From now on I have my own review thread. My name is mattiasflgrtll6!

→ in
Tools    





@lenslady Seen The Blues Brothers? Feels like your kind of movie.
Hi Mattias- Yes, I've seen the movie and liked it. The kind of fun movie that lets you ignore the real world, and just roll along with it. The funny thing is, I sort of avoided it for a long time, thinking it would be another Animal House type film. Then someone I worked with kept recommending it to me, so I watched it. Funny, surprisingly strong plot line , there's lively music of course, and lots of character cameos from famous notables ( like James Brown)

Will you be doing a review?


Sorry to get back late to you, been busy for a while.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
Teacher's Pet



John Gannon is a self-taught newspaper editor. He did go to school, but never graduated. He believes the best way to learn about journalism is by hard experience, and that learning it through college is a waste of time. After writing an angry letter to a school, his managing editor gives him the loathsome task of helping the college professor out. Only he thought he wrote to a man, and is embarrassed when he finds out it's a beautiful woman called Erica Stone. Not wanting to admit he's the one who wrote it, he disguises his identity as the eager student Gallagher. Inititally only wanting to show himself as better than her, he (you guessed it) falls in love with her in the process...

This feels like the romantic comedy Billy Wilder never made. The dialogue is very witty and clever, the humor is well-executed at every turn, and the actors all give the characters their own effeminate charm.
Clark Gable takes on a very interesting role. He still plays the classic sneaky gentleman type, but he's not invulnerable. Quite a few times, we see Gannon make an ass of himself and sometimes get upstaged by his love interest/rival.
Which speaking of, Doris Day is just as fantastic as the teacher who gets on Gannon's nerves, but at the same time that's what he loves about her. She's a strong, confident woman that's like right out of a dream. Their repertoire is excellent, to the point where it almost seems like they've worked as a duo for years, but in fact this is their first and only screen effort together.

The story unfolds in a highly engaging manner. While Erica is definitely very impressed by Gallagher's short, but tenseful story aout a street gang-connected murder, she sees more potential in him and asks him to build on it further. You know... like a thinkpiece. Used to only pumping out stories by the minute, he's quite taken aback, never really having thought about the humanitarian element before, just the cold hard facts. I love when he gets annoyed by another worker at the work station when he just like Erica asks why someone committed a certain crime.

Besides the journalism elements, Gannon also has a romantic rival: the young and hunky psychologist Dr. Hugo Pine. He's the textbook definition of Mr. Perfect; always comes up with eloquently presented analyses, knows the answer to everything (even when it's a baseball game), can speak a lot of different languages, has traveled the whole wide world. You can really see Gannon gritting his teeth at this guy. But then just like that, Hugo drunkenly falls down on the ground like Eddie Willis after one too many drinks. And to Gannon's surprise, Erica thought that moment alone was more entertaining than Hugo having all the right answers. It's a great little moment to advance their relationship.

But when she takes him home to her apartment, his entire world falls apart. He finds out that
WARNING: spoilers below
the Pulitzer Price-winning newspaper writer Jonathan Barlow Stone is actually her father. Feeling ashamed of having tricked her all along, he leaves before she has time to get back with the coffee. At a loss of what to do, he surprisingly goes to Hugo Pine for advice. And unlike the cocky guy we saw earlier, he's now tired, sick and groggy. The scene of them talking is one of my favorites in the movie. You see how Hugo isn't so bad after all, and talks to Gannon almost like a friend.
How Gig Young portrays him getting pained by the littlest loud noise and feeling in pain is also very funny. The way he moves and talks immediately brings Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple to mind.
WARNING: spoilers below
Gannon's talk about how worthless he is, good at absolutely nothing and probably shouldn't have even gotten into the newspaper business is very depressing. You can feel how all lust for life has drained right out of him. It's a very effective dramatic shift from the previously smiling and cocky seductor we witnessed earlier. After a while Hugo tells him the only way to make himself feel better is by telling Erica the truth. If she hears it from him there's a better chance of forgivance than if she hears it from a second source.

But alas, she does find out, and naturally she's mad at him. When Hugo later tells her how awful Gannon feels about disguising his identity and how lowly he thinks of himself, she starts to feel some empathy... until then he suddenly comes out of Hugo's bedroom criticizing her father's poor articles, how he never could come up with memorable stories.
Surprisingly (although she's defensive at first), this doesn't lead to a bigger conflict, but instead she starts to adopt some of his ideas just like he adopted hers. I thought this it a smart and unpredictable route to take their relationship. This also leads to him firing his copy boy Barney Kovac. Not because he thinks he does a bad job (on the contrary), but more along the line with ”Why be satisfied with this when you can study and do so much better later in life?”. He's showing a bit of tough love, reaching the final bit of realization that he misjudged the value of teaching.


Teacher's Pet is both a warm and boisterously merry piece of 50's fluff.





I don't remember seeing this one, but it sounds like one I will enjoy watching in the future. What sounds intriguing is the pairing of two most unlikely costars - Gable and Doris Day! And from your review, it seems both are ' playing against type' but not so far afield from how we expect to see them onscreen. And with great chemistry between them. Nice review, as always, that captures the feel of the movie.

Btw I think you took a small break from writing in this thread here , and since your reviews are so thoughtfully and meticulously done, it makes sense you may need to rest from creating them from time to time. But glad to see you here again.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

Class Of Nuke 'Em High



Tromaville's high school is a messy one. Most of the students only give a damn about smoking weed, fooling around and generally causing mayhem. And none are worse than The Cretins. But things get even nuttier when a nuclear power plant nearby starts leaking radioactive waste, which makes it into the schoolgrounds.

The film's opening scene is very welldone. You get a shot of the power plant, and how due to a pipe leakage, the nuclear waste seeps out. Then we cut to the high school. It's the usual stuff, a nard gets picked on by bullies in the bathroom. He washes himself and notices the water is green. He gets mildly disgusted, but other than that doesn't think much of it. Already now it's evident he's doomed. As the first lesson of the day starts, we see a classroom right out of hell. The teacher berates the unruly students and states that the only one who cares about learning anything at all is Dewy. We see him smile when he gets the compliment, but that smile turns to fear as he suddenly starts to twitch and make weird sounds. And before you know it, starts vomiting up green goo and have his face melt! It's an impressive demonstration of the wonders you can achieve with practical effects, especially when keeping in mind how low the budget was. This movie's no Raiders Of The Lost Ark, yet the melting face is just as convincing here.

After that the catchy title song Nuke 'Em High plays, which gives off a really fun vibe and sets the tone for a zany gorefest. And just like the thing as a whole, it's unabashedly 80's.
The main characters are the couple Chrissy and Warren. Unlike the rest of the school, they take their studies seriously, and are even shown to be fans of classic film. They discuss going to the Fellini festival). And as a result, also end up becoming the most likable characters. But due to group pressure, they're forced to smoke a joint. And just any joint, but a ”nuclear high”, made up of radioactive waste! You expect them to turn into mutants, but instead they become really horny and have sex. Believe it or not though, this scene is actually important to the plot. I like the look on Warren's taunting friends' faces when they talk about how there's no way in hell he's losing her virginity to Chrissy, only to discover them going at it like animals.

Gil Brenton is very over-the-top as Warren. He either delivers every line from the top of his lungs, or as awkwardly as he can. But it makes him entertaining to watch, that's for sure. Janelle Brady does a great job as Chrissy. She pulls off the charming ordinarity of her character, and plays seductive like no one else when she pines for Warren's body after smoking the toxic joint. In the scenes of terror, her facial expressions feel very genuine, yet they are kinda adorable at the same time. I don't know how to best describe it. Am I starting to crush on Janelle Brady???

And this part... this part is the most hilariously disturbing in the whole movie. They leave the party for a good night's sleep at home. Happy afte the wonderful sex they had. And they start to see all kinds of weird things. Chrissy's stomach starts growing like there's something inside waiting to come out, and Warren gets the BIGGEST boner EVER. It was so unbelievable I had to think twice about what I was seeing. ”Is that really his... oh dear God.” It's even more ****ed up with the derviously menacing grin his face makes. When they wake up after falling back asleep though, everything looks normal again (aside from the fact that they feel sick), so it gets passed off as nothing more than a hallucination.

Before I get into what happens next, let's take a look at the rest of the characters. Eddie, the most prominent of Warren's friends, pretty much goes around embarrassing himself by acting sleazy around girls, and is the one who forced him to smoke a joint. Maybe not the most charming guy, but the real monsters in the movie are The Cretins. I'm generally mixed on bully characters. Sometimes they have real depth while other times they just annoy the hell out of me. Here's the thing though: the Cretins are so ridiculously sadistic and horrible to everyone around them it becomes hilarious. One standout scene is when a poor school nerd gets ganged up on since he hasn't paid back their money. He says he can't get it that soon, but Judy aggressively grabs his dick so it almost gets crunched, so he relents and promises to get it by 12 'o clock. But it doesn't end there. He continues to gets punched and kicked in the dick and stomped on by all the Cretins. It goes on for so long I started laughing in shock at how they pointlessly harrass the guy even after he gives into their demands. My favorite performance out of them comes from Brad Dunker as Gonzo. He plays him like a real beast, grunting after every sentence and speaking with a loud, gruff voice. Appearance-wise he also stands out the most, with the various marks on his face, weird hairstyle and gigantic nosering.

And while not quite as evil, I really hated the power plant manager Mr. Minley. He's neccessary in order for the plot to progress, but god-damn he's a thickheaded, greedy moron. Instead of admitting it's their fault the nuclear waste leaked into the school no matter how obvious it is, he does nothing but lie about how everything just fine and doesn't even close the plant to prevent more nuclear waste from leaking out. Pat Ryan plays him with an effectively obnoxious dopeyness and drives home the message how big corporations care more about the money than the safety of their own customers.

The climax at the school is a joy to behold. Classrooms get completely demolished, The Cretins holler in the corridors and terrorize those still left in the building (which... are only Chrissy and Warren actually) and there are some really cool monster kill scenes.
One such involves a classically frustrating scenario where someone gets the job of checking for nuclear spillings at the school. He goes down in the cellar, but still finds zit. However, he hears a sound and constantly hesitates between turning back to check what where it comes from and returning to base. After the fourth time you're simply screaming ”Come on, dude! You've had so many shots already!”. Deep down though, we're all waiting for that wacky slasher killing. And before you can report ”One man down”, he gets dragged into a keg full of nuclear acid by one of the mutant offspring. For being a safety inspector he's incredibly stupid. Sticking your hand into that **** without gloves?

It gets very intense when Spike and Taru kidnap Chrissy and threaten to cut her tìts off. Luckily he does get saved, as an image that disturbing would feel tonally out-of-place in a fun-spirited flick like this. It's very satisfying seeing these cretins (see what I did there) get there comeuppance. Especially Spike when War comes up with a remarkably creative solution. I won't spoil what it is, but once you see it you will nod your head approvingly the same way I did.
In the conclusion, most oft he students are safe, but only Warren and Chrissy seem to give a **** about the horrifying crazy events that have transpired.

Even with all the fun I had, there's something that doesn't quite add up for me. Everyone who gets exposed to the nuclear waste rather than killed right away turn into mutant murder freaks, right? Well, this seems to happen to everyone except Chrissy. Of course, a baby growing inside inside of her is still pretty damn rad (the look on her face when she vomits up a monster into the toilet says it all), but there doesn't seem to be a clear explanation to why she doesnt turn into a mutant herself.

With that aside, Class Of Nuke 'Em High is a Duke Nukem of a rollercoaster you'll want a ticket to.




mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
Rubberface



Janet is overweight and insecure about herself. Her mom constantly nags at her to lose weight, and she feels ashamed to admit she's intelligent. But her teacher is impressed by her writing talent and gives her a new essay to write (with a subject she chooses herself): What makes people laugh.

Does that plot sound boring and generic to you? Well, that's because it pretty much is. I guess they were going for a coming-of-age story, but it's too cheesy and clumsily made to work. Right from the opening scene where Janet and her mom are talking to each other, I was laughing at how horrible the acting was. Ann-Marie MacDonald as the mom is easily the worst actor in the movie. She really sounds like she's reading right off the paper, and is so wooden that a tree could give a more convincing performance than her.
Adah Glassbourgh is hit-and-miss. Sometimes she's okay, other times she makes you cringe. And most of those cringeworthy moments come from when she's trying to be funny, which is a real problem seeing as the movie is billed as a comedy.

But there are a few things lifting it up from being downright terrible. The only ones watching this movie will be die-hard Jim Carrey fans, and he's really good here. You can tell he's not quite as secure as he would be later on, but already back then he showed a clear knack for goofy facial expressions and molding his voice. While the material he's given is fairly weak (too much dialogue like "To make people laugh, you gotta..."), he does his best to elevate it a bit. There's a part where Janet calls him a "clown" in front of her friends, and I'm not sure if it was meant to be funny or serious, but his dumbfounded look as she says it is quite amusing.

There are glimpses of decent chemistry between Tony Moroni (yes that's actual name oddly enough) and Janet. They are definitely the most bearable scenes with Glassbourgh in them. But then there's the really forced conflict later on where Tony thinks she tries too hard to impress people, like her mom and her friends. She instantly gets pissed off and walks away. I thought this was very confusing since her friends do genuinely seem to care about her besides being a comedian. When she tearfully read her latest essay in front of class and ran out of the room afterwards, one of them later came to her and asked her if she was okay. Sounds like a pretty trustworthy friend to me.

Not sure if this counts as a positive or not, but occasionally I got some unintentional chuckles out of the melodramatism. Especially when Janet would watch TV and there would always be something related to food or to her weight, often accompanied by her mom telling her to lose some. And not just the interactions between her and the mother, but the ones with her friends are just as amusingly awkward.

The pacing is really slow, despite it only being 48 minutes. The storyline is so thin that there are several scenes that are just filler or dragged out for too long. The music is straightup awful at times and feels like straight out of a Lifetime drama.

The worst part of the entire movie is the ending.
WARNING: spoilers below
Of course, since Jim Carrey is the funnier actor, you want him to do the standup at the end. You're even led to believe that will be the case, seeing as Janet gives him a script to perform with. But instead, the script decides to make him sick, so Janet will have to perform instead. After standing nervously on stage for two minutes, she finally gets the courage to talk. And people start laughing... in the movie, that is. Personally I felt embarrassed at how bad the material was and how horribly she performed it. Standup for movies is very hard to write since a comedy script is different from a standup script. But while trudging through these very long 7 minutes, I started thinking about how brilliant the last scene of The King Of Comedy was. Similarly the whole thing had been building up to that moment, except I actually laughed. I didn't get mad at most of this movie, but with this conclusion I felt pissed off.


In general, Rubberface or more accurately Introducing... Janet is not the worst thing ever. I'm sure it's way better than Copper Mountain at least. But it's still not worth recommending as something other than an odd curiosity.

That being said, the DVD cover is a real "screw you" to the poor unsuspecting customers.




mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
City Heat



Mike Murphy's partner Dehl Swift tries to blackmail a mobster with his secret accounting records... with unfortunate consequences. A rival gang goes after the missing records, so Murphy has to team up with his old partner Lieutenant Speer to fight both gangs before it erupts into one giant mob war.

Before I start talking about what I thought, let me just get this straight: I love Clint Eastwood. I will see just about anything he does, no matter what it is. In every movie I've seen him, he commands the screen, whether it be an emotional role like Honkytonk Man or the gritty Dirty Harry. And Burt Reynolds, although I haven't actually seen him in that much, he always makes a great impression on me. Switching Channels is a clever and underrated news satire, and who can forget the remarkably tragic Deliverance?

So naturally I looked forward to seeing them paired together. After all, the odd pairing of Eastwood and Charlie Sheen worked surprisingly well in The Rookie.

Now... This is not a bad movie. At times there are lines which make me chuckle, and I really like the old-fashioned 1930's setting, with the nice-looking cars, the classy clothes and fancy jazz clubs.
Clint also seems to have a lot of fun. He never takes himself too seriously, and his deadpan delivery and subtle facial expressions makes even the silliest one-liners work (for the most part). Burt is more uneven, but his classic charm definitely shows in some scenes, and works as a good companion piece to his more straightfaced screen partner.
I liked Jane Alexander as the secretary and love interest Addy. She has a cockiness to her character that's not too obvious, and serves as the voice of reason when Mike and Speers get a bit too crazy.
Richard Roundtree as the con man Dehl is sadly not there for that long, but he's good for the small time he gets.
Rip Torn similiarly doesn't get nearly enough screentime, but is a joy to watch as the villain Primo Pritt.

The jazzy soundtrack featured occasionally is nice to listen to, most notably the title track City Heat.

Those who've heard about the movie might know about the scene where Reynolds' character fends off crooks dressed in a Big Bad Wolf costume. And yes, it's just as gloriously ridiculous as it sounds. I'm not really sure what the thought process behind that was, but all that matters is it made me laugh.

Unfortunately, City Heat stumbles over itself so often that it never really quite comes together. The opening scene with our two main characters at a diner was very promising. Speers is just trying his best to enjoy his coffee as two mobsters are looking for a guy named Mike Murphy, who enters only minutes later. Seeing Mike fight for his life with Speers not giving a shít at all until someone spills his coffee made me snicker, and I couldn't wait to see what else the two of them would be up to.
But it doesn't take long before something starts to feel off. Initially I can't quite figure out why, but I struggle feeling engaged in any scenes playing out. Then I realize it's the dialogue that's at fault. Usually if a movie contains great actors, you can forgive some of the more glaring script flaws, but some of the lines that come out of the characters' mouths just doesn't feel believable, at times even kinda embarrassing. Why does Mike have to say "snotball" so much? Come to think of it, the insults in general are just weirdly placed. Really, "ape face"? That's the best you could think of?
I mentioned before I thought Burt was uneven. In some sections he's good while other times he doesn't look very comfortable, especially with some of the more questionable lines he has to deliver.

The characterization is the biggest problem. We're supposed to believe two things. First that Mike and Speers have known each other for years. Secondly that they used to be best friends, but now are worst enemies. It never gets explained why exactly they hate each other, not even with the simplest most basic explanation. Not to mention if you thought Clint and Burt would share a lot of screentime, you're sadly mistaken. At most they probably share half an hour, which gives the movie nowhere near enough time to develop a real relationship between the two. It's a shame, since the actors have a good repertoire when they share a scene together. There simply isn't enough of it.

The one weak link in the cast is Madeline Kahn. If I didn't know she was an experienced comedic actor I'd mistake her for an awkward first-timer. She was pretty bad.

There are enough memorable moments to stay until the end, but disappointing by the genre's standards.




I haven't seen this one
@mattiasflgrtll6
but I totally agree with what you said about Clint commanding the scene in any movie he 's been in - from Play Misty for Me to Dirty Harry.

Did you ever see In The Line Of Fire? Very good thriller that I have often rewatched.

I would enjoy reading of your thoughts on that film, , should you get the chance to see and review it .



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
I haven't seen Misty or In The Line Of Fire yet, but look forward to seeing them whenever I have time.
The Beguiled is another one I want to watch, it looks very intriguing and unique.

Thanks for reading!



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
I DON'T CARE THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING INTO.

Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment

(This was the only unscary screenshot I could find)


This is probably the most meanspirited horror movie I've ever seen.

No point talking about a story, but the structure goes like this: every form of torture is split into different chapters, beginning with "Hit" and ending with the most infamous one, "Needle".

The movie starts off with an opening crawl with the owner claiming they got it under the guise of being an experiment, but it's really just an excercise in cruelty. Boy, could that have not been more correct.

The first segment shows the poor woman (identified as Yegg by the kidnappers' dialogue) getting slapped around relentlessly, while the second shows her getting kicked down over and over again. While it's not the most violent one, it's the most psychologically disturbing since they keep taunting her by telling her to stand up only to kick her down again, while also calling her names. It was sad since you felt so bad for her being so powerless to do anything to stop the pain.

"Unconscious" I suppose was the least hard to watch since all they did was spin Yegg around in a chair until she threw up, but even that one still makes you go "Oh geez, that's gross."

"Guts" and "Needle" are at the end, and are by far the most harrowing segments. The former isn't very violent, but seeing the kidnappers throwing more and more sheep guts on Yegg just laughing like it's some kind of a joke made me so angry and sickened I came close to almost turning it off. Those have got to be the most evil laughs I've ever heard. Needle is very painful since the kidnappers really go all-out torturing Yegg, hitting every nerve in her body, and proceed to stick a needle through her eye so it fills up with blood. I'm surprised the director even had the restraint to not make the eye pop out.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's not a single resemblance of a plot. You see a woman get tortured, that's it. There's no good character writing, acting or dialogue. The spoken lines that are there entirely consist of the perpetrators shouting insults at Yegg. Even the actual directing is not great. There are pointless slow-mo shots and there's no beautiful cinematography or art direction. No thoughtprovoking message or deeper meaning to be found either.

But one thing it did succeed with: It felt real. I felt like I was in the room with the victim herself. I could feel every struggle, every ounce of pain, the desperation in her voice. The fact that the kidnappers seem to have no motivation to do any of this makes the various torture methods even scarier.

I do not recommend this film. But if you really have to watch it, I suggest you do it with all lights on, and never forget what you're watching is just a movie. Otherwise, you might risk getting nightmares. And I sure as hell know I wouldn't want any of *this* in my dreams.




Thanks for the warning and the spoilers. I' m not usually a fan of horror and/or slasher movies for the most part - but this gory mess would send me running out of the room. A film to avoid, for sure.



@mattiasflgrtll6

I have seen many like this one above. One thing I remember, its a movie.. nothing more. I have seen real stuff but I would just stick with the "its a movie". Its good enough for me.



mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

Paranormal Activity



Katie's had visions of a demon ever since she was 8 years old. And no matter where she moves, they just keep haunting her. So she and Micah get the idea to purchase a camera and record all the weird paranormal activities that happen at night. Maybe if there's enough proof they can deal with the demon and get rid of it once and for all. But is it actually helping?

Paranormal Activity is the third of the key defining films that changed the found footage genre. The former ones were Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project. And it's easy to see why. It introduced a unique style of filmmaking which hadn't really been attempted before, where through the use of security camera footage explore our deepest fear: not being safe in our own home.

The pace of the movie is deliberately slow, introducing you to our characters and easing you into the oncoming dread that's waiting. The first activity is as simple as a door moving by itself. Only a little bit, but enough to get a sense of something being wrong. Then the footsteps start. And the banging. And a strange, hollow scream. Director Oren Peli doesn't care about showing the demon itself as much as observing what kind of effect the events have on the couple, and letting the audience's imagination run wild since you get a sense of what's going on, but you're never explictly shown a demon winking in the hallway saying "Come here, baby".

One of my issues with modern horror have been how instead of leaving the movie on an eerie note, you have an incredibly over-the-top and silly finale with a barrage of jumpscares. But instead, when you hear Micah dragged around and then thrown across the room landing at the camera, you're freaked out. Equally freaky is Katie staring at the camera, revealing a demonic smile. 'Course, you still have that jumpscare moment when she jumps at the screen, but it still makes you spooked because of the context. The demon finally got to her, and instead of a poor, emotional wreck she's now a raging demon herself. She was fighting a losing battle.

Katie Featherson's performance as the character with the same name is pretty good. She expresses the fear and increasing desperation very convincingly, and makes you feel bad for her when she just wants to live in peace, but keeps getting tormented by this evil spirit. She also rightfully gets angry when she doesn't get the support she needs, which she acts out well too.

Micah Sloat as the boyfriend is decent. I certainly don't care for his character (I'll get to that soon), for the material gets however he does the script justice. He even manage to make me chuckle at his character's stupidity a few times where he says he only "borrowed" a Ouija board instead of buying it and the scene where he asks the demon what their favorite color is.

But as well as the movie creates an unsettling mood, it has some pretty major problems stopping from being better. The first and most major one of these is Micah. His first thought should be to make his girlfriend feel safe, tell her everything is gonna be all right and cooperate the entire time to make sure they both come up with the best ways to try and drive the demon out. Instead, what does he do?

When Katie brings a medium over, he acts rude to Dr. Friedrichs the entire time and basically calls her an idiot for bringing him over. First of all, while I think mediums are a bunch of scammers myself, it's at least understandable why she would think he'd be the solution to their problems. Secondly, given that Micah himself seems to believe in ghosts, why is he so adamant against bringing a psychic over? Maybe he doesn't think psychics are the best at finding evil spirits, but you'd figure he'd at least be open to the idea. He also rejects the idea of an exorcist later on, even though it couldn't really make things worse than they already are.

When Katie tells him that she doesn't want him to film them having sex, he continually tries to convince her to let him film it, and even tries to do it without her knowledge. What an ásshole.

And no matter how many times she begs of him not to buy a Ouija board since the last thing she wants is for more ghosts or demons to come over here, he does so anyway! He even nags at her over and over to come look at what the demon did to the Ouija board, even though she doesn't want to see it. It doesn't even stop with Ouija, he comes up with more and more methods to lure the demons to their house. It seriously pissed me off how he doesn't seem to give a shît about how scared she gets, he only tries to provoke the demons more and more, yelling stupid shît like "Is that all you got?!". Your first concern should be your girlfriend's deteriorating mental state, not whether the ghosts are making enough noise for you to capture some cool stuff on camera or not. You prick.

Then there's the door. Why is the door still left open after a demon got inside and pulled Katie down the stairs? This annoyed me so much. Anyone who's not an idiot should know to close the door when a demon gets inside the bedroom all the time.

While Katie was by far the more rational one of the two, her mood flip between wanting to leave the house immediately to suddenly wanting to stay there makes no sense at all. If the demon continues hurting you, shouldn't you want to get out of the house more instead of feeling inclined to stay there? This feels too much like the script forcing something nonsensical to happen just to make the movie scarier. Even Micah can't believe she won't agree to pack up and go.

Finally, although Micah Sloat did a fine job, there were times where he overacted, like where he grunted at the ghost and I just laughed at how bizzarre he sounded.

Don't let these flaws deter you from giving Paranormal Activity a chance. Although they prevented it from being a truly good movie, it's still a decent one. It gives the uneasy sense of dread I'm looking for in a horror piece, and the way it concludes is very shocking, yet natural. It won't leave me sleepless in Seattle, but it could be time to set up a video recorder or two.




mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
The Stepford Wives



Joanna moves with her husband from crowded Manhattan to the relatively peaceful town of Stepford. But something about how the women act there doesn't seem right. They're so perfectly tidy, well-behaved and focused on housework that it creeps her out. What is actually behind all these bright smiles and overly polite behavior? And what is this "Men's Association" that Walter keeps going to?

One good thing to know going in is that this movie takes its sweet little time. It sets up the characters and situations very slowly, and for the first 25 minutes or so nothing much happens at all. But if you're patient enough it pays off, and it reveals itself as one of the creepiest and most poigant sci-fi films out there.

Katherine Ross as the photographer Joanna does a great job. She brings an instant likability to her character. She's very strong and won't back down easily when shady people try to stop her from starting a revolution in Stepford, trying to wake all the women up from their trance and become more independent, instead of just serving their husbands and doing housework all the time. As well as figure out the mystery of why everyone are acting so strange. I also liked Paula Prentiss as her friend Bobbie Markowe, who's the only woman there besides her who doesn't act manifactured. Her introduction scene was odd, but she grew on me quickly, and brings a refreshing bout of energy compared to all the stiff residents they encounter.

It's not without reason why everyone act so odd. Walter starts going to the peculiar Men's Association organization, where he hangs out with some truly strange people. Joanna even points it out to Walter how he would never get friendly with such boring, grumpy men before they arrived to this town. And before she knows it, Walter starts acting cold and distant towards her, repeating over and over what a great home they've got and how everyone are nice here, no matter how many times she tells him she wants out of here. Peter Masterson is great as Walter, and portrays the slow and eerie transformation of the stressed-out but normal family father to an angry, mean and selfish bastard.

The last half hour gets really spooky, with one of the saddest and most horrifying twists I've seen in a movie. Let's just say that it takes place in a kitchen.
The ending is very powerful as well, and truly sticks in your mind.

The Stepford Wives was ahead of its time when it came out. Maybe too much so, since it got wildly misunderstood at the time and a lot of protesters thought it presented women in a bad light, given that they're shown getting brainwashed. That's exactly the point though. The men in this town are controlling, selfish douchebags, who only want their wives to be perfect dolls whose only purpose is to please them and do all their work for them. That's why it's so creepy when all of the women act robotic, their individuality get completely sucked out by the patriarchal powers at force.

Anyone who's a fan of thoughtful sci-fi should give this a look.