Review – The Eye

This is one of those movies that makes me wish I knew a little more about the folk traditions in the land from whence it came – in this case China – because they seem to play at least some role in the visuals. And truly the visual horror elements are the strongest part of this otherwise run-of-the-mill offering from Hong Kong. The plot’s standard stuff about a transplant recipient who ends up with the power to see ghosts after getting eyes from a psychic woman who died a violent death. The art direction has a lot in common with the better-known Japanese offering, Ringu. But at least some of the ghostly doings are more than a little on the creepy side, including at least one booga-booga shot that really works. Mildly amusing

Review – Amen.

After Mad City I just about gave up on Costa-Gavras, but I’m glad I decided to give him another try. This tale of the Catholic church’s complicity in the Holocaust is a lot closer to the director’s traditional stomping grounds. The plot follows two idealistic young men – an SS officer with a crisis of conscience and a priest in whom he confides – as they learn some hard lessons about international diplomacy and the Pope’s unwillingness to speak out against the mass slaughter of Jewish people. The story remains intriguing throughout, depressing and unflinching enough to do justice to its subject matter. Worth seeing

Review – Possessed

If not for the steady stream of profanity that spouts from the carrot-topped victim of evil in this bargain basement Exorcist rip-off, I’d swear it was a made-for-TV affair. It’s just that bad. Even grand ham Timothy Dalton appears to have trouble spouting the dialogue he must deliver as the valiant priest doing battle with the forces of darkness. The parts that are clearly intended to be scary fall so flat that they very nearly make it to comedy. Fans of the sub-genre may want to check this out just so they can say they’ve seen it, but otherwise there’s little entertainment to be found in this silly production. See if desperate

Review – The Handmaid’s Tale

Here’s a heavy-handed story about how awful life would be if the religious right actually gained firm control over society. First constant war and utter disregard for environmentalism poisons the planet and renders the majority of the population infertile. The few women who are still capable of conceiving become the sex surrogate slaves of couples in the power elite, following a ritual based on the procreation-oriented love triangle between Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. The production makes some solid points about the subjugation of women in Western religious practice, and parts of the drama are intriguing in a soap opera sort of way. However, the constant pessimism and pedantry tends to make the whole thing start to seem a little silly after awhile. Mildly amusing

Review – Final Destination 2

I’m not sure what drew me to the sequel, inasmuch as I’m already on record as not regarding the original as one of the great moments in American cinema. Guess I was just in the mood for a cheap horror movie. And on that front, mission accomplished. Some of the gore wasn’t too terrible in a “dude, you just got blowed up” kind of way. But beyond that much of the production is nothing short of annoying. Sympathetic characters are in short supply, and many of the suspense scenes are so laboriously constructed that they almost descend to self-parody. I was especially un-fond of the choking sequences that seemed to drag on and on and on. Perhaps I should applaud the film-makers for actually inspiring the physical sensation of suffocating, but by the end of this barker I wasn’t in the mood to dish out any brownie points in exchange for making me uncomfortable. See if desperate

Review – Dreamchild

Mix the innocent childhood magic of Alice in Wonderland with the considerably less-than-innocent real life of the Reverend Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll). Throw in some creepy Muppets and this is what you get. The main plot follows a journey to America undertaken by the little girl who inspired the Alice tales now grown to doddering old age. A handful of other silly subplots intrude, but the really compelling stuff here are the flashbacks done as a combination of Alice’s traumatic childhood memories and scenes from Carrol’s work. Unfortunately in the end the movie does away with its own apparent point. Hooray for happy endings and all, but it’s rough to see even true love prevail when that love takes the form of the bond between a ten-year-old girl and a dirty old man. Mildly amusing

Review – The Core

I’ll let you all invent your own “rotten to the” jokes for this one. I guess I should be grateful that at least this time the trauma threatening to destroy the entire earth isn’t a meteor. But somehow the notion that the planet is doomed because the fluids in the core stopped spinning because of some stupid government plot actually makes the meteor thing seem downright plausible. Certainly by the time you’ve crammed a group of mavericks and misfits into a giant vibrator that can somehow resist the heat and pressure of the mantle (let alone the core itself) … well, let’s just say that it’s hard to maintain much interest in the virtually endless parade of implausible plot twists and sophomoric character development. See if desperate