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Reviews
Underground (2011)
Unfinished
Being in the "biz" it was more or less evident to me that this film was unfinished and it's a shame that it was released this way since it had the potential to be a decent B horror flick.
Aside from some unremarkable acting (which is excusable when dealing with low budget horrors) the score and cinematography were competently executed. Make-up and special effects were decent aside from one horrendous CGI shot of snow. Where we get into trouble is in the edit.
An unforgivable number of scenes were disjointed and leaves the audience wondering "what is going on," "where am I now" or "who am I looking at?" I've seen such scenes before in what we call an assembly or rough cut. This is when the editor takes his/her first stab at a complete edit. It's usually after this that the production team gets a clear idea of what scenes need to be re-shot or what extra shots are needed to make the edit work or flow.
For whatever reason (lack of funding, actor availability, location no longer available, etc.) this was clearly not done which makes the film extremely frustrating to follow.
I recommend staying clear of this one. I'm a huge fan of horror films but I ended up fast forwarding the last 10 minutes just to get to the end because my brain got tired of trying to fill in the gaps.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
Unsatisfied
If you're a fan of the Harry Potter books, you may understand director Yates' reasons for many of the scenes in the film but an adaptation of a book should still be its own entity, emphasizing and taking advantage of the strength of film as a visual medium. Staying too true to the book, in my humble opinion, really left me unsatisfied for a number of key scenes.
Yates has done a terrific job in the past Harry Potter films and Deathly Hallows Part 1 was no exception. Extremely well done and well paced, leaving us feeling hopeless and alone. However, in Part 2, many beloved and detested characters alike were too briefly passed over including the Dark Lord himself.
Due to this, the film's final battle seems rushed and anticlimactic. The outcome of poor Remus and Nymphadora are relegated to a 4 second shot of their lifeless bodies. Bellatrix, the most blood-thirsty of all the Death Eaters, was taken out without much fanfare and near comic ease. And Lord Voldemort exchanged, what felt like, no more than 3 clashes with Harry Potter before being reduced to ashes by an altogether different battle.
As one reviewer stated, the final ending at the station gave the film a solid sense of closure and was done splendidly. However, I still walked away feeling truly cheated. A good end to the series but not as great as I would have expected from Yates. I really hope they release an extended version. Five wands out of ten.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Almost a hit
Many factors contributed to the overwhelming success of Blair Witch including marketing, writing, directing and the most crucial aspect, acting. Unfortunately the acting here is sub-par which isn't to say that the leads didn't do their jobs well but on more than one occasion, it felt like a college drama ad-lib class and having just one of those moments, let alone several, destroys any illusion that this is a real documentary. In real life, people talk over each other as they scream and argue. They do not wait for someone to finish speaking. Blair Witch knew and hit this aspect on the mark.
Another real deal breaker was just the immaturity of the lead characters, not to mention any real character development. I honestly got fed up with them both for being both stupid and passive and began rooting for the ghost about halfway through the film. The fact is: no one likes a weak main character in a horror film. The only thing they are good for is fodder for the baddies.
Finally, the pacing of the film was really poor. Sporadic moments of terror and fright that never really felt like anything was building up, especially with so much downtime and extraneous exposition in between the scares.
All in all, a decently creepy low budget film with good effects but substandard writing and unsympathetic, childish characters. C+/B-.
The Thaw (2009)
Slightly entertaining, hardly credible.
Credibility in a horror film isn't something that I usually pay any attention to unless it has to do with the acting, actions or dialogue. I usually leave premise out of it because I know Jason Voorhees, the Candyman or Freddie Kreuger don't really exist. However, when a film harps on about a very real topic like Global Warming throughout the entire film, it subconsciously takes on a realism that is quickly derailed by the incredible beast that it unleashes. A beast that could easily be seen as the dominant species at the time yet shares almost nothing in common with the dominate species of today.
The relatively unknown cast played their parts competently enough but no one shines due to mediocre writing and dialogue but there were numerous times when either the writing or directing was just completely off and full conversations were taking place in areas no sane/intelligent person, let alone a full cast, would stay in.
Realism obviously wasn't an issue for the filmmakers but by harping on about Global Warming and then introducing such a powerful parasite I really had to wonder if this was a true attempt at a Global Warming warning or an Anti-Global Warming film showing how ludicrous the concept is. In either case, I would have rather it was played down ten-fold so I could have at least enjoyed what I could from the film.