Frozen (2010), Dig Two Graves, Cargo & Jug Face Movie Reviews

Here are three reposts of short horror reviews I did and one new review of a truly dreadful film that I watched over the weekend.

Frozen (2010)

Directed & Written by Adam Green

Starring: Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Three skiers stranded on a chairlift are forced to make life-or-death choices, which prove more perilous than staying put and freezing to death.

My Brief Opinion:

Not the Anna & Elsa Frozen! I didn’t mind this horror film even though it’s a bit ridiculous. Three annoying twenty-somethings are left stranded on a ski chairlift when the resort shuts down for a week (or however long). That’s it. That’s the story. Actually, it ended up being okay and we got to know and like these characters a little. Well, they ended up far less annoying than they were at first at least. They do stupid shit but, to be honest, I’m not sure what I’d do in the same situation. Probably freeze to death. My rating is maybe a little harsh but it did get a bit too silly (and gross) and slightly boring at times. At least it’s far better than that horror movie where three twat twenty-somethings are trapped in an ATM booth thingy by some psychotic killer (in the imaginatively-titled ATM).

My Rating: 5.5/10

Dig Two Graves (2014)

Directed by Hunter Adams

Starring: Ted Levine, Samantha Isler, Danny Goldring, Troy Ruptash

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
After her brother’s tragic death a young girl meets three men who claim they can bring her brother back to life.

My Brief Opinion:

Why do I occasionally watch random movies on Netflix that I’ve never heard of?? Well, I luck out sometimes – I thought Circle was fantastic. But the random ones in the horror genre are always shit. I’ll say that the acting in this was decent, though. Far better than the story itself, which didn’t hold my interest. Overall, it was yet another modern horror that was a waste of my time but it’s probably not as “bad” as my rating suggests. It showed some promise. It wasn’t as dumb as most the horrors that get a full cinema release. It was just dull.

My Rating: 4.5/10

Cargo (2017)

Directed by Ben Howling & Yolanda Ramke

Starring: Martin Freeman, Anthony Hayes, Caren Pistorius

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)

After an epidemic spreads all over Australia, a father searches for someone willing to protect his daughter.

My Brief Opinion:

Loved this movie’s concept and thought the short film it’s based on was pretty great. Like Lights Out, however, I thought the longer format didn’t really work. Sometimes less is more! The movie is okay and it’s still a very good concept but I found it a little boring (and I fell asleep for a while in the middle of it – don’t tell hubby because I can’t be bothered to watch what I missed). It’s nice, though, that they’re still somehow finding ways to make zombie movies that feel original! Watch it if you want a decent zombie film that’s more about drama & family and less about blood & guts but PLEASE watch the short film first.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Jug Face (aka The Pit) (2013)

Directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle

Starring: Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter, Larry Fessenden, Sean Young, Daniel Manche, Michael G. Crandall

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The story follows a teen (Carter), who is pregnant with her brother’s child and tries to escape from a backwoods community, only to discover that she must sacrifice herself to a creature in a pit.

My Brief Opinion:

Wow. I have a new contender for “worst movie I’ve seen since starting this blog”. I remember a couple of bloggers reviewing this a few years ago & really liking it so I’ve been wanting to see it ever since. I liked the sound of the synopsis and that above poster made it look like it could be interesting. I’ve rated this movie an extra half point for originality since I always complain that nothing feels original anymore and the concept for this film felt fairly unique. Oh, and I liked the “jug faces” that got made – they were cheesy as fuck. In the story, one of these backwoods rednecks makes “jugs” while in a sort of fugue. They end up looking like the face of someone in the community and that person is then sacrificed to “the pit”, which the community believes has healing powers. I don’t know how the hell they knew who was meant to be sacrificed – the jugs never looked like anyone in this stupid movie.

The biggest problem with this movie is the thing that always annoys me the most: every single character is extremely hateful. Well, the guy who makes the jugs is almost okay but the main girl is fucking awful. And her mother! Oh my god! I knew I was probably in for trouble when the only name I recognized in the beginning credits was Sean Young. She plays the mother and she’s waaaaaay too interested in her daughter’s vagina. Yeah, you read that right. So was the brother, as he gets his sister pregnant. The brother was also a complete asshole. I wanted the entire community to be sacrificed to the pit. I thought, after having to endure these dreadful characters, maybe we’d at least get to see some creature in the pit or something. Nope. Nothing. There’s one cheesy looking ghost of a previous sacrifice but that’s it. Nothing scary, no tension, hateful characters, incest, and funny looking jugs. Just watch M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village if you want to watch a backwards community living in the woods. That’s an absolute masterpiece compared to this. Yes, I’ve decided that this is the worst movie I’ve seen in my six-year blog history.

My Rating: 1.5/10

Room (2015) Review

Room (2015)

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson

Based on Room by Emma Donoghue

Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers, William H. Macy

Plot Synopsis:
I’m not putting a synopsis in this time. I, like most everyone who has seen this movie, knew exactly what it was about before going to it. My hubby didn’t know a thing, though, and I think it helped – he thought it was fantastic. If you somehow still know nothing about this movie, keep it that way before watching it. My review will be as spoiler-free as possible.

My Opinion:

This film has finally come out in the UK (along with all the other big Oscar nominees) so, therefore, I’ll be considering it a 2016 movie when I do my year-end lists in December. Then half the bloggers will go “that’s a 2015 movie!”. So annoying. 😉 I know I’ll be having to address comments like that once again, though, because I know already that Room will still easily be in my 2016 Top Ten by the end of December. It’s so good.

As I said when I didn’t include a plot synopsis, I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible but this won’t be an easy film to discuss without giving any idea what it’s about (the pictures will be a clue as well but I won’t include many). It’s one I’d highly recommend to any fellow movie bloggers who still haven’t seen it as it’s the exact sort of movie that us (often misunderstood!) cinephiles can truly appreciate. It doesn’t assume its audience isn’t smart enough to fill in some of the blanks and it leaves just enough not fully explained and/or explored, leaving the audience to think about the movie afterwards and to wonder how they may behave in similar circumstances (as crazy as it may seem, it is a real thing that happens).

This movie may also be a “drama” but it’s not one that plays up to that fact. There are no over-the-top melodramatic moments that feel fake or contrived, which is something that drives me nuts about a lot of films. The characters feel like very real people who happen to be in a situation that most of us can, luckily, not even begin to imagine. I know this was a book but it’s one that I wasn’t at all aware of until now. After the film, I looked it up to make sure it’s up for best adapted screenplay (which it is – I was happy to see that). That’s when I noticed that the novel’s author also wrote the screenplay. Well, she did a fantastic job so I now really want to check out the book as well. I think a novel’s author should also write the screenplay more often if this is the kind of result.

I think one sign of a really good film is how much it gets people talking about it afterwards. My husband & I discussed it for a pretty long time. We go to quite a lot of movies but, most of the time, we have very little to say. Well, we’re big movie fans so we perhaps don’t really count anyway – we discuss movies more than the casual cinema-goers. But a lot of the time I’ll come out of a movie and, if people are even discussing the film at all, they never say much more than “that was good” or “that was bad”. This time there was a woman who clearly wanted to discuss it with everyone who walked by. I thought it was quite cool to see that for a change! She asked people if they’d just seen Room and said how fantastic the kid was and that she’d not felt anything like that for a kid in a movie since Kramer Vs Kramer and The Champ (oh, yes! a Ricky Schroder mention in 2016! made my day!!). As we left, I saw that she’d gone over to discuss the movie with those working in the cinema. It was just great to see such public enthusiasm for a film that so genuinely deserves a lot of praise.

Onto the acting (as mentioned by the lady at the cinema)… The performances in Room are superb – not only from Brie Larson (who very much deserves that Oscar nomination) but especially from the young Jacob Tremblay. Wow. The cinema lady is partly right – it’s up there with Ricky Schroder’s tearfest in The Champ in a way. However, it’s a much more understated & more “mature” performance than Schroder’s. It does make me wonder how you get such an outstanding performance from a kid so young. I assume some of the credit must also go to the director? So I’m very glad that he’s also up for the best director Oscar. It’s great when small films such as this one do get some recognition: It’s nominated for Best Film, Best Actress, Best Director & Best Adapted Screenplay. Excellent! But I’m not stupid – I don’t think it’ll get anything other than, most probably, Best Actress (I really wish Tremblay was up for Best Actor too, though – the Academy so rarely likes to nominate kids. What a shame).

The little films like this never win much, though. But hopefully the big nominations will at least get this film watched by people who otherwise may have never even heard of it. It’s a film that deserves to be seen and should be seen. Room is only in its second week of release in the UK and I’ve only just managed to catch it (on a tiny screen where my local cinema shoves all the indie films that no one wants to watch, which means it’s unlikely to be showing anymore beyond this week). Why don’t people go to movies like Room? It makes me sad in a way, which is why I enjoyed hearing that woman talking so excitedly about it after seeing it. This is the kind of film that I want to experience more often. Yes, it’s a difficult subject matter but it’s handled respectfully and the film is very well written with characters who are so believably portrayed. And Jacob Tremblay’s character may just make you want to look at life in a whole different light. Only the best movies can do that.

My Rating: 9/10