it as just that would be unfair. The way in which the inside of the space station is shot really makes you buy the setting with its zero gravity and tight compartments as we follow the crew members floating through the station convincingly, something that Gravity didn't quite capture. The reasonable running time actually means the tension is

KONG: SKULL ISLAND - REVIEW

Image
With cinematic superhero crossover universes currently competing, so too it looks like monster universes are about to fight it out with The Mummy possibly being the first of a modern Universal Monsters reboot franchise and Godzilla facing Kong in an upcoming sequel. Kong: Skull Island introduces us to the mighty King Kong in a prequel of sorts where a group approved by the US government travels to the evasive Skull Island with a military escort in the 1970's. Don't expect Kong to get chained up and brought back to New York City where he climbs up the Empire State Building etc. in this one. There are some clever nods to these familiar events throughout the film but it's mercifully not just a straight-up retread and, stylistically, it is very different than Peter Jackson's King Kong from 2005. Kong: Skull Island owes a lot more to the likes of Apocalypse Now , Predators and the more over-the-top classic Kong sequels than the 1933 original or any remake. The ea

SHIN GODZILLA - REVIEW

Image
Also known as Godzilla Resurgence , this was Japan's answer to Hollywood's own reboot about the iconic monster released a couple of years ago with Toho coming back to re-introduce Godzilla once again in style. The film initially shows Godzilla when he first appears in modern day Japan, in a lesser form. Out-of-control and extremely destructive, he of course creates a lot of carnage even before morphing into an evolved and more familiar form. Members of the Japanese government and the military, along with the US are therefore forced to figure out the best way to take him out before he reaches Tokyo. Everything you'd expect from a Godzilla movie is in this one including boring talks between officials, buildings toppling left and right, people being evacuated, planes dropping bombs on the beast. There is definitely more cool stuff to look at in Shin Godzilla than there was in the American Godzilla reboot, which was basically unwilling to show us Godzilla until the very e

TUSK - VIDEO REVIEW

Image
Here's the video version of my Tusk review.

DRACULA UNTOLD - REVIEW

Image
Upon hearing that we'd be getting a new Dracula movie this Halloween and that it would star the usually reliable Luke Evans in the title role, I was definitely looking forward to it. It had been a while since the last Dracula movie and an epic period piece sounded like a good idea. Then the trailer happened. Then the movie happened. And then I started missing Dracula 2000 . As it turns out, this Dracula story was "untold" for a reason: it's mostly rubbish. The film is kind of a prequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula in that you see a fuller version of how Vlad The Impaler became a vampire but, of course, minus the style and poetic approach of Francis Ford Coppola's film (or Bram Stoker's novel for that matter). What we're left with is a by-numbers epic movie with some unlikely vampire theme thrown in. Dracula Untold , much like Man Of Steel , is a reboot for the sake of being a reboot: it serves a functional purpose, nothing more. Essentially, a

KONGA - REVIEW

Image
Here's a blast from the past. If you've ever wondered what Michael Gough was up to before he was making soup for Batman as reliable butler Alfred in Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's movies, boy are you in for a treat. In Konga , Gough plays a megalomaniac botanist who devises a formula which would allow him to grow plants and animals to ridiculous sizes. We know his research is valid because some of the plants he's brought back from Africa and planted in his greenhouse are huge, penis-shaped and clearly made of papier maché. Think the original Little Shop Of Horrors but in colour and somehow even sillier. Our mad scientist sure gets up to some crazy sh** in this movie but unlike, say, Victor Frankenstein, who more or less seems like a normal enough dude before he loses it and starts digging up bodies for science, this guy is a bonafide creep from start to finish: he treats his assistant like garbage, keeping her quiet about what he's doing with the promise o

GODZILLA - VLOG 24/06/14

GODZILLA - REVIEW

Image
After the widely reviled and mocked 1998 Godzilla gave a classic franchise a bad name, this new reboot was highly anticipated to say the least and, with every trailer preceding it promising nothing but great things, this looked like a winner. And, for a while, it kinda was. The build up for this one certainly takes a page out of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind , teasing us throughout and taking a human focus rather than a purely monstrous one. All the disaster monster movie clichés you want and expect are still present yet they are never played for cheap laughs like in Roland Emmerich's take. Instead, the tone remains serious, even dark, which makes it easier to get into. The whole thing really has a Spielbergian tone to it both visually and in terms of the character dynamics. It's a gorgeous-looking film with more than its share of beautifully put together images and the first full Godzilla reveal is a delight, even if the iconic monster does look a tad chunkier tha

GODZILLA - NEW TRAILER

Image
Here's the new trailer for the upcoming Godzilla , folks. Still lookin' gooooood.

GODZILLA - OFFICIAL TRAILER

Image
Exciting stuff for Godzilla fans: the upcoming new Hollywood attempt at bringing the iconic monster to the big screen finally has a trailer! And it looks surprisingly kinda... good! Of course it's too early to tell but what do you guys think? As far as I'm concerned, the film will only officially have me as soon as it plays this theme in the next trailer:

GUYVER: DARK HERO - REVIEW

Image
Ever watch a film and feel slightly dumber after watching it? Well I finally checked out Guyver: Dark Hero , the sequel to The Guyver , and, let me tell ya, I’ve rarely felt this unsmart. Based on an anime series and a manga, this live-action effort was a cheap Hollywood production and was released straight-to-video in the US back in 1994. With a non-star cast leading the way, this sequel follows a dude, Sean (David Hayter, not Mark Hamill this time, sadly), who can turn into some kind of ghoulish superhero as he discovers that an archeological dig going on over in Utah may have the answers to his past he’s been looking for. As it turns out, he’s not the only “Guyver” out there and the finding of a spaceship unveils more uncomfortable truths about his alter ego's origin. Now I know it’s cheaper for this kind of low-budget production to just film in one place, one set, but 95% of this film takes place in and around the archaeological dig, making it feel a little claustr

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET - REVIEW

Image
Sleeping is bad for you. I think if there's one thing horror movies have taught me it's that. After movies like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and its badass 70's remake, it was time to freak teenagers out again with yet another film which sees its characters go to sleep and regret it instantly. A Nightmare On Elm Street also famously gave a young Johnny Depp a prominent-ish role and introduced us to one of the most lasting movie monsters to date: Freddy Krueger, a character Robert Englund would go on to play many, many times. Wes Craven's original film is a trashy but competently made and always entertaining mix of jump-scares, tense build-ups and cartoonish violence. It's one of those horror movies that isn't really all that scary unless you're a kid seeing it for the very first time. Watching it as a kid, it did leave its mark on me but revisiting it now I can appreciate it as just a solid horror movie with an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek overall vi