KILLER LEGENDS
Starting right where the
director’s last documentary CROPSY ended, LEGENDS is about tracking down the
truth about several urban legends (The Hookman, poisoned Halloween candy, the
“When A Stranger Calls” killer and baby sitter inside the house house, evil
clowns). This is a really entertaining
film that moves quickly through all types of historical horrors, conspiracy theories,
and even side issues like racism in the South and dating and pre-marital sex in
the 1950’s. I would love to see a sequel
to this film.
ST. VINCENT
It certainly seems like Bill
Murray is angling for an Oscar with this performance as he really pulls out all
the stops. I expected him to affect a
foreign accent by the end of it. Murray
is a very good actor beyond just comedy and it is nice to see him extending the
full length of his acting ability (even if it often seems like he’s trying too
hard). The key to a film like this is
sentiment. I am not a sentimental person
but this film very carefully treads the line between too much crying and just
enough. It’s certainly enjoyable even if
the end is the usual predictable saccharine happiness. In supporting roles, Melissa McCarthy is extremely
annoying as usual and Naomi Watts does one of the worst Russian accents I’ve
ever heard.
STARRY EYES
The modern day “slow burn”
horror when it works as in the case of THE INNKEEPERS not only has a big pay
off in the form of a satisfactorily gruesome ending but also keeps the
narrative flowing with interesting characters and dialogue and plenty of
foreshadowing. STARRY EYES does all of
that even if some of the visuals are from your typical devil worship
film – At times I felt like this was ROSEMARY’S BABY but without the baby. What
I did like about this film – well thought out relationships between the characters,
not too much mystery revealed. What I
didn’t like – A flat ending that has no punch.
HONEYMOON
What I wrote about STARRY
EYES in terms of strengths but even more so in terms of
weaknesses. A methodical well-handled build-up unfortunately fizzles out
at the end. It’s creepy and presents the mystery as a series of puzzle
pieces to be put together by the viewer but the ending is uninspired and lacks
focus. Extraterrestrial components of the plot in the end seem silly.
ANIMAL
Some decent actions scenes
can’t redeem this completely unoriginal monster story. It quickly devolves into people in an enclosed
space who don’t like or trust each other against an outside threat. The monsters themselves look like a mish mash
of every other horror movie creature of the last 30 or 40 years. Total snoozeville.
No comments:
Post a Comment