Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 5th, 2007
Three young couples on a road trip leave their turtled vehicle and march through the dark woods, hoping to find the highway again. (Clearly Mensa candidates, each and every one.) They stumble upon an apparently abandoned secret facility, and naturally blunder in. A psychically powered lunatic uses astral projection to do bad things to them. People start to die. No great loss.
Think through this equation for me, will you? Direct-to-video + walking-around-tunnels-plot + Tara Reid = ?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 31st, 2007
Bridget Moynahan is the new stepmother to Peter Weller’s children. 14-year-old Carly Schroeder is not at all pleased with the state of affairs, and just as displeased to be hauled off to Africa for a safari while Weller works on a dam. When their guide goes off-road, they run afoul of a pride of lions. The guide is eaten, the car is disabled, and the lions are circling. Weller mounts a hunt for his missing family, hiring a misanthropic big-game hunter to help.
There are more than a few echoes of Jaws here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 31st, 2007
Arriving at a small English town, backpacker Christina Ricci is promptly run over by a car. Despite the impressive impact, she seems unharmed, apart from a complete loss of memory. The woman who hit her takes her in, and Ricci promptly bonds with the children, especially the little boy, who, like her, sees scary things at night. Meanwhile, the kids’ father (Stephen Dillane) is investigating a long-buried 1st Century church nearby, whose crucifixion scene is disturbingly out of whack. Ominous hints gather.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 29th, 2007
Amber Tamblyn, playing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sister, comes to Tokyo to help Gellar, currently in a hospital and considered insane. The help is too little too late, and soon Tamblyn is contending with the same evil ghosts. Two other storylines intertwine with this one: a young American student goes into the evil house on a dare, and she and her two friends attract the unwelcome attentions of the spectral mother and son. And back in the States, a blended family moving into a new apartment is gradually torn apart by the influence of the malevolent duo.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 18th, 2007
Alexandra Holden is a big-time TV reporter who is traumatized when an intruder breaks into her home and kills her fiancé. (Does this set-up remind anyone of The Howling?) She retreats to her old home-town, moves back with her parents (Sid Haig and Leslie Easterbrook!) and starts work at a local TV station. Her first assignment takes her to a house where murders took place years ago, and she promptly has visions of ghosts and the murders, and she feels she is being called on to provide justice for the ghosts.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 13th, 2007
Wolf Creek is an Australian horror film that is based on true events; with no certain event in specific it combines a few elements from some missing people�s cases in Australia. The actions of some of the characters mirror that of famous serial killers, most notably that of Ivan Milat who most have speculated is whom the movie is based on. According to Quentin Tarantino Wolf Creek is ��One of the great horror film heavies of the last 25 years� so it seems to be really promising.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 13th, 2007
Pulse is a remake of the 2001 Japanese film Kairo which was based on a novel of the same name. The movie opens with Josh entering a dark university library looking for someone named Zieglar, where he is instead met by some creepy old man and an entity that sucks life out of him. At this point everything seemed to be promising, although a bit out there. We soon find out that Josh was the boyfriend of Mattie (Kristen Bell) who is now worried as to where their relationship stands because Josh isn�t speaking with her anymore.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 9th, 2007
Victor (Greg Bryk) is one piece of work: a millionaire playboy with a taste for torture and absolutely no regard for anyone but himself. Who wouldn’t want this guy dead? His wife Elizabeth (Kristy Swanson, emerging from the where-are-they-now file) and his lawyer Roman (Josh Peace) are having an affair and plan to knock him off. They poison him, but it turns out the drug only creates a death-like stasis. He is still fully conscious, even as he’s about to be dissected. Understandably, when he regains mobility, his disposition has in no way been improved.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2007
When you consider the huge amount of acting inherent to the WWF, you might expect acting talents to dominate this WWE horror production. OK, of course you wouldn't. Still, acting is not where this film shines. The tired formula of teens in an isolated location who get picked off one by one is certainly nothing original, so the script doesn't offer any real shining moments either. So where exactly does this film take on a luster of its own? Truth be told? It doesn't. Of course, looking at the target audience, the film doesn't really need to.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 8th, 2007
Sven Garrett plays the Photographer, who, when not exercising his profession of photographing beautiful women, is busy torturing and killing them. His girlfriend’s little sister (Jade Risser) thinks there’s something creepy about him, but isn’t listened to. Meanwhile, the bodies pile up.
There’s not a heck of a lot more to the plot than that. The title is an apt description of the film: it is basically a collection of set pieces. References to Nazi Germany and footage of 9/11 are tossed in to no very compelling purpose.