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Action & Thriller Fantasy & Sci-fi Horror Movie Reviews

Let Me In – Quite Possibly The Greatest Vampire Love Story Of All

“Let Me In” is not a typical vampire movie, quite possibly something you have not seen before.  That is if you have not watched the original Swedish film “Let The Right One In (2008)”.  We can debate if this is a horror film or more like a thriller later.  For the film characters that are of 12 years of age, “Let Me In” is more mature than any other vampire flicks in recent years.  A vampire romance story does not have to have cliché dialogs.  And “Romeo and Juliet” kind of fantasy is just as timeless.

But don’t let me mislead you.  This movie does have tons of creepy moments, many may not be of supernatural in nature.  A little bit of blood and gore.  Innocent dies.  The theme is dark, with zero morale compass.  It is however emotionally griping.  And it also has a great thriller storyline.  While you may be able to guess more or less where the story is heading, the story is still full of intense yet subtle moments that something may go wrong.

A little boy Owen lives with his mother undergoing a divorce with his father.  In school, Owen gets bullied often.  At home, since his mother is drunk most of the time, he has spend much of his evening time observing his neighbors with his telescope at home, or spending time in the courtyard covered in snow.  One day, a young girl moves into the building.  Soon, the two become friends.  That begins the story of a human boy and a vampire girl.  Kodi and Chloë perform well in this movie.  “Let Me In” does not employ a lot of special effects.  It does not have to.  Quite a few key scenes are shot in the perspective of one character leaving the rest up to the audience’s imagination, which is more powerful that laying out the scenes and throwing in more special effects in my opinion.

I am a fan of the role-playing game “Vampire: The Masquerade”.  Not all vampires have to be charming and glamorous.  “Let Me In” does it in style with a rather unglamorous vampire.  Below is a quote from Stephen King.

LET ME IN is a genre-busting triumph.  Not just a horror film, but the best American horror film in the last 20 years.  Whether you’re a teenager or a film-lover in your 50’s, you’ll be knocked out.  Rush to it now.  You can thank me later.

Personally, I think “Let Me In” is more a thriller than a horror.  Cynthia has zero tolerance to Asian horror movies but she can take “Let Me In” just fine.  Perhaps American horror is not meant to be scary but rather, creepy?  This movie should appeal to both non-horror movie goers (unless you faint seeing blood … I know one of my friend does) as well as to horror movie fans.

“Let Me In” will be released in Singapore on Dec 9.  On a side note, Cynthia and I have attended the movie preview session at Shaw Preview Theatre.  It was quite an experience as it was our first time at that venue.

Categories
Horror Movie Reviews

The Blood Pledge – Horror Not For Horror’s Sake, Good Stuff!

Once in a while, I am handed a free pass to do something I love to do in the evening, alone.  Last Friday, Cynthia has to attend a non-work related workshop.  The first thing I did, like in the past, was to pick a horror film to watch, alone.

“The Blood Pledge” is a Korean horror movie.  I have watched horror films mainly from Spain, Thailand, Japan, and Indonesia.  “The Blood Pledge” is quite possibly the first horror movie I have watched in Korean.  And I like it.  I like this movie because it is horror not for horror’s sake.  Don’t get me wrong.  Some scenes are pretty scary.  Hair standing moments filmed in broad daylight, which I think is tougher to do then scaring people in low light.  Majority of the scenes tell a good drama, in Korean style.  Some scenes are pretty moving.  Typically, the characters in a horror movie are not eye pleasing and the scene gets grosser and grosser towards the end.  The characters in “The Blood Pledge”, except the ghosts of course, are eye candies.  Towards the end, I thought I was watching a typical Korean drama.  A nice surprise it was.

Back to the story, there are four girls pledged to, I suppose, die together.  And then one girl mysteriously dies.  The sister of the deceased sets out to seek the truth while the ghost sets out to seek what appears as vengeance.  As the story unfolds, the motive gets more and more twisted.  Not an ending as I would expect it to be.  My only complain is the censorship in Singapore.  It is ridiculous.  What do you expect out of a horror film?  Of course there are disturbing scenes.  I felt as though I was robbed out of the best moments in the film.

One friend of mine told me that there are previous installments prior to “The Blood Pledge”.  Perhaps I shall source them out, outside Singapore of course.  Stupid censorship, sigh.

Categories
Foreign Horror Movie Reviews

[●REC]² – The Spanish Horror Continues, Not As Shocking As The First One

One of the many good reasons to keep a diary is that you can relive a fragment of your past emotion on any given day.  Like today.  Reading what I wrote after watching [●REC] gives me chill.  I did not remember that the first episode was that scary.  Comparatively speaking, the sequel is less scary, the camera still shakes but not that much, and for sure, my face did not turn pale and my hands did not turn cold after watching [●REC]², alone.

When I watched [●REC] one and a half years ago, I have just started learning Spanish.  Just completed the first 10 lessons as my online diary says (another good reason to keep a diary – for future reference).  Back then, I could only recognize a very few basic Spanish words spoken on screen.  Now that I am three months short of reaching a two years of Spanish learning journey, I could recognize a few more words when watching [●REC]².  The feeling is exhilarating as I have a low expectation on what I can gain from this linguistic journey.  Language, is not my strength.  A few more words and phrases I can make out?  I am happy.  Happy to see progress.

Perhaps this time I am smarter.  I chosen a seat not too close to the screen.  The camera still shakes, but it was not as bad.  Perhaps the camera did not shake as bad to start with.  This sequel starts from where the previous episode has left off.  Instead of a team of firemen and a TV presenter, we have the SWAT team and a health officer entering the same building to investigate the situation.  First episode is rich in suspense while in this episode, more focus is on the story development.  After all, the audience more or less knows what is going to happen, when and where the abomination is going to jump at the team.

While I would not necessarily classified this as a true horror – no one jumped or screamed inside the theater, fans of [●REC] should not give this a miss.  The way the story is told is different.  Timeline is shifted back and fro and the focus of the group gets alternated as well.  More than one camera is used to tell the story.  And there are some nice twists to the overarching story too.

For sure, there will be a third episode.  And I am waiting with anticipation.

Categories
Foreign Horror Movie Reviews

Darah – Made In Indonesia

Blood, a lot of blood!

Last Monday was significant in a few ways.  I have decided to be a vegetarian if the circumstances allow.  Something like a social meat eater.  Let’s see how long it will last.  F1 has one more race to go but the driver and constructor’s champion titles have already been concluded.  Cynthia was out-of-town and with my new found freedom, I picked a horror movie to watch.

Strictly speaking, this Indonesian production “Darah” (means blood in Malay) is not a horror film.  More like a thriller with lots and lots of blood.  I can imagine my buddy Mark would faint halfway through the show.  While some friends of mine have rightfully pointed out that there are better horror films than this (and many others would not want to watch this genre), my motivation of watching “Darah” was as follows:

  1. I love watching a horror film in a theater.  I am often entertained by the atmosphere of pockets of audience screaming-out-loud.
  2. I always enjoy watching an Indonesian production that makes it to the International market.  I have studied the language before and it is fun trying to understand the dialogs natively.

First half an hour of “Darah” is devoted to the character development of six friends – guys and girls and I was thinking: where is the blood?  Second half an hour sees the introduction of the scary family of Dara the mother, Adam and Maya – her scary son and her hot daughter in red, and a rather fat butcher who reminds me of a pedophile or a pervert.  OK, I began to see blood.  The last half an hour is filled with accentuated chopping and dismemberment, blood, more blood, and extremely more blood in a chaotic mindless way.  Oh my.  There was only one color I saw: red.

While one may argue that “Darah” lacks the storyline quality, I do find a story built with a hint of folklore better than just another ghost story in a refreshing way.  At the beginning of the movie, there is an argument of a sister blaming her brother over the death of their parents.  Something to do with an unfortunate decision that the brother has made.  That ties in nicely to the ending of the show, in my opinion, when the sister has realized what a terrible mistake she has made.  Also, there was an opening scene of pieces of steak cooked over charcoal fire somewhere in the city of Bandung.  That metaphor has morphed into something pretty gruesome as the story unfolds.  And what I really appreciate is how artistic this film is created.  I am intrigued by the quality of work too.

My only complain is the censorship.  Even with a M18 rating, there are quite a few scenes being cut and without those, some parts of the movie seem a bit flat.  What a pity.  Having said that, there are still a lot of blood and gore scenes that may make your stomach churns.  Those scenes didn’t seem to affect me though.  I had minestrone soup and vegetarian pasta in tomato sauce for dinner.

Horror movies, I want more!

Categories
Horror Movie Reviews

[●REC] – A Spanish Horror Film for the Halloween (My Head Still Aches)

For once, I am so glad that none of my female friends can make it for this Spanish horror movie (to my best knowledge, none of my guy friends can take horror films).  Hence, I just need to deal with my own nausea and headache for this extreme horror slash thriller slash shaky camera type of movie.  And I thought I can take this genre well.

Only watch this if pass the following criteria (this part of the review remind me of an old review).

  • You don’t faint when you see blood.
  • You don’t faint when you see a lot of blood.
  • You (think you) can take extreme shaky camera effect mostly throughout the film.
  • You (think you) can take sustained suspense / horror throughout the film.
  • You find most of the horror films are like comedies (I do indeed) and want something different, a challenge perhaps.

“[●REC]” is only a 80 minutes movie, thank God for that.  If it was any longer I would have puked.  My head was aching bad and when Cynthia met me outside, she was surprised at how cold my hands were.  There were a few couples who left the theatre just when the action started.  This is extreme stuff I am telling you.

Ponder upon this.  You watch a comedy expecting a good laugh, yes?  You watch a Korean drama expecting to cry, yes?  And what do you expect when you watch a horror anyway?  Without giving away spoilers (as always), “[●REC]” is a story told entirely from the perspective of a cameraman of a local TV station and an anchor – a lovely young girl by the way.  This couple follows the firemen for an episode of “While You Were Asleep” and something went really wrong in an apartment they visits.

If there is one word to describe “[●REC]”, that would be realism.  “[●REC]” dwarfs the rest of the horror films I have seen.  And I couldn’t help but to have flashback to some of the computer games I have played such as Doom III and Bioshock.  With that level of intensity, I am pretty sure that I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night (sorry Cynthia!).

I read that there is a sequel in the making.  And strange to say, I look forward to watching that.  Happy Halloween!

Categories
Horror I See I Write Movie Reviews

Body #19 – Lack Of Fear Factor But The Crowd Was Awesome!

Body 19

This is not my usual stuffs, I swear. It’s going to be a fun read. I think there are way more girls who can take horror movies than guys. The question is: why?! Amongst all my guy friends, I seem to be the odd one out who truly enjoy watching horror movies. But I can name you quite a number of my female friends who actually enjoy or don’t mind watching this genre of movie. Unfortunately for me, Cynthia belongs to that 1% who can’t take it. Knowing that asking TK would be a waste of time so I have decided to watch “Body #19” alone – like the last time when I watched “Alone” alone.

There was no popcorn flying to my face this time and I did make a mental note that if the dude in front was to hold a box of popcorn, I would shift seat. On my right was a bunch of girls. On my left was a pair of girls. I am telling you, I bet more than 75% of the audience are girls.

What I observe from the crowd is this: most of the audience comes in large groups. Perhaps they need some emotional support? And there are quite a number of people who are on our own. These are usually the quiet ones. The screaming ones usually come from the groups or at times, the pairs.

What I LOVE about watching a horror movie is really the crowd. I observe that more often than not, in a horror movie setting, you bound to find some pockets of audience who chit-chat throughout the movie. I think they are the scared ones and they chit-chat their way just to divert their attention. And you know there are times when something bad is going to happen on the screen – believe it or not – usually there are one or two persons in the crowd who tend to scream ahead of time (or make certain moaning sound). It is incredible how much entertainment value these people provide and it makes the anticipation more real. Then of course, at times the anticipation leads to nothing … and suddenly … BAMP! … a loud sound and most of the audience will jump out of our seats. These effects usually get me and people usually laugh about it after the act. The most disturbing ones are the scenes that get some of the audience screaming out loud continuously.

And that was what happened to at least one guy and one girl in the theatre. One girl behind me screamed so loud and so long in duration that I thought she was going to pass out. At the end of the movie, thanks to the director who gives the audience one last shock, the girl behind me was screaming and choking. I turned around and she didn’t look well at all.

I wonder why.

To me, “Body #19” lacks the fear factor. I was shocked at most 5 times and those blood scenes, or body-part scenes, or ghost scenes really didn’t get me at all. I can imagine if I was watching this with my buddy Mark, he would pass out seeing so much blood on the screen. The storyline of “Body #19” is good though – full of twists and turns. “Body 19” is from the studio that brought us “Shutter” and “Alone”. “Shutter” is a great movie by the way. I personally don’t think “Body #19” is anywhere near.

But still, I love the crowd!

Categories
Horror Movie Reviews

Watching Alone, Alone … Popcorn Flew Onto My Face

Believe it or not, the last time I watched a horror movie was 3 years ago. So hard for me to find movie partners for this sort of movies. Strangely, female colleagues of mine have much higher tolerance to horror movies than guys. Most of the guys either close their eyes most of the time or as though closing their eyes are not good enough, they cover their eyes with their hands. Com’on guys …

I love to watch horror movies. In especially, the Asian ones. I think this is one genre that the Asians can do much, much better than the Western ones. The hair-raising sound effect, flashes of gruesome imagines, the anticipation, and the storyline that induces fear beyond the screen. Think of “The Ring” … and think of “Shutter”.

Yes, I love “Shutter”. And that was the movie I watched 3 years ago. Now, the same pair of directors have collaborated for yet another great horror movie “Alone”. I have been looking for an opportunity to watch “Alone”. Since Cynthia has a farewell party to attend, I messaged Tong Kiat early this morning to see if he could join me. Oh well, I knew jolly well that he is not into horror and he said he would wait for me outside … ha ha ha. I asked my new colleagues if they wished to join me. I have an initial green signal then one of them asked, “English horror”? I replied, “Thai horror”. Oh well …

So I watched “Alone” alone. Although this time round, it is not as spooky as the last time I watched “Shutter” (I love the search function in my own website … ha ha ha … just key in “shutter”), I did coincidentally sit on seat number 7 this time round – same as last time. After a rather long warm-up, “Alone” delivered its first horror moment. Some of the audience screamed. I didn’t. But I was shocked by the “rain of popcorn”. The dude in front (a Westerner I believe) got shocked so much so that he threw his arms backward swinging his box of popcorn to the back row. Dude … lucky I didn’t get the “rain of Coke”.

Now, let’s get back to the review of the movie. I think I like “Shutter” better. “Alone” is part horror part thriller. The concept of “Shutter” is original. Arguably, the storyline of “Alone” – a pair of Siamese twins “Pim” and “Ploy” with one of them dead and another one alive – can be original. But from the fear factor point of view, knowing what the ghost is (duh … the dead Siamese twin of course … and this is not a spoiler as you will get this piece of info right upfront) sort of diminished the surprise factor. And what’s up with Thai actresses?! If Marsha Wattanapanich was to put on more make-up (see picture), “Alone” would have been such a treat. She can indeed be pretty as I saw her on TV doing promotion for this film. Marsha Wattanapanich can marginally act. But for the rest of the cast … I am not too sure.

The above are just some tiny criticisms. Overall, “Alone” is a good horror/thriller movie and it is entertaining as well. I think I did screamed twice and had a few hair-raising moments (literally). Definitely money well spent. At the end of the movie and I looked around, I reckon 60%-70% of the audience were girls (the largest cinema in Cathay Orchard). Com’on guys …

Categories
Horror

Horror Film Of The Year: SHUTTER

Okay, I exaggerated. Mainly because none of my regular movie partners nor my wife is into horror film (except one of my best friend’s wife who is from Hong Kong too) and it is the one horror film I have watched since The Ring, I have to vote Shutter as the horror film of the year.

It all began with a car accident that the main characters ran away from and thereafter, the pictures taken by the photographer contained strange lights and ghosty image. After that, scene after scene, the horror just got better and better. One of my colleagues who sat next to me was screaming all the way while I was laughing all the way. I must be sick or mad.

This movie, in real life, is spooky in some way. There were 7 of us watching a 7pm show at a cinema at the 7th floor. The show has 7 letters and I was sitting at seat number 7. How coincidental can it be??