Dir: Michael Storey
Haylie Duff, Aaron Ashmore and their pushing-30-but-pretending-to-be-college-age friends take a boat out to a secluded island with no telephones, where they have a delightful holiday in the sun, then go home feeling rejuvenated and serene. What? No, I'm kidding of course! They get picked off one by one in a variety of imaginative ways, courtesy of a black-gloved killer who's lurking in the woods! Hoorah! There's not a high special FX budget sadly, so instead we have snakes in the cupboard, dogs in the hot tub, nails in the jam jar, nailguns in very much the wrong hands, impromptu premature burials and an ice-bucket o' blood. This is all told in flashback while an angry boneheaded detective works with what little he has (one traumatized witness and some sketchy evidence) in order to uncover the killer's identity. The mystery has a couple of holes here and there but it's quite lively and the final twist, while not a surprise, is entertainingly executed. "Fear Island" obviously isn't a great movie but for a made-for-TV teen slasher, someone's really put their all into making it about as good as it can get. It's very tame and daft as a bag of toy monkeys but it's colourful, fast-paced, occasionally even funny. You could do a lot worse for a Sunday afternoon hangover viewing. **1/2
Showing posts with label Dramatic Guy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dramatic Guy. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Solstice (2007)
Dir: David Myrick
Dullness abounds in this horror that blends two of my least favourite fads of the past decade; post-"Scream" teen soap opera horror and post-"Ring" soggy dead girl ghosts. Ugh. In this one, a group of attractive teens (and two of their notably less attractive friends) drive out to a house in the woods to party on the summer solstice (what with pretty much every other significant date on the calendar having been used up in 80s slashers and all). Then strange, scary things start happening! Oh no, wait. That's a lie. TREMENDOUSLY MUNDANE THINGS start happening. A car won't start and the lights flicker. The water is muddy. A girl falls into a small hole and hurts her ankle. A girl breaks a nail. An old man gives them all a watermelon. A local shopkeeper freaks them all out by talking about voodoo. This yawnfest concludes with a denouement that should be tragic but instead feels hilarious because it's so overplayed and absurd. Don't let the presence of Amanda Seyfried or Shawn Ashmore fool you into thinking this is worth watching. *
Dullness abounds in this horror that blends two of my least favourite fads of the past decade; post-"Scream" teen soap opera horror and post-"Ring" soggy dead girl ghosts. Ugh. In this one, a group of attractive teens (and two of their notably less attractive friends) drive out to a house in the woods to party on the summer solstice (what with pretty much every other significant date on the calendar having been used up in 80s slashers and all). Then strange, scary things start happening! Oh no, wait. That's a lie. TREMENDOUSLY MUNDANE THINGS start happening. A car won't start and the lights flicker. The water is muddy. A girl falls into a small hole and hurts her ankle. A girl breaks a nail. An old man gives them all a watermelon. A local shopkeeper freaks them all out by talking about voodoo. This yawnfest concludes with a denouement that should be tragic but instead feels hilarious because it's so overplayed and absurd. Don't let the presence of Amanda Seyfried or Shawn Ashmore fool you into thinking this is worth watching. *
Thursday, 29 December 2011
The Shrine (2010)
Dir: Jon Knautz
A bonehead journalist drags her photographer boyfriend (who could do a whole lot better, all things considered) and her cannon fodder intern on an unsanctioned trip to Poland. They try (badly) to track down a number of American backpackers who've gone missing but instead find a spooky cloud of fog in the forests, a bleach-blonde gym-rat farmer who LOVES TO SHOUT and a statue of the Devil with eyes that cry blood! Yeah! Now we're talking. The Shrine is above average for this kind of horror as it takes a couple of risks - from the three significant tonal shifts in the film to the fact that there's a whole 15 minute section with dialogue entirely in unsubtitled Polish - and they pay off for the most part. The photography is that horrible washed-out blue that's a touchstone for "HORROR!" nowadays but otherwise, this is a zippy, gory little B-feature that'll pass the time on a lazy afternoon. **1/2
A bonehead journalist drags her photographer boyfriend (who could do a whole lot better, all things considered) and her cannon fodder intern on an unsanctioned trip to Poland. They try (badly) to track down a number of American backpackers who've gone missing but instead find a spooky cloud of fog in the forests, a bleach-blonde gym-rat farmer who LOVES TO SHOUT and a statue of the Devil with eyes that cry blood! Yeah! Now we're talking. The Shrine is above average for this kind of horror as it takes a couple of risks - from the three significant tonal shifts in the film to the fact that there's a whole 15 minute section with dialogue entirely in unsubtitled Polish - and they pay off for the most part. The photography is that horrible washed-out blue that's a touchstone for "HORROR!" nowadays but otherwise, this is a zippy, gory little B-feature that'll pass the time on a lazy afternoon. **1/2
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