Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2010
"I never wanted a war. I just wanted people to know what happened here. 98 men, women, children ... my husband. And yet no one believed. They rebuilt the town. Life went on. But I was already dead inside. I never wanted a war."
In October 2007 30 Days Of Night was unleashed at the box office to less than stellar numbers. In fact, the film took in only $39 million off of a $30 million budget. That's not usually a good sign for any potential franchise. But the film was received very well by the folks who did like it. I was one of those people. I found myself defending the film to a lot of others who were obviously not so impressed with the take on the vampire legend. The film was about a mythical town in Northern Alaska that experiences 30 days of nightfall each winter. The residents either leave or they dig in for the duration of the month-long darkness. As it turns out, the setup was the perfect situation for vampires, who could feast on the remaining citizens without fear of a rising sun putting a wet blanket on their free-for-all picnic. The film followed a few survivors as they fought back against the creatures of the night. It was based on a cult-favorite graphic novel. It all seemed like a pretty solid idea. But it wasn't the location and month-of-darkness scenario that seemed to turn many horror fans away from the movie. What caused that unfortunate movement was the same thing that I found to be the film's strength.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2010
Hellllllllllo there kiddies. It is I, Mistress Noms, here yet again on this very dark and dreary night to bring you yet another scary movie review. Hopefully we can do better than the Blair Witch Project this time, hmm? Let us see shall we? Oh Corpsemuncher?! Would you be a nice little gremlin and bring me a DVD from the pile? Ahhh, thank you deary, here is your snack, now run along before I take that rat off of you and use him for my potions. What do we have here... The Tomb! -plays a sound bit of a woman screaming- Okay, well, what is this? Ahhh screener copies, how I loathe thee! But not as much as I loathe making my captive audience wait! On with the show! -hands out popcorn balls and lollipops-
A little girl comes running into a castle only to watch the last minute of her mother's life, where she is told that a disease will kill her as a result of a gift she has. Her mother hands her a necklace, and she dies. But wha... what is that? That is the little girl watching as a mist come out of her mother, and leaves out the window. FAST FORWARD! Meet Jonathan (Wes Bentley) who is giving a lecture at a university. After he calls an end to it, Len (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) approaches him to talk. But Johnny boy here is too fascinated by this dark haired chick that he keeps seeing in his lectures (She would definitely distract me). They talk for a moment, and Jonathan finds out that her name is Ligeia (Sofya Skya) and that she is a grad. They leave, and Jonathan runs to catch up with Ligeia, where she hits on him in a VERY obvious kinda way even though he tells her he is engaged, and gives him her business card.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 16th, 2010
Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) is going through more than the usual puberty traumas. She pees on the carpet, curses a blue streak, causes objects to fly around the room, and speaks in the voice of Mercedes McCambridge. Her mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn) takes her to every medical professional under the sun, to no avail. With her daughter's life in the balance, she turns to Father Karras (Jason Miller), asking him to perform an exorcism. But not only is he skeptical, he has his own problems, not least of which is losing his faith. Meanwhile, Regan's symptoms of possession grow steadily worse...
The most successful horror film of all time (and, adjusting for inflation, still the ninth most successful film ever made) works as well as it does for a number of reasons. The performances, especially from Burstyn and Miller, are grounded and very convincing. The visual effects still hold up, but the sound design is as powerful as it ever was. It's also a smart, adult horror film, such that even if one disagrees with its philosophical and ideological stance, it remains no less compelling, no less interesting.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 15th, 2010
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a young woman utterly lacking in self-confidence and given to deliberately cutting herself. She gets her first job as secretary to E. Edward Grey (James Spader), as tightly wound and ferociously self-isolated an individual as you could imagine. What happens when the sadist meets the masochist? Sparks fly. Low key and sharply sly, this winning film shows (along with Amelie and Kissing Jessica Stein) that there is life in the romantic comedy genre after all, and that original work can still be done with the formula. Spader and Gyllenhaal are superb, with Spader’s icy calm every now and then cracking with sudden spasms of emotion, and Gyllenhaal giving her all in brave, vulnerable, and utterly heartwarming performance. The plot structure is a little messy towards the end, but this winds up being of minor concern, given how delightful the film is.
Secretary is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The 1080p image is arrived at with an AVC/MPEG-4 codec at an average of almost 30 mbps. The format looks like 1.78:1 to me, but I suspect the original format is more like 1.85:1. What is particularly suspicious is the fact that some credits during the title sequence wind up far too close to the right edge of the screen. Even if there is some cropping, however, it is not enough to ruin the nice, deep focus compositions that are no small part of the joy in looking at Spader’s elaborate office (think Belle de Jour meets The Shining). The colors are good, with terrific shifts from the green/brown alternations of the office color scheme, to the sudden bright primary colors of Gyllenhaal’s fantasy sequence. There is quite noticeable grain in an early exterior shot, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 13th, 2010
Good Eeeeevening, Mistress Noms here with a spooky review to add to the “31 Nights of Terror” countdown we have going here in the dungeon of Upcomingdiscs.com! -digs into her bag of tricks (provided by the head dungeon master of Upcomingdiscs.com)- What do we have here, what do we have here... A Blu-ray copy of The Blair Witch Project!? This is the scariest thing you could come up with? Oyie! Perhaps it is true what they say... Terror can come in many forms... including a really terrible movie! Grab your choice of poison and hop into my hearse (Sure... I have some... candy... around here somewhere...) we are going for a ride! -drives off in a fit of madness, cackling out her window-
I remember when the Blair Witch Project first came out. There was all this fuss about how it was a REAL documentary, all the footage was REAL, and how three film students REALLY went missing. Ha, how naive some people can be! There was even a special on Sci-Fi making it seem all real and mysterious! Oooooo Spooky! Not really, but let's just pretend for a while, shall we? And like anything else, things were leaked onto the interwebs, and people got to talking. The actors showed up on some special on MTV (Possibly it was on that “news” thing they do on there, it was a while ago) and bam, killed a good promotion they had going. Too bad too, I wanted to see it in theaters before they revealed it was indeed just a movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 10th, 2010
So Troll 2 hits Blu-ray. That fact is as sure a sign of the coming Apocalypse as any I can think of, and, at the very least, must threaten the entire Blu-ray format with destruction, as judgment rains down from the hands of an angry God. If, Gentle Reader, you come to this review without any foreknowledge of the film, and are actually wondering if a movie called Troll 2 might be good, then please run as fast as you can and hide. Or at the very least, please watch the legendary YouTube clip appended below. What, you're still here? Don't say you weren't warned.
I'm risking my immortal soul by writing any kind of a synopsis of this film, but here goes. Little Josh (Michale Stephenson) is regularly visited by the rather cranky ghost of his grandfather, who warns him about the dangers posed by goblins (yes, this is a movie called Troll 2 that features goblins instead of trolls – already a dire omen). Josh's family heads off into the countryside for a pioneer-style holiday. Less than happy to be on the trip is teenage daughter Holly (Connie McFarland), whose callow boyfriend Elliot (Jason Wright) was supposed to come along, but was late. Elliot and his equally idiotic friends are now trying to catch up under their own steam. Our characters arrive in the town of Nilbog, where the residents turn out to be goblins in disguise. Their dastardly plans involve transforming the people into vegetable hybrids, and then eating them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2010
Open Water:
An over-worked couple (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) whose marriage, while not in danger, has clearly reached some difficult shoals, head off on a diving vacation. A mix-up (which is disturbingly credible) results in the tour ship leaving them behind. Stuck in the middle of the ocean, they float together, hoping against hope for rescue, growing cold and hungry. And then there is the marine life. Like stinging jellyfish. And sharks…
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2010
"You are what they eat."
In 1964 Herschell Gordon Lewis brought us the classic gore-fest Two Thousand Maniacs. It was pretty much like all of his films. It was generous on the naked babes and the blood. Lewis was one of the pioneers of the slasher film and was producing low-budget gore films long before they were popular in the mainstream. The man continues to be a legend in the genre. It's been a long time since an original Lewis film has been released, but his influence can be felt everywhere in the genre. So, when I first heard about a "sequel", of sorts, being prepared by Tim Sullivan, I was intrigued, to say the least. This could either be a ton of fun or a complete disaster.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 5th, 2010
Bruno Hamel (Claude Legault), a surgeon, and his wife Sylvie (Fanny Mallette) enjoy an afternoon tryst while their young daughter Jasmine (Rose-Marie Coallier) heads off to school. Tragedy strikes, though, when Jasmine is assaulted and killed by pedophile Anthony Lemaire (Martin Dubreuil). Bruno and Sylvie are devastated, and each deals with the tragedy an unhealthy way, with Sylvie withdrawing from the world and her husband, and Bruno plotting vengeance. Lemaire is caught, but doesn't remain in police custody long, since Bruno kidnaps him and carries him off to a secluded cottage in the forest. His plan: torture Lemaire for the seven days leading up to what would have been Jasmine's birthday, and then kill him. The police investigation becomes at least as much about saving Bruno's soul as it is about saving Lemaire's life.
Rightly or wrongly, so-called “torture porn” is one of the more reviled subgenres of horror film. While there is no denying that the worst films of this type can be among the most mind-numbing and depressing bits of celluloid stupidity, aesthetically as well as ethically bankrupt, it is just as true that the best can force the viewer into some extremely uncomfortable, but artistically and philosophically vital, territories. One should also bear in mind that though the term “torture porn” is new, that type of story has been around forever. No less a figure of classic horror than Bram Stoker himself wrote a short story called “The Squaw,” wherein a character experiences a sexual thrill by installing himself in an iron maiden (until, of course, things go rather wrong). And if we go all the way back to the birth of literary horror, with the arrival of the Gothic novel at the end of the 18th century, the Marquis de Sade was right there at the start, penning works that articulated what the English Gothics only hinted at, and that depicted horrors that go far beyond anything Eli Roth has dared put on the screen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 17th, 2010
Written by Diane Tillis
Only once in a blue moon will a filmmaker come along to change the way films are created…for an entire country! Kazakhstan – born director Timur Bekmambetov is best known in America as the director for Wanted (2008) and for producing 9 (2009) alongside Tim Burton, but in Russia he is known as the man who changed the film industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His plan was to shake up the whole Russian film world with a feature film that was unlike anything done in the country before. Night Watch was his answer: a visionary fantasy horror film with an astonishing collaboration of mind-altering visual effects, suspenseful terror, and adrenaline-fueled action.
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![Secretary [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/secretary-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Blair Witch Project [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-blair-witch-project-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Troll 2 [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/troll-2-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Open Water / Open Water 2: Adrift [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/open-water-open-water-2-adrift--large.jpg)
![2001 Maniacs [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/2001-maniacs-blu-ray-large.jpg)
