Quick Review: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

(aka Ooh, Shiny! Part 5)
Release Date: In Theaters now.
Country: USA, Canada, Germany.
Written and Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson.
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, and just about everyone else who has ever been in a RE movie before. Mostly.

You can't go in to a new Resident Evil movie expecting much more than pretty visuals and some crazy action. You just can't. I mean, you can, but you're just setting yourself up for disappointment if you do. These movies are eye candy, and nothing more.

Here in the U.S the RE movies perform alright, or even poorly by most standards. Worldwide however, the RE franchise just rakes in the money. RE: Afterlife made 296 million worldwide (only 60 in the U.S.), so naturally, you knew there was another sequel coming.

The question is, do we really need more of these empty, cheesy, glossy movies, that just exist to show a hot chick killing hordes of undead with her deadly wire-fu/gun-play skill set?

Sure, why the hell not.

If you've seen it once, you've seen it five times; "Project Alice" wakes up in a crazy dream world, dresses up in some sexy outfit, arms herself to the teeth, and has to fight a metric ton zombies (some of which have wonky mouths.) By fight, I mean she does some crazy choreographed flipping and deadly accurate moves that are so ridiculous and over the top that it captivates you. It's like a meth-induced ballet in slow motion.

The plot is fairly irrelevant, and can be summed up with the words "Milla, kill!" Now, this one does take them to the Russian Arctic, and it does make some pretty clever use of past set pieces and scenes in a fun way, but honestly, it's just there to allow for the carnage that RE fans all seem to fiend for.

Who doesn't want to see Milla in this outfit over and over again?

It's the fifth sequel in a franchise based on a video game series with twenty sequels of its own; we know what we're getting here. That's not to say that the movie should automatically be critic-proof because "it is what it is," because it deserves to be ripped apart a bit. Or a lot, depending on how much it pisses you off.

The whole thing is over the top and is supported by a paper thin script, which means that the actors can only do so much, which isn't really much at all. The last few movies in this series seem to us to be like long scenes of crazy action. They never seem grounded to us, they just start, shit explodes, and then it's over, the last shot teasing us about some crazy massive battle that is about to happen... in the next movie.

Alive or dead, she's still hot.

We normally hate this kind of shit, but for some reason we find ourselves loving when a new RE movie hits theaters, and especially when they're released on DVD/BLU. They look so ridiculously good in HD, that we forget how painfully not good the movies actually are. It's style over substance for us with the RE movies, and we don't mind. In a genre where most of what we see is so heavy handed, bleak, and downright morbid, we absolutely cherish our cheesy guilty pleasures.

Oh look, they're back.

Listen, Resident Evil: Retribution isn't anything else other than mindless fun. You have to set aside the bad script, cheesy dialogue, and the almost cringe inducing level of goofy karate moves, and just dig it for what it is. This movie will no doubt be gorgeous on Blu-ray, and so we will gladly add it to our collection when it's released.

Should you see it? Well, if you live in Asia, you're already going to, because this is totally right up your alley. For the more fickle average U.S. viewer, if the trailer looks good to you then you'll like it, because you're expecting nothing more than the fun stuff. It is what it is.

C+ is an above average grade, and in context with everything we just said, a deserving one here.

Mmm, blood.

Does Milla Jovovich ever age? On the doorstep of 40, she's still looking as fit as she ever was. The other Resident Evil chicks aren't looking too bad either. See? Eye candy!

...and we're back!

We're like herpes, we never go away.

Thanks for all of the love and kind words while we were away. We all love our friends around the world, and the well wishing helped us a lot during this past shitty week.

Now that we're getting back to business, we've got a lot of reviews and things to catch up on. Oh yeah, and October is almost here...

As we've spent the last few days in shock and mourning over the loss of two of our members fathers, and will spend the next few sending them off in proper fashion, things will be quiet around here.

Soon enough we'll be back to our horrific ways, but for now, we deal with the worst kind of horror; the loss of our loved ones.

We here at THC love all of our friends around the world, and we'll see you in a few days. Until then, we've got drinks to drink and songs to sing, because our loved ones are going out in style.

Be good.

Blu-ray Spotlight- The Blade Trilogy

When it comes to buying horror movies on Blu-ray, we have one issue; we already own so many horror movies on DVD, that upgrading them all to Blu-ray would cost a small fortune. There are some titles that we have to own in the best format available however, and so we open to you our Blu-ray Archives which consist of what we consider to be Must Own Horror Blu-ray's.

Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004)

New Line Cinema/Warner Bros./Warner Bros.
Price: $9.99-$19.99
Disks:All single, 50 GB discs
Video: MPEG-4 AVC
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1/6.1/7.1
Subtitles: Various, differing for each release.
Region Free

Wesley Snipes kicked ass as Blade, that's why. The Blade movies are fun, bloody, and laced with cheesy humor and one liners, so how can you not love that? If you go back to the time before Iron Man came along, the best comic book flicks weren't Spider-Man and X-Men, and they sure as hell weren't Daredevil, Fantastic Four, or the like; no, the best ones were movies like the Hellboy's and the Blade's.

Lots of people like the first two, but many seemed to hate on the third one, Blade: Trinity. We loved Trinity. The addition of Ryan Reynolds and his brand of snark, and the hotness of Jessica Biel suited us just fine. They're movies about vampire hunting, we're not expecting Shakespeare here.

Also, if you own one movie in a trilogy, you pretty much have to own them all. It makes us crazy to have just one. Luckily for us, all three movies are good enough to own.

Blade is a bad mofo. Can you dig it?

All three of these movies look great in HD. The first one looks the best, with a sharp transfer which is just downright pretty. The second movie is a little grainier and not as vivid, but that's because Guillermo Del Toro made it look as he wanted it to, which was not slick and pristine. Trinity suffers a bit in the crispness department due to being so FX heavy. All three movies look great though, so no worries here.

Being far from audiophiles, the 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 surround sound mixes sounded just fine to us. In our experience, DTS tends to make everything sound better, and these movies are no exception.

Del Toro's Blade II is our fave. The man is a genius.

Being three separate movies, there are plenty of extra features between them to keep the bonus lover's of the world happy.

Blade

• Featurette "La Magra", including the original ending
• Featurette "Designing Blade"
• Featurette "The Origins of Blade"
• Featurette "The Blood Tide"
• "House of Erebus", information about the different vampire houses
• Pencil sketches through production designs

 Blade II

• 5.1 isolated score
• Deleted/alternate scenes with director commentary
• A Pact in Blood: interactive collection of documentaries
• Director's Notebook: Interactive reproduction of director's notes with an introduction by Del Toro
• Art gallery
• Music video: Cypress Hill and Roni Size "Child of the Wild West"
• Blade 2 videogame survival guide
• DVD-ROM: Script to screen, hot spot

Blade: Trinity

• Widescreen and full-screen versions of the R-rated film
• 16-part behind-the-scenes documentary "Daywalkers, Nightstalkers & Familiars: Inside the World of Blade: Trinity"
• Alternate ending
• Blooper reel
• Goyer on Goyer: The writer interviews the director
• Galleries: VFX progression and weapons
• Theatrical trailer

Nightstalkers, baby.

The Blade Trilogy is a must own for vampire and horror fans alike. They aren't the perfect example of how amazing Blu-ray can look and sound, but they are damned fine additions to any Blu-ray collection. We mainly buy movies because we love them anyhow, the prettiness is just a really nice bonus. We'd be down for another Blade movie, anytime they want to make one. We even have the perfect plot idea...

Blade: Bitch Hunter. *Title aptly applies to both of them, actually.

Jessica Biel, Leonor Varela, and Traci Lords; the lovely girls of the Blade series. *Fun Fact: One of them was a porn star at 16, can you guess which one?

Poster Love

That poster is fantastic, and we're hoping the movie is too. It hits U.K. Theaters this Friday, the 14th. Lucky Brits.

The Digital Dread report for September 11th

Alright, remember when I told you all a while back that September would test our wallets? Well, shit just got real.

In month where we've already seen an ultimate Harry Potter boxed set released for $350, a Resident Evil boxed set for $50, and a handful of other cool genre releases that have $10'd and $20'd us to death, this week's releases start the true deluge of titles that many of us want/need to own.

While the "biggest" release this week is an extended version of Snow White and the Huntsman (which we're definitely getting), this week is truly more a horror lover's dream.

All 3 Paranormal Activity flicks in one Blu-ray set. The Best Buy exclusive Blu-ray of The Ring going wide to all retailers. The Blu-ray debut of TCM 2. Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Jeepers Creepers, The Loved Ones... all of them beloved by horror fans, and all of them worthy of owning.

Then there's the insane amount of multi-packs being released this week. For people who just want the bare bones versions of their favorite flicks and don't need a ton of extra's, these are perfect; they're cheap and packed with goodness. The Miramax Double Feature's are especially interesting. If you can buy only one of them, we say you should get the one with Darkness/Below; they're both great movies, especially Below. It's one of the best "haunted house" flicks we've seen.

Braveheart/Gladiator/Saving Private Ryan... how do you go wrong with those three movies on Blu-ray, and all in one set? You don't. Those flicks are all definite must own's.

And what about the Hammer House of Horror 5 disc set? The entire 13 episode British TV show for $34.99 is a done deal. What great early 80's stuff.

There's more of course, but we've covered the releases that needed covering. Enjoy deciding which ones you're going to pick up, and remember, the next two weeks only get worse; The Indyboxed set, Cabin in the Woods, new versions of Halloween II & III, The James Bond 50 set, The Hitchcock set, Zombie, Maniac... and a little movie called The Avengers.