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Reviews
Cloverfield (2008)
Don't watch this without dramamine.
If you get even remotely motion sick, do not go to see this movie. Alternatively, take some dramamine and hope it works for you, because it's basically 80-some minutes of J. J. Abrams pouring his hate on you by getting a camera guy with ADHD to shake the bajeesus out of the screen anytime someone sneezes.
The opening is very slow, and features a bunch of twentysomething partygoers wrapped up in uninteresting dramas, such as two main characters who slept together and the cameraman quasi-stalking a drunk girl. By the time the monster shows up and finally starts killing off the idiots (read: every character in the movie), you've already wasted 20-30 minutes of your life listening to people who were apparently paid to cram as many lines with "dude" in them as they could under a strict time limit. In my opinion, not worth the agony.
Take the monster, ditch the uninteresting cast and nausea-inducing camera work.
Masters of Horror: Pelts (2006)
Bizarre, but entertaining.
Since this episode involves Dario Argento, I'm not going to complain about the unlikelihood of raccoon pelts inspiring muurrrrrder. Pelts is actually pretty entertaining, although that has to be the first time I've ever seen a man nuzzling soft fur to Enya-esquire nature music.
I would have liked to know a bit more about the "mysterious ruins" and the woman who owned the land the raccoons were hunted on -- because honestly, seeing her threaten Meat Loaf with dooooooom was the highlight of the episode for me.
My only complaint is this: Why does every other MOH episode involve titty bars, bare tits, or a combination of the two? Guess they're not going for big female viewership.
Masters of Horror: The Screwfly Solution (2006)
Wryyyyyy?
I'm conflicted about this MOH. On one hand, its original source material was clearly supposed to deal with gender relations and the fears of a sex which ultimately always has to wonder (maybe not so deep down inside) whether that nice, well-mannered fellow buying them a drink might be an axe murderer. On the other, we have gratuitous sex scenes and a nice long look at a titty bar, ostensibly because it's a murder scene. So clearly there's a conflict of interest here.
Ultimately, it's the idiocy of all the characters that really ruined it for me. The wife is a blubbering mess who can't control her bratty daughter, the bratty daughter is obviously pumped so full of faux Spice Girls feminism she thinks that shaking her ass in front of potentially murderous construction workers is a good idea, and the husband ultimately refuses to take a shot that could protect him from the screaming crazies (a shot I'm assuming is some form of chemical castration) because "I'd know if I had psychotic symptoms... right?" Basically, the women are mostly portrayed as screaming hysterics, and men as crazed religious freaks. The only redeeming character is Elliot Gould as Barney, a kindly gay man and the only purveyor of sanity in crazy town -- and he doesn't even have that big a role. Basically, this is like an episode of The Outer Limits -- ignore the fact that all the characters are incompetent idiots, and you might be able to enjoy the underlying idea.