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Hey I
managed to catch up on some horror movies I missed when doing my initial rundown of the horror movies of 2014. So
I decided to just do these here and continue my track record of reviewing movies
that nobody really cares about.
Overall: 3/10
What a
turkey. And what a Turkey.
A strange
complaint that will be limited to me and a very small class of history
enthusiasts: this movie is kind of racist, and very historically incorrect… And
not within the bandwidth of, “it is just fiction you can fudge the numbers a
bit”. It is actually more off base than “300”
with its bull shit.
The start
of this movie portrays Vlad Tempest as having been raised in the Janissary
tradition of the Ottoman Turks and having been a participant in their military
campaigns. That is mostly true… But they
leave out a lot, like his brother staying in Turkey as a friend of the future
Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. In the
movie there is no brother and instead Vlad sees Mehmed as his brother.
 |
| In the movie they talk about how, "There are no pictures or statues of the man." Trying to pull the, "He isn't the hero we need, but he is the hero we deserve" Dracula should be more like Batman bullshit. And considering that is a picture of Vlad from Wikipedia, I find this movie again... Really stupid. |
To compare
with “300” again. In real life Vlad, as
a way of turning away peace with the Turks… Had the envoys murdered by nailing
their turbans to their heads. And he did
this to lay the groundwork for a crusade he anticipated happening in a few
years which would have drawn the bulk of the Ottoman forces away from his
lands.
The issues
in here deepen as in 3 days the Turks bash into the country, and if it were not
for Vlad gaining demonic super powers they would have won handily, even though
the war lasted for 3 years in real life and was brought to a close by treason
against Vlad which resulted in his beheading… INSTEAD THEY HAVE HIM KILL MEHMED THE CONQUEROR. I know that most people
have no idea who Mehmed is from a historical standpoint, because Middle East
history is not looked upon with all that interest by US classes, but having
Mehmed die in this way would be the equivalent of having Mao die fighting the Japanese
during World War II and never take power in China. (By the way, the final confrontation is just
crap, Vlad has annihilated the entire army even if Mehmed had killed Vlad he
would have been totally fucked so the whole final fight comes off as
meaningless). This is such a divergence
from history that it breaks the movie for me.
And there are obvious ways around it.
There are
good things in the movie. Most of the
acting works, Charles Dance is a great master vampire, but overall the movie is
just really weak with its plot. You have
Vlad gain the power to kill a thousand men single handedly… and nobody bats an
eye, but 24 hours later they are trying to burn him alive because he is a
vampire… What? They already know of him
as a mass murderer of innocents, they already know he has started a war with
the local expansionist super power, he has forced them to abandon their homes…
and they decide to turn on him because he has temporarily gained
superpowers? And has yet to use them to
harm any of his own people.
 |
| So he is also the Hulk. He is Batman mixed with the Hulk. |
I could
easily see this and “I, Frankenstein” existing in the same universe. A crappy universe of bland, “I am so emo”
monster movies.
 |
| And the final battle with Mehmed is backwards. Mehmed being a mortal fighting a super strong, super fast, shapeshifter has to use cunning and a careful allocation of limited resources to pose a threat... Something the hero of the story is usually expected to do. God, this movie is so stupid. It comes off like the boss battle of a video game. (Poster) |
Overall: 5/10
I initially had no enthusiasm to
see this. The premise seemed like “The Crow”, a movie I have never really liked.
Daniel Radcliffe was still (in my mind) the guy who had stared in “The
Woman in Black” which was an uneven letdown of a film. And the advertising of this movie either
emphasized the darker stuff or the sillier parts, and so I did not understand
what to expect.
In general what I got was an uneven
and messy film, but it wasn't a disappointment.
The funny parts were funny, the idea of the horns is pretty cool, and
they do a lot to develop everyone in the movie as characters. The problem comes with tone, in which it swings
back and forth between comedy, tragedy, and horror so fast that there is some
mood whiplash. Do they want the movie to
be a dark tale of revenge that shows a character embrace darker impulses to
punish the sinners who have ruined his life?
Or does it want to be a farce, the main character stirring up a series
of sight gags as he takes a tour of a small town filled with assholes as he
figures out a mystery? The serious
sentimental ending suggests the former, but much of the movie’s scenes of
irreverent violence suggests the later.
I really like the idea of the
horns, that they compel people to confess their deepest sins, act out their
vile impulses, can make them psychically experience suffering, and nobody
remembers it. That is pretty cool, and
leads to a lot of scenes of people screaming at each other, fighting, or being
gluttons for drugs or food. As far as
low-key-magical-realism super powers go this is a good one.
I was afraid the movie would pull
punches, but it didn't. It has boobs and
blood and cursing. Since it didn't shirk
from those things I might be giving it a bit more credit than it deserves. Really the premise works on paper, and with a
more focused script, either serious or farcical this thing could have been
pretty good.
 |
| Also, it is good to see that all of Danny's practice working with CGI stuff in his movie career helps him here. (Poster) |
Overall: 7/10
A movie I
had not heard of and I am surprised has not received more attention. “Housebound” is a horror comedy with roughly
the premise of “Disturbia” or “Rear Window” in that a young woman cannot leave
her house (she is a criminal) and discovers strange happenings in her home,
ultimately discovering it was the scene of a murder and it is now haunted. She unravels the mystery with the help of the
security official who makes sure she stays under house arrest, and putting up
with her Mom and Step Dad.
It has a
lot of good foreshadowing and wraps up rather tightly by the end. The action is fast, it makes a lot of quick
little jokes that show the characters are human, and the mystery resolves in a
satisfying fashion. It isn't going to
touch you on a deep and personal emotional level, but it is a good bit of fun.
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| Another movie in which characters with motivations react and act in accordance with the plot. Why does that seem like such a hard thing to find in movies? |
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