Month: February 2017

[REC] 4 Apocalypse Review

/ Garry Abbott / Leave a comment

Using my Laughs, tears, cheese and cheers rating system, here is my spoiler-free review for Spanish zombie movie ‘[REC] 4 Apocalypse’, with links below if you want to find out more.

rec_4_poster

Quick Summary

For some reason I’d completely forgotten about the ‘REC’ movies until I stumbled upon the latest instalment on Amazon. As I remember, the first two were great, ‘found footage’ horror movies that blended mystic catholic/demonic forces embodied in contemporary zombie hosts, all set in a single location. The third film was a stinker, with the budget being upped, the goofiness through the roof, and reverting to standard ‘movie’ photography.

I’m happy to say that the latest and final instalment, while still falling back on normal camera work mixed with security camera footage, is back on form, with all the action taking place on a trawler deep in the ocean, a small cast, and riveting action.

Laughs: 1/5

While still a bit tongue-in-cheek, unlike the over-the-top third film, the tension felt real, and therefore the laughs aren’t high. I am awarding a point, however, for the best use of the word ‘Monkeys!’ I’ve ever seen in a film, even if it was in Spanish and I was reading it from the screen.

Tears: 0/5

I can’t say it made an emotional impact. It was more about the survival, setting and action.

Cheese: 0/-5

I’m letting it off any down-grading. That’s not to say it wasn’t a little cheesy in places, but it did it well enough to slip me by.

Cheers: 3/5

There are lots of pay-offs here, with the plot twisting the characters around so you don’t know who you are meant to be rooting for, but then sorting it out all nicely and dynamically in the final third. The enclosed setting means every step and victory is earned and well thought out, and there’s lots of inventive zombie deaths. If you don’t like zombie films, this isn’t for you, by the way.

Fears: 2/5

This is a shock ‘jump’ film more than it is a tension or psychological thriller. The jeopardy is intensified by the claustrophobic location, and the make-up and prosthetics on the right side of gory to make you squirm and recoil. Not as dark and scary as the first two films, but a good watch if you are after a fright-night!

Bonus Category: Vamos! +2

I’m awarding bonus points for whoever made the decision to set this entire film on a deep-sea trawler boat thing. Like the ‘Alien’ films and ’10 Cloverfield Lane’, it sets a tone and palette that binds the whole together, and the natural boundaries force the characters and plot to do more of the work, in this case successfully.

Total: 8

(Check the Leader Board to see how it compares…)

Links:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REC_4:_Apocalypse

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1649443/

Agree / Disagree with my assessment? Leave a comment to let me know or submit your own scores for this or any other film listed in the leader board below to be aggregated into the ‘readers choice’ table on the main rating page.

And if you enjoy my reviews, please like/share this page link, and consider taking a look at my original science fiction books advertised in the side bar! Thanks for reading.

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Sausage Party Review

/ Garry Abbott / Leave a comment

Using my Laughs, tears, cheese and cheers rating system, here is my spoiler-free review for the R-rated animation ‘Sausage Party’, with links below if you want to find out more.

sausage_party

Quick Summary

Taken at its best, ‘Sausage Party’ is a well-conceived and realised spoof of the family-friendly Pixar/Disney animations built around an anthropomorphic premise. Taken at its worst, ‘Sausage Party’ is just puerile nonsense. For me, it wavers more towards the latter, but I guess that parents who are on their 100th viewing of ‘Cars’, or similar, might have found the pure effrontery of the idea a welcome change in their routine.

Laughs: 2/5

There are only so many times you can get a shock-laugh from cutesy animated food saying ‘F-you’ and ‘we’re f-d’. I would have found it funnier if not all the characters dropped f and c bombs at every opportunity, and instead, it felt like a Pixar film had been infiltrated rather than totally replaced by Seth Rogan and his mates swearing into a microphone while some stuff happens on screen.

The problem for me is that the Pixar films this is sending up are funny, generally, for kids and adults, and in a much more subtle and clever way. Therefore, why spoof them if you’re not going to be funnier? I did still chortle a bit though in the first half an hour of the film when I was seeing these audacious things for the first time, but it soon got repetitive.

Tears: 0/5

Not at all! It’s hard to give a f about f-ing food that f-ing swears all the f-ing time and thinks it’s so f-ing funny.

Cheese: 0/-5

The cheese category is very apt for this film, but as a ‘spoof’ it is almost immune to being accused of fake sentiment, as that is exactly what it is trying to send up.

Cheers: 1/5

Animated movies take a lot of hard work, and some of the action sequences were impressive and a credit to the team that produced them. At times, the things going on visually were weird and wonderful enough to distract from the mostly infantile script.

Fears: 0/5

Nothing to report on the ‘fears’ front.

 

Bonus Category:  Food Fight -3

Allegedly, many animators who worked on this movie were refused overtime pay and many who left as a result went uncredited, despite having worked on the film. That’s a shitty thing to do, if true, and if not I will adjust this modifier later on. However, I would still mark it down at least -1 for over-reliance on shock over content from the script writers.

Total: 0

(Check the Leader Board to see how it compares…)

Links:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage_Party

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1700841/

Agree / Disagree with my assessment? Leave a comment to let me know or submit your own scores for this or any other film listed in the leader board below to be aggregated into the ‘readers choice’ table on the main rating page.

And if you enjoy my reviews, please like/share this page link, and consider taking a look at my original science fiction books advertised in the side bar! Thanks for reading.

Blair Witch (2016) Review

/ Garry Abbott / Leave a comment

Using my Laughs, tears, cheese and cheers rating system, here is my spoiler-free review for the mostly unnecessary ‘Blair Witch’ (2016) that can’t decide whether it’s a remake or a sequel…

blair_witch_2016_poster

Quick Summary

For me, the original ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was a classic and genre defining film. It kick-started the low-budget ‘found footage’ phenomenon for a start, and made up for lack of resources by using the audience’s imagination against them. This latest outing, while a major improvement on the shoddy ‘Book of Shadows’ sequel, makes the mistake of thinking a beat by beat sequel-come-remake with a few extra elements thrown in will recapture the spark that made the original such a classic. It doesn’t. Even though it is a fairly watchable film, it is very unnecessary.

Laughs: 0/5

You don’t usually go to the scary woods looking for laughs, which is lucky, because there are none to be found here. We get glimpses of the new group before they set out with some light-hearted moments, but nothing that stands out enough to score.

Tears: 0/5

Am I that cold-hearted that I didn’t care about any of these people? Or is it that I knew too much already about what was coming (given it was so similar to the original in pacing) and therefore the characters felt contrived? The latter, I think.

Cheese: 0/-5

I’m going to let them off with minus points for cheese. I was tempted because of the whole ‘teenagers go into the woods’ idea, but couldn’t pinpoint one particular example.

Cheers: 0/5

Oh dear. Not looking good is it? To be fair, if I was scoring the original, I don’t think there was any moments to cheer for in that either. The opposite, if anything.

Fears: 3/5

Perhaps not surprisingly, the horror that worked for me, like the original, was the dark, torch-lit woods with mysterious sounds and satanic symbols. And there was enough of that to carry me through to the end reasonably entertained. What this film does to ruin all that is go big and obvious in certain places, which didn’t work as well. The original was about ‘less is more’ – here we have ‘more is less’. The finale has a pretty claustrophobic scene that would put the jeebies up most people though.

 

Bonus Category: -1 Return of the twigs

I think the problem with this film can be summed up in a scene where after the groups wakes up, the twig effigies hanging around the tents are significantly bigger than they had been the night before, as if we are meant to go ‘Oh my God! Look how big those twigs are! This must be bad!’. Simply going bigger while having no innovation doesn’t work when trying to follow in the footsteps of an innovative film. A new angle was needed, and not found here. You won’t be angered watching this film, but you may as well put on the original instead.

Total: 2

(Check the Leader Board to see how it compares…)

Links:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blair_Witch_(film)

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1540011/

Agree / Disagree with my assessment? Leave a comment to let me know or submit your own scores for this or any other film listed in the leader board below to be aggregated into the ‘readers choice’ table on the main rating page.

And if you enjoy my reviews, please like/share this page link, and consider taking a look at my original science fiction books advertised in the side bar! Thanks for reading.