Solo Review: Severance (2006)

For those of you that thought this movie was going to be about actress Joan Severance, like I did, you're about to be disappointed. The woman has been naked in 5,233 movies, give or take, and I was all set for a retrospective of her nudity and sexual acts, but no... she's nowhere to be seen in this one!

Sorry, Joan. We'll always have Lake Consequence.

Luckily, this movie was good enough to make me forget how upset I was: A bunch of Brit businessmen (and chicks) head into the Hungarian mountains for a team-building weekend (wow, now that's a motivational tool worth never exploring), and they all get their asses kicked by the locals. Needless to say, that Hungary has it's share of inbred mountain folk just like the deep south does here in the U.S.A., although their version is a tad more militant and they carry fully automatic weapons and flamethrowers; also, they're vengeful Russians. The cold war never really ended, did it!?!?!

Perestroika my ass!

So the creepy Russian ex-militants let loose the dogs of war: they send a highly trained attack spider to wreak havoc against the foreigners, but the attempt is foiled; they leave a special pie in the fridge for them, booby-trapped with teeth, but that doesn't do the trick either. Soon enough, they resort to good old-fashioned methods of mayhem like bear traps and Gymkata to kill the limey invaders. That's right, I said Gymkata!

I won't ruin the ending for you here, but I will say that two Hungarian whoress save the day. This is why I love whores.

Gymkata!

This is an overall fun film, that mixes comedy and gore in just the right measure. I was waiting to be pissed off, as I am with most Horror/Comedy hybrids, but the filmmakers and actors alike pull it off and managed to make me smile a wee bit. I like the mean-spirited feel of the kills; a lot was done tongue-in-cheek, but they still packed the gore in, and it made me wince a few times.

Team Building is the worst.

Why was there no sex going on here??? Four chicks, two of them hookers, and not one person got any... although to be fair, all of the killing going on may have put the kibosh on that.

You're telling me that they wouldn't have put out? Poppycock!

That fucking pie, man. I mean, would you have eaten that?

The after-pie smoke.

The hunting knife in the ass was the highlight for me, although severed limbs and bloody violence were plentiful. The bear trap was a nasty touch as well.

It's buckwheats for you, pally.

Hungarian hookers trapped in a pit... Need I say more?

I will say no more.

Finding the right lodge to begin with helps a lot, and saves everyone from being brutally killed. Also, don't mess with Hungarian hookers unless you want to have a fight on your hands! A sexy, sexy fight.

You won the Team Building challenge! Yay!

This one is worth an own for me, and at least a rent for most of you. It's a good and goofy time that should satisfy the blood hungry among us, and make us laugh at the same time.

B+

Severance is available now on DVD and VOD.

Laura Harris and Judit Viktor are in this.

Solo Review: [REC] (2007)

When fearless reporter Angela tags along with a company of Firemen on a routine midnight call, the terror of her big mouth and disregard for anything other than the damned camera filming her, begins!

Apparently, the fat chick from the Dawn of the Dead remake is back, and is trying to eat people in her quaint little apartment building, so the Firemen, along with two bumbling Cops, try to help her, and end up fucking up so bad that everyone ends up screwed. They kill her 24 times to no avail, and finally decide to lock her in a room with a ham, hoping she will choke to death. Does the daring plan work? You'll see... 

Thought I was kidding, didn't you?

Once bitten, the new infected zombies get really mad and try to eat everyone else; one little girl even tries to eat her mother... that creepy little fuck. They start dropping like flies, these Spaniards, until there are only three of them left; thank god the guy with the camera and the loud-mouth twit of a reporter are two of them. The rest of the movie is a cat-ansd-mouse survival type of thing, with the jerk-off FEMA team ordering the tenants at gunpoint to remain in the building and "await instructions." If by "await instructions" they mean "Stay in there and die, or we will shoot you ourselves," then they got their point across. Apparently FEMA sucks in Europe too.

I won't spoil the ending for you here, but trust me when I say that you will poop your pants, and perhaps even the pants of those near you when you see it. (I know I never expected to see Barbara Walters naked with a hammer in this movie.)

Keep crawling... you're almost free lol!

I don't think I've seen a movie ending as terrifying as this one in a long while; the last 10 minutes of [REC] absolutely changed the movie for me, and took it to a much creepier place than just your standard "Infected people turning into killer zombies" fare. I loved the twist, and would have like to have seen that premise explored more. I'm hoping that [REC] 2 will give me what I want! I don't want to ruin it by saying too much more, but suffice it to say that the place where the virus comes from makes me giddy. I want to see an entire movie dedicated to that subject matter.

She looks lost.

[REC] is definitely frightening in a lot of ways, and especially the premise; an unknown virus turning everyone around you into flesh eating madmen, while you're locked in a building with them and can't get out... now that's a story that makes for some intense moments. The shaky-cam thing that is so popular in movies lately (thanks for that one, Cloverfield), is a bit distracting, but not to Blair Witch proportions. Once the creepiness begins though, you'll barely notice it.

Still crawling lol

It always drives me crazy in these movies when people wont shut up when they need to be as quiet as possible. I mean, let's scream, argue while screaming, and scream some more while we're fighting for our lives against a bunch of rabid zombies! Stupido.

If this situation were real, the camera wouldn't be used as much, and later on in the film it would be shut off completely... then again, if they did that, there wouldn't be a movie, so I digress. Still, the reporter chick didn't need to wheedle her way in front of the camera every chance she got.

Scream louder, I don't think the Demon in the room behind you heard that.

How someone didn't smack the reporter bitch in the face multiple times throughout this movie is beyond me. "Evil is after us, dummy... how about you don't scream!?!?!"

Manuela Velasco a QT, that's why no one smacked her.

This one has a good mix of on-screen blood and nastiness, and off-screen violence that you can hear, but can't see. It's not a gore fest, but it's certainly bloody enough. 

El Oucho.

 Dogs are evil, and they are not to be trusted. Neither are kids.

Always with the creepy kids!

One of the most genuinely scary movies to come a long in quite some time, the only reason I didn't give this one an A is because I can't get around the blatantly dumb actions of some of the characters. Other than that, [REC] is well worth a rental or a buy, just see it either way.

B+

[REC] is available now on on DVD and VOD.

[REC] is already being re-made in the U.S. as Quarantine. Look for it in October. Sigh. *Update- Quarantine was nowhere near as good or effective as [REC] was. What a surprise.

Solo Review: The Happening (2008)

I didn't even want to do this review, but if my warning can save even one person from having to endure this travesty, then it was all worth it. If you don't believe me, and think I'm being overly snarky with what follows, just watch the movie. If anything, I feel as if I'm actually being overly kind...

Plants hate us as much as M. Night loves himself; that means immeasurably. They see how we humans are so mean, and selfish, and how we're destroying this beautiful world of our, so they decide to start releasing a mysterious neurotoxin into the air that makes us kill ourselves. No one knows how to react, and the world looks to be doomed, until High School science Teacher Marky Mark shows up.

Once Marky Mark screams "get scientific, douche bag!" at himself (seriously), he figures it all out; stay ahead of the wind and stay in a big group, and the plants cant kill us. From that point forward, everyone focuses on running away from the wind, because that seems possible. Luckily, it cant catch 20 milling city folk, because obviously wind is slow. He also figures out that "Kiladelphia" is a witty play on words for Philadelphia, because, danger; mood rings are an indicator of said danger; math riddles calm hysterical people down during a "Happening"; plants, trees and grass can communicate with each other; wind is really scary; plants release co-transporters in the air... unless it's trying to be funny, this movie makes little sense.

Sure, he's totally believable as a Teacher...

At one point, Marky Mark finds a little tree in the den of a farmhouse they hide out in and says the following (looking terrified all the while); "Hello? My name is Elliot Moore, I'm just going to talk in a very positive manner, giving off good vibes... were just here to use the bathroom, I hope that's ok." The tree turns out to be plastic. Wow, that's funny... almost as funny as 9 year old cancer patients with aids being mauled to death by lions. Less funny even.

So now they decide that they have to stay away from large groups of people... whatever. At least they find a radio tied to a fence in the middle of nowhere. Then during another inane speech and delivery by Marky, Zooey delivers the most ironic line of the movie; "Are you joking?" That part was actually perfect, because she unknowingly described everyone's reaction to this half-assed movie.

The ending is about as anti climactic as it gets, and it sucks ass as much as the rest did.

Us, after the movie ended.

It ended.

The worst part of this whole mess is that M. Night thinks that he's making some sort of grand social commentary here, and teaching us heathens in the audience something. He also thinks he is relevant, which he himself proves over and over again that he is not.

The script. The acting. The premise. The plot. I'm seriously wondering if Shaymalananan made this movie as a joke, or if he has seriously gone insane.

Don't pout, you all knew what this was.

There's some blood and gore in this one, but who cares.

M. Night's filmography should have stopped with Signs. Also, The Happening sucked worse than his last two movies, and that's saying a metric ton.

BTW, you spell your name wrong.

F uck you M. Night Shayamalanananan, right in your pretentious little ass.

If you haven't gathered as much lately, we really hated this movie. It's become more than apparent that M. Night's self-important ass sees himself as some sort of filmic messiah, sent to save our meager souls with his profound and relevant works... NO.

This movie is really bad, so unless you watch movies ironically, do yourself a favor and ship this one.

The scene where Marky Mark fights the wind, and stops it from destroying NYC, was fantastic... too bad it was cut from the film along with Nic Cage's cameo!