"Pandorum" has been getting some good reviews. Looks like "The Descent" in space.
Good?
"Ils" ("Them")
A couple is terrorised at home by a gang of hoodies!
Hmm....got rave reviews when it came out, but quite frankly I've seen better French Horror films recently
The main problem is the fact the director seemed reluctant to shout "cut".
Scenes go on for too long, thus mutating the tension initially built up into something approaching tedium.
An effective opening for example loses steam when we spend a good minute with a girl calling out to her missing Mother. On and on she goes...
The same happens with an early driving sequence involving our main woman character.
We know nothing is going to happen to her yet! We all know! The director knows we know as well, surely.
And yet the car is filmed creeping along roads (with a sinister plinky plonky piano score for company) as we wait for her to actually get home and start the film!
The same extended into boredom, where initially we had suspense, problem happens in a sequence where the woman slowly creeps through a (rather bizarre) room hung with dirty plastic sheets. Again, it goes on and on and on.
The couple like to talk, walk and move in slow motion too, as they endlessly gaze into each other's eyes in that cloying and sickly way good looking French couples seem to manage so easily.
And would anyone else like to see a home invasion/avoiding the psychos plot where the house isn't a mansion!?
The terrorised couple have so many rooms, crawl spaces and corridors to creep around in it seems they could live in the same house as the killers and not even meet them!
How about seeing if you can keep the tension and suspense up by setting the film in an average home, made up of a sitting room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom! That would really be clever (and actually far scarier!).
And it goes beyond stupid to think that the couple would do what they do during the final chase as well. Idiots!
And talking of the final chase...where the hell did that gigantic, lit by a few hundred electric lights, underground labyrinth come from!?
It seems to be very close to their house and yet completely unknown to anyone, despite the obviously huge electric bill all those lighted corridors must chalk up.
But there are some effective moments here.
Some of the scare scenes are well done with a nice use of camera angles and sudden reveals.
And the thing that I noticed got the most criticism when the film came out (though the film did not get much and was certainly over-praised) I actually liked.
Many seem to dislike the eventual revealing of who the killers are, as if it makes it an anti-climax. To me though it gave the film it's only real powerful and disturbing aspect.
"Camp Blood II"
Blimey! A large improvement over the first film. Who would have thought?
Not only does the picture quality look much better, especially the colours (Yay! no more yellow people and orange/gold blood) but this time it seems the makers have also added some okay intentional humour (the scuzzy film guys are fun), more action, more nudity (a very nice pair of breasts during the opening of the first film I have to say...but a full frontal shower scene here tops it) and much better and more satisfying deaths and FX.
Though the film still stinks as far as plot and dialogue goes (though the lead actress is doing better here than in the first film, despite still looking shockingly ungainly when running) and you have to wonder how a suspected, judged insane, multiple murderess is allowed out alone, back to the place she supposedly killed, to help make a movie!
But the fact the film shoehorns in lots of verbal plot explanation and footage from the first film at least means you don't actually need to own the crappy first film to watch this. Hooray!
Whereas the deaths in "Camp Blood 1" were nothing but a bit of blood and a machete with a half moon cut out of the blade that was placed over arms and heads, in the sequel we actually have proper FX set-ups.
The deaths are all more violent and gory and even rather nasty.
Sure the effects work is primitive, but it still works, still delivers and it's nice to see some good, on-set, CGI free, old school FX anyway.
Highlights are a messy machete through the mouth/back of the head, a pulpy burnt face, a hacked off hand with spurting stump, a machete through the chest and much general blood spraying.
It's cheap, it's got some bad lines for even worse actors to say, it has a major plot holes, looks cheap (though better) and has many moments of badness that should never have seen the light of day.
And yet i still quite enjoyed it! Unlike the first film.
The sometimes nasty deaths, large body count (also helped by the kills from the first film appearing again), the fun gore FX and an incident packed screenplay were all the positives that the first film never had, and here they help to counteract the many negatives.
Shucks! Give it at least one go, just avoid the first one.