The Gift

Title: The Gift

Released: 2000

Director: Sam Raimi

Budget: $10M (est.)

Blurb: A woman with extrasensory perception is asked to help find a young woman who has disappeared.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Billed as “The scariest supernatural thriller since The Sixth Sense” by the New York Post, I struggled to see the comparison, until the very end when Blanchett’s character discovered that Ralph Mariano (Giovanni Ribisi) was already dead. Maybe I’m alone on this one, but whenever I see an actor in a comedy role, I find it difficult to watch them attempting to play the straight guy, without being reminded of their catchphrases from more recent times. For this reason, I kept expecting the Cooter-like persona of “Buddy” to yell “Rock and roll!” Much in the same way that I was expecting Donny Barksdale to respond to someone saying “Bogus!” then air-guitaring his way into the next scene.

So what’s the plot? A crazy fortune teller “I’d never describe myself that way” helps a small southern town by forecasting their future for them. She seems to be stuck at 1.30am, throughout the movie, which confuses and infuriates her. Her son’s headteacher kills his fiancee (oops, did I give away the ending? My bad.) and wrongfully frames up Donny “Bogus!” Barksdale. All the while, creepy mechanic (Ribisi) is suffering his own mental torture.

If you happen to have a fear of violins and their music, then this movie is not for you. For the most part, any scene where there is no dialogue, is dubbed with an irritating violin solo. Once or twice is okay, but the director doesn’t seem to understand the word ‘overkill’. After about half an hour of this constant hoo-ha, you will start having sudden urges to put your foot through the screen.

The characters themselves are not built up in any distinct way, so you can pick and choose who you want to like and dislike in this movie. Personally, I didn’t like any of the characters. Even that old woman next door who makes the crappy muffins (the irrelevant lines in this movie are thick and fast, without all this padding, it could easily have been kept to under an hour).

It appears that even the director and all of the crew were giving up the will to live when they shot the closing scenes. The amount of mistakes, overdubs, rough edits and so forth made no sense and it was a complete mish-mash of scenes cut together haphazardly to finalise the movie. You really are left scratching your head and uttering the phrase, “Huh?” It doesn’t help matters when Blanchett is being questioned in court about her fortune telling and whether or not she makes any monetary gain from her readings. She denies this under oath, in a court of law. Yet earlier in the movie, we see a close up of her $4000 Omega Constellation watch. Who’s kidding who here?

Overall the movie wasn’t that enjoyable and the poor acting skills exhibited by Blanchett and Reeves significantly lowered the score. Too bad, because with the right actors, slightly better editing skills and a well executed script, this movie could have gained at least 3 stars.

It looks like Mariano won’t be getting out of prison a day early for good behaviour!

Buy it from Amazon UK here.

Title: The Road

Released: 2009

Director: John Hillcoat

Budget: $20M (est.)

Blurb: A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5

This review is of the movie directed by John Hillcoat and not of the book, which the movie is based on by Cormac McCarthy.

This movie is incorrectly named, as I only saw a glimpse of tarmac back in the early stages of the film and then nothing remotely similar to a road from that point on. Aside from the highly confusing flashback scenes to “happier” times, the apocalyptic event is not spoken of, or explained in any great detail. From what one can gather, the journey which the man and his son make in this movie is more of an emotional one than a physical one, as they don’t appear to have any direction or destination planned.

The male lead and his family appear not to have names, this must be the result of the apocalypse, or the fact that it saves time having to remember two names for the duration of this movie. I’m sure that there were a lot of people who left the movie theatre utterly confused by the storyline and the incredibly poorly thought out ending. It’s no wonder that this movie failed to make 50% of sales at the box office overall.

As far as movies go, this one is pretty poor. All of the CGI, camera filters and rough editing in this movie lowers the gritty effect of the flick. There are a lot of movies turning to the overuse of filters and this film is a prime example. Sure, filters can be used to portray desolation but when they’re overused (this movie used them in every shot) they lose their effect and they just become irritating.

The whole movie seems to centre around the man and his son wandering around some barren landscape, looking for food (which they find) and trying to keep away from the nutters that are left in the world.

It really doesn’t help the dude’s case when it becomes apparent that his son is about as dense as a forest. When he questions everything, it becomes pretty irritating. When the father wrestles a coke can from the destroyed vending machine and the son asks what it is, it makes you despair. His constantly bewildered, thick-as-pigshit expression makes you wish that he’d die in a fire or the “bad people” would just take him away. Anything just to get the annoying little runt off the screen would be immensely beneficial to the movie.

The father figure also has a disturbing fascination with the naked male form. Especially when he instructs the stereotypical black thief to strip naked and hand over his clothes. After he’s done that, the father and son leave him standing there without a stitch on. The father is persuaded by the son to go back and leave his clothes and a tin of Dole peaches as an apology. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise to find that the black dude has left, yet they still decide to leave a tin of fruit for him, should he decide to return.

When they eventually get to the beach (it’s unclear how far they’ve walked, but it’s clear that they can’t walk no more) they stop and the father figure dies and the son is immediately rescued by a passing family who have been stalking them the entire time. A fact in itself quite disconcerting.

The ending of this movie is completely nonsensical and then the credits roll, by which point you’ll have either given up the will to live or you’ll be left in utter confusion by this movie. The credits go on forever, so you can probably just skip those, eject the disc and take it back to the place you bought it for a refund. Which is exactly what I did.

Avoid at all costs.

Buy it from Amazon UK here.

Creep

Title: Creep

Released: 2004

Director: Christopher Smith

Budget: Unknown

Blurb:Trapped in a London subway station, a woman who’s being pursued by a potential attacker heads into the unknown labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city’s streets.

Rating: 1 out of 5

The casting director of this movie clearly purchased a book on stereotypes the previous day and spent all their time sourcing out stereotypical characters for this movie. From the two sewage workers with the ‘mockney’ accents in the beginning right up to the homeless Glaswegian living in the station. Every possible stereotype that you could imagine is in this movie.

So what’s the plot? Woman goes to a party, meets up with some oddball-stalker type, she leaves, falls asleep on the platform and wakes up to discover that creepy stalker dude is standing over her with his “I’m gonna rape you” face on. Suddenly, the doors of the subway train open and he’s dragged onto the tracks by a mysterious force. Only to be rescued by a dog and his Glaswegian owner.

The film descends into pointless running through tunnels, trains and drains. Interspersed with frequent continuity errors (Hint: Just keep an eye on the carriage numbers of the trains). When we finally meet the “Creep” that the movie is based on, the viewer is left disappointed by the poor quality make-up job that he has. At several points I watched as the actor underneath the layers of Tesco Value make-up struggled to keep up the horrifying persona. It was almost as though he had given up the will to live.

When you watch this movie, the opening scene has no relevance to the rest of the movie, it is merely used to introduce a character that we meet towards the end of the movie. A pointless opening which will, undoubtedly, make many people switch off, but stick with it. The flick could have benefited from the opening scene being at the party where Kate (Franka Potente) was before leaving to try and get a fleeting glance from George Clooney at a party, somewhere in London – although it’s apparent that nobody seems to know where this party is. . .

“Hello, is that George Clooney’s office? We were wondering if Mr. Clooney would like to appear in a low-budget British ‘horror’ movie set on a subway. . . Hello? Anyone there?”

As for the “abandoned abortion clinic” scenes, I was wondering what that was. Because it isn’t exactly clear. Alright, so you have a shelf-full of babies in bell jars on one side and an old dentist’s chair on the other, then that, by association, makes you a little bit creepy. This could easily have been anywhere. But no, this was Craig’s lair. The movie could have easily done without these scenes, as they added nothing to the beat of the movie.

As for the disappointing ending, what was that all about? I was left feeling empty that Kate didn’t die (because there are several points I was wishing that she would), but looking quite miserable. When the dog ran up to her and sat on her lap, I was half-expecting “…and they all lived happily ever after.” to fade onto the screen, accompanied by this track: http://youtu.be/WlBiLNN1NhQ

Overall this movie failed to hit the mark, by quite a considerable margin. It was certainly not memorable in any way, shape or form. If you like trains then this might be of interest to you, but you’ll probably end up screaming at the inconsistencies of this flick. Terribly disappointing.

Buy it from Amazon UK here.

Title: Spirit Trap

Released: 2005

Director: David Smith

Budget: £3M (est.)

Blurb: In London, four students have a call from the student accommodation office of the local university offering lodging in an old house. Along the two next days, Jenny, Nick, Tom and Adele disclose that each one of them had killed a person in the past and also that they are trapped in the house.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

A movie about 5 students who move into a house together, but the house holds a mysterious past. Woo-hoo! Another teeny-bopper horror flick! As if there wasn’t enough of them to begin with. Starring Billie Piper (famous television prostitute) and Luke Mably (who?), trust me on this one, the only other “stars” in this movie are a googly-eyed Beaker lookalike and a girl in a green dress. It’s a certificate 15, which means there’s no nudity (except for one very brief scene where you see an arse – and I’m not talking about Mably).

So what’s the plot? You have to really squint your eyes, tilt your head to the left and concentrate really hard, because there is a plot. Although it is very, very poor. The whole movie centres around a grandfather clock, sorry, “spirit clock.” For those who lap all of this supernatural stuff up, you’d better make sure that you have a clean pair of underwear close by.

When Mr. Fix-it “My name is Nick” decides that to try and repair the clock, he pulls out a little book, which is bound with a shoelace. Not only does he fail to notice this, despite having just pulled it from the inner workings of the clock, he leaves it lying around on the ground for at least a day. Not only did Mr. Googly-eyes (“My name is Nick”) fail to notice this, but apparently, so did the rest of his drugged up house-mates. This does not bode well.

To be honest, I never really warmed to Mably’s character, so when I saw him being twatted with a candlestick (in the hallway. . . what is this? Cluedo?), but this may have been down to a mixture of his poor acting skills and constantly clutching his little black box of drugs. Not to mention his attitude throughout the movie. Alright, admittedly this was the character he was asked to portray, but even I would have said “You might want to tone it down a bit, you’re coming across as a bit of an arse.”

The only criticism I have about Billie Piper’s performance in this movie was the severe wardrobe malfunction that she appeared to be having. “Yes, of course I can fit into that top, pass me the shoehorn.” Whilst you may appear “sultry and sexy” in ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ and borderline nerdy in ‘Doctor Who’, you’ve clearly put on some weight and those clothes no longer fit you. It just made you appear frumpy and middle-aged.

The entire film consisted of the oddball girl, Tina (the actress who played her, only appeared in this movie) disappearing for extended periods of time and only returning when she remembered she had left the bath running. Hell, she even brought food – which none of the other house-mates thought of. When she was around, she contributed very little to the scene and her only evident dialogue appeared to be “I don’t know.” (Easy to see why she was only in one movie).

The sound effects that were used, reminded me of the episode of Channel 4′s ‘Father Ted’ when Father McGuire bought the ‘BBC Sound Effects Volume 4‘. As the effects used in this movie were about as convincing as Father McGuire’s vinyl. When Mably bitch-slapped Adele, it did sound very wooden.

The movie was pretty low budget, so you can’t expect miracles. The crew did a fantastic job, right up until the last shot. Seriously. . . using a camera crane, behind a vehicle with a glass window, where you can clearly see the reflection? Bad move. As for that poorly constructed animation sequence at the end, please tell me that was an afterthought. Was it too much of a logistical nightmare to use a steadicam?

Overall this movie would appeal to those who enjoy the spiritual side of life and those who enjoy low-budget crappy horror movies. It would have been decent, if the continuity was correct, but as it was riddled with inconsistencies this did spoil the overall effect and knocked points off the total score.

Buy it from Amazon UK here.

Title: Vacancy

Released: 2007

Director: Nimród Antal

Budget: $19M (est.)

Blurb: A young married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They realize that unless they escape, they’ll be the next victims of a snuff film

Rating: 1 out of 5

“A young married couple. . .” So they’re married? Well they certainly bitch at each other enough, so I guess it makes sense. The opening scene of the lead male (Luke Wilson – famous for being in nothing overly spectacular) driving through the night on some mountain road because there was an accident on the highway  (surely the American road system isn’t that piss-poor?) with his “wife” (Kate Beckinsale – World Champion Lemon Sucker 2010) riding shotgun.

Surprise, surprise, their car breaks down a mile away from the red-neck garage/motel. After a “bent fan blade,” caused by Wilson swerving to avoid a raccoon on the road and off-roading his 5-series Beemer. This unfortunate near-miss with the local wildlife causes the car to break down and they’re stranded in the “middle of nowhere” (about a mile from civilisation). So they decide to walk back to get help or at least a bed for the night.

They get to the motel and find the manager, Mason (Frank Whaley – famous for being on the telly) in the back office watching porn. It’s not shown, but it’s as good as inferred. Kate Lemonface gets pissed at Wilson dinging the bell on the counter. Well, what else are you supposed to do? Stand there and wait ’til he’s done? Whaley (obviously modelling himself on Ned Flanders, complete with the accent, but sadly lacking the characteristics) tells them that the mechanic at the garage has gone home for the night. (Seriously? He was there less than five minutes ago. Did he get into his rocket car and take off?) Ned shows the couple to the Honeymoon Suite to settle in for the night.

Shortly after arriving in the room, they start to hear banging on the walls of the room next door. Wilson opens the adjoining door and gives the occupant a piece of his mind. It was obviously a very large piece, because his acting became very sloppy and he missed several tricks from thereon in.

When nobody answers and he realises that, despite the stigma surrounding most honeymoon suites, he’s not getting his hole that night, he goes to see Ned Flanders to complain (about the room next door, not about his lack of bedroom gymnastics). Flanders tells him that there isn’t anyone in the room next door and it’s probably “just kids or a hobo.” He goes back to his room satisfied. Sort of.

I spent the next hour of the movie laughing at the stupidity of Wilson and Lemonface. They could have saved a few million bucks by just hot-wiring the pick-up truck that was parked at Reception for the entire duration of the movie and getting out of there. But, no. They didn’t. Instead they led us on a merry chase around, and under, the motel, interspersed with repeated “snuff” shots.

The funniest, and incidentally the most ridiculous, part of the movie was when Lemonface decided to call 911 to have an officer dispatched to the motel because of all the hilarity horror. The second time she calls, the operator tells Lemonface that an officer was already dispatched to that location. Didn’t the dispatcher think “Hmm, I haven’t heard from Officer McDonut for a while, I’ll call him and see what he’s up to.” No, she didn’t. She just bitched at Lemonface for wasting resources (quite right too, Lemonface could just ingest herself at will, judging by her constantly puckered face).

The ending of the movie was predictable (along with the rest of the film) and it appears that the writer didn’t envisage the finale of the flick to be as it was shown on screen, he simply just ran out of paper.

You will be wondering why Wilson and Lemonface didn’t use the callbox at reception, it’s not like they didn’t have enough quarters to call a friend to *69 the number and then Google the location. Or why they didn’t just hot-wire the pick-up at Reception and get out of there.

Overall, this supposed horror/thriller was pretty dire. It failed to keep my attention and it was about as predictable as cupcakes. But, if you’re in a particularly low mood, then this movie will undoubtedly cheer you up* and have you screaming at the television, just like I was. Predictable and boring, but so hilariously bad that you cannot afford to miss it.

Buy it from Amazon UK here

* – Not Guaranteed.