Genre: Horror

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Screenplay: Paul W.S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, and Eric Mabius

Alice wakes up in a mansion with no memories of who she is or why she is there. As she begins to figure it out, a group of operatives break into the mansion and take her hostage. What is stranger is that the operatives are more interested in what’s underneath the mansion than Alice's amnesia. An entire company is found beneath the mansion, but everyone is dead. All that is found deep in the company is more questions, and most importantly, the dead may not be so dead.

Most who were fans of the video game found this movie severely lacking. It is the typical zombie flick, they’re there and they’re hungry. A twist with the zombie problem is that it carried on to animals, which isn’t the situation in most zombie movies. Why the zombies are there in this story is that the company located underneath the mansion has been developing many serums for medical advancement, just one of the serums happens to make you a zombie. Apparently there is an antidote, but the time frame in which it remains effective is nearly impossible. The game is much more entertaining than the movie, so stick with that. Saying that this particular film is crap does not mean that the sequels are. In fact, they are much better. I have yet to see the last one, but if it follows along the same track as the last two, I doubt that I will be disappointed.

My final observation in this film is a source of embarrassment for myself. So embarrassing, it took the third movie and a song for the light bulb to come on. I should explain first that I am a literature nerd, and have been looking for meaning and symbols buried in the subtext of many novels over the last ten years. I have also used this skill with movies, which is what made Donnie Darko so much fun for me. Why it took a remake of Starship’s White Rabbit during the ending credits of the third film to understand the Alice In Wonderland undertones in the movie, I have no idea. There was nothing secretive about the connection either. Let’s see, the main character’s name is Alice, instead of a rabbit hole to a secret world, one simply takes an elevator, and who runs the secret world, why the red queen of course. I could probably go further as in drink this and you’ll grow small or eat this and you’ll grow big to one of these serums turns you into a flesh eating zombie and the other makes sure you don’t. There is also the popular theory for us literary geeks that Alice’s story in the book is her journey of change or to womanhood. I think we can all agree that Alice from the movie is definitely a changed woman at the end of the film. The fact that I was completely oblivious of all of these when I first saw the movie makes me think I should send back my degree.

I give this film 2 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: Silent Hill

Genre: Horror

Director: David S. Goyer

Screenplay: David S. Goyer

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, and Cam Gigandet

Casey discovers a horrifying secret. She was a twin, but her brother passed in the womb. Now due to a tragedy in her family’s past, something is seeking vengeance on her, because she alone survived the birth. This force won’t stop until it has destroyed her, and it will destroy everything and everyone it its path until it has her.

Though I know some may disagree with me, but I actually kind of liked this movie. This was story driven, and I think you know by now how much I love those, plus it had Gary Oldman. My exact thought when I saw the preview was that the movie could not be that bad if Gary Oldman was in it, because he is a phenomenal actor. I was, for the most part, correct. It sure is not the best film of its kind, but I found it surprising enough at times to be satisfying. Gary Oldman’s performance was satisfying enough, but they again, I’m under the impression that he can’t be terrible. The story also became much more complex than ever expected, which added to the film’s value.

There were also the standard crazy deaths in this film, but mostly due to more creative and imaginative effects. I like to think that the main goal of this movie is to creep the audience out as opposed to scare the mess out of it, which mostly makes it a better movie. The story alone is creepy enough, but how they chose to materialize that story, makes it more creepy. That is where the effects come in. Insert creepy children here. There is nothing more disturbing in a film than a creepy child. I think we can all remember Gabe from Pet Sematary. Probably one of the most memorable scenes from The Exorcist due to how uncomfortable it made the audience was when Regan pulls her not so human contortionist act down the stairs. With today’s technology added to a similar contorted display, the creep factor gets multiplied by at least 50. It’s enough to make the movie watchable.

I give this film 3 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: Resident Evil

Genre: Horror/Fantasy

Director: Andrew Fleming

Screenplay: Peter Filardi and Andrew Fleming

Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Baulk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, and Skeet Ulrich

Sarah and her family move to a new town so that she can make a fresh start. The first girls to befriend her are the outcasts at school. Feeling like an outcast herself, Sarah believes that she has found her place. Her new friends invite her to join in on their extracurricular activity, witchcraft. The girls will soon learn that while some power can be good other power can be quite seductive and evil.

So, first, I want to say that the film is okay. This was one of the movies that was a dirty little secret when I was a tween. My friends and I would watch it thinking how cool it would be if we had powers. Let me place a disclaimer here to ensure my fine audience that I meant the last statement in a purely imaginative sense. I never actively pursued it myself, the main reason being that it was just a movie. That being said this movie was more of a cult favorite of mine when I was young and was still too naïve to really care about the story and the acting.

Acting and story in this film are nothing to skip around about, but it did introduce a lot of young actors of the time. We learned that the little girl, Fairuza Baulk, from Return to Oz, can be one crazy bia. Robin Tunney had bad Rachel hair before she ended up on The Mentalist. Neve Campbell was always doomed to play emotional distraught characters. And finally, Skeet Ulrich didn’t always have the long, greasy hair that girls swooned over after watching Scream. I would like to note that I was not one of these girls, because the whole brutal killer mantle was not something that was attractive to me.

I give this film 2 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: The Unborn

Paranormal Entity

Directed by Shane Van Dyke

Starring the director and other nobodies

So some sort of evil is haunting a family. They are getting harassed by a spirit from beyond. Things are moving, sounds are happening, and the sister is getting the worst of it. They set up traps and cameras to try and find out why this is happening to them. They struggle to establish a reason for why they are the victims and they would love to live a normal life. The happenings become more frequent and more intense. It all come to an end with the sister getting attacked(whilst naked) by the demon.

This is the same style as Paranormal Activity, but much worse. If you have not seen PA and watch this, you may think this is not bad. The whole finally demon rape is a little disturbing, but I guess that is the point. Watch PA and save yourself some time.

I give this 1 bloody hand print

Seven

Directed by David Fincher

Starring: REAL ACTORS!! Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyn Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey

The movie is a psychological thriller/horror/ cop drama. It takes place in New York City. A serial killer is on the loose and is taking his wrath out on random hoards of people. Pitt and Freeman try to piece together the connections. Why this guy? And this one? The chase around the city trying to connect the dots and they find some Biblical connection. The murders seem to have a connection to the seven deadly sins. The chase around and try to find him before he kills more. The connections are being made when the unthinkable happens… he surrenders. He says that he will reveal the last 2 murders if the cops follow his commands.

The twist is good , the acting is better and this one I do not want to spoil. If you haven’t seen this movie, shame on you. Go rent it now.

This movie gets 4 ½ bloody hand prints.

The Crazies

Directed: Breck Eisner

Starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and crazy towns folk

OK, so I have been slacking on these but I’m about to blow your mind. (Spoilers everywhere)

Set in middle America, a police officer and a doctor live the happy life, in a small town. It is the start of spring and the whole town is at the local baseball team’s opening day. While enjoying the swell efforts of the home team, something goes horribly wrong. A normal family man walks in from the outfield. The pitcher was doing fine, so it wasn’t a pitching change. Besides a lefty was coming up to bat and can hit a slider. This guy coming in from the outfield looks like he couldn’t close the refrigerator. (boom) The other odd thing was the man was in his 40’s. Oh yeah, he has a shotgun. So the sheriff walks out to the outfield and asks the man to politely leave, by shooting him in the face. This causes quite a stir in the small community. They thought he was just drunk, but here is the big twist……he was a recovered alcoholic. He hadn’t had a drink in years.
The doctor has another seemingly normal family man come in for a check up and something is not right with him either. He has been attacked by the evil plaid monster and he seems sick. Later that night, the craaaaaaazy man goes out to the barn and starts his combine, but its not even harvest . Things are getting nutty. The mom rushes out to the barn, then back in the house, then into the closet. So the man burns the house down. What is going on? The suspense is getting intense. This is followed by hunters finding a dead pilot in the woods. But there isn’t an airport around. No, no this doesn’t make any sense. So now more people are turning into crazy zombie like creatures. They were victims of a government experiment went wrong.

This movie was though it was set in the 1950’s, but with guns, cars, cell phones, and techmollogy. SO this movie had no real great moments. It had some gore and some shooting and a decent car wash scene, but overall you are better off watching a real zombie movie or 28 Days Later.

I give this movie 1 ½ bloody hand prints

Genre: Family

Director: Gil Kenan

Screenplay: Dan Harmon, Ron Shrab, and Pamela Pettler

Starring: Steve Buscemi, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Jason Lee, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mitchell Musso, and Sam Lerner.

DJ is noticing something very strange about the house across the street. The house seems to have evil intentions, and people are disappearing after they go near it. Along with his friend, Chowder, DJ decides to confront the house before anyone else falls victim. He’s just not sure if he’s going to make it out of the house, either.

There are a couple of reasons why I give this movie a big outstanding. The first one is the animation itself. This is one of the first films I’ve seen where the cinematography of an animated film has taken a step further to really replicate that of a live action film. The lack of this doesn’t make an animated film necessarily bad. I am assuming that focus on this type of cinematography adds more frames to the budget, and computer generated animation is not cheap. For example, there is a scene where DJ is playing basketball. The detail and care that is added to the scene is fantastic. There was many a time where I wondered if the film was originally planned as a live action film, but maybe it would have more expensive to make the house animation seem real.

The second reason is the story. The characters were so well rounded that it would always make me laugh. I kept comparing this movie to The Goonies as I watched, which is one of the best family movies ever. The same care and detail that was put into the animation was also put in the story. It is a great family movie, but I should mention that the story is a little more mature than for younger audiences. I do not mean that it is mean or inappropriate, a little more developed and may not hold interest for children.

I give this film 4 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: The Craft

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Director: Mary Harron

Screenplay: Mary Harron and Guinvere Turner based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, William Defoe, and Reese Witherspoon

Patrick has everything: success, money, and the perfect girl. What more could he need? Apparently, he also needs murder, and lots of it. Driven by his need for perfection, anything that doesn’t make the cut has to be destroyed.

However disturbing this film is, it makes up for it with being phenomenal. This film should have been Christian Bale’s first Oscar nod. His performance alone carries the entire movie. I warn you that it can get pretty gory, but Christian Bale’s character keeps you wanting to watch more and more to try and figure the character out. One moment his character is butchering a woman and the next he’s arguing passionately about the greatness of Robert Palmer. The movie is a train wreck, that you are continuously compelled to watch.

Sadly, you would think that if I like this movie so much I would have more to say, but I don’t. It is really just based on Mr. Christian Bale. The writing isn’t that bad either, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Bale’s acting performance.

I give this film 4 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: Monster House

Genre: Horror

Director: James Wong

Screenplay: Glen Morgan, James Wong, and Jeffrey Reddick

Starring: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Sean Willam Scott, Amanda Detmer, and Kristen Cloke

As Alex is waiting to board a plane to France with the rest of his classmates for a school trip, he has a vision of the plane blowing up. He shakes it off and boards the plan, but when small things play out just like his vision, he realizes the plane would indeed explode. He causes a scene and tries to get everyone off the plane. Only a few of his classmates and a teacher get off with him, and they become the lone survivors of the crash, that is until the survivors seem to be killed off one by one by an unforeseen force. Alex starts to have more visions of his fellow survivors’ deaths, and he strives to stop what’s trying to kill them all.

I have always liked this movie, because it had an interesting story. Sure people were getting killed off in imaginative ways is this film, but it was who was doing the killing and why that made this a better horror film. The story plays with the theme of cheating death and whether or not that is indeed possible. I would like to believe that it is because of the story that three sequels were spawned, but alas, that is not how Hollywood likes to work. If the only reason for a sequel to be made in the land of horror was due to the original being top notch, we wouldn’t have nearly as many horror movies. It would be such a shame if Saw V was never made. Please insert a sarcastic tone with that last sentence. As much as I like this film, I only gave the second one a chance and found that it was not nearly as good, which is why I haven’t been interested in seeing the last two. They just don’t harness the delicacy of balance between the story and the deaths that the first one did. These sequels seemed to only have been made purely to up the ante as far as the character deaths are concerned.

The acting in the film was decent, nothing award winning, but I think that they pulled their characters off as well as to be expected, the exception being Sean William Scott’s exclamations right before he literally lost his head. As creepy as the whole you can’t cheat death concept is concerned, the creepiest part of this entire film is how they repeatedly used John Denver as a death omen with his song, Rocky Mountain High.

I give this film 3 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: American Psycho

Genre: Horror/Thriller

Director: Marcus Nispel

Screenplay: Damian Shannon and Mark Swift

Starring: Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Amanda Righetti, Travis Van Winkle, Aaron Yoo, and Derek Mears

Clay Miller is searching for his lost sister. She disappeared after a camping trip near Crystal Lake and has since been presumed dead. Clay can’t take that for an answer, and travels to Crystal Lake to find her. Clay meets Jenna and the rest of her friends during his search. Her friends aren’t as warm to Clay or as supportive, but they all find themselves having to work together as they become targeted by a killer, the same killer that may have killed Clay sister.

So this is a remake of the original Friday the 13th, or should I say the first three films of the original series. Before I saw this film I heard the plotline and that there would actually be a Jason. I was confused, because the original was about Jason’s mother losing her marbles and taking her angry out on the camp. I was intrigued to watch it because of this change, and I like Jared Padalecki from his work on Supernatural. Was I completely impressed by the film, not so much. It was okay in a loose emphasis kind of way. I prefer the original. There is another reason why I was interested in watching this. The Halloween remake had come out previously, and I was so impressed by the story’s change in direction that I thought any following remakes would try to take up this mantle. In the case of this movie, that’s a big no. It decides to take the usual slasher flick formula and kill off in the most creative ways the stupid, high and sometimes naked young adults that are in it.

If you’re a fan of the original or of horror flicks in general, I guess you kind of have to see this film if not only for comparison. I watched these films as teen, because that’s what you did at that age. Someone would sneak them into a sleepover, and you tried not to scream so loud to make the parents aware of what you were doing. It was fun to get a good scream and get grossed out, but as I have gotten older, these films don’t hold as much interest to me. I need a better story. Anymore, I’ll watch these films out of principle, like in the case of a remake, or because I like an actor. These types of films would be sitting on a gold mine if they would put just a little more effort in the story. The Halloween remake would never have gotten as much kudos if it didn’t focus on the story a little more. Let that be a lesson slasher flicks.

I give this film 2 Buttery Kernals.

Coming Soon: Final Destination