Review – Devil

Five people are trapped in a broken elevator. One of them is the Devil. M. Night Shyamalan wrote the story. This is exactly as good as you’d expect it to be. See if desperate

Review – The Conjuring

This is one of those movies that’s probably intensely terrifying if you believe in demons and witches and ghosts. For the less credulous among us, this is a handful of good booga-boogas, a much more substantial dose of weak booga-boogas, and an overwhelming pile of pseudo-theological nonsense. Perhaps this would have been a better experience if they hadn’t been so dead-set on selling it as a true story. Amityville still casts its shadow more than three decades later. See if desperate

Review – Fright Night 2 (2013)

The plot here is a mash-up of elements from the original Fright Night and its original sequel somehow distilled down to the worst parts of each. It’s humorless at best and at worst downright annoying. I understand from long experience with the sub-genre that viewers simply have to tolerate at least some wrangling over the “vampire rules.” But the end of this picture takes the crap well beyond the usual level. By the time we’re done with “the main vampire can become a super vampire but only if she bites but doesn’t kill a virgin born on the first night of a full blood moon and then the virgin has to kill her own true love in a pool of blood” nonsense, we’ve attained “vampire infield fly rule” status. Sadly, this spirit of ridiculousness pervades the entire production. See if desperate

Review – Chilling Visions

I was pleasantly surprised by one aspect of this anthology piece: all five stories were actually vaguely linked. I expected this to be another nearly-random assemblage of shorts gleaned from an amateur horror short contest. They even built a loose structure around the five senses, devoting one tale to each. However, the lot might have been improved a jot by following traditional anthology structure: best story last, second best story first, and the mid-packers in between. Because if they thought they were doing that here, the drastically over-estimated the appeal of the show stopper at the end. Still, I’ve seen worse. Mildly amusing

Review – The Purge

The premise has a certain “Festival! Landru commands it!” appeal. But that’s where it ends. The story turns out to be a witless tale of a family trapped in their upper middle class house, besieged by psychos out for blood during The Purge, the one night a year when no laws are enforced. The writing is weak, particularly plagued by the novice tendency to employ too many characters and then park them in limbo-like holding patterns when they aren’t on screen (a sure symptom that the writer regards characters as plot devices rather than people). And the visual quality is even worse, serving up more than half the picture in jerky fits and starts lit only by jittery flashlights. There’s some heavy-handed social commentary buried somewhere in the technical faults, but such an annoying production renders its message impossible to care about. See if desperate

Review – Movie 43

This movie’s existence mystifies me. Heaven knows I’ve seen plenty of vulgar sketch comedy compilations. I’ve also seen a ton of “stunt casting,” big name stars appearing in low budget productions in order to establish their indie cred or as a favor to a friend. Well, apparently half of Hollywood owed favors (in some cases big ones) to the folks who made this. Though I got a laugh or two out of some of the skits, they missed by a wide margin far more often than they hit. And the bracket was purely dreadful. Overall the only response the production evokes is a profound sense of “why are those actors in this movie?” See if desperate