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Movie Review: Original vs. Remake Comparison: The Last House on the Left (1972 vs. 2009)
Summary:
1972:
Mary is a sweet-tempered, girl-next-door that every boy in the neighborhood has the hots for, but she has a best friend from the wrong side of the tracks. They frolic in the woods together and drink alcohol kept cool in the river. Mary’s parents do not approve. Mary and her friend go to NYC for a concert, but when her friend tries to score some weed, their night goes horribly awry. Suddenly they find themselves at the mercy of two escape convicts, a son of one of the convicts who does their beck and call for his heroin hits, and a malicious, nympho woman.
2009:
Mary is vacationing in the lakes with her doctor father and lovely mother. She goes into town to hang out with her old friend, and the two of them go back to a hotel room to get high with a teenage boy. But that boy’s father, uncle, and the uncle’s girlfriend come back, and the dad is an escaped con. He decides he can’t let the girls go and kidnaps them, finishing them off in the woods. They wind up car-wrecked and must seek help at a nearby cabin that just so happens to be Mary’s parents’. When they figure out the mystery, all hell breaks loose.
Review:
1972:
This is a classically 70s film featuring everything from feathered hair to 70s music to background music oddly upbeat for the dark tone. The opening shot is essentially of Mary’s 
boobs. This was the era of really stretching the boundaries. Everything semi-pornographic and disgusting that they could get away with, they did get away with. There is one, rather controversial, scene in which Mary and her friend are forced to have sex with each other–and need I remind you her friend is female? There is a lot of rape, a lot of blood, and these killers really do kill just for fun. Not to make it sound like this is slasher porn, though. There’s nothing at all remotely sexy about the violence. It’s meant to be disturbing, and it is. There’s one scene in particular that will have all male viewers crossing their legs and quivering in their boots. All that said, this movie definitely reads as campy due to some unfortunate scenes featuring upbeat music and bumbling policemen that feel like they belong more in an episode of Andy Griffith than a horror movie. I’m really not sure what Craven was thinking sticking those scenes in there. There of course also is the enduring problem of the victims being truly, incredibly stupid. Horror is the most horrifying when it feels as if the victims did everything smart, but still got caught. The element of unsuspected revenge is what saves the movie, though.
2009:
This movie is quite creative for a modern horror. It takes a fairly sympathetic main character and has her a make a rather impulsive, but not completely stupid decision. Mary and her friend take far more agency trying to get away. They are far more modern female victims. They fight back physically and not with words and pleading. The cinematography is dark and intense. The convict’s son becomes a far more sympathetic character, and Mary’s parents much more believable as a vindictive pair. The whole plot moves at the perfect pace, and the ending is surprising.
1972 vs. 2009:
I have to say, 2009 wins for horror movie quality. It is put together more smoothly without the odd side-story of the police with the humorous background music. The story is more cohesive. However, surprisingly, 1972 is far more gory and feels more like a slasher. The violence, both sexual and physical, is surprising, and the villains are far more evil. If you’re out for the chills of a good horror, movie, go with the 2009 version. If you’re after sheer blood and violence, go for the 1972 version.
1972: 3.5 out of 5 stars
2009: 4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
1972: Buy It
2009: Buy It
Movie Review: When In Rome (2010)
Summary:
Beth loves her career as a curator at the Guggenheim, and she’s told her friends that when she meets a man she loves more than her career that’s when she’ll know he’s the one. She, therefore, is shocked when her sister meets an Italian man on a plane and gets engaged to him two weeks later. Off to Rome for the wedding, and Beth hits it off with a guy. But when she sees him kissing an Italian woman, she gets drunk on champagne and takes four coins from the love fountain in front of the wedding. Uh-oh! Taking a coin from the fountain makes the thrower fall instantly in love with you, and when Beth gets back to NYC, she winds up with four very determined suitors.
Review:
Yes, I actually do watch a chick flick periodically. ;-) This one is quite stereotypical, complete with Beth declaring she’s starving and proceeding to grab a salad to eat. Oy. There’s also the usual slap-stick humor, such as the main suitor falling down a hole in the streets of NYC. It also takes quite a bit of suspension of disbelief to believe that Beth randomly grabbed four coins, all of which happened to have belonged to men. Uh-huh. Somehow I feel like the statistics of that actually happening are unlikely.
However, the story itself is a bit unique, what with the inclusion of magic. Although it’s obvious who Beth will end up with, the way they wind up together was not entirely predictable, so that was nice. The cinematography is visually very appealing. For instance, the scene of Beth drunk in the fountain is just gorgeous.
The acting ranges from cringe-inducing to excellent. Danny DeVito’s presence as one of the suitors really saves the film. That man is just always so believable in whatever film he’s in. Kristen Bell, who plays the lead, also does a good job, although the supporting characters are a bit iffy.
Overall, it’s a fun way to pass an hour and a half if you have a soft spot for romcoms and enjoy Italian scenery.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: The Host (2006) South Korea Gwoemul
Summary:
In the city of Seoul a haughty American military officer makes a Korean worker pour formaldehyde down the drain, which empties into the River Han. Shortly a creature mutates and turns into a beast that comes up out of the river and terrorizes the peaceful people living and working beside the river. The government cracks down on everyone who came into contact with the beast, claiming that the mutation is contagious. Meanwhile, the beast captures a little girl, and her whole family escapes quarantine and goes in pursuit of her.
Review:
I’ve developed a fondness for foreign movies, but this one was epically confusing. In fact, I live tweeted it, and my tweets were mostly ones of confusion. I’m really not sure how this movie crossed over abroad the way it did. Think of the worst American horror movie you’ve seen in the last couple of years and think about someone bothering to translate it into Korean. That’s what watching this was like.
First, there’s the main issue of formaldehyde turning only one creature in the whole River Han into a beast. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Period. Then there’s the beast itself. Although the cgi is very good, how it just doesn’t look particularly frightening. It can run around on land, swim, and hang by its tail off the bridges. It frankly looks a lot like a giant fetus running around. I couldn’t stop laughing.
Then there were just a bunch of odd, confusing moments. Maybe it was a cultural thing? Maybe the translation was bad? I’m really not sure. For instance, when the beast first appears, someone calls out that it’s a dolphin and gets all excited. I’m sorry; it looks nothing like a dolphin at any point in time. Wtf? Then there’s the main family. For the longest time, I thought that the little girl and her father were actually brother and sister with a slightly incestuous relationship. They look practically the same age! He gives her beer because she’s “in middle school now.” In fact, the whole family’s relationships with one another were completely baffling. Then there’s one of the weapons used against the beast that was some sort of inflated thing hanging down from a beam or something, and it, swear to god, just looked like a giant, yellow penis. Wtf? There were just too many wtf moments to get into the movie.
The one good thing I can say about the movie is that it reveals quite clearly the anti-American feelings in South Korea. I’m sure it would be interesting as a cultural study for that alone. I guess it was also entertaining, ableit in a wtf way. Given that, I’d recommend it to people with an interest in Korean culture or an enjoyment of bad horror movies.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009)
Summary:
Two American girls on a road trip through Europe get a flat tire late at night in Germany. They walk to find help, and stumble upon the residence of Dr. Heiter, a first-class surgeon who separates Siamese twins. He promptly kidnaps them, along with an unfortunate Japanese tourist, and announces to them that they will become part of a first-time experiment. He will fuse them together mouth to anus to create the human centipede.
Review:
This independent film mixes two great horror movie classics–kidnapping and a deranged doctor–and combines them into a great idea. It doesn’t quite attain the heights such a great idea should have, but I can easily see it becoming a cult classic.
Dieter Laser, who plays Dr. Leiter, does an excellent job. His facial expressions are magnificently creepy. He is actually German, so his German is perfect, as well as his German accent. Akihiro Kitamura’s performance was also well-done, particularly given that he mostly just gets to yell in Japanese and whimper. The actresses who play the two girls–Ashley C. Williams and Ashlyn Yennie–have painfully annoying voices. It was a blessing that they were the two end sections of the human centipede, because it shut them up.
Given how incredibly idiotic and annoying the two girls are in the beginning of the film, I can’t help but suspect that the writer was trying to make us feel less sympathy for them. Possibly with the hope that it would soften the blow of the gross idea? Maybe.
As far as the grossness inherent in three people being sewed together mouth to anus, they could have taken it much further than they did in the film. Only bits and pieces of the operation are shown, and the human centipede wears bandages so strategically that you don’t really see much of the actual connection. It’s more about the viewer imagining it than actually seeing it. Although the scene where the front unit of the human centipede (the Japanese man, Katsuro) must first *ahem* use the restroom post-surgery is quite gross, it is simultaneously hilarious. If you have a bit of a quirky sense of humor, the horror and gross-out factors of this film are greatly lessened. In fact, I found The Fly to be much more disturbing and disgusting than this film.
Overall, if you enjoy gross-out, B-level horror films, you will have a fun time watching this movie. It’s short, interesting, and different.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy (2010)
Summary:
This documentary follows the adoption of Fang Sui Yong, an 8 year old Chinese girl, by the Sadowsky’s, a Jewish family from Long Island. The filmmaker seeks to highlight the particular issues faced when adopting older children internationally.
Review:
This is one of those films that shows how difficult life can be, and that sometimes there is no good choice. There’s only the iffy choice that’s a bit better than the alternative. Sui Yong (who now goes by “Faith,” so I”ll call her that for the rest of the review) didn’t want to leave China. She was quite happy living with her foster family, and had never seen a white person before. This is all the film tells us at first, so you immediately wonder, why can’t Faith stay with the foster family? It turns out that foster families can’t adopt the children they’re caring for in China, and it is unlikely Faith would have stayed with them for her whole childhood. Additionally, Faith is special needs with a club foot and dropped wrists. Her foster parents state that she would face great difficulty in China, being treated as an outcast. Her foster parents want her to be adopted. They see that her future in China is very bleak.
That doesn’t mean that her transition to the US went perfectly, of course. The culture shock Faith faces is severe, even if just looking at going from hearing Mandarin and Cantonese to hearing English all the time. Donna Sadowsky is obviously a tough love type mom, believing that being firm will be the fastest way to help Faith acclimate. Personally I believe she was a bit too tough. Some of the learning could have been made into a bit more of a game. More understanding could have been shown for her special needs. But I only saw a brief film of two years of the time they spent together. It’s almost impossible to tell Faith’s personality from that much film. Maybe they tried taking it a bit easier on her, and she slacked off too much. Maybe the doctors told them Faith could do certain things that it turned out she couldn’t. It’s hard to tell.
An interesting element of the film is the fact that the filmmaker, a one-woman team, speaks Mandarin, and so translates sometimes for the family. This of course means that she has a direct impact on the story she’s documenting. It’s quite interesting to watch and to consider how much documenting a story impacts it.
Overall, this is a very interesting documentary. Many people are hesitant to adopt older children. This film shows that it can be done, as well as the great need for families for older and special needs children internationally. It brings up interesting questions regarding international and transracial adoption, as well as demonstrating how quickly the American consumer culture impacts children. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in international adoption or the issues related to it.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: PBS website
Movie Review: Shortcut to Happiness (2004)
Summary:
Jabez Stone loves writing, and he wants to be a good writer, but he also wants to be a famous one. When his friend sells his manuscript for a lucrative sum, and Jabez follows this news up by having one of the worst days of his life, he tells the mirror that he’d sell his soul for that success. Of course the devil comes knocking in the form of a beautiful woman to cut that deal, but fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Review:
Even though they’re all rather obvious and quite predictable, I’ve always enjoyed “sells soul to devil” stories as a sort of movie comfort food. Yes, we all know what’s going to happen in the end, but the selling the soul part and the part immediately after when everything is going right are actually quite entertaining to watch. The thing is, these movies can easily go bad if they’re not careful. There’s fun cheesy, and then there’s eye-rolling cheesy. Unfortunately, this movie is one of the latter.
It features a fairly impressive cast–Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Dan Akroyd, and Kim Cattrall–yet they for the most part fail to deliver. Jennifer Love Hewitt clearly tries; it’s not her fault she was miscast. For some reason many of these movies persist in casting Barbie doll fake plastic type actresses in the role of the devil, when it’s obvious a classic femme fatale would be much more accurate. The devil should be glamorous, not fake. It’s much harder to see through glamor than fake bullshit. Dan Akroyd does a good job, but he is underutilized. As for Baldwin and Cattrall, I had no idea these two can’t actually act, but they can’t. Either that, or they can only act one type of role. Baldwin behaves in exactly the same manner here as he does in 30 Rock
In spite of the casting, the movie still could have been decent with a good script, which is why the first half of the movie is quite watchable. Unfortunately, it takes a serious nose-dive in the second half of the movie from interesting exploration of human behavior to….a court room trial? Held in a cemetery? With a jury consisting of people from Jabez’s past and famous authors such as Hemingway? What the fuck?! The whole entire court room scene, which seems to last forever, is from so far out of left field and so painfully boring that it really, truly ruins the movie. This is the classic example of how the ending can ruin an entire story. Seriously, don’t start out being all “yay NYC capers! Plus, the devil!” and then slam us with a court room scene more boring than Law and Order
That said, I still actually watched the whole movie. Granted, I was playing Angry Birds on my iTouch most of the time, but the fact remains I did finish it. So it is watchable, but it certainly is not high-quality viewing. If you have time to kill and are a fan of any of the actors I mentioned or are a fan of selling soul to the devil stories, you won’t hate it, but there are definitely better films out there to kill time with.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Buy It It appears not to have been released on DVD. Interesting.
Movie Review: Kick-Ass (2010)
Summary:
Highschooler Dave wonders why no one in real life ever tried to be a super-hero, so he orders a wet suit, dubs himself “Kick-Ass” and sets out to attempt vigilante justice. Lucky for him in his ineptitude, someone has thought of being a a superhero–ex-cop Big Daddy and his 9 year old daughter Hit Girl. Their activities land them on the mob’s hit list, and pandemonium ensues.
Review:
This is a concept–blundering wannabe superheroes–that could easily fall flat on its face, but it doesn’t. The addition of Big Daddy and Hit Girl to the scene really change the entire feel of the movie. They’re not so much superheroes as vigilantes–think Kill Bill only with superhero costumes. They bring reality back into Kick-Ass’s daydreaming. In the real world, fighting the bad guys often have serious consequences. It’s not all youtube glory.
This was based on a graphic novel, and the bright colors in the costumes help bring that feel in. The fight sequences aren’t stylized like anime, rather they feel like a typical action movie, but that was a wise choice given the basic message in the movie. Shots are smooth and stylish without reading as cartoonish.
Apparently, some people find the character of Hit Girl offensive. This surprised me since she was by far my favorite in the film. Where I see her as possessing admirable grit, raw talent, and a propensity to speak her mind others see a little girl killing people and using the c-word. I think those people are taking things a bit too seriously. Hit Girl is clearly a little girl who enjoys what she does and is being true to herself. Little girls aren’t always sugar and spice and everything nice.
Overall, Kick-Ass is a fun movie that will appeal to fans of superhero and action films alike. I highly recommend it.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Slither (2006)
Summary:
When an asteroid comes to a small, southern US town, it brings with it alien slug-like creatures who infest a local man. His wife is the first to notice something askew, but not before the slugs manage to impregnante a local woman. Can she and the golden-hearted sherriff save the day?
Review:
The two most important things to know about this movie are: 1) It was written and directed by James Gunn Dawn of the Dead 
Probably the best part of this movie, besides watching Fillion, is the special effects. The slugs look totally believable, and as the husband becomes more taken over by the aliens, he looks increasingly like Brundle in The Fly
My main gripes with the film are that the husband is kind of miscast. It’s really not believable that his wife ever married him to start with. He at least needed a better looking face or something. Plus his acting prior to all the special effects taking place is kind of iffy. I also wished the slugs had wreaked a bit more havoc prior to entering the bodies whereupon we can’t see them anymore. They were cool to look at.
Overall, you’re going to enjoy this film if you enjoy B-level, gross-out horror. It’s not up the level of The Fly
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: A.I. Artifical Intelligence (2001)
Summary:
In the near future, robots, aka “mecha,” have become the norm. They exist to serve humanity, have self-protecting pain aversion, but they do not have emotion. One research team sets out to make a robot who can love. A child robot designed to always love the parents. Monica and Henry, whose son is in a coma, try out the first prototype named David. He winds up being more than they bargained for though, and unwilling to return him to the company to be destroyed, they abandon him on the roadside. He then begins a quest for the blue fairy to become a real boy.
Review:
This movie is long, nearly 2 1/2 hours, yet I was entranced with the story for every minute. It truly addresses one of the most basic questions–what makes us human? If it is intelligence, emotion, a sense of self, then David has all that. Is he therefore worthy of love? Worthy of being treated as more than a toaster? The film leaves us with no easy answers, but it explores the question in such a creative, intriguing manner.
In addition to being wonderfully thought-provoking, the film is also well-done. The special effects are stunning for the early 2000s. Of particular note is David’s toy robot bear, who walks and talks as an individual. The make-up is done subtly, providing just a few hints at who is mecha and who orga. A slight plastic sheen to the hair, perhaps, or a lack of hair on the arms.
The film boasts an all-star cast, most notably Haley Joel Osment in the leading role and Jude Law as a sex working robot. Osment brings a stunning combination of intense creepiness and vulnerability that gives the character of David exactly the right amount of relatability and disturbing moments. Jude Law similarly displays mechanical movements while simultaneously expressing just the right amount of possible emotion passing across his face.
Given all that, I’m not sure why I didn’t love this movie in lieu of really liking it. I suspect it has something to do with the ending, which rubbed me the wrong way a bit. It just seemed….odd. Particularly in comparison to the rest of the film.
However, don’t let that detract you from seeing this movie. It is highly enjoyable and leaves you with philosophical thoughts and queries for days. I highly recommend it to fans of scifi and philosophy alike.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Movie Review: Shrooms (2006)
Summary:
Five Americans–two straight couples and one single gal–go to Ireland with two sole purposes: take shrooms and land their Irish pal as a boyfriend for the single gal. Their friend takes them into the forest and aids them in gathering the shrooms. As they are making the tea, the Irishman tells them the tale of the Black Brother and the Lonely Twin, an evil priest and the boy he tortured at a now abandoned school for troubled youth nearby. As the night wears on the next day comes, the friends are left wondering if the horrors they are now seeing are the result of an open portal to the supernatural or just a bad trip.
Review:
This was a fun twist on the slasher flick norms, obviously not too heavy on characterizations as I can’t remember most of the character’s names. I do know the annoying jock guy was named Bluto, because that’s just a hilarious name. Anyway, the story is told from the perspective of the member of the group who ate a bad shroom and is now having premonitions about people’s deaths. That part is rather like Final Destination
The Black Brother is deliciously creepy. He alternates between moving on what appear to be broken feet, floating, and crawling down from the trees. His face is always obscured by his monk-like robe. The cinematography is pretty good for a B-level horror flick. The premonition and supernatural bits are just wobbly enough to give the viewer a bit of a high feeling themselves without being too distracting from the story.
The acting is typical of what you find in B level movies. The actors all have their shrieking down to a science. They’re good at being scared, which is all that really matters. Unfortunately, the actor who plays the Irish guy is completely incapable of an Irish accent and manages to just sound British the entire time. That’s a bit distracting, but oh well.
There is one scene early in the movie that sold it to me right away as a slightly laughable but still creepy slasher flick. It involves a hallucinated cow who warns Bluto that he’s about to become a “dead fucker.” I mean, a creepy talking cow? Total B-movie win!
What really moved Shrooms
If you enjoy B-level slasher flicks with a sense of humor, such as Final Destination
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
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