Quick Review: Episode 50 (2011)

Episode 50 is the story of a reality TV crew that runs around debunking the alleged haunting of different locations.

Their newest episode (which is #50, btw), involves a local asylum that is supposedly the gateway to hell. Its reclusive owner has granted Jack and his team exclusive access to his asylum, and so they head off to debunk and conquer...

Sadly, there's not much about this movie that's likable or scary. It's supposed to be a Found Footage flick, and yet we have a musical score that plays throughout. We get plenty of flashes of ghosts and spectres, but they never really amount to anything beyond a jump-scare or two.

Cool visuals though.

The acting is poor across the board, which never allows us to get into or care about the characters. And of course, the characters do nonsensical and unrealistic things in the face of such presumed danger, which really just frustrates us as viewers, and kills almost all of the believability... which is basically the cornerstone of any Found Footage flick, no?

The CGI Demon thing at the end was pretty bad too.

At least the movie had a few cuties in it to keep us entertained.

A mostly uneventful Hand Held/Found Footage flick that was decent enough, Episode 50 didn't really pack much of a punch or many scares. This movie tried way to hard to be engrossing and multi-layered, when it should have just gone the minimalistic route. It would have actually worked then.

Why are you talking to a closet? Are the clothes haunted?

QT x 2.

Review: Evil Things (2011)

Let's be honest here for a minute and admit that most Found Footage flicks are pretty shitty; they tend to be bumbling, silly, nonsensical, nauseating, and frustrating on the whole. Evil Things, however, got the whole FF thing mostly right. Mostly.

Evil Things is the story about a group of film students who head into the deep, snowy woods to make a documentary about students getting away for a weekend into the deep snowy woods. Groundbreaking stuff, I know.

Then again, film students can be pretentious. You know I'm right, Film Students, so just take the feedback and move on...

The icy road of pretentious death.

Anywho, the gang of future commercial directors find themselves being followed and toyed with by a creepy rape-van on the way to their vacation home. No one calls the Police though, because then there would be no movie. Arriving at their vacation house after a fairly strenuous drive, the friends settle in and all is well... until they decide to hike through the woods, get lost, and nearly freeze to death finding their way back to the house in the dark. All the while, creepy noises persist.

Maybe he just wants to party?

Once back in the house, all is well again... until the creepy phone calls begin! Still, no one calls the Cops. After a few creepy calls in a row, someone knocks at the front door, and leaves them a present; a videotape of them from the start of their trip until now. Needless to say, shit gets crazy from here on out. Also, the Cops are still not notified of the ongoing shenanigans.

Before I say anything nice about this movie, and I'm going to, let's get this out of the way; this movie is in many ways your typical "group of kids in the woods/everyone does the dumbest shit in the world" type of Horror flick. It gets really annoying in parts, but that's how it goes in this genre.

Just sit there and cry, and maybe the bad man will go away on his own.

That being said, for a cheap Found Footage/POV flick, Evil Things manages to do a lot of things right. This movie was genuinely creepy. It had down-time, stretches of inactivity if you will, but for the most part all of it added to the atmosphere more than detracted from it. The characters seemed like real people, thanks to an admirable job done by the cast. Some of them annoyed us a bit, and some of them did some utterly stupid shit, but we still liked them, and above all, they felt real.

Why do Jewish girls always get shafted on their Birthday? Oy!

We had a few issues with the movie, most of which seem present in just about all Horror movies these days, but they still deserve mention: When someone threatening is creeping around outside of your house in the dark, why are all of the lights still on, and why are you standing in front of the windows? When trying to hide in the dark, why are you using flashlights and the camera light, when it does nothing but gives you away? And the worst part of the Hand Held/POV genre... under such crazy intense situations, and we're talking life and death here, who would honestly film everything? That will never sit completely right with us, but we get it and can accept it, as long as the movie is good.

Also, no one called the Cops. Why did no one call the Cops!

Should have stayed behind the couch, dummy.

For what it is, and despite the annoying trappings of the Found Footage sub-genre, Evil Things is a good little movie. Creepy and effective, we found ourselves biting our proverbial nails more than once during this one. If you're down with atmospheric Horror movies that get under your skin and skeeve you out, this one's for you.

C+

Laurel Casillo is a sexy thing, and so is that blonde.

Review: Vlog (2011)

The Internet is full of people who think that they're clever, interesting, funny, witty, or "whatever" enough, that masses of complete strangers will flock to their blogs/websites/Twitter Feeds to hear their snappy witticisms, or heed their keen advice. Because everyone's life is some unique and interesting, you know?  

*And before anyone says it, yes, we are in that group of people, but we are very keen and witty, and also clever. People deserve to hear our words, because they are pretty much awesome. We're giving you a gift, people. Don't be ungrateful!

Let's be honest about it though; tits and ass keep the Internet alive. Porn is the lifeblood that keeps the heart of the Interwebs going, and like it or not, there's no bigger commodity in Cyberspace than sex. And really, Porn is infinitely better than suffering some self-important asshole's website full of rants and raves, isn't it?

The lifeblood of the Interwebs.

Anywho, Vlog is about just that; a hot, slutty, bitchy, asshole of a chick, who decides to film her life for her Internet fans, because she's so sick of other people doing it and getting attention that they don't deserve. The bottom line is that she needs attention. On her Vlog, she cuts people down, makes fun of the ex she just dumped, secretly tapes people and then rips on them later... She's a gem of a girl.

Suddenly, I forget why I hate her...

She hooks up with some geek at a bar, has a fight with her sworn enemy, tries to seduce another guy who cares more about his schoolwork than her, tapes all of it, and then rips her subjects to shreds afterwards, all for the sake of "keeping it real" for her adoring fans.

Problem is, one of her fans is an Internet Creeper who decides to kill the people that she so carelessly used, and upload them to his own Vlog, for her enjoyment. Then, he sets his sights on her...

Tits or GTFO, no one wants to hear you talk!

Vlog is a combination of the Torture Porn and First Person/POV sub-genres, the latter of which is becoming increasingly popular in Horror films these days. It's a decent enough movie, especially if you like some very graphic and extreme violence, though it's short on suspense and frights.

For a movie starring an Internet soft-core Porn girl, there sure wasn't much skin on display. We get that Brooke Marks is one of those teasers who covers the vital parts and shows just enough skin to be quasi-naughty, but come on, what is the point in that? Showing nipples for 10 seconds on film is somehow going to ruin your self-esteem, or kill your self-respect? It's like someone being a hooker, and refusing to have sex; maybe just don't be a hooker anymore.

"No, no, no, this is all you get. Now pay me."

I guess the big thing about Vlog is if you don't want to sit and watch an annoying girl talk into a camera for the better part of a movie's running time, this might not be for you. It all hinges on the character of Brooke Marks, who is played by the "actress" Brooke Marks, and this is where the movie falls short.

The character is shallow and vapid and has no regard for anyone other than herself, and by the time we reached the 30-minute-mark or so in the movie, we were really praying that she died painfully. The "actress" herself was alright, but she just never felt natural in her role. She over-did pretty much every facial expression and mannerism, and it felt like she was an actress playing a real person, instead of being a real person. It all just felt a bit forced.

I guess if her aim was to mimic the multitude of morons that act exactly like that every day in their online lives, the ones that demonstrate everything that is wrong with the Internet, then she rocked.

Her tits were fantastic though.

"They are fantastic, but you'll never see them rofllmao!"

There's also a twist at the end which... is what it is, I suppose. I won't spoil it, because I'm sure lots of people will rent this movie or maybe catch it on cable, but it only served to amplify the things about the movie that frustrated us to begin with. I get it though. Meh.

Lots of gore here, folks

Vlog is a decent enough movie, though we found ourselves annoyed by the whole thing far more than we should have. Its saving grace is the gore, which was plentiful and very nasty. Brooke Marks was nice to look at, though we can't fathom why someone who makes a living off of her body (and sells her sex appeal) wouldn't get naked in this. They're just boobs honey, and really, they're your strong suit, so lead with them. 

C

Brooke Marks is gorgeous. Of that there can be no doubt.

Review: Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

"Apparently the trailer for this movie is itself haunted, because all of the scenes in it seem to have vanished like ghosts..."

Now that the long month of October is over, and we've shooed away the creepy kids, we can get back to normal as far as reviews and such go.... and what better way to start it all back up than with what may be the most anticipated horror flick of the year, Paranormal Activity 3.

There's not much to say about this movie that other sites and everyone on Twitter already has; PA3 is creepy as hell. If you liked the first two, this will please you on an equal level. We liked the first one, loved the second one (which seems to be a minority opinion), and really liked the newest installment in the series... for the most part.

We would have liked to have seen this scene from the trailer in the actual movie...

PA3 is a prequel, showing Katie And Kristi as kids, and showing us how all of the "Paranormal Activity" truly began. There are some great scares throughout the movie, most effective of them (for us) being the kitchen gag... pants were shat, that's all I'm saying. The sheet ghost gag was a close second, but no shatting occurred during that one.

This scene was nowhere to be seen either...

We liked PA3. It was good. Our problem with the movie though, and one that distracted us enough to make us not completely love it, is that 80% of what you see in the trailer, was not in the film. No girls playing Bloody Mary, no closet knocking, no water on the ghost gag, no house burning, no medium or seance, no girl jumping from her stairway ledge, no wife being thrown on the bed... we waited for those moments, and they never came.

Nope.

Some people defend the omission of said scenes, claiming it made the movie better by not knowing what we'd see. Fair enough, I can understand that. The problem is though, it feels like the old double dip to us; a ruse to urge fans buy the "Special Edition Director's Cut!," which is inevitably coming somewhere down the road, and that's not fair. You don't offer someone a ham sandwich and give them a granola bar instead. Maybe we wanted ham. Who the hell doesn't love ham?!?

They could have at least told us that the trailer scenes weren't in the finished movie...

PA3 also threw a few plot devices our way that we had a hard time swallowing. With two small children in the house, and with repeated "incidents" and attacks on them, their parents decide it's best to stay put like nothing has happened? I mean the Dad was more wrapped up in unraveling the mystery of the "presence" than he was in keeping his family safe. He keeps his wife in the dark about some fairly serious goings on, and in my small opinion, used his kids as Ghost/Demon bait. Don't take your family and leave, just stay and antagonize!

Then again, leaving would do no good, as we found out later on in the film... which brings us to the ending.

This is the scene from the trailer that really got us geeked to go see PA3... nope, not in the movie.

The end of PA3 brings a twist to the story that is both good and bad. It's good in that it's interesting and explains a lot, and is pretty disturbing. It's bad in that it all happened very quickly, didn't give us much time to absorb it, and kinda made us roll our eyes. Had the twist been revealed and been left to marinate a bit before the movie abruptly ended, it would have been more effective.

This one was in the movie, and it was good.

Hitchcock said it best when he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) "If you show two people sitting at a table, and suddenly a bomb goes off, it will shock the audience. If you show the audience the bomb, let them know it's there while they watch the characters at the table sit and talk unawares, that will build far more terror in them because they know the threat is present." Again I paraphrased that quote, and most likely butchered the hell out of it, but the point is clear. At least to us it is.

I'm sick of saying it, so let's just pretend this one was in the movie. (It wasn't though.)

 

Had the movie we watched been the movie advertised, it would have scored a better grade. As it is though, PA3 is exactly what PA 1&2 were, just with a different spin and a twist ending that ties all 3 of the movies together. If you thought the first two movies were creepy, you'll find this one to be just as much so. If you didn't... well you probably aren't reading this review anyhow.

I guess we can wait to see if the omitted scenes from the trailer are included on the DVD release, but it's truly sad that we have to.

B

... and let it be said that the best part of this trilogy has definitely been Katie Featherston's rack. Sprague Grayden, Johanna Braddy, and Lauren Bittner are no slouches either, they just don't have "The Featherston Curse" in their shirts.