Hemlock Grove (2013)

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been watching a Netflix original series produced by Eli Roth called Hemlock Grove.  It stars Famke Janseen (X-men),  Lili Taylor (The Haunting), and many new comers.  Since Eli Roth is behind it there are some pretty bloody and gory parts.  This is a supernatural show revolving around a girl who is murdered from some sort of wild animal.  As the town searches for the murderer, suspects from the town they all start to reveal who they really are and the secrets start coming out at every corner.   Nobody is who they seem, you start to wonder what kind of supernatural entities certain characters are.  It takes awhile for the truth to get out and they do seem to draw out pretty much all of the stories.  I get the idea of drawing it out to build character stories and deeper storylines, but sometimes there’s not enough to keep it interesting.  I will say that if you do enjoy the first few that you should keep watching.  There is a catch to this series though that I will warn you about, there’s not much pay off on the season finale.  About 2 question gets answered and that’s about it.  One cool thing that did get me hooked was seeing a supernatural transformation.  This only happens twice throughout the season which was kind of disappointing, I would’ve loved seeing it a few more times throughout but you deal with what you get.  Each episode is about 45 minutes and there are 13 episodes to the season.   They do end it on a sort of what is going to happen next ending and left a lot of questions for viewers.  So I would say that I’m anticipating a second season on Netflix.  This is only available on Netflix instant, but definitely worth a shot if you’re into the whole supernatural aspect of it.

I do recommend this show, but it does drag on and can be very slow at times.

I give it a 4.0 for keeping me wondering what would happen next and the finale keeps me asking for more

and wanting to know the secrets of Hemlock Grove. 

Lords Of Salem (2013)

Allright so I watched Lords of Salem last night and I  don’t even know how to sum this movie up for a review but let’s see what I can do.  This is Rob Zombie’s newest horror movie, it’s not so much a horror movie but a just fucked up visual witch fest.  It stars Sheri Moon Zombie (House of 1,000 Corpses), Bruce Davison (X-men), and Dee Wallace (E.T.).  The basic premise is Heidi who is a radio DJ and one day receives what she thinks is a demo from a band but instead is some sort of hidden message from a spell by the Salem witches.  Now this movie is not for most people, unless you’re a fan of Rob Zombie movies.  There is alot of symbolism in this movie, that to the usual viewer would be totally confused.  I’m still confused as to what exactly happened throughout the movie and the ending especially.  There’s a lot of old lady nudity and Sheri Moon’s ass is un-credited but makes an appearance several times. 

So I don’t recommend this movie unless your dead set on going to see it.  It’s very weird and super confusing, I’m sure Rob Zombie had an idea and it sounded great in his head but visually it just doesn’t work for most people.  If you still feel like seeing this it is in some theaters but it didn’t get a full release so you may have to a little road trip to see it.

I give this movie 2 stars, for just in general of being messed up and I wanted to keep watching to see what happened and how everything would play out.   

American Mary (2012)

I watched a movie called American Mary.  This was one of the Screamfest movies from last year, if you’re not familiar with Screamfest it’s basically like Sundance for Horror movies.  This movie is about a medical student still in school and learning to become a skilled surgeon.  After needing cash because of bills pilling up Mary decides to check out a local strip club to make some extra cash.  Mary instead is hired by the club owner and some underground groups to do body modification surgeries.  While doing this she starts to learn towards the underground part of surgeries and not so much with the legit surgery experience.  It stars Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps), not really any star power in this movie since it is a lower budget horror movie.  For lower budget horror movies I always give credit to the screamfest films, they do a pretty good job at picking the best out of the lot.  I’m not saying this is an amazing movie or anything but it was interesting.  There are a few different directions that the plot goes to move the story which is interesting.  After watching this I was curious to what was involved with Body Modification, it was interesting to say the least and most people actually participate in this even if it’s at a very low level.  It can include Tattoos, piercings, to just dying your hair.  Now this movie takes body modification to the extreme and does have some gory parts when things go wrong, it is of course a horror movie. 

Now this movie isn’t released to rent or buy until June 18^th, 2013 but I do recommend maybe renting it if you’re into the low budget horror genre

I give this movie a 3.5 for a good story and getting me to look into something I didn’t really know anything about.

Bachelorette (2012)

I watched Bachelorette this week, it’s about a group of old high school friends getting back together because one of them is getting married.  After having an incident during the bachelorette party and then a drunken accident with the wedding dress everything just goes downhill from there.  It stars Kirsten Dunst (Spider-man), Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect), Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield), Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), Andrew Rannells (The New Normal), James Marsden (Enchanted), and Adam Scott (Parks and Rec).  Before watching this I figured it was just a rip-off of Bridesmaids taking a mostly girls cast and putting them in funny situations.  Yes it does do this but in different ways and the cast makes some scenes so funny, Isla Fisher’s and Lizzy Caplan’s characters are hilarious.  Some of Isa Fisher’s jokes and mannerisms are still making me laugh.  Eveytime I try to sum up this movie I feel like I have to compare it to bridesmaids but it’s not really like that.  It’s almost a darker comedy version of it in a way.

I do recommend this movie especially if you have Netflix instant

I give this movie a 4.0 for the shenanigans they get in to and the great cast. 

Red Dawn (2012)

We watched Red Dawn the other night which is available to rent or own right now.  This is a remake of the 1984 classic movie titled the same.  This new version stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Josh Peck (Drake and Josh), Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), Adrianne Palicki (G.I. Joe Retaliation), Isabel Lucas (Transformers 2), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Watchmen).  The story is that North Korea invades the United States and a group of teenagers escapes to fight and take them down.  This then sparks resistances  around the world to fight against the North Koreans.  Now this movie had several problems first of all it was originally China who invaded the United States. The directors realized that China has covered majority of the United States debt so the film makers decided to change that after the fact using C.G.   This movie was also made back in 2009 but shelved because of financial problems, having Chris Hemsworth being a huge star now I guess they figured the time was right.  I also feel that this could never happen in the world we live in, and they try to place this into a real world scenario but I just couldn’t get into that fact.  I think it worked better back in the 80’s so it does seem a little dated.  The movie wasn’t horrible and I would recommend it for some cool action and if you can’t get into older movies this would be a good option for watching Red Dawn it’s the same basic premise of the original.

I give this movie a 2.5 for being another remake they should of just stayed away from. 

A Sound of Thunder (2005)

I watched A Sound of Thunder, this is loosely based off a Ray Bradbury short story also titled A Sound of Thunder.  It’s basically the original story that spawned the term The Butterfly Effect (also a very good movie).  It all takes place in 2055 when a company called Time Safari offers customers the chance to travel back to the prehistoric era and actually kill a dinosaur.  So time travel is a thing but it’s governed and has vey strict rules.  They know that if you change one thing in the past it can change the entire future.  Well as you can imagine something does go wrong on one of the expeditions and things start to change.  They have a limited amount of time to find out what happened and fix it before it’s too late.  This movie stars Edward Burns (Man on a Ledge, 27 Dresses), and Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3).  Now if you watch the movie you have to realize I don’t like it for the visual effects because they are horrible, I mean really really bad.  I liked it for the idea and I love the whole Butterfly Effect premise, which also is the main reason I hope time travel never gets figured out.  I really wish this would have been received better and looked a lot better than it did.  It had a decent budget of 52 million dollars so I don’t why the C.G. and effects looked so bad. 

I did enjoy this movie when it came out and still enjoyed it watching it again but you have to get past the horrible visuals.  I’m not sure if I would exactly recommend it to anybody but if you’ve got nothing to do and it’s on TV. or someone has it to borrow then yeah check it out. 

I give this movie a 3.0 because it’s really hard to ignore all the crappy C.G. but I still enjoyed the story

Evil Dead (2013)

I decided to go see Evil Dead because it’s the freaking Evil Dead.  They’ve been talking about remaking this movie for years and they finally did it, and succeeded in a great movie.  Starring Jane Levy (Suburgatory),  Shiloh Fernandez (Red Ridding Hood), and Jessica Lucas (Cloverfield).  This is a remake of the horror classic of the same name.  If you’re a fan of the old Evil Dead movies then you’ll love this one.  They took parts from both Evil Dead 1 and 2 and put them together in this one.  They most likely did that because Evil Dead 2 is kind of a remake of Evil Dead 1 from back in the day.  There are plenty of callbacks to the old movies in this but also enough new ideas to keep it fresh and interesting.  The basic story now is a group of 5 friends go to a remote cabin to help Jane Levy’s character off of drugs.  While at the cabin they find a mysterious book in the basement, and of course one the curious friends just has to open and read from the book.   This in turn releases some very Evil spirits that want to torture and have fun with the teenagers.   For me personally it didn’t make me jump but some scenes made me cringe, there is some pretty gross parts in this movie.  Also majority of the budget was probably spent on blood especially towards the end.  Also there is a very short after credits scene and some cool stuff they play during the credits (this is mostly for fans of the original series).  I do recommend this movie

I give this movie a 5.0 for being an amazing remake of a classic horror movie that never happens.