The Caller (2011)

The Caller

IMDB rate: 6,1

Genre: Revenge, Serial Killer

Starring: Rachelle Lefevre, Stephen Moyer, Lorna Raver

Recently the name of The Caller kept popping up on every horror site I visited, because it was also available on Netflix it seemed like a good time to watch this movie. Because of the title I expected something like 'When A Stranger Calls', or something similar to that. The Caller is definitely different from When A Stranger Calls. I thought it was a good movie, but a bit confusing as well. It's hard to say which horror genre this movie belongs to, perhaps a bit Revenge? Or Serial Killer? I don't really know, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

I know Rachelle Lefevre from Under The Dome and Twilight, both not very good movies/TV shows, so I didn't really know what to expect from her. In the two Twilight movies she played in, her role wasn't very big and since the movies are pretty crap it was a bit of a hard read of her acting skills. In Under the Dome her role is pretty big but since that show is pretty crap as well, I just didn't pay a whole lot of attention to her. I liked her in The Caller though, she was very convincing. Her role isn't one of those whining roles, she actually tries to make things right, she was kinda badass. Also, she has the best hair ever ;).

I was a bit sad actually with how the movie ended up to be. Not because it was bad, but because I liked how John Guidi (played by Stephen Moyer) believed her immediately, and then something bad happened and it was just a twist I didn't expect.

At first I was very skeptical about how the gardener George (played by Luis Guzmán) could've actually met the woman who lived in the house in the 70's or 80's (can't remember when the caller Rose lived there), because he seemed way too young to be working in that garden for 30 or 40 years. But after I watched the movie I searched for Luis Guzmán on IMDB, and the guy actually was 56 by the time this movie was made, while I thought he would be 40 years old max.

Where I'm still a bit skeptical about is the finger buried in the ground. I just won't believe that finger would still look that good after 30 or 40 years. Also, every time Mary Kee is screaming nobody is reacting to it. Every normal apartment building is very noisy, and I find it hard to believe that no one heard her scream and called the cops or something. Or these people are just all very deaf.

I don't really get the purpose of the ex-husband in this movie, he's only being annoying and trying to take her dog, it doesn't really seem to add anything to the movie. It made me worry that he would took her dog, but that's about it. By the way, that dog is perhaps the least protective dog I've ever seen.

The movie is very tensive and it's pretty confusing in the beginning. When you finally get what's going on you instantly start liking this movie more. I really liked the ending where Mary Kee is helping her past-self attack the woman, it's very interesting and well thought through. The Caller isn't a movie filled with scares, and you really need to pay attention to keep up with what's going on, but it's a very good movie if you ask me. Some things are a bit far-fetched, but well, which horror movie isn't far-fetched. Great acting and a great ending.

My rate: 8/10

Review: The Final (2010)

The Final

IMDB rate: 5,4

Genre: Torture, Revenge

When I saw this movie on Netflix I couldn't help but think this must be a terrible movie. The movie poster looks like it's about some sort of terrible ghost story in a school or something, and the the title pretty much suggests the same. I did decide to give it a go though, pretty much only because it was next on the list of things I haven't watched yet. The movie is pretty different from what the poster and it's title suggest, which means it's again a great time to say "don't judge a movie by it's cover" again! It was absolutely not about ghosts. 

When the movie started I realized that I already saw this movie a couple of years ago, but I couldn't remember a thing about it anymore. I rented it, probably because there was a clown picture on the back cover or something. 

Since the movie isn't about ghosts, what is it about? The Final is pretty much about some outcasts in high school that take revenge on their bullies. And boy, do they hit them well! They get them to a party and drug them, so the bullies pass out. When waking up, they find themselves chained up in a room with people with masks and guns surrounding them.

First of all, great masks! I'm personally a big fan of 'bad guys' with masks because it makes them so much more interesting and mysterious. Even though the viewer knew who was behind these masks, it still gave a creepy vibe. I mean, what if you woke up in a room and a guy with a clown costume + mask is threatening you with a gun, you would be a lot more scared compared to when he wore his daily outfit, I think. The voice was kinda scary too, a great addition to this costume. 

The acting in this movie is pretty decent. The outcasts are very good in their acting, the bullies not so much. Marc Donato plays outcast Dane, and he's really looking for his revenge, in a way that he goes way further with getting back to them than the deal was. But as a viewer you just feel his emotions, the moments he was bullied, you felt his pain and the moment he got his revenge, you just felt his power. Really good. Lindsay Seidel plays outcast Emily, and I think she's was the best actor in this entire movie. She's so convincing and scary. She does look a bit like Bonnie Wright in my opinion, only she acts much better compared to Bonnie Wright. Perhaps she would've been better for Harry Potter ;). 

The bullies are all pretty much the same, they are all jerks and behave like assholes. Their acting wasn't very convincing unfortunately, they didn't really seem to care for each other and they also didn't seem to frightened by being chained to the floor. Even when they were being tortured their pain didn't feel very real.

The movie is kinda slow, a bit too slow in my opinion. At first you get to know the outcasts a bit, and the way they were bullied and stuff. But from that point on the threatening starts pretty fast, and it's a lot of talking, threatening and cutting off body parts. It became slightly boring after a while, because it was all a bit the same. Also, I thought it was a shame they put their masks off that quickly. They should've kept them on at least until the bullies figured out themselves who they were. I mean, that's the point right? Making them realize what they've done to the outcasts all these years? When they put their masks off I think the bullies would be angry because they did it to them and would only try to get back at them, instead of wondering who the masked guys were and thinking of what they might've done. 

I love the idea of The Final, getting revenge for what the bullies did to them. The way they did it was pretty messed up, but it still gave a good feeling that they got their revenge. The ending is very nice too, they really did know what they were doing. The acting is pretty decent, but the character development could've been better, I think. I think The Final is worth a watch, at least for once in your life. It gives a pretty nice (although fucked up) message about bullying.

My personal rate: 6,5

Review: American Mary (2012)

American Mary

IMDB rate: 6,3

Genre: Revenge, Torture

I have this movie on my computer for ages already, I finally decided to watch it. I expected a movie that's comparable with I Spit on Your Grave, and it's indeed a bit like that... on same parts. Just like I Spit on Your Grave, American Mary starts with the things she does out of revenge. But well, since it's only one person to take her revenge to it was quickly done. Then she starts doing 'her thing' on a more professional base, so that's where it differs from I Spit on Your Grave. 

The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called 'freakish' clients.

The first half of the movie was pretty awesome. Mary is a smart medical student who is in need of money. She does a few illegal side operations to earn a bit of money, then she goes to a surgeon party where she got raped. Since Mary isn't the sweetest girl around, she decides to take her revenge on the guy. How this went you'll only know until later in the movie, but believe me when I say it was quite brutal. 

From here on the movie turns on quite drastically I think. The torturing wasn't too strange, but everything from there on is. She stops with medical school (which isn't strange, considering the circumstances) and decides to go in body modification. 

Now, with the whole body modification thing I felt like I missed something. Suddenly she's freaking close to some guy from the club, and the first two times she did a body modification she was kinda messed up. So for her to go back in that business that seriously was kinda surprising. Sure, it's easy money, but her reactions towards the modification was completely different suddenly.

The ending came quite sudden I think. I wasn't too happy with it as it seemed kinda random. Sure, I get to motives behind it, but still it wasn't her fault, she only did what was asked from her. 

I loved the first half of the movie, but I thought the second half was a bit chaotic. American Mary is not just a rape-revenge movie, it's also an ode to people who aren't easily likable on first sight. With this I mean that the surgeons (aka the rapers) look normal and seem nice but were that inhuman that they could rape a young woman. While the people with all the body modifications going on seemed weird looking, and on first eye you'll think of them negatively, because of the way they look. In this movie they were the nice people, they were open and sweet. 

I think it's some sort of strong message that you shouldn't judge people of the way they look. 

The acting of Katharine Isabelle is very good. She's sarcastic and dangerous looking, I really liked her in this role. Now I must admit that I only saw Katharine Isabelle in Freddy vs. Jason before this movie, and well that really isn't her best role (neither is it an amazing movie) , but I do own the DVD from Ginger Snaps, so I'm still planning to see more of her.

All together, I'm not exactly sure what I thought of this movie. The first half was amazing, while the second half seemed a bit random. Like I already explained, perhaps the second half contained a deeper meaning behind the body modification stuff, I'm not sure about that. If what I thought really was the meaning behind it then I'm having much more respect for the second half than if it wasn't intended that way. Guess we'll never know...

The acting is good and so are the special effects. I think the movie is worth a watch, although it's definitely not one of my favorite movies. It's good, but nothing very special.

Personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Joy Ride 2 (2008)

Joy Ride 2

IMDb rate: 5,1

Genre: Survival, Revenge

Time for Joy Ride 2, I saw this movie a few years back and I couldn't remember a whole lot of it, besides the fake emo. Now I've watched it again I remember that the movie sucked. Really, the first one is nice and stuff, but this one is just exactly the same. With these movies there aren't a whole lot of things you can change in the setup, so it's never very original.
By the way, this year Joy Ride 3 will be released, whoopdidoo.

While driving to Las Vegas for the bachelor party of her sister Melissa and her fiance Bobby, Kayla stops the car in the gas station to meet her date, Nik, a guy she met on the internet. Nik convinces her to take a secondary road under the protest of Bobby but the car breaks down. They find a house in the middle of nowhere and decide to take the car parked in the house's garage to the next city, and return with a rented car to pay for the damages provoked by Nik; Melissa leaves her cell number. However, they discover that the owner of the place is the sadistic truck driver Rusty Nail and they have to pay a high price for what they did.

Joy Ride 2 wasn't very good, not even tensive like the first one. There was just too much going on and it was all very lame. Seriously, if all that happened to me I would go to the police, no matter what sort of threat there was.
Was I liked most about the first Joy Ride were the actors, they were all excellent and they are what made the movie good. With the sequel... well, the actors were terrible. There was absolutely no chemistry between the actors, not between the married couple, not between the sisters and obviously not between the new couple, who met through Myspace.

The storyline is very predictable unfortunately, there's not tension at all. It's boring and the actions are very lame. The characters are very bad and unbelievable, seriously, what's up with this emo dude? He's very rude and everyone seems to be too okay with that. The whole situation is unbelievable because there's just too much going on.
I would have liked the movie a lot more if Rusty's motives are known, now he just seems like some random dude torturing these kids for no reason, not very spectacular. Why does he not kill them immediately, if he's doing it just for fun? His story would make it all a bit more interesting.

The special effects aren't too bad looking. The bloody scenes are fairly convincing, also the truck driving of the cliff is pretty cool.

Joy Ride 2 isn't the worst movie ever, but it's definitely not as good as the first one. It's a good time waster, if there's really not anything else.

My personal rate: 4/10

Review: I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

I Spit on Your Grave 2

IMDB rate: 5,5

Genre: Torture, Revenge

With the end of the year coming up, I realized that I didn't watch a lot of horror movies coming from 2013 this year. A bit of a shame of course, because my 'Favorites of 2013' list would be very short. So today I decided to watch a few horror movies from 2013! Starting with I Spit on Your Grave 2. 

Those who read my review about the first part (click here) know how much I liked it. I was very curious about this one too because I read a few very good reviews about it. I quite liked watching this movie, although I must say that it's not as good as the first part. Again, I still haven't seen any of the original movies (will download it now), so can't say a whole lot about them. But when I've finally watched it, I'll write a review about it and I will compare the two movies.

Katie is trying to make it in the cutthroat world of modeling. When she innocently accepts an offer to have new photos taken for her portfolio, the experience quickly turns into an unthinkable nightmare of rape, torture and kidnapping. When a twist of fate finally frees her from her captors - beaten, battered, bruised, and broken, she will have to tap into the darkest places of the human psyche to not only survive her ordeal, but to ultimately find the strength to exact her brutal revenge.

Okay first of all, I'm from Europe and these movies are making me terrified about ever going to Eastern-Europe again. Watching all these movies (A Serbian Film, Hostel, Train) is absolutely not good for a countries good name. I mean, basically if you're watching a horror movie and there's someone from Eastern-Europe in it, you better start fucking running because there's no way that nothing is going to happen. 

What I really liked about this movie was the beginning. In every horror movie there are annoying scenes where a girl doesn't scream or doesn't try to run or something, that didn't happen in this movie. The girl immediately starts screaming when she figured something was wrong, she took a taser gun and instead of just treating that she's going to use it, she actually starts using it immediately. Even though she has three locks on her door, she managed to escape her room but unfortunately she got caught by her molester. In this time she was able to scream, and guess what? Somebody heard her and tried rescuing her! That didn't go well, but still, three horror cliches weren't used! I loved it!

The thing with these I Spit on Your Grave movies is that we've seen the previous parts already. Meaning that we know that a girl will be attacked and she will survive that, and then she will have a very brutal revenge. So the mystery of it isn't really there anymore. Nevertheless, the revenge scenes are always very tasteful and very amusing to watch. 

What I did not like a whole lot were the dialogues. So the first part of the movie is where the girl, Katie, is being raped and tortured. Her offenders say all these cliche things to her and that does not mind a whole lot, but eventually the roles are switched, meaning that Katie will attack her offenders. But to make things more brutal, she's saying the exact same things to them as what they said to her. Sure, I get the point of that, but after a while you can't help but think "I've all heard this a few times already, become a bit more original dude".

The acting was decent. Nothing special, but not terribly bad. Seeing Katie's crying and screaming face was a bit funny, so I had a bit trouble taking her seriously, but besides that her performance was good. The lightning was a bit poor at times. When she's buried under the ground we suddenly hear a lot of noise and suddenly she seems to be in a cave or something. I don't know but it seemed a bit random, especially because this cave led to people's living rooms. Perhaps the floor broke, I don't know but it was a bit of a weird and dark place.

The torturing scenes were again awesome, Georgie looking all infected and stuff, while Ivan's ball were smashed. All fun stuff to look at again.

Great movie, not as good as the first part, but certainly very enjoyable. A lot of brutal scenes that make you sick in your stomach and a lot of blood. Original deaths, and just look at this image above, how sick does his legs look? Brilliant.

I absolutely recommend watching this movie for fans of a bit more brutal movies. Believe me, it can be hard to watch at times. I thought it was worth it.

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Victim (2010)

Victim

IMDB rate: 6,0

Genre: Torture, Revenge

I'm back again! Finally, a horror review again. You must have gotten tired of all these Lost reviews, or other TV show reviews. I'm not sure if I can keep up with watching horror movies though, because after next week my school schedules seems to be created in hell, so probably a lot less time. And I probably will be moving house, so again, a lot less time. But when I've moved I think I'll watch a lot more movies again, so we'll see what happens!

Enough about me, let's talk about Victim!

I've watched Victim on Netflix, it was one of those 'beautiful' things that Netflix recommended for me, so I thought I'd give it a go. 

We see a young man being kidnapped by a mysterious doctor and his brutal henchman. He is being tortured and treated in a very strange way. 

I think it's very difficult to rate Victim. It has some really weird points and some strong ones. Spoiler-- The guy is being tortured and imprisoned, also the doctor seems to give him hormones. He's slowly turning into a girl in the most literal way possible.

The doctor himself is a very weird dude with a strange voice, he reminded me a bit of the doctor of The Human Centipede, only less aggressive. His brutal henchman is a very mysterious fellow, he never talks or does anything else besides torturing the young man. We don't get to know anything about him, which is kinda sad I think.

The movie is set up quite good, we feel sorry for the young man, and we wonder why this is happening to him. But in the end the roles slowly seems to turn around. This was done in an excellent way, and personally I did not see this coming. 

I've read many times that people found this movie disturbing, but personally it did not do much to me. The torturing was very mild, and hardly shown. The young man seems hardly affected by this. I think it was mostly disturbing for the guys watching since there's a scene that reminded me a lot of a specific scene of Hard Candy. 

The acting was not very good. There was this typical police woman investigating all alone and of course she is being attacked and she can't defend herself because she's a bit dumb. Her role was very unnecessary and also very badly acted. 

Like I already said, the doctor had a very weird and annoying voice, his acting was decent but nothing special. 

The young man did not act very well I think, his voice sounded a bit fake and overall he seemed very weak. His character was a bit weird too because when you're being kidnapped and you're waking up in a cell, the first thing you ask won't be if you can get any water. That's just silly.

The one that acted best was the 'brutal henchman' George, but he did not say a word, so I don't think that his acting job was very difficult.

Overall, the movie wasn't very good, the acting was only decent and it didn't have anything special. The story was decent too, but what I did like was the sudden twist between good and evil. Or, the question what is good and what is evil. The turnaround of the bad guy was done very well but unfortunately that was the only good point. I think it's an average movie and I guess I'll agree with IMDB on the 6,0 rate.

My personal rate: 6,0/10

Review: Loss of Life (2013)

Loss of Life

IMDB rate: Not yet rated

Genre: Revenge, Slasher

Recently I was given the opportunity to watch the screener of the movie 'Loss of Life'. I was quite excited by this, not only because it was my very first screener, but also because it seemed like a genuinely good movie.
There might be some spoilers in this review, I'm sorry!

On October 31, 2012, in North Hollywood, California, a group of high school friends decided to document their Halloween night out. What they end up documenting is a horrific bloody attack that quickly becomes the worst night of their lives. This film is the compilation of the footage found that night.

I think this movie had quite some big potential, but unfortunately, it was not what I expected from it.
To start with, without subtitles it's VERY difficult to understand what they are saying. The first 30 minutes there's happening absolutely nothing except for a lot of talking and to be honest, I only understood maybe 10% of it. The movie is about a big group of friends, 7 or maybe 8 people, and the entire time they are talking and yelling, all at the same time, so it's almost impossible to understand what it's about.
They are talking about what they are going to do and stuff, they are suppose to go to some Halloween party but first they need to go to some location to do stuff. When they're at this location, absolutely nothing happens. It's just useless rambling and yelling with a camera. To me this moment (which lasts about 30 minutes) is absolutely useless because I have no idea why they are there. They might have said it, but I don't know because it's impossible to understand anything that's being said.
It's sad that it's so noisy, because if the dialogue was understandable and made some sense it might have improved the movie a lot.

Then after 30 minutes, there's finally happening something. There's a girl running towards them, yelling for help, she's all injured and she's being followed by two guys with masks and weapons.
Then again, the guys try to ask her what happened, but then again, everyone is screaming at the same time. But in this case I forgive them for it, because they are scared. It's only logical that they react this way, so even though it's a tiny bit annoying, it might be a good and believable moment.

Afterwards a few escaped and got to the car, they couldn't start it because they had no keys. You see, every logical person would run as the wind to escape these masked dudes, but for some reason these guys stay in the car (when they have every opportunity to run away) and argue about what to do. Well, let's see, run away perhaps? The street is only a few meters away so it's very easy to get some help.
But no of course they stay in the car and get in even more danger. This might be one of the few movies where splitting up is a good idea.

I must say, the acting is very good. Not once was I annoyed by bad acting or something. Also, I love the variation in cameras, it gives a good insight who is filming what, because the quality differs a lot from each other. The make-up was in the beginning very good, especially from the girl, her injuries looked quite real. But at some point the bloods starts looking very watery. A bit too fake. There's not much music in the movie, unfortunately only when somethings about to happen. It's quite easy to create a jump-scare in a Found-Footage movie, but because the music only starts to play at scary moments, this effect is away. The moments that could be jump-scares disappeared because of this.
Another good thing were the masks. There's nothing more scary than a murderers with masks in a Found-Footage movie.

I quite like Found-Footage movies. For me they have a bigger scare-effect than a regular movie. I think the storyline of this movie is quite reasonable, even though it's a bit predictable. Unfortunately the elaboration is not very good. It did have some potential, but there are just too many unbelievable moments. Also, a noisy movie is not always a bad thing, but it has to be understandable at some moments or else it's almost useless to watch. I must say, I am from The Netherlands and my mother tongue is obviously not English so this might be only a problem for me, but I very much doubt it.

I do want to thank Mance Media again though for giving me this opportunity.

My personal rate: 4/10

Review: Forget Me Not (2009)

Forget Me Not

IMDB rate: 5,0

Genre: Revenge, Supernatural

Once in a few weeks time I buy a random movie that can either suck or be great. Unfortunately, I'm mostly buying shitty movies such as Forget Me Not. Today was the first time I saw this movie and it's quite a waste of time to be honest. It was not the most terrible movie I've ever seen but it was kinda bad. 

I always enjoy watching one of these movies that I randomly bought because I'll have no idea what to expect, but most of the time I'm only disappointed afterwards. Of course there are also surprising movies between randomly bought movies, such as I Spit On Your Grave, a movie that I loved. 

I wish that I could put Forget Me Not on my Randomly-bought-good-movies list, but unfortunately that's not the case.

It's graduation weekend, and Sandy Channing, the popular class president of her small-town high school, should be enjoying the time of her life. But when her friends start disappearing, Sandy discovers they have unwittingly awakened the vengeful spirit of a girl they wronged long ago. Fighting for her sanity, Sandy must unlock a dark secret from her own past before it's too late.

The first thing that needs to be discussed is the acting: it's terrible. Carly Schroeder plays the main character Sandy in this movie and she's the one I'm most disappointed about. I loved her so much in the movie Mean Creek, and now she's just rubbish. The other actors too; just horrible. 

They are supposed to seem like a fun group of friends who have the best time ever, but all I can see is a huge group of very shallow and unfriendly people. They cheat, lie and call each other names the entire movie. The one is even a bigger slut than the other. Just horrible people, and for such a group of friends I can't even feel sorry for them when they are being slaughtered. 

The story is very weird, when you finally think you understand it, things are suddenly different and everything is because of some girl in a coma. Why is the girl in the coma doing this after such a long time? How is she even able to do that? The reasons given for this are so thinly explained.

I must say, the creatures might look weird but I can imagine that some people might be scared by them. I don't know what's up with their mouths and with all the duck-tape around their body but they look a bit scary that way, so apparently, weird mouths and duck-tape do the trick.

At first I thought this would be a reasonable movie, but the people in it are so terrible. Their characters and their acting. The story is not even terrible, but it's just so badly explained. I think the concept of this movie was okay, but I guess something went wrong when they started to make this movie. 

Forget Me Not is just a rubbish movie.

My personal rate: 4/10

Review: Joy Ride (2001)

Joy Ride

IMDB rate: 6,5

Genre: Survival, Revenge

Today I finally watched the movie Joy Ride. I've bought this movie quite some time ago, but I never got around watching it, so I guess it was time for me to watch it! I also own the sequel Joy Ride 2, and I have the feeling that I've seen that one before, but I'm not really sure yet. Will find out eventually, but I have the feeling that's not a very good movie. Anyway, for now I'll just write a review about the first part!

College student Lewis decides to drive across the country to see Venna, a friend who doesn't know that Lewis is interested in her romantically. Unfortunately for his plans, Lewis gets saddled with his raucous-spirited older brother, Fuller, whose on-the-road pranks get the brothers and Venna sucked into a nightmare when a psychotic truck-driver takes offense.

I actually quite liked this movie. It was very tensive, but not very scary. I kept wondering if they escaped the guy or not, or what the next step of him would be. It was really fun to watch.

The acting is very good. The main characters are being played by Leelee Sobieski, Paul Walker and Steve Zahn. It's kinda funny to see Steve Zahn in a horror movie since he mostly plays funny roles, but even in this movie he's the crazy one. I don't really think he fitted the role, but it was acceptable. Paul Walker is an excellent actor and I seriously don't get why he keeps continuing those rubbish Fast & Furious movies because he can do so much better than that. Steve Zahn and Paul Walker unfortunately were not very convincing as brothers. They don't resemble each other for one bit.
I've only seen Leelee Sobieski in the remake of The Wicker Man and we all know how that movie turned out.. that remake is too rubbish to discuss but I must admit that her acting was decent in this movie.

The movie is fun to watch, but there are quite some bothering moments in this movie. For example, why do they not turn the CB off? Why don't they call the police? Why not stay in more populated places? The main characters make quite some dumb decisions for college students. But I'll ignore these things because they were not very bothering in the movie.

The movie is quite simple, you never see the villain, which makes everyone a suspect. You only hear a voice, which is quite an unsettling one (Fun fact: the voice is done by Ted Levine, the dude who played Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, quite a scary thought huh?).
You also see very little of the happenings in the movie, you only hear the sounds.

Joy Ride was quite a surprising movie to me. It was written very well, it was quite tensive and there are hardly any cliches. I expected a bunch of teenagers that were challenging some guy but it was not like that at all. These are smart teenagers who pulled a prank on the wrong person. It can happen to anyone. I really enjoyed watching this one. I see it as the good version of 7eventy 5ive, but on the road this time.

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

I Spit on Your Grave

IMDB rate: 6,2

Genre: Torture, Revenge

I've never seen the original movie, Day of the Woman, but I actually quite liked this on. It's very brutal and isn't afraid to show some details. I think it resembles the movie The Last House on the Left a lot, but I Spit on Your Grave is even more brutal. It's definitely not a movie for everyone since it's very violent but it think there are quite some horror lovers out there that enjoyed watching this movie. I personally thought it was a very cool movie, the perfect revenge comes from an innocent girl and she really kicked her assaulters asses (sometimes literally). 

Writer Jennifer Hills takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer's presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally depraved locals who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson. They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of psychical abuse and torturous assault. But before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away. As time passes, the men slowly stop searching for her body and try to go back to life as usual. But that isn't about to happen. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer's sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her... only much, much worse.

I really really enjoyed watching this movie. It was simply awesome because the girl was kick-ass. It was definitely not what I expected from it, since I expected that I bought another shit movie. But luckily, I was so wrong! I like seeing that a woman can defend herself, instead of always being the useless victim in a movie. She might have started as an useless victim but that changed a lot. 

I like that this movie is not afraid to show things. The girl is assaulted in many brutal ways and this is very much visible. Definitely not a movie for everybody. 

The thing what I liked most was the way she took her revenge. One called her a horse all the time, she let him be the horse. Another one never did anything and only watched, this time she let him watch. One is always busy with his appearance, and she makes his appearance very unflattering. And then the biggest revenge; ruining the life of an innocent girl, just like they did with her. Simply brilliant.

The acting is magnificent, very real and believable. I did think it was a bit strange seeing Daniel Franzese in a movie like this since I only know him as Damian in Mean Girls. Believe me when I say that this role is very different from that one! Not that that matters much, but it was just something I noticed.

I absolutely recommend watching I Spit on Your Grave. I think it was very surprising and absolutely not what I expected from it. It was brutal, sadistic and cruel. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Expect the worst from it, because that's what you will get. I do not recommend watching this movie for those with a weaker stomach. Or if you're not much into gore, blood and violence; do not watch this!

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: Amusement (2008)

Amusement

IMDB rate: 5,1
Genre: Revenge, Clown

I've watched this movie several times and for some reason, I just never remember what happened in the movie. I'm quite sure this isn't a good thing.

Well, let's start off with the fact that I am really terrified of clowns, that's probably why the movie seemed interesting to me, because I'm still searching for the ultimate scary clown movie (still haven't found it yet, unfortunately).

When you see this movies you'll probably think that the movie goes about the clown. Well, not really. That's just one segment. In fact, the movie goes about one crazy dude, that has a maniac laugh, likes to pretend he's some one else and has a fetish for cutting living things.

 I'll have to say, there are several scenes in the movie that contain the scary clown, and these scenes are a bit scary, but that's about it, because this is probably the only good/scary scene in the movie. 

This movie is just another 'gore' movie that is so popular these days, and is absolutely going nowhere. Starting of with the car that's lost in the woods, a babysitter that's getting stalked by some freak, and an 'abandoned' hotel with crazy people in it, well.. we've all seen them before. These 3 stories are coming together by some story about the youth from these three woman, which is making no sense at all. 

Suddenly, one of the woman is seen in a 'FBI interrogation cell', and she's talking to a strange man (obviously the freaky dude) and after that, a woman comes talking with her. Well, all fine and stuff, but really madam, did you not notice, that you didn't quite walked in a FBI station, wasn't it noticeable that there wasn't any lights, or that it was abandoned as hell?! So of course, she get's killed. 

The script seems to exist from random horror story ideas that are put together, and completed with a nonsense story. And even when you're fascinated by the script, it's still going way too slow, which makes you lose your focus (well, this might be the problem of why I never remember this movie).

In short, if you like random segments that contains a bit of joyride, a clown, a freak that put's living people in mattresses and a nonsense story, this is the perfect movie for you ;). Although the clown segment wás actually scary, the rest of the movie is a waste of time. 

My personal rate: 5/10

- This has nothing to do with the review, but if anybody know actual scary movies with clowns or dolls, please let me know ;).