#gore-fest

[johnschneiderblog]

Gore-fest

I'll say up front here that vampire movies aren't my thing. It seems to me that once you've seen Bela Lugosi's "Dracula" you've seen them all.

But several people whose opinions I respect recommended the newest, much-celebrated blood-sucker, "Sinners", to me - and since I could watch it for free on HBO - I decided to give it a try ... twice.

Let me point out here that "Sinners", directed by Ryan Coogler, has received a record-breaking 16 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay

The first time I tried to watch it, I lasted until the first eruption of blood and guts. It's not that I'm against gore in movies. I suspect, in fact, that I'm less squeamish than most in that regard.

But when gore becomes the main character - especially when splattered in a gratuitous and unoriginal way - I lose interest.

On the second try, I waded all the way through the bloodbath, but still couldn't find much to like.

I just don't get it.

[mistercateater]

ok so i've never seen game of thrones before and thought it would be fun to watch in the dark as i fall asleep and holy fucking shit that was a bad idea.

[suite9229]

20140412: SciFi Review--Lake Placid: the Final Chapter

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/04/20140412-scifi-review-lake-placid-final.html

One line summary: Better than 2 and 3; not as good as the original.

Three stars of five.

Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly quite good, but not the CGI.

Sound: 7/10 The actors are well-miked, and the incidental music usually appropriate to the occasion whether it be creepy, foreboding, or pleasant.

Acting: 6/10 Roehm, Butler, and Nichols were fine, as was England, though his role was on the short side.  Benedict Smith, Daniel Black, and Ako Mitchell were not great, but were better than I expected.

Screenplay: 5/10 The dialog was not great, but was much better than one usually gets in such films.  The interconnections of the poacher with the first films was interesting, as was the connection of the poacher to the tree hugger.

[suite9229]

20140130: Horror Review--Donner Pass

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/01/20140130-horror-review-donner-pass.html

Indie vanity film for Elise Robertson.  Oi, the ending telegraphs sequel; let us hope not.

One line summary: Gore, slasher, soft R, teen elimination derby with zero likeable characters.

One star of five.

Cinematography: 7/10 Too dark much of the time.

Sound: 7/10 Mostly OK, but was not the asset it might have been.

Acting: 0/10  Terrible, stem to stern.  More or less bad high school play level.  Several of the actors look close to thirty, but act like bad tempered, entitled delinquents.

Screenplay: 2/10 Standard teen elimination derby, with a weak link to the Donner party historical events. Neither interesting nor compelling.  Even the gratuitous nudity had me wondering how it fit into the story.  Of course, it did not.

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[suite9229]

20140105: Horror Review--Hansel & Gretel

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/01/20140105-horror-review-hansel-gretel.html

One line summary: Bears little resemblance to the fairy tale; poor as a gorefest.

One star of five.  Two black holes for screenplay and acting.

Cinematography: 7/10 Much of the movie looked fine, but some of the dark sections were ridiculously poorly done.

Sound: 6/10 The conversation is a close to muted all too often.

Acting: 2/10 Dee Wallace was fine, but the rest of the cast was terrible.

Screenplay: 0/10 The story made no particular sense.  None of the characters were interesting, and I found no reason to care about any of them

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[suite9229]

20131025: Horror Review--Sick Nurses

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2013/10/20131025-horror-review-sick-nurses.html

One line summary: Poor story and non-engaging characters, but plenty of gore.

Two stars of five.  The two stars are for the last three minutes before the credits, where the doctor's role in all this foulness is revealed, and for the wonderful score during the credits.

Cinematography: 4/10 Yikes, saw it on Netflix, streamed in standard, and looks more like VHS.  The aspect ratio I observed was 1.33 which looks bad to start with.

Sound: 10/10 A bit florid at times, but much more effective than the visuals, the acting, or the screenplay.

Acting: 5/10 Varies, but most of it is mediocre, some of it downright wooden.

Screenplay: 2/10 The fracturing of the timelines of the nurses is rather severe, and none of the timelines is all that interesting.  Why not?  This is because I never saw any reason to care about any of the characters to begin with.  They are all black market organ thieves, after all.  Following each one to their own particular grisly death was more ho-hum than anything else.

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[suite9229]

Horror Review--Mutant Girls Squad

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2013/09/20130908-horror-review-mutant-girls.html

One line summary: Hybrid Rin tries to find her own way in the human versus mutant war.

Three stars of five.

Cinematography: 9/10 Sufficient light, clear focus, reasonable framing.  Occasional jumpy camera work, and some fits of 90% of the screen being overexposed badly.

Sound: 8/10 Good enough.  I can hear the actors, and the incidental music is not too irritating.  The foley for combat seems only a little exaggerated. 

Acting: 5/10 Has its ups and downs.

Screenplay: 7/10 The plot progresses in a fairly connected fashion: shock to revenge to realization to rebellion to resolution.

Special Effects: 7/10 Lots of bright red blood splatter. Curious choices in CGI for dismembering bodies and slicing heads into layers.  Bizarre tentacle rape, female mutant violating male soldier.  Of course, the long sword up the reverse direction of the GI track is just as shocking.  The nose guns on the anti-mutant soldiers were somewhat amusing, but not convincing.

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[suite9229]

Action Review--Tokyo Gore Police

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2013/09/20130907-action-review-tokyo-gore-police.html

One line summary: Ruka is out to avenge her father's death at the hands of crooked cops; so is her adversary, Key Man.

One star of five; three black holes for cinematography, special effects, and acting.

Cinematography: 2/10 Often dark with insufficient contrast and soft focus.  Framing mistakes, jumpy camera work.  Panning with blur.  Blood on the lens, too many times.  The blood here is Texas Longhorn orange; that is, not very red.  Yellow and orange filters applied for no apparent reason.

Sound: 2/10 Weak. The incidental music is often amateurish in composition, poor in quality, and hollow sounding.  At times it seems the actors are not miked properly.  There was a significant number of lines spoken in Japanese that had no related English subtitles.  This did not help following the plot.

Acting: 2/10 There are too many actors with total lack of affect: stone faced and silent without much body English.  The protagonist is the prime example.  Also, her fight movements are often out of synch by one to five seconds, as if reacting to off-camera cues.

Screenplay: 3/10 Gallons of blood sprayed, followed by zero landing on actors' clothes.  This repeated a dozen times or so. Acquaintance with the laws of physics and logic is out the window.  Given that, we're down to special effects and character motivation.  The FX were really bad, so motivation would have to drive the plot. Motivation is fairly well lost as well. One segment goes to another with little or no explanation.  The plot is more of an archipelago than a road from here to there.

Special Effects: 2/10 Cheesy blood spatter. Enough blood to float small boats.  Badly done fake chopped off body parts.  Blood pipes made obvious when a limb or neck or finger is sliced off.

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