Three POV movie reviews!
In the past month or so I've seen three different P.O.V. (point of view) movies aka documentary style, Blair Witch style, shakey-cam style. ;-)
First up (and the best of the three!) is spanish film [Rec] released in Spain back in October '07. Of course I saw it by downloading it haha. I'm sure a US DVD release will happen sometime.
I fucking loved this movie! The shit really hit the fan towards the end and I was kinda creeped out. (and it takes a lot for a horror movie to make me feel like that!) The movie is about a reporter and her cameraman who are filming a segment for a late night show. They are in the middle of exploring what goes on at a local firehouse until there's an urgent call to an apartment building. When the firemen, reporter, and cameraman arrive at the building they find out that there is no fire, but an elderly woman who is in stress in her room upstairs. Well they go to investigate the woman in her room and... well that's when the craziness begins! As the group of people attempt to leave the building, they discover that they have been barricaded inside by police and other authorities outside. Things start out pretty slow with not much action going on, but you're pulled in and want to keep watching what becomes of the people living in this building. A terrific blend of Blair Witch Project meets 28 Days Later! I think the fact that this movie is foreign and filmed documentary style has a lot to do with how effectively creepy it was. Not to mention the fact that the lead actress Manuela Velasco put on a great performance. Although extremely short (70 minutes) and freaky shit doesn't really start happening until about halfway through the movie, what is there works and you will love every moment of it! As a side note, I do want to mention that an American remake had already started filming before this movie was even released in Spain! The US title will be "Quarantine" and is due in theaters Oct. 17 2008! The lead of the reporter character will be played by Jennifer Carpenter (the chick from The Exorcism of Emily Rose). Ehh, I don't know how I feel about her being cast for that role. She played a possessed chick pretty well, but I don't know if she can evoke the fear and emotion that Manuela Velasco had. Jay Hernandez will co-star as one of the firemen.
Up next is the UBER-hyped Cloverfield.
First off, did any of you actually expect this movie to be good?? I sure as hell didn't! I also made good use of the internet to see this movie. We all know everyone's reason for seeing the movie was just to see what the fuck the monster was! I can't believe all this crazy hype about it being the highest grossing film to be released in January. Big fucking deal! People's curiosity is what made it a box office success. The movie quickly fell down the charts with every passing week. Anyway, aside from wanting to know what the monster was, another reason I wanted to see this movie was to check out Mike Vogel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) who was in the BEST film of last year's Horrorfest "The Deaths of Ian Stone." Since that movie was so fucking good, I wanted to see what his role would be in Cloverfield. Well his role is unfortunately pretty short, so his impact on the film is pretty much none at all. Ok sorry with my random ramblings, onto the review!
This movie was definitely NOT worth the hype, just like I expected. Yea it was good, but with the goddamned SIX MONTHS of hype, this film needed to be epic and it wasn't anywhere near it. I'm the type of person who ALWAYS puts myself and the people I know into the situation of whatever horror movie I'm watching. I just naturally do that because it really gets me into the movie and I can enjoy it more. It definitely made Cloverfield feel a little more exciting than it actually is, but ehh... Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Cloverfield at all. I liked it. The camcorder style of filming definitely helps in the realism of the movie. But I seriously felt like more needed to happen. Granted, it was obvious to me from the trailers what the outcome of the film would be and I had a feeling there wouldn't be any resolution of sorts (these camcorder movies NEVER have a resolution), but still... there should have been more in the middle of the movie. Sans credits, the movie is only an hour and thirteen minutes long. There are talks of creating a possible Cloverfield sequel, but seriously that shouldn't happen. The novelty of the film will be gone and the whole thing will have been pointless. I only wonder what this movie could have been like if filmed in the traditional manner. Anyway, it was decent. Not all that great.
And finally we have George Romero's Diary of the Dead!
I thought this movie was a unique addition to the zombie genre. I'm a big fan of this Cloverfield-cam style of filming and thought it was a great way to present a zombie movie. I have really bad motion sickness issues so I got pretty sick like 30 minutes into the movie and I had to tough it out for the last hour. Ever few minutes I had to either close my eyes or look down away from the screen... You must be wondering why the previous two movies didn't affect me in the same way. Well I'm sure it's because I watched those two movies on my laptop screen and not a giant movie theater screen lol.
The movie is about a group of student film makers who, while filming a horror movie of their own, are swept up in the chaos of the inevitable zombie apocalypse happening all around them. This movie is definitely one for the "youtube generation" because throughout the movie, other people's perspectives of what's happening during the zombie outbreak are shown through online clips and myspace etc. It was a good idea, but I wish they would have expanded on it a little bit more because I don't feel like enough of those scenes were used. But the satire and underlying themes of Romero's films are present of course, so that's a plus. A couple of the actors could have been a little better but I didn't really have any problem with it. And as I said in the last review, these shakey-cam movies never have a resolution. Blair Witch Project didn't, [Rec] didn't, neither did Cloverfield, and this movie is no exception. But this time there's going to be a direct sequel which was already greenlit before the film started playing at film festivals and before its limited theatrical release! In an interview, Romero said that they were able to use some effects that haven't been done in a zombie movie before and I thought some of the scenes were unique to one of his films. Overall, it was a pretty good genre film, better than Land of the Dead anyway. I can't wait for Diary of the Dead 2!
First up (and the best of the three!) is spanish film [Rec] released in Spain back in October '07. Of course I saw it by downloading it haha. I'm sure a US DVD release will happen sometime.
I fucking loved this movie! The shit really hit the fan towards the end and I was kinda creeped out. (and it takes a lot for a horror movie to make me feel like that!) The movie is about a reporter and her cameraman who are filming a segment for a late night show. They are in the middle of exploring what goes on at a local firehouse until there's an urgent call to an apartment building. When the firemen, reporter, and cameraman arrive at the building they find out that there is no fire, but an elderly woman who is in stress in her room upstairs. Well they go to investigate the woman in her room and... well that's when the craziness begins! As the group of people attempt to leave the building, they discover that they have been barricaded inside by police and other authorities outside. Things start out pretty slow with not much action going on, but you're pulled in and want to keep watching what becomes of the people living in this building. A terrific blend of Blair Witch Project meets 28 Days Later! I think the fact that this movie is foreign and filmed documentary style has a lot to do with how effectively creepy it was. Not to mention the fact that the lead actress Manuela Velasco put on a great performance. Although extremely short (70 minutes) and freaky shit doesn't really start happening until about halfway through the movie, what is there works and you will love every moment of it! As a side note, I do want to mention that an American remake had already started filming before this movie was even released in Spain! The US title will be "Quarantine" and is due in theaters Oct. 17 2008! The lead of the reporter character will be played by Jennifer Carpenter (the chick from The Exorcism of Emily Rose). Ehh, I don't know how I feel about her being cast for that role. She played a possessed chick pretty well, but I don't know if she can evoke the fear and emotion that Manuela Velasco had. Jay Hernandez will co-star as one of the firemen.
Up next is the UBER-hyped Cloverfield.
First off, did any of you actually expect this movie to be good?? I sure as hell didn't! I also made good use of the internet to see this movie. We all know everyone's reason for seeing the movie was just to see what the fuck the monster was! I can't believe all this crazy hype about it being the highest grossing film to be released in January. Big fucking deal! People's curiosity is what made it a box office success. The movie quickly fell down the charts with every passing week. Anyway, aside from wanting to know what the monster was, another reason I wanted to see this movie was to check out Mike Vogel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) who was in the BEST film of last year's Horrorfest "The Deaths of Ian Stone." Since that movie was so fucking good, I wanted to see what his role would be in Cloverfield. Well his role is unfortunately pretty short, so his impact on the film is pretty much none at all. Ok sorry with my random ramblings, onto the review!
This movie was definitely NOT worth the hype, just like I expected. Yea it was good, but with the goddamned SIX MONTHS of hype, this film needed to be epic and it wasn't anywhere near it. I'm the type of person who ALWAYS puts myself and the people I know into the situation of whatever horror movie I'm watching. I just naturally do that because it really gets me into the movie and I can enjoy it more. It definitely made Cloverfield feel a little more exciting than it actually is, but ehh... Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Cloverfield at all. I liked it. The camcorder style of filming definitely helps in the realism of the movie. But I seriously felt like more needed to happen. Granted, it was obvious to me from the trailers what the outcome of the film would be and I had a feeling there wouldn't be any resolution of sorts (these camcorder movies NEVER have a resolution), but still... there should have been more in the middle of the movie. Sans credits, the movie is only an hour and thirteen minutes long. There are talks of creating a possible Cloverfield sequel, but seriously that shouldn't happen. The novelty of the film will be gone and the whole thing will have been pointless. I only wonder what this movie could have been like if filmed in the traditional manner. Anyway, it was decent. Not all that great.
And finally we have George Romero's Diary of the Dead!
I thought this movie was a unique addition to the zombie genre. I'm a big fan of this Cloverfield-cam style of filming and thought it was a great way to present a zombie movie. I have really bad motion sickness issues so I got pretty sick like 30 minutes into the movie and I had to tough it out for the last hour. Ever few minutes I had to either close my eyes or look down away from the screen... You must be wondering why the previous two movies didn't affect me in the same way. Well I'm sure it's because I watched those two movies on my laptop screen and not a giant movie theater screen lol.
The movie is about a group of student film makers who, while filming a horror movie of their own, are swept up in the chaos of the inevitable zombie apocalypse happening all around them. This movie is definitely one for the "youtube generation" because throughout the movie, other people's perspectives of what's happening during the zombie outbreak are shown through online clips and myspace etc. It was a good idea, but I wish they would have expanded on it a little bit more because I don't feel like enough of those scenes were used. But the satire and underlying themes of Romero's films are present of course, so that's a plus. A couple of the actors could have been a little better but I didn't really have any problem with it. And as I said in the last review, these shakey-cam movies never have a resolution. Blair Witch Project didn't, [Rec] didn't, neither did Cloverfield, and this movie is no exception. But this time there's going to be a direct sequel which was already greenlit before the film started playing at film festivals and before its limited theatrical release! In an interview, Romero said that they were able to use some effects that haven't been done in a zombie movie before and I thought some of the scenes were unique to one of his films. Overall, it was a pretty good genre film, better than Land of the Dead anyway. I can't wait for Diary of the Dead 2!