The Hills Run Red (2009)

Contrary to my suspicions, this was a decent flick. I was wholly entertained!

100 Feet (2008)

A terrible, boring movie that Famke Janssen couldn't even give beauty.

Offspring (2009)

Doesn't come close to doing the book justice (imagine that), but it does have that raw edge I've come to expect from Ketchum. Mostly decent acting.

Grace (2009)

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. But I do think its weaknesses were rooted in the fact that the film tried to do too much in the way of subtexts: feminism and vegetarianism in particular. Because of these two focuses, we the audience were subjected to frame after frame of pointlessness and male characters so dreadful it took away from the believability of the movie--the acting in the first 15-20 minutes or so was especially rigid.

What I did like about the movie was the gloomy atmosphere (I refuse to believe the Animal Planet inclusions had anything to do with that, by the way), Jordan Ladd (whom I have admired since Cabin Fever), and the horrific visual gags centered around the premise of the movie as outlined in the plot. This is one I definitely need to watch again in a month or so, now that my expectations have been set (lowered?).

Sheitan (2006)

Uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh??????????????? What?!

Rogue (2007)

Just as in Greg McLean's Wolf Creek, this is about atmosphere, mood, cinematography. Sure it has solid acting, tense moments, and a tight pace, but it still doesn't display creativity or originality.

Cache (2005)

Fifteen minutes in I was sleeping like a baby. Obviously, a slow build with this one. I'll try to watch it tonight or tomorrow night. Anyone else seen this one yet? Does it pick up a little?

(Two days go by.)

Well, I just finished this proclaimed masterpiece, and I am left with nothing good to say. Perhaps this would've made a better book--the "visual" aspect of cinema was not utilized at all. Nothing happened save for constant dialogue, a few quick flashbacks, and an out-of-nowhere slicing (is this the "intense" moment alluded to by the comment below?).

It's hard to say this about a movie from Funny Games director Michael Haneke, but this is a severe disappointment not worth the time.

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

And here I was thinking the calamity couldn't be any more tumultuous than The Evil Dead or Drag Me To Hell! In true Sam Raimi style, characters are tossed, slammed, whipped, thrown, jostled all over the screen and covered in all manner of liquids and juices. This is more similar to the Raimi we recently witnessed in Drag Me To Hell.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Man. Where to start? First off, I do agree that this is much better than House of 1,000 Corpses. Zombie seemed to find a groove and carried it through with taut execution. That said, I also consider this a good flick without the juxtaposition of its predecessor. We got better production value, better gore, better acting, more of the humor I loved from the first installment. And on top of it all, I got to point out more than a few familiar faces from Zombie's Halloween remake, which I had seen prior to either of these movies. My only gripe would be the gratuitous posterior shots, but, hey, it's a cult horror movie. Great work!

House of 1,000 Corpses (2002)

When I received The Devil's Rejects a few weeks ago from Netflix, it dawned on me that I hadn't seen the prequel, House of 1,000 Corpses. I was told that it didn't really matter whether I had seen the first installment or not, but I decided to be a loyal movie patron and watch them in order. And this, despite having read a hundred blog posts favoring the second installment over the first.

Two things dawned on me in the first 15 minutes: (1) making a batch of Buffalo chicken wings for the movie was a bad idea, and (2) I had already seen the movie. Now, I'm not one to forget what I've seen and what I haven't. I have friends who constantly get halfway through a movie only to then realize, Oh, I've seen this before! But, like I said, this has never happened to me before. How it happened now, I don't know; but after 15 minutes it all came back to me, and I remembered every bit of it.

I almost turned it off, but decided to watch it again to see how it measured up for me years later. It was about the same as I remember it being: sick, twisted, and somehow tame. It seemed like all of the "disturbing" parts were purposely shot with a distorted, grainy wash, which for me took away from the movie in the same way that the other visual editing effects did. With the exception of The Wall, I've never seen visual effects (e.g. hue, saturation, etc.) I liked. (Is The Wall even considered a movie?) The movie redeemed itself, however, by being thoroughly laced with humor.

Looking forward to The Devil's Rejects! I hope it has the same sense of humor and loses the distracting visual transitions.