Silent Hill: Revelation

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
Silent Hill:  Revelation
Released 10/26/12, now in theaters

The 2012 Halloween season ends with Silent Hill:  Revelation, the sequel to the 2006 horror gem (my opinion, I know), Silent Hill.  Like the first movie, the sequel is based on a survival horror video game.  Sean Bean and Deborah Kara Unger return in the sequel.  New cast members include Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, Martin Donovan, Kit Harington, and Adelaide Clemens. 

Following the events of the first film, Rose Da Silva and her adopted daughter, Sharon, are trapped in the haunted town of Silent Hill unable to return to normal reality.  We start this film with Sharon on the brink of her 18th birthday back in normal reality.  Several years earlier, it seems Rose discovered a portal that can return one person back to the other side.  She decides to send Sharon back using an amulet and communicates to her husband, Chris (Bean), that the inhabitants of Silent Hill still want Sharon to stay for nefarious reasons.  Chris vows to protect his daughter at all costs and goes on the run with Sharon over the next decade, both using various aliases to avoid detection. 

Teenage Sharon (Clemens) remembers nothing from her time in the haunted town except through nightmares where she always encounters a demonic figure named “Alessa” who she is drawn to for some strange reason.  In the newest town she and her father have established residence, Sharon (going by the name Heather), meets new people who will have a profound impact on her life in the near future.  First, there’s private detective, Douglas Cartland (Donovan) who is tracking Sharon, and later tries to warn her about his employers.  Second, there’s Vincent (Harrington), a classmate at Sharon’s new school who takes an unusual interest in the stand-offish girl. 

Trouble starts brewing as Sharon begins seeing horrific images in her waking hours that she can’t explain.  After escaping capture from a demonic figure in an elevator (that also claims Cartland’s life), Sharon returns home to discover her father has been kidnapped and to find a chilling message written in blood on the wall that reads “Come to Silent Hill.”  Together with Vincent, Sharon goes to the burning town with the intent on rescuing her father.  But Silent Hill wants her and it won’t be willing to let her leave a second time.

There is good and bad to this sequel.  First comes the good.  The stop motion photography still provides the same nice creepiness as it did in the first movie.  There was money and thought put in to the 3D technology.  It is extremely well done.  You feel like you can reach out and touch the falling ashes.  Now, the bad.  And there’s a lot of it story wise.  You know what this felt like?  “Hey, let’s use some of the creepy imagery and one or two story elements that made the first movie entertaining, string it together with a flimsy, nonsensical plot, and call it the Silent Hill sequel.”   Bad horror irritates me to no end.  Good horror is more than stringing a couple of creepy images together.  There is a method to the madness in good horror movies.  The images you see must be disturbing and must make sense as to why they are on the screen.  Great horror sets the mood with a chilling premise and sharp execution of image and plot that makes you peek around dark corners in your own home.  Whatever that was on the screen for this film wasn’t like anything I described.  It felt like the creators had absolutely no clue what horror is really about.

Let’s look at the first Silent Hill which I think is a modern day horror classic.  It was a simple, yet demented tale of revenge.  A young girl who was tortured beyond belief by Puritanically religious townspeople exacts vengeance through the physical manifestation of her rage.  So, in the sequel, we find there are yet more townspeople that Alessa forgot to take care of the first time and also seem to be just as demonic as she is.  Where Alessa wanted to keep Sharon safe in the first movie, she now wants to consume her?  All access to Silent Hill was closed down in the first movie, now cars just drive through it like any other town?  There are people that are still born and raised in this demonic town (how did Vincent ever make it to his late teens)?  The townspeople who hid from Alessa’s horrors in the first film, now walk the streets and enter buildings with no protection and are somehow shocked when they get sliced to pieces now?  You get what I’m saying.  There’s just no consistency or cohesion between the two films.  The actors do their best to try to make this work.  There's just nothing in the script for them.  Malcolm McDowell and Carrie-Anne Moss were pretty much wasted here as the psychotic leaders of the townspeople (well, McDowell was pretty much ousted now that I think of it). 

Silent Hill:  Revelation is anything but that.  I would suggest the creators of the sequel watch the first movie again.  Maybe they were following the storyline of the video game.  There are several versions and I haven’t played one to date.  I couldn’t tell you if they stayed true to that story.  What I can tell you is this movie invokes few memories of the first.  Please indulge my childish tone for this next thought, but Silent Hill:  Revelation is a big bad steaming pile of suck!

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

* star

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

Sinister

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
Sinister
Released 10/11/12, now in theaters


The supernatural horror of Sinister rolls into theaters this weekend.  Previews of the film had me very intrigued, although my enthusiasm was somewhat tempered as it is the advertised brainchild of those responsible for the abomination that was Paranormal Activity.  Ethan Hawke, Juliet Rylance, James Ransone, and Vincent D’Onofrio star.   Scott Derrickson, who is responsible for, what I believe, the underrated “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” directs. 

The movie begins in true horror fashion depicting Super 8 footage of an unknown family’s gruesome hanging from their backyard tree branch.  Flash forward months later as true-crime novelist, Ellison Oswalt (Hawke), moves into the same house with his wife, Tracy (Rylance), and children, Ashley and Trevor.   He is in desperate need of another hit novel as his last true-crime bestseller, Kentucky Blood, was 10 years ago.  The money and fame have all but dried up.  Ellison had to move his family into a less lavish home.  But he has an ulterior motive.  The murdered family’s hanging will be the basis of his next novel.  There were supposedly five members in the hanged family, but only four were killed.  The youngest daughter, Stephanie, is still missing.  Of course, Ellison hasn’t told his own family they are actually living in the house where the murders took place.

Soon after moving in, Ellison discovers a box in the attic labeled “Home Movies.”  The box contains a projector and several Super 8 movie reels innocuously titled “Pool Party”, “BBQ “, “Sleepy Time”, “Lawn Work”, and “Hanging Out.”  Each film shows a day in the life of different families enjoying time together.  Each one ends in a family’s grisly murder, including Stephanie’s family (the stars of “Hanging Out”).  Ellison is repulsed, but can’t get the better of his curiosity.  He watches each film several times looking for clues as to who would perform such heinous acts and film them.  He discovers a couple disturbing items.  There is a strange symbol that appears in each movie along with a demonic figure barely seen in the shadows.  There are also several strange things happening around the house.  His son’s night terrors have worsened, his daughter is painting pictures of the missing Stephanie, the projector mysteriously turns on by itself, and Ellison can swear he’s seen the demonic presence around the house on a couple different occasions. With the aid of a local deputy (Ransone) and religion/cult college professor, Jonas (D’Onofrio),  Ellison learns that the families all met their ends in different locations across the country, one child from each family has gone missing, and the demonic entity in the films is a Pagan deity named Buguul, the eater of children’s souls.  But how are all of these random victims connected?  And will Ellison learn the answer too late to save his own family?

Sinister is one of those movies that makes you proud to be a horror fan.  This film is what the genre is about:  creepiness, terror, foreboding, and atmosphere.  And all horror movies need a great villain.  Buguul is barely seen and not heard, but the idea of him still dominates the film.  When he is seen, he’s sufficiently horrific looking, his end game is terrifying.  There’s great pacing to the story and Ethan Hawke’s descent into paranoia and obsession is very believable.

Sinister also succeeded in making me do something I haven’t done in a while watching a horror movie.  It actually made me jump a couple of times.  It’s not the type of uncomfortable squirming the Saw franchise elicits.  It was genuine “What the Hell was that?” type of  jumping.  You’ll likely figure out the final frames in Sinister before they occur, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s a fun and creepy ride getting there and that’s what counts.  That’s a true horror movie.  This is why it’s the perfect Halloween movie. 

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

**** stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

The House at the End of the Street

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
The House at the End of the Street
Released 9/21/12, now in theaters

The Halloween slate of horror movies starts a little early with House at the End of the Street.  The film stars Hunger Games alum, Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Thieriot, and Gil Bellows.  Mark Tonderai takes directing honors.

Newly divorced Sarah Cassidy (Shue) and her daughter, Elissa (Lawrence) make an attempt at a fresh start in a rural, upscale town.  They live next door to a house with a dark history.  Years earlier, the parents in this house were brutally murdered in their beds by their young daughter.  The daughter, Carrie-Ann, ran into the woods after the murders and was never found.  The house’s only inhabitant in the present day is Carrie-Ann’s college aged brother, Ryan (Thierot), who was away from the home when his parents met their brutal end.  The community is wary and fearful of Ryan wondering why he would live in a house with such bad karma. The fact that the house drags down property values due to its history and because the young man will not sell it also doesn’t make him very popular.  His only supporter is Officer Weaver (Bellows) who assures Sarah that he has never had any type of problem with Ryan.  Much to Sarah’s dismay, however, Elissa begins a relationship with the neighboring recluse.  Everything seems to progress fine for Ryan and Elissa.  However, Ryan has a secret involving his sister that has been thought to be long dead.  And it might be the death of Elissa and Sarah before all is said and done. 

The House at the End of the Street is one of those movies that masquerades as a horror movie, but really is not quite that.  Think more psychological horror in the vein of Psycho or, more recently, Orphan.  However, while the two latter movies had moments of sheer terror, House isn’t particularly scary.  It has a great reveal to the madness behind the weird, but isn’t executed in classic horror style.  It leaves you with the feeling of…eh! That’s about all the emotion I can muster for it.  It’s not really memorable.  The film degenerates into a standard thriller in its final moments.

The House at the End of the Street is not an awful movie, but true horror connoisseurs will be a little disappointed by the lack of cringe-worthy moments.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

**3/4 stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here. 

Taken 2

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
Taken 2
Released 10/3/12, now in theaters

Liam Neeson returns as retired spy, Bryan Mills, in Taken 2.  Directed this time around by Olivier Megaton, the film is, of course, the sequel to 2008’s Taken.  Luc Besson also returns as producer. While the first film has generated a cult following, will the sequel live up to the hype?

A year after the events of the first film, Bryan Mills has become closer to his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) and ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen).  Lenore’s second marriage is on life support and Kim is eager to re-connect her parents.  When Kim and Lenore surprise Bryan in Istanbul while he’s on a “business” trip,  they seem on the verge of becoming a family again.  But there’s trouble afoot.  Crimelord, Murad Hoxha (Rade Serbedzija), wants Bryan to suffer for the death of his son.  Hoxha’s son is part of the group that kidnapped Bryan’s daughter in the first film.  The patriarch is on a mission of vengeance not only for himself, but for the families of all the men Bryan killed a year earlier (and that list is quite extensive).  Despite Bryan’s best efforts, Hoxha’s minions capture Lenore and almost acquire Kim.  Now, it’s up to Bryan to do what he does best to rescue Lenore and put an end Hoxha for good.

While watching Taken 2, I couldn’t help but think “This is entertaining enough, but didn’t we cover all this ground in the first movie, and wasn’t it done better the first time?”  I felt the same thing watching The Hangover 2. Seeing so many rehashed situations wasn’t that thrilling on the second go around.  Neeson is fine as his quietly tough self, but there is little more to get excited about.  One thing I did think was unintentionally funny was Bryan providing complex instructions to his family that only another spy could follow and both Lenore and Kim understood them perfectly.  Sitting in the audience I was confused.  It’s turn left where?  Where is East?  Hop, skip, and jump to what?  Maybe it was just me, but those scenes just struck me a little funny.  The villains do not nearly give the aura of danger they did in the first Taken.  Hoxha always appears old and tired.  In fact, most of the time you see him, he’s slumped in a chair!  Not a very striking figure of an Eastern European crime boss is it?  Some of the fight scenes have some muddy camera work.  You’re never quite sure how some of bad guys are killed.  Suddenly, Bryan gets close to them and they’re dead.  Maybe I blinked and missed something. 

Aside from Neeson, there isn’t a great reason to watch Taken 2.  He’s a different kind of action star.  He’s a bear of a man who doesn’t do quips, but has “the Look.”  You know the one.  The quietly intense “I’m going to snap your head around 360 degrees, and, there isn’t a thing you can do about it!”  That quiet toughness could have worked for Batman/Bruce Wayne if Neeson was maybe 10 years younger.  But, alas, we’ll never know unless a Dark Knight Returns film is in the works.  Neeson in that role?  That’s something I’d pay to see.  It would be a big step up from the Taken 2 plot.  Here’s hoping there’s no Taken 3.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

*** stars (for Neeson alone)

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

Dredd

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
Dredd
Released 9/21/12, now in theaters

Dredd ends the Summer movie season as it began by placing another comic book hero in the spotlight. Directed by Pete Travis, this version of the anti-hero is not connected in any way to the 1995 film adaptation starring Sylvester Stallone. Karl Urban takes the reigns as the titular character. Lena Headley and Olivia Thirlby co-star

Later in the third millennium, much of the world, including the United States, is an irradiated wasteland. Humanity’s survivors have flocked to the protection of immense city-states known as Mega-Cities. The judicial system within these structures has been replaced by a new peacekeeping force to keep order amidst the chaos. It’s the era of the Judges. Judges are the cities’ police forces, juries, and executioners all in one. Sometimes they act as all three in the span of seconds. Dredd is a no-nonsense Judge based in Mega-City One, a land of 800 million residents spanning from what used to be Boston to Washington D.C. at its southernmost tip by some accounts. The laws in Mega-City One are harsh for good reason. An estimated 17,000 crimes are reported daily. Recently, a new drug called “Slo-Mo” has hit the streets manufactured and distributed by crimelord, Madeline Madrigal, also known as, Ma-Ma (Headley).

Dredd is assigned as a training officer for rookie Judge Anderson (Thirlby). There is nothing particularly special about Anderson’s training record. In fact, it’s awful as she has failed every Judge’s test. However, the Hall of Justice in Mega-City One wants Anderson on the force due to her psychic abilities.

Dredd and Anderson respond to an incident at the 200-story slum tower known as Peach Trees. This also happens to be Ma-Ma’s base of operations. Dredd and Anderson are investigating the deaths of three men who fell from the tower skinned alive before hitting the pavement(courtesy of Ma-Ma’s henchmen). The Judges encounter the crimelord’s minion, Kay, who Anderson psychically deduces was involved in the killings. When the Judges attempt to take Kay in for questioning, Ma-Ma’s forces seize the tower’s security room and lock down the building and entire block effectively trapping the Judges. The thick blast shields enclosing the block make the call for back up impossible. And Ma-Ma makes her intentions abundantly clear complete with a Gatling gun barrage. There’s only one hope for the Judges under siege. Capture Ma-Ma before they both become very dead. But they will have to go through her men, guns, and corrupt Judges on Ma-Ma’s payroll to do it.

Dredd is not a perfect movie (although very good). But, it is a tremendous improvement over its predecessor. Faint praise, I know, but comparing the two movies is still comparing the smell of roses to the smell of raw sewage. I’m not hugely familiar with the character of Judge Dredd from the comics. I do know he is a hardcase who is not to be crossed. I liked Karl Urban’s gruff whisper while speaking as Dredd. It’s a little like what I wished Christian Bale would have done in the recent Batman movies. Urban gave Dredd a presence that represents what the character should be. A very dangerous man. Here’s another thing I liked. Urban kept his helmet on the entire time. You only saw the actor’s mouth and chin which is how I’ve usually seen the character. A small thing, I know. And I’m sure the comic book Dredd has a face. But one thing I had a problem with in Stallone’s Judge Dredd was that the Dredd character spent much of the movie out of uniform. This also meant Stallone got ample time to mug for the cameras as if we needed to know who it was under the Judge’s helmet. This is also the problem I had with what should have been a deformed Deadpool being the ridiculously handsome Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But I digress. Hopefully, you get my point.

Dredd is sometimes gruesomely violent which fits in perfectly to this dystopian future Earth setting. There are darkly comic moments that will give the audience some good chuckles. I didn’t see the film in 3D, but, I now kind of wished I had for the “Slo-Mo” scenes. Briefly, Slo-Mo is a drug that slows its user’s perception of time. I’m sure the scenes where characters fell through the air while on the drug looked incredible in a 3D format. However, I have to come back to Urban as he almost single-handedly made this movie as enjoyable for me as it was. His whispering, Eastwood-esque voice and humor stole the show.

Dredd is one of the better movies I have seen during this summer season and should not be missed.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

***3/4 stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.

End of Watch

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
End of Watch
Released 9/21/12, now in theaters

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena star in the cop thriller, End of Watch. The film is directed by David Ayer and is one of the bigger releases ending the 2012 Summer season. It’s a tall order to hope the season ends with the same bang that started it (The Avengers), but ,with the good press the movie has received so far, I had hopes it was in the ball park.

LAPD officers Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Pena) are partners and the closest of friends. They’re jokesters and have a bit of maverick in them. It’s the latter that has earned them both respect and scorn within the department. It’s also the latter that could lead to their collective downfall.

One day, while investigating the South Central area, the partners pull over a man in a truck that has driven away from a residence they are watching. The driver draws his gun on them and is quickly subdued. After the arrest, they find an ornately decorated pistol, a gold plated AK-47 and a large amount of cash hidden and transported in a pot of soup. It’s later revealed the weapons and cash belong to a Mexican cartel operating in South Central. Strike one. Taylor convinces Zavala to return to the house they staked out some time later, and they arrest the man living inside the house after noticing suspicious behavior outside. Inside the house, they discover a stash of prisoners that are part of a human trafficking ring. This time, Federal agents, who were also watching the house and the man inside as a person of interest hoping he would lead them to the cartel, warn the two officers off indicating they could be painting targets on their backs. Strike two. The final straw for the cartel comes when Taylor and Zavala accidentally stumble upon decapitated bodies courtesy of the cartel in the home of an elderly woman. A bounty is placed on their heads which leads to the climactic shoot out the two friends may not survive.

There is good and bad to End of Watch. Actually, the bad isn’t so much bad as it is uneventful. Let’s start there. Much of the film feels like you’re watching an episode of “Cops.” Maybe that was intentional. Inherently, there’s nothing wrong with that except it doesn’t make for a particularly interesting 90 minutes. It feels like several random days in the life of these two officers that only begins to come together as a coherent story in the final couple of acts. Now the good. What does keep End of Watch going for much of the film are the two great performances by Gyllenhaal and Pena. Both give believable and heartfelt performances as two partners who are friends for life. They love each other as brothers and would die for each other. They have the banter and put downs that only the best of comrades could have (and get away with) and none of it feels forced or faked. The epilogue of Taylor and Zavala in the police car talking about an incident Zavala had with his future in-laws years ago is absolutely hilarious and one of the best parts of the movie.

End of Watch is decent viewing due to Gyllenhaal and Pena which is why I will give it a favorable review. They give two of the better performances I’ve seen this year even if most of the film wasn’t particularly memorable.

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

*** 1/4 stars

Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.