J*A*S*M

Lost After Dark in itself isn’t very interesting or good, but as a homage to the silly slasher movies from the 1980s was surprisingly likeable. It’s well made, fairly entertaining, with an original alteration in the order the death of each of the characters, as other reviewers have pointed out.

Decent horror-mystery snack. Keating wanted to make something like an episode of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits or The X-Files as a feature film, and pulled it off, I believe. The question is whether it’ll be enough for the audience. For me, this time it was. This young director has, I hope, many films in his future to hone his unquestionable talent with some true gem. At times, Pod is nicely atmospheric and paranoid to scary, but also somewhat unfocused, there are scenes that feel like from another film and pulled me out of the experience. Oh! And Lyla, played by Lauren Ashley Carter, is probably the biggest cow in the history of filmmaking.

Unfortunately, I’m not Turbo Kid’s target audience and I have to rate it lower than it would objectively deserve. Actually, I even had to convince myself to give it the three stars. A splatter fest from a post-apocalyptic alternative past, where bizarre characters on wheels chase and kill each other in various fun ways. Thumbs up for the music, thumbs up for the style, thumbs up for the character design (the best is the villain with the iron mask and rotary saws on his hands). But what is all that good for when the personalities of most of the characters pissed me off? (Most people here complain about the titular Turbo Kid, but he was the only one I could bear, actually. The one I hated, though, was his died blonde girlfriend). And I’m also not into like that kind of over-exaggerated brutality. But if you are into the 80s, I guess you’ll like this style a lot better.

Especially in the first half, Sweet Home screams in its hopelessness. Whenever the plot needs to move forward or get complicated, one of the good guys drops something, or stumbles on something, or their phone rings drawing the attention of the villain. And then there is the exaggerated score, which ends up being counterproductive. Shooting mostly in English wasn’t a very good decision, either, the Spanish actors don’t speak it very convincingly (assuming the English-Spanish BluRay is the original version and not dubbed). At times it’s also unintentionally funny. But as a plus, it has pretty good technical values and there’s the respect-worthy boss in the last act. In this case, I a have a bit of a sugar rush and I’m giving it at least three stars, even though reason tells me that it should be less.

Quality-wise, I think Phase II is very similar to its predecessor. So in this regard, it’s successful, though it could naturally be argued whether this slightly above average body horror movie needed a sequel to begin with. The second part takes on exactly where the first part left and has a bit of a wider scope. Now we don’t follow only the intimate physical disintegration of the leading character, but also the police investigation and the thus far questionable mythology behind the contagion. The disgusting bits are exactly what the viewer expects (pus, worms, falling teeth, etc.), so nothing very original or surprising that would pull you out of your seat. Watchable average.

I’m especially sorry for the lower rating. I’ve been looking forward to Harbinger Down for about two years, I liked this Kickstarter-funded project from the beginning, mainly because of it’s honest approach to practical effects. The creators are obviously enthusiasts who want to pay tribute to Carpenter’s The Thing and I appreciate their intention, but unfortunately, they didn’t manage to turn that into a particularly good film. Surprisingly, the problems begin with the effects, in some scenes they look nice, but more often than not they look fake, almost digital sometimes (I’m suspicious to almost being certain that at least in some places they used CGI), and the impression from them is affected by a franticly shaky camera. But even worse is the direction, there isn’t a single interesting scene, the actors look confused and their characters go through the story with the same expression, so the unfortunate situations they face don’t have a chance to grip the viewer. The music is run-of-the-mill. The impression it leaves is similar as the experience from a more eager monster B-movie from the SyFy Channel.

Cringe, pretty cringe, unfortunately. It felt fake, starting with the unpleasantly digital looking exteriors, but mainly with regard to the portray of the microcosm of the three protagonists, in particular that nine-year old girl raised in a snowy wasteland by one guy – I don’t think she would ever behave and talk the way she behaves and talks in the film. In short, when it comes to the characters’ behaviour, it wasn’t believable. And at least form the moment Matthew Fox starts arguing with the radio things begin to feel almost unintentionally funny. The coveted emotions with which the film plays a lot didn’t have any effect on me. The decently looking monster and the fairly good horror tempo in the end deserve three stars, but I was expecting more and, to me, Extinction is a wasted opportunity.

At the beginning of the film we find ourselves at the end of the story, point zero. But we eventually get to this point in story, which is a jigsaw puzzle of the revenge of two middle school kids on the aggressors from among classmates and teachers told through recent and more distant flashbacks. The one little problem is that you don’t have anyone to root for. On one side, you have the violent assholes and, on the other, a mad duo with their absurdly complicated and self-serving revenge (it must have been so much work to put it together! And what was the purpose of all that theatre?), which also affects completely uninvolved and innocent people. That insane overcomplexity and implausibility is, at least for me, a far bigger problem and it would deserve only a two-star rating. However, I had plenty of fun, it’s bloody, nasty and tense at times, and entertaining overall, so I will swallow my complaints. In any case, if Eisuke Naito wants to aspire to higher ratings, his film would have to be either more sober and believable or, on the contrary, a notch crazier.

A very nice mix of horror and comedy (yes, unlike other users, I found it exceptionally funny at times, though in a very black humour kind of way – I’d certainly wouldn’t like to find myself in the situation of the protagonist). Mark Duplass has a lot of fun in the role of an utter crackpot who behaves in a way that you don’t know whether he wants to entertain, rape or murder you. And Kack-Brice is also very convincing in the role of the poor bastard who’s got himself into a very unpleasant situation. In short, Creep is a very good example of a film that builds tension and fear mostly through the situations taking place on the screen and not with the tools of filmmaking (camera, editing, music, special effects).

A solid small film about two lonely Israeli boys. One starts stalking the other, who doesn’t like it, and the atmosphere gets thicker. Visually it’s pretty interesting, sometimes is like out of focus and hazy, and it plays nicely with light and shadow. Unfortunately, during the first half I came up with (IMHO) a pretty nice final twist that would have made the film a little more ambitious than a simple genre snack, but the ending was utterly unoriginal :-(