I guess it’s about time I do two pointless reviews of two pointless remakes (well, I suppose Ghostbusters is a reboot). Here we go! Get ready for some bitching…
Ghostbusters (2016)
Directed by Paul Feig
Based on Ghostbusters by Ivan Reitman, Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Charles Dance, Michael K. Williams, Chris Hemsworth
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) Following a ghost invasion of Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan band together to stop the otherworldly threat.
My Opinion:
To be fair, this isn’t the worst movie ever. I’m a bit of a snob about remakes & reboots & all that, though, so I’m normally a total bitch about them. Especially when they f*^k with my favorites from the Seventies & Eighties!! And the 1984 Ghostbusters is a classic. However, it’s one of those I’d always seen as a classic in my mind but hadn’t actually rewatched it in years. Until a couple of weeks ago. Um… Will I get in trouble for saying it hasn’t aged well? More than anything, I was surprised at how much I disliked Bill Murray’s “sexist in that 1980’s sort of way that we all just accepted as the norm back then” character and the way he hogged so much screen time. But I do like Murray. I’m also not exactly going to complain about some outdated values in the original as I’d be a total hypocrite since my favorite thing about the reboot was Chris Hemsworth being funny & hot. But mostly hot.
Ghostbusters 2016 was okay. I don’t remember a lot of it now as I find most comedy movies to be throwaway, forgettable entertainment. I’m not saying I don’t like comedy films – I just like a very small number of them as I’ve found so few of them to actually be funny (especially nowadays). But comedy is probably the most divisive genre, followed very closely by horror, so you’re never going to please everyone with a movie like this.
Was this movie so hated because it rebooted a beloved classic or because it starred women? It’s a combination of both. I get really angry myself anytime they try to remake/reboot one of my favorites but I also can’t imagine there having been quite as much uproar if this reboot had starred whatever male comedians happen to be big at the moment. Yes, I’m totally out of touch & can’t even name any… Also, don’t forget that things like Saturday Night Live & a lot of other US TV shows that these comedians often come from aren’t shown outside of America. British hubby often has to remind me of this, even though I’ve now not seen SNL in 15 years, so you have to realize that things like the original Ghostbusters were probably viewed differently outside the US where these actors weren’t already loved. Or hated – It can also work in a movie’s favor to have no prior knowledge of an actor’s work. I don’t know what my point is here?! I think it may be that, in this case, it worked slightly in my favor to not know much about these stars’ TV careers.
I’ve of course seen a few Melissa McCarthy & Kristen Wiig films and I wouldn’t call myself a fan of either of them. Wiig is a bit “meh” for me while I hated McCarthy at first but she’s kind of grown on me thanks to times when she’s been a little less “outrageous”. Okay okay – and thanks to her lip sync battle on Jimmy Fallon where she did Colors Of The Wind. My kid is obsessed with that – I’ve probably seen that YouTube video 20 times. That was funny. She may be growing on me but I still won’t be watching shit like Spy, etc. Wiig & McCarthy were both perfectly fine in this film, probably since they were more subdued. I know almost nothing about Kate McKinnon & Leslie Jones and I found them fairly funny as well. Especially McKinnon, who I have seen in some SNL clips online. We do at least get to see some YouTube clips! Oh, and I love McCarthy as Sean Spicer.
Okay, I’m bored with this review. I didn’t hate this movie but it’s not “good” and is still just another completely pointless reboot. I think I’m just annoyed with society in general these days. I love Twitter but some days I go on there and think “What the FUCK is wrong with people?!?!?!” and wish we could go back to a time when we weren’t exposed to so much disgusting hatred on a daily basis. I mean, we knew lots of people were assholes in the Eighties but they didn’t provide us daily written proof. My point is this: this movie is a bit sucky & pointless but the anger was over the top. My further point is this: Bridesmaids has a 6.8 IMDb rating & The Hangover has a 7.8. I don’t like either movie as that sort of silly, gross-out comedy isn’t my type of thing. However, they’re both good examples of that specific genre and are very similar. So why is one a whole point higher than the other?! Hmm. I wonder. Especially as, if I had to say which is the better written film of the two and if I was forced to admit which one made me laugh a tiny bit, Bridesmaids wins hands down in both cases. So… Huh? Therefore, I’m giving Ghostbusters a point more than it deserves because 1) I think it’s been rated slightly too low overall because it starred women so, fuck it, I’ll up it a bit and 2) Chris Hemsworth in glasses is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
My Rating: 6/10
**Also, I freaking loved Freaks And Geeks so guess I can’t hate Paul Feig too much…..
Poltergeist (2015)
Directed by Gil Kenan
Based on Poltergeist by Tobe Hooper & Steven Spielberg
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, Jane Adams
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces must come together to rescue their youngest daughter after the apparitions take her captive.
My Opinion:
These were meant to be two quickie reviews but then I rambled on about Ghostbusters for ages so I’ll keep this quick: Poltergeist (2015) just plain sucks. No, it probably doesn’t help that I love the original Poltergeist (more than the original Ghostbusters) but, holy shit – let’s just take an absolute horror classic and water it down and make it boring as shit and just plain suck the fucking soul out of it!
This movie adds absolutely nothing new to the original. It’s just another standard, run-of-the-mill, predictable & forgettable PG-13 horror. And with a fucking weird final scene that I think is meant to be funny but feels totally tacked on & out of place. Just…. No. NO. Just stop. Just stop, Hollywood. Come up with some original fucking ideas. AND ALL OF US! STOP! We need to stop encouraging this shit. They keep making this shit because it makes money. We’re to blame! Oh, that’s right – Society sucks now. Fuck it! We deserve nothing better than Poltergeist (2015). Hell, it’s better than we deserve. We deserve to be forced to watch Battlefield Earth with our eyes propped open Clockwork-Orange-style until the day we all finally destroy each other.
My Rating: 4/10
**I’ve never actually seen Battlefield Earth. Also, if you want to see a great Sam Rockwell in something good, watch The Way Way Back. NOT THAT ANY OF US DESERVE IT!
These movies not worthy of full-length reviews are: Repo! The Genetic Opera, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, The Quiet Ones, The Crazies, & The Victim.
I always do this – I plan to do horror movie reviews all of October then get bored halfway through. Unfortunately, I’ve watched a lot of bad movies in preparation this year and don’t have enough to say about them to do full reviews. So, I’m doing the worst five all together (leaving me with nothing to review the final week of October, unless I get time to watch some more. Oops!). This is because I only do movies I can watch on TV or Netflix so maybe next year I’ll actually spend out on some decent older films instead of reviewing whatever crap happens to be available to me at no extra cost.
Here we go! I’ll do these from “best” to worst (to be fair, the first one isn’t actually bad – it’s better than both Mama & The Sacrament, which I did review in full)…
The Crazies (2010)
Directed by Breck Eisner
Based on The Crazies by George A. Romero
Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The Crazies takes place in the fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Pierce County, Iowa, “friendliest place on Earth,” whose town water supply is accidentally infected with the “Trixie” virus. After an incubation period of 48 hours, this virus gradually transforms the mental state of the infected into that of cold, calculating, depraved, bloodthirsty killers, who then prey on family and neighbors alike.
My Opinion:
Sorry lovers of The Crazies – I just don’t have much to say about this one although I did think it was pretty decent for a modern horror movie & can see why it has its fans. I love Romero’s zombie films so did try to watch the original of this one years ago. I don’t remember much now but it started out very slow and, for whatever reason, I never finished it. It was no Dead film! I’ll give it another try if it pops up on the Horror Channel or something as I do like the concept of a virus making people go crazy. So… it’s not a lot different from the zombie thing anyway. This remake is really just 28 Days Later but not as good.
As you can see by that picture, this one is pretty bloody. It was a bit too violent for my taste (I hated one bit with a pitchfork but found that scene pretty tense so I guess it did its job in that regard). I thought the movie almost got the balance right, though, in focusing on a small set of characters in small-town-Midwest-America and making us like them in between scenes of pitchfork nastiness. I’m always kind of fond of movies set in small-town-Midwest-America as I can still relate to that having grown up in a town so similar to this movie’s Ogden Marsh. I’m not sure why I didn’t like The Crazies more than I did as it had the perfect set-up (for me) and, at first, seemed like the type of movie I was really going to enjoy. Had they focused on the character development a little more and the violence a little less, I’d have rated this more highly. Plus, there’s a big explosion at one point that looked so dodgy that I couldn’t help but laugh even though I don’t normally notice that kind of thing.
I think I was just too distracted while watching this because, like with most movies I watch at home these days, I’m sure I was getting a blog post ready while it was on as I don’t have time to do just one or the other. That’s why I’ll be cutting way back on my number of posts once October is over – I want to enjoy movies again when I actually make the time to watch them. Sorry for the little tangent but I’m just trying to explain why I maybe didn’t fully appreciate The Crazies. If I ever watch the original, I may revisit the remake again as well and see if my opinion changes. I wanted to like it more. I’ve certainly seen worse! (Like, the four movies below….).
My Rating: 6/10
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971)
Directed by John Hancock (I wonder what his signature looks like?)
Starring:Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O’Connor, Gretchen Corbett, Alan Manson, Mariclare Costello
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.
My Opinion:
Let’s bore Jessica to death by making her watch this movie. Apparently this is a cult classic? Well, that’s said about lots of old horror movies so I don’t know if that’s true or not. Don’t get me wrong – there are elements of this movie that I did like and I’d always choose to watch some old moody & atmospheric 70’s horror movie like this, bad clothing and hairstyles and all, over the crap that gets made nowadays. But this one really is just too damn boring, even for an older person like me who has a fair bit of patience and can appreciate a slow build-up. I thought nothing was ever going to happen in this thing. Luckily, the last twenty minutes or so are pretty good. Well, compared to the rest of the film anyway. Or maybe I was just happy that something finally happened?!
So, Jessica is nuts and her husband moves her to a secluded farmhouse to recover after she’s been released from the hospital. But all this weird stuff starts happening and, through Jessica’s rather annoying thoughts (which we can hear out loud during the whole movie), we don’t know whether she’s once again going mad, if her husband and all the creepy locals are playing games and trying to drive her insane, or if there really is some ghostly shit going on. Jessica becomes obsessed with an old photograph in the farmhouse showing the family who once lived there & is told by the local antiques dealer that the young woman in the photo drowned and that she now haunts the area as a vampire.
So what’s really going on?!?! I have no idea because I lost interest! Which is too bad since this movie was almost cool at the end – it had a real Rosemary’s Baby feel for a few minutes there with some eerie old small town locals (in that picture up there). Well, I suppose that’s an insult to the far superior Rosemary’s Baby. If you really REALLY love low-budget 70’s horror that’s more about mood & atmosphere than actual gore & violence, you might like this okay. It’s the type of thing I normally like but this one just didn’t work for me. It probably didn’t help that Jessica was annoying as hell.
My Rating: 5/10
The Quiet Ones (2014)
Directed by John Pogue
Starring: Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke, Erin Richards
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The Quiet Ones is a 2014 British supernatural horror starring Jared Harris as a college professor attempting to prove poltergeists are manifestations of the human psyche and not supernatural beings. The film is loosely based on the Philip experiment, a 1972 parapsychology experiment conducted in Toronto.
My Opinion:
Good lord – this was as boring as Let’s Scare Jessica To Death! But this one doesn’t have the advantage of actually being made in the Seventies like that one (although it’s set in 1970-something), so therefore it’s not groovy in any way. Fake Seventies grooviness just doesn’t work in the same way – American Hustle is proof of that! This is just a boring movie made in 2014 in which the characters wear ugly clothes & listen to Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize over & over. (Although I’m not gonna lie – I totally like that song because I’m old & thoroughly uncool).
So there’s paranormal stuff and experiments on a crazy girl with a doll and Slade and the chick I couldn’t stand in Gotham (Barbara) which I stopped watching along with most every TV series I’ve attempted to watch in the last five years and, hey, the crazy girl with the doll is the girl in Me And Earl And The Dying Girl which I kind of wanted to go see but couldn’t talk the hubby into and my god they play that Slade song a lot in this (just in case you forgot it was 1970-something!!!) and the Me And Earl’s Dying Girl spits a lot of black shit out and most everyone gets killed and I really was paying no attention by the end and was questioning why I watch shit like this just to have something to “review” in October.
My Rating: 4/10
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Based on The Necromerchant’s Debt by Terrance Zdunich & Darren Smith
Starring: Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Ogre, Terrance Zdunich
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A worldwide epidemic encourages a biotech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.
My Opinion:
What the fuck? No, seriously – what the fuck?!? No, really – can someone explain this thing to me?? I’d never even heard of this one until someone mentioned it somewhere on my blog recently (I don’t know who or where but I think they said something favorable about this movie. Here’s hoping whoever it was doesn’t read my review. If whoever you are is reading this, I apologize). 😉 Because I hated this stupid piece of shit!!!!!!!
That’s Sarah Fucking Brightman of, like, famous musicals fame & shit. In this fucking movie! WTF?
So this was some actual opera several years before the movie, I guess. I didn’t do much research into it as I disliked the movie so much but, as far as I can tell, this has a following in the same way that The Rocky Horror Picture Show does?? I saw plenty of cosplay photos when looking up images for this post. Okay, fine – I can understand that. This movie is clearly about “image” and I can see why girls would want to dress up as Brightman’s Blind Mag or Shilo, the movie’s young heroine:
According to Wikipedia, this movie is a “splatterpunk, rock opera, musical comedy, horror film“. Splatterpunk?? I’d not heard that phrase before but it sounds like the perfect way to describe this one. Splatter indeed! Of these five movies, this one is the goriest & most blood-splattered by far. As you can see from the poster, it’s from the producers of Saw. Barf! I hate the Saw films (well, the first was okay). I didn’t know this before sticking the movie on when I saw it was on the Horror Channel. Just like I didn’t know that Paris Hilton had a big role in this. Paris fucking Hilton! She plays a spoiled rich bitch addicted to plastic surgery. At least her face falls off:
I think what annoyed me so much is that this movie sounded kind of cool and I was excited when I saw that I’d be able to watch it. And it started out okay and had the potential to be a bit of fun. Plus the repo man himself looked pretty rad:
This movie is a Goth Sado-Masochist’s wet dream. If that’s your sort of thing, rush out and watch this movie immediately. No, really – you’ll love it! I’m not being a smart ass – I totally understand why this movie has a fan base. That’s why I’ve included all the pictures as it’ll give you an idea of what this movie is like. But, goddamn, the movie is a fucking mess. It’s just really bad. It looks good, yes! The visuals and the costumes and the set and the comic book imagery scattered throughout the film are all pretty impressive but they don’t make up for the godawful acting or the fact that half the actors can’t sing for shit (not that it really matters with such unmemorable, mediocre songs). Plus, the constant singing with the constant, obnoxious, “heavy metal” guitar noise drove me mad. MAD! I wanted to repo the cast’s fucking vocal chords!
Hey, though, Anthony Head is in this monstrosity. Remember when he had that “coffee romance” over a series of several Taster’s Choice commercials? I loved those! I always thought they should do more commercials that told a story like those. And I found out a few years ago that the woman in those commercials is Alice Eve’s mother. “Alice Eve hot” is one of my top search terms so, awesome, I just managed to mention her again in a wonderfully obscure & roundabout way!
Anyway, those Taster’s Choice commercials were a million times better than Repo! The Genetic Opera. I think the main problem is that this movie tries too damn hard and ends up feeling completely forced, desperate, and pathetic. Basically, this movie is a 40-year-old stripper. Get off the damn pole and look for a new career! Speaking of strippers, let’s move onto the worst movie I’ve watched in the three-year history of my blog…
My Rating: 3/10
The Victim (2011)
Directed, written by & starring Michael Biehn
Starring: Michael Biehn, Jennifer Blanc, Ryan Honey, Denny Kirkwood, Danielle Harris
Plot Synopsis: (via me) The slutty brunette stripper (who we find out in flashbacks is actually a sweet slutty brunette stripper), gets killed. Michael Biehn fucks the blonde stripper. I don’t know what happens after that as I only saw the first half of this movie & that was more than enough for me.
My Opinion:
I’ve mentioned my love for Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese several times on this blog. So, one day, Filmnerdblog’s Laura tweeted me about a movie on The Horror Channel that was directed by, written by, and starring my beloved Kyle Reese. Er. Um. Ugh. (Do you think there’s any chance that Michael Biehn might read this?? I better keep it short as I actually still find him pretty hot).
Two skanky strippers pick up these two guys (cops if I remember correctly – I can’t be bothered to verify). They go into the woods and the fucking commences. The cute one (Danielle Harris – she’ll be very well known to horror fans. What are you doing in this, Danielle?!?) lets one of the disgusting dudes screw her Game-Of-Thrones-Style (from behind like a dog) while she looks bored & says things like “Why don’t you just come already?”. Charming. So he snaps her neck. Do strippers know how to pick ’em or what? The blonde stripper gets away & ends up at Michael Biehn’s house in the middle of the woods. He’s a hot old recluse. They screw & she says something along the lines of “you may be 54 but you don’t fuck like you’re 54″ (or whatever age he was in this). Really? Oh, Michael Biehn… You were so damn sexy as Kyle Reese but I really question your writing skills.
Anyway, one of the two guys (the actual killer or the other guy – I don’t remember) ends up at Biehn’s house & Biehn ties him up and starts to torture him a bit. At this point I turned it off as I couldn’t be bothered with it anymore. I did, however, plan to finish it another night (while writing a blog post as it played in the background). But when I went to play the recording, it had disappeared off the box! I was devastated! And by “devastated”, I mean “relieved”. I’ve forced myself to finish every single movie I’ve started since I began this blog. It’s, like, my duty as one of a million shitty blog writers! I’ll now never know how this sad stripper tale ends or be able to see more cheesy flashbacks of the two strippers having a girly chat to prove that they’re actually “nice, sweet strippers” who don’t deserve to have their necks broken. Okay, I could read about the ending online but I’m happy to let the rest of the film forever remain a mystery.
Starring:
Isaac Hempstead-Wright
Elle Fanning
Ben Kingsley
Toni Collette
Jared Harris
Simon Pegg
Nick Frost
Richard Ayoade
Tracy Morgan
Production company: Laika
Running time: 96 minutes
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The film tells the story of an orphaned boy named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) who was raised by underground cave-dwelling trash collecting trolls called the Boxtrolls. The Boxtrolls are targeted by an evil exterminator named Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) and Eggs has to save his family from Snatcher.
My Opinion:
I’ll get straight to the point: I didn’t enjoy this one. At all. I really really wanted to! I thought it looked very promising. Last Halloween, I watched and reviewed ParaNorman and I liked that one a lot. However, I also fell asleep halfway through Coraline YEARS ago and never bothered to finish it, so… I guess that’s only 1 out of 3 Laika films I’ve liked so far. Hmm.
I’ll give The Boxtrolls this: the stop-motion animation is amazing! I can’t fault that in the slightest. I also really liked the overall look & style of the movie. What I didn’t like, however, were the characters or the story so I really couldn’t buy into it all despite the boxtrolls themselves being pretty likeable. Unfortunately, they weren’t IN the movie enough. There was far more focus on the human characters than I was expecting and I got very bored when the boxtrolls weren’t onscreen. I could kind of take or leave the main boy in it (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) but I found the girl (Elle Fanning) quite annoying, especially her voice which I think just didn’t work for the character. Unfortunately, the rest of the human characters were even worse (although I suppose the baddie, Ben Kingsley, is at least a very memorable character). Seriously – The Boxtrolls needed more boxtrolls! I liked them just fine. Although I do this ALL the time when I watch a movie at home, I never do this when I go to the cinema: I fell asleep off & on somewhere in the middle of this thing when it was just the annoying human characters onscreen. Probably not a good sign… 😉
I’m not going to ramble on about this one. Is it bad? No. It just wasn’t for me. If you think it’s your type of thing or that your kids will like it, don’t let me talk you out of going to it. My hubby liked it FAR more than I did. The five-year-old with us also seemed to like it okay, so…. Maybe it IS just me! The movie is an odd one. As for the age it’s suitable for, it’s certainly not as scary as ParaNorman or Coraline, which I would never let a five-year-old watch. This one is aimed younger than those but I’d say kids would have to be six or seven for the most part to actually appreciate it and the main bad guy is probably far too scary for those under five or so. As always, though, every kid is different.
Super Short Summary:
I just didn’t like this one. Sorry! Giving it a lower rating would be unfair, however, as I know it’s not “bad”. Based on ParaNorman, I’d still watch another film made by Laika. Awesome stop-motion animation, at the very least!
Cinema Parrot Disco 