Review: It's Alive (2008)

It's Alive

IMDB rate: 3,6

Genre: Killer Kid

It's Alive is one of those horror movies that I bought without knowing what it's about. I can't even remember anymore where exactly I bought it but I already figured that this movie can't be too good.  Damn, was I right. Again, I watched this movie in a not too sober state and in contrast with Black Sheep, this movie is not so bad that it's good. This movie is just bad.

Come on, if a movie is not even funny when you're drunk then it must be terrible ;D.

Pregnant college student Lenore Harker leaves college before the end of the semester to move to an isolated house with her boyfriend Frank. When Lenore is ready to deliver the baby, they drive to the hospital. In the surgery room, the two doctors and the two nurses are found slaughtered and Lenore and the baby are found covered in blood. When Lenore is released, the family returns to Frank's house where things are getting weird...

My friend and I figured out that this movie should be between Bride of Chucky and  Seed of Chucky. The ending of Bride of Chucky would have fitted perfectly with this movie. The killing baby could have been a puppet so that it's indeed Glen/Glenda, this is mainly because the baby is that CGI-obvious that it easily could have been the doll. It looks terrible!

And sorry but how bad is that mother if her baby can crawl out of the cage MULTIPLE TIMES, to kill the mothers friends? If this happens once, ok that sucks but you do something about it! Lock the kid up, at least check up on it every few minutes. Don't be a dick and accept that your child is that fucked up that you need to do something about it. Don't be all chill that your child just killed all of your best friends. 

The acting is horrible, if your baby just killed one of your friends, or a rabbit for that matter, on a brutal way, you are not going to be all Kristen Stewart about it.

Honestly, this is a really weird movie. A young student gets a baby, baby is fucked up and kills everyone and everyone is being chill about it. I'm sorry, but where the fuck was the father all this time? Why do you keep covering up for your fucked up baby? How can the baby even do this? Or how the hell can an adult not defend themselves from an one week old baby?! It's all just too ridiculous and there are no explanations given whatsoever, it's just a lame slaughter movie.

I honestly can't recommend watching this movie to anyone. It's really crap and not even funny crap. Terrible acting and especially a terrible script.
Oh, and as my friend noticed correctly, where the hell was the Frankenstein reference with a title like that?

My personal rate: 1/10

Review: Black Sheep (2006)

Black Sheep

IMDB rate: 5,8

Genre: Comedic, Zombie

Last weekend I watched Black Sheep, and I must admit that Black Sheep is an excellent movie to watch drunk. And that is of course exactly what I did. It's an absolute weird movie about zombie sheep and well, it's much harder to appreciate while sober.

Growing up on the family sheep farm was idyllic for smart, sensitive Harry Oldfield, except for some knavish mischief from cocky brother Angus, until their dad has a fatal accident. Fifteen years later, Harry was finished sheep-phobia therapy and his ICT schooling and returns. Angus buys him out, all ready to present the genetically engineered Oldfield sheep he bred with a ruthless team. When environmentalist Grant steals a discarded embryo, which has sharp teeth, he gets bitten by it, and thus the first to be infected with predatory hunger and a mechanism that turns any mammal into a werewolf version. Running for the farm men, Grant's mate, student Experience, gets teamed up with Harry and his boorish but gentle pastoral youth friend Tucker. They must survive both the bloodthirsty sheep and their creators, who didn't realize this yet but dispose of an antidote.

Well, in all these years we've seen plenty zombie movies. Good ones, bad ones, hilarious ones and unbearable ones. Then, there is Black Sheep. I think Black Sheep is an excellent mix between all of these things. It's so bad that it's good, and it so unbearably bad that's it's hilarious. Black Sheep is indeed a movie about sheep, in fact, about zombie sheep. This sounds bad, and I must say it actually is bad. But, I loved it.

The whole concept of zombie sheep is ridiculous. We've seen plenty ridiculous horror movies and not all of them turned out too great. Black Sheep however, is quite great because it does not take itself serious.

A weird horror movie can go a few ways. It can be good because it does not take itself serious. It can be bad because it does take itself serious. Or it has to be an amazingly awesome script that can take this weirder horror side. Unfortunately, we've seen more of the first two than of the latter one.

Back to Black Sheep again. Black Sheep comes from New Zealand, which means that we see a lot of amazing scenery and beautiful views. Also, a lot of sheep. I think it's quite brilliant that they took something out of this typical New Zealand element and made a horror movie out of it. 

The acting is reasonable, not too great but absolutely not unbearably bad. It's good on a comedic way. The scenery is beautiful, of course because this movie takes place in New Zealand. There are two sorts of sheep in this movie, real sheep and CGI sheep. The CGI sheep look terrible in a funny way. They look so bad that you can't do anything else besides laughing.

I do recommend that everyone should watch Black Sheep, it's a comedic horror movie about zombie sheep and be honest, who wouldn't want to see that? I loved watching it!

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: Lost [Season 3]

Lost

Season 3

IMDB rate: 8,5

Genre: Mystery, TV Show, Drama

Ah, I've reached season 3! Well actually, that's a lie... At the moment I'm halfway through season 5 already, but because I was very busy with school I did not have any time to write a review about it yet. But that does not matter, because better late than never! 

Season 3 is very different from season 1 and 2, because it's mainly about 'The Others'. Some people are being held as prisoners by the others, while the rest of the group still is on the beach. There are many rescue actions in the season which causes a lot of people changing location. Main thing is that there is not one big group anymore, because they are on two different places on the island. So, a whole new story to work with. We were very curious about these others in the previous seasons but unfortunately, they were not that special in my opinion. We still don't know a whole lot more about the island and to be honest, sometimes things are only more confusing instead of clearer. 

What, or I'd rather say 'who', I found very irritating on this season was Kate. She was running between Sawyer and Jack as her lover and it became very annoying after awhile. 

I heard that many people stopped watching in this season because they were getting bored by it. I can understand that people are finding this boring and too much, because there doesn't seem to be an end to all these ideas. Personally, I still liked season 3. But now I've seen season 4 and 5, things are getting really boring. But, I still try to continue watching it!

Again, there are some new characters in this season.

!!!WARNING, SPOILERS!!!

• Ben Linus: Ben Linus is played by Michael Emerson, and I must say that he does an excellent job in performing his role as an asshole. Ben Linus is absolutely not a lovable character, and for some reason, everybody trusts him. Even after everything that he does, they still talk to him. Okay, I understand that they do not kill the guy immediately, but DUDE, after two or three seasons of him being an asshole, just shoot him! I was kinda annoyed by this after a while.
• Desmond Hume: I love Desmond, he became one of my favorite characters of this show. His accent is funny and the actor (Henry Ian Cusick) plays him very well. I love how his character became a bigger part of the main group.
• Juliet Burke: Another one of The Others. What an absolute cunt for being undercover for everybody. And what's even worse, she admitted that she was betraying everyone for two or three times already, and they still accept her in the group. I was very annoyed with this woman, and I still think she's an useless addition to the show.

There are also a few smaller characters, like Nikki and Paulo, but they died quite soon after we learned a bit about them. Also, we get to know a few of The Others. And of course there is Rousseau and her daughter Alex.

Here is my list of my favorite episodes and my least favorite episodes.

Favorites:

Episode 6: I Do

Episode 8: Flashes Before Your Eyes

Episode 10: Tricia Tanaka is Dead

Episode 18: D.O.C.

Episode 19: The Brig

Episode 21: Greatest Hits

Episode 22: Through the Looking Glass

Least favorite ones:

Episode 3: Further Instructions

Episode 5: The Cost of Living

Episode 9: Stranger in a Strange Land

Episode 13: The Man From Tallahassee

Episode 14: Expose 

I really liked the last episode of this season, it was a great loss for the show but it's good that it happened. It was a very touching episode and it really gave me tears in my eyes. I'm sad that he is gone but else it would be too weird that no one of the main cast would die.

I still liked season 3, even though it's a lot different from the previous two seasons. Season 3 is still fun and season 4 is bearable. But I must say that season 5 is really too far-fetched and it's getting a bit boring. Such a shame. Anyway, I hope I can continue watching the show, because I only have half of season 5 and season 6 left to watch. I'm quite curious about how they will end this show.

My personal rate: 7/10

The Walking Dead: Season 4, episode 2: Infected

Ah, it was that time of the week again! The Walking Dead, episode 2!

I'm a day later than what I intended to, I know, but better late than never, huh?

!!SPOILERS!!

We were left off in quite a predictable situation at the end of the first episode, and that was with a young boy being very sick. The young boy unfortunately died inside the jail which caused that he became a zombie eventually. Well, we all know that the next episode will have many deaths. And well, we were not disappointed. 

Remember me telling you how many new people were introduced? Well, many got killed off again. Unfortunately for them. 

But it gets worse, because the virus the kid died of seems to be infective. So anyone who got in this cellblock where he killed a lot of people, can be infected by this. 

Animals are infected by this, humans are starting to get infected by this and even zombies appear to be infected by this. It shows that the people should be afraid of more than zombies. Everyone they knew died because of a zombie bite, but they should realize that there's more in the world that could kill them. I think this will give a very interesting twist to the show. Also, it may cause a lot of deaths, so I suspect that there are coming many interesting new episodes.

Now what I found the most interesting of this episode was that someone appears to be feeding the zombies by the fence. Also, there are a whole lot other strange things going on in the prison.

There were a lot of deaths in this episode and strangely enough you didn't see much of it. This episode was a lot more on an emotional route instead of a bloodbath route. We see a lot more of Michonne and Tyreese, and even Carol seems to grow as a character. It's very different from the 'usual' Walking Dead, but I quite liked to see an episode different from the usual ones. This episode was a lot better than the previous one because it's filled with new mysteries and I can only hope it will continue to grow like this.

All I can say is: Why isn't it next week yet?

Review: The ABC's of Death (2012)

The ABC's of Death

IMDB rate: 4,8

Genre: Supernatural

Look what appeared on Netflix yesterday! I've wanted to watch this movie for such a long time already, but I never got around watching it. I've heard good things about this movie and bad things. 

The ABC's of Death are 26 segments with a death cause for every letter. It was not really what I hoped for though, I hoped that we'd see some awesome horror deaths and that each letter would represent some awesome creature, for example, Z for Zombie, V for Vampire etc. Unfortunately it were some random death causes rather than specific ones.

What did I think about it myself? I'm not really sure, some segments were really good and some were terribly bad. I think most of them were quite bad to be honest.

The ABC's of Death is an ambitious anthology film featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. Inspired by children's educational ABC books, the motion picture is comprised of 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free reign in choosing a world to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational; The ABC's of Death is the definitive snapshot of the diversity of modern horror. Drafthouse Films, Magnet Pictures and Timpson Films are proud to present this alphabetical arsenal of destruction orchestrated by what Fangoria calls "a stunning roll call of some of the most exciting names in horror across the world."

As I already said, there are 26 segments in this movie. They are very differs and have no connection at all with each other, that's what makes it fun to discuss them all!

A is for Apocalypse:

This was what the movie starts with and it pretty much gave me a huge 'WTF-feeling'. This could have been a really good segment if it actually contained an apocalypse, but instead we see a woman stabbing a man, which goes kinda wrong and afterwards you see that there's a bright red lightning nearing the window, which apparently is supposed to look like the apocalypse has started. Not really a good one.

My rate: 4/10

B is for Bigfoot

Not a bad segment, but it took awhile for me to realize what the name Bigfoot was good for. If you think about it, the people are telling about a mexican snowman, which could have been bigfoot. Since he's also a sort of Snowman. 

My rate: 6,5/10

C is for Cycle

This segment reminded me so much of the movie Triangle. I really love those cycle movies because they are so difficult to understand but eventually there will always be a part that can't be right compared with the rest. Good segment.

My rate: 7/10

D is for Dogfight

This was definitely my favorite segment. It was filmed amazingly, even the scenes with the dog were frightening. And then when the dog realizes who the guy is, he turns around and attacks his new boss. It was shown perfectly, and the emotions were really well shown, from dog and human. Beautiful story too.

My rate: 9/10

E is for Exterminate

Exterminate was a reasonable segment. It was not very interesting, but it was definitely not bad either. The little spiders crawling out of the man's ear was very frightening.

My rate: 6/10

F is for Fart

Well here is were the weird stuff starts, and of course it's from Japan. A girl loves farts and right before she dies she sniffs the farts of her teacher so the room is filled with yellow fart and then she is sucked into the teacher's bum where it's also filled with fart. Yeah....

My rate: 3/10

G is for Gravity

I did not really got what happened in this segment. It was over quite fast and nothing really happened. I searched for it on wikipedia and now I get what happened. I don't think it was a good segment, but this is mainly because I had no idea what the purpose of this one was. If it was shown a bit better I might have liked it a lot better

My rate: 3/10

H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion

Another weird one, Nazi-dogs and British dog pilots. Absolutely too weird to discuss.

My rate: 2/10

I is for Ingrown
Well, I literally don't have an idea of what was happening in this segment. A girl in a bathtub and a dude with a needle. She has a lot of itches and dies. A bit weird but it was filmed in a very interesting way.
My rate: 4,5/10

J is for Jidai-geki (Samurai Movie)
When a letter is too difficult to make a segment with, the directors and writers are cheating a bit. As you can see with this one, it is a reference to something with another meaning. Cheaters! Anyway, this segment was a rather strange one too. But what I mainly notice in this movie is that all the really weird segments are all Asian. This segment is about a Japanese guy who is making ridiculous facial expressions right before his head is being chopped off. The meaning behind this? You tell me...
My rate: 3/10

K is for Klutz
Basically it's about poo missing his owner who just shat him out. It's the first animation and well, that's probably the only thing special about it.
My rate: 3/10

L is for Libido
Libido is definitely a very strange segment, it's gross and kinda sick. But the story was powerful, and definitely one to remember, again, in a sick way. And of course, made by an asian guy. This segment would have fitted perfectly in A Serbian Film, that should say enough huh? Basically, it's a 'fapping-contest', where in every stage two guys need to masturbate to something on the stage. When they "finish" last, they will be killed. Every stage is being made more difficult. For example, the first few rounds include a few attractive woman, while the eleventh round includes a sick girl who is "enjoying" herself with a fake leg. And the twelfth round includes something way sicker than that, yes indeed, a little boy being molested by a fat dude. You don't actually see this (of course), but the idea behind is should be enough to make you sick. And then the next stage, having sex while the guy is being attacked by a chainsaw. You now understand why this segment would be perfect for A Serbian Film?
My rate: 7/10

M is for Miscarriage
A very short segment, but also quite a powerful one. There's a toilet that refuses to flush, a girl who searches for a plunger and afterwards there's a shot of what's inside the toilet: A lot of blood. Of course, your first thought would be that the girl is on her period or something, but afterwards you realize it's indeed a dead fetus. I quite liked this one.
My rate: 8/10

N is for Nuptials
I loved this segment. It's about a guy who makes a parrot talk and let's the parrot ask the girl to marry him. All very sweet and stuff, but afterwards the parrot keeps talking and reveals some rather interesting things about his affair. It was quite hilarious.
My rate: 8/10

O is for Orgasm
Sex and bubbles, that's what this segment is about and it that was rather boring.
My rate: 2/10

P is for Pressure
Another powerful segment. A mother is forced to prostitute herself to take care of her and her three children, then her money is stolen and she needs to do something way more awful to get the money.
There's not a word being said in this segment, but it sure was clear and very powerful.
My rate: 8/10

Q is for Quack
Not sure what to think about this one. It's being shown as if people are really arguing about what to make with the letter 'Q'. Then they decide to kill and duck (quack), everyone cares way more about this duck and that's being down quite cleverly, because eventually they killed each other instead of the duck.
 My rate: 6/10

R is for Removed
I really don't get what the purpose of this one was. Guy is in a hospital, he is being photographed, gets a bullet removed, gets aggressive and pushes a train which makes it rain blood. Yeah, that's about it and that does not create an amazing segment in my opinion. It was filmed really awesome, but unfortunately that's about it.
My rate: 4/10

S is for Speed
A decent segment. The story itself was not very interesting and seemed a lot like a combination between Death Proof and The Bold and the Beautiful. But the meaning behind the segment was done rather well. I liked the switch at the end.
My rate: 6,5/10

T is for Toilet
Toilet was more a funny segment because it was made with Clay. And not in a cool Wallace & Gromit way, but more in a very bad way. The bad animations made it quite funny and the story itself was quite funny too.
My rate: 6,5/10

U is for Unleashed
Ah, a vampire one! We unfortunately never saw this vampires because we saw everything through his eyes. It was made really awesome, but not a whole lot happened.
My rate: 7/10

V is for Vagitus
Yeah, another one that's too weird to discuss. I have no idea what was happening.
My rate: 4/10

W is for WTF!
A very weak and annoying attempt at making a segment.
My rate: 1/10

X is for XXL
I loved this one, it was a very good view on society, where it's often that women are being 'pushed' to be beautiful. This is mainly because of the false and fake advertising of photoshopped models and this is exactly what happened with this woman. The woman was being called fat and she wants to be skinny because everything around her says her to be. At that point she cuts off half of her bodyfat.
Super powerful and very true in an extreme way. We also see a familiar face which is Ivan Gonzalez from The Divide. Not so strange because The Divide was created by the same guy who developed XXL.
My rate: 8,5/10

Y is for Youngbuck
Good segment, very good casting and a good short story.
My rate: 7,5/10

Z is for Zetsumetsu
Yeah again, japanese segment. Too weird to discuss, so I won't attempt it.
My rate: 3/10

I searched all the directors of the segments on IMDB and I don't knew a whole lot. There were only 4 directors from which I've seen other work. These movies included The Divide, Hobo With a Shotgun, some of the segments of VHS and A Serbian Film. It's funny because I made a comparison with A Serbian Film with the segment Libido, but strangely enough that was not the one created by the same director. He created Remove.

Overall, The ABC's of Death is a strange movie. It has some really good segments but mostly it's crap. It's more a movie to make fun of when you're drunk (and that's exactly what I did the second time I watched it).

Is it worth a watch? Well, like I said, some segments are but the other ones are very hard to watch because they are so weird and mostly boring. In a sober condition it's quite a difficult and boring movie to watch. It was definitely not what I expected from this movie and afterwards I was quite disappointed by it.

My personal rate: 5/10

Review: Lost [Season 2]

Lost

Season 2

IMDB rate: 8,5

Genre: Mystery, Drama, TV Show

Yup, still addicted to Lost. This time I finished season 2 and so far I still like it. At the moment I'm even halfway through season 3 and it still doesn't bore me so I guess that's a good thing. There are still 3 season left though, so there might still be a lot to come.

I still enjoyed watching the second season, mainly because there were some fresh faces. These fresh faces were also survivors of the plane crash, but they were all in the tail of the plane so they landed on the other side of the island.

The second season is definitely not as good as season one, but it's still very addicting and fun to watch.

In my last lost review I wrote a few parts about each important character, and I noticed that I missed quite a few. So here are the missing ones:

!!!WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

• Jin & Sun Kwon: I discuss them both at the same time because they are husband and wife which means they are together a lot. At first I did not really like them, they were strangers and did not seem interested in communicating. Apparently Sun could speak English the entire time which makes her look like a scumbag to be honest. She is kinda a scumbag considering all her lying and cheating. Jin had a nasty past, but is kinda nice on the island. I disliked him a lot because he did not try to communicate with the others, but luckily he starts to open up a lot more now. I'm still not too sure of them though, I don't find their characters very interesting.
• Claire Littleton: I find her character a bit useless to be honest. She does not bring in a whole lot of interesting stories or isn't very helpful. In season 3 there are some new things revealed about her but those things were a bit stupid to be honest. It really seemed like a last minute fill-up for the show, which was kinda useless.
• Ana Lucia Cortez: One of the most irritating characters in the entire show. Selfish, stupid and annoying. I skipped a lot of her stories because she was very annoying and predictable. I'm very glad she did not survive this season.
• Libby Smith: Oh I kinda loved Libby! She was really good to Hurley and there was still a lot left to learn about her. Really sad that she died this season.
• Mr. Eko: Another scumbag, the entire season I was unsure what to think of him and I'm still not sure. I'm not sure if he died in season 2 or 3, but I was glad he did.

Well, that were 2 of the original survivors and 3 new ones. Strangely enough, none of the new survivors survived this season. That's not really bad though because else the cast would be way too big and would have way too many uninteresting people.

This season is a lot more dark en we also finally see 'the monster' for the first time. What I expected from the monsters was a King Kong or a Godzilla, but no it was even more mysterious than that: it was a dark cloud. Yes, you read that right, a frickin' dark cloud. Seriously, how do you come up with this when you can create dinosaurs, King Kongs or other awesome monsters? I still don't know much about this Dark Cloud though, so perhaps it will become awesome in some way or another.

There were 23 episodes in Season 2, again way too much to discuss them all, but I will list my favorites and my least favorite ones below, as usual.

Favorites:
Episode 1: Man of Science, Man of Faith
Episode 7: The Other 48 Days
Episode 9: What Kate Did
Episode 11: The Hunting Party
Episode 15: Maternity Leaves
Episode 17: Lockdown
Episode 22: Three Minutes
Episode 23: Live Together, Die Alone

Least favorite ones:
Episode 6: Abandoned
Episode 8: Collision
Episode 10: The 23rd Psalm
Episode 13: The Long Con
Episode 20: Two for the Road

Each season has it's ups and downs, this far I'm still liking it and of course I will continue watching it as like as I like it. There are really good moments in it and some very bad moments. Season 3 is definitely a lot less good as season 2, but it's still fun to watch. What I don't like so much of season 3 is that everyone seems to be apart. Of course that's possible, but they should combine the two groups together in one episode, instead of one episode about this group and then the next episode about the other group.
What I also don't like a whole lot is the fact that everyone is connected somehow with each other. It's a bit too obvious and predictable after awhile. But again, I'm still addicted!

My personal rate: 8/10

The Walking Dead: Season 4, episode 1: 30 Days Without an Accident

Yes, it's that time again! The Walking Dead finally started and luckily Fox decided to also broadcast it in The Netherlands, only one day after release in America! Why am I so excited by this you ask? Well, normally TV shows from America are not immediately shown in The Netherlands and we'll have to wait a long time to see it. If Fox did not broadcast this immediately, it would probably have been December when we had a chance to see the new season. And by that time there would be so many spoilers on the internet that it would be a lot less fun to watch. And believe me, I can't get myself away from the internet until December. 

Then again there's the opportunity to buy the DVD and watch it that way, but I'm afraid that that will even last longer than waiting for the TV show, since season 3 got only released last week. 

There's also the option of downloading illegally, but I'm not the biggest fan of that and the quality is not very good most of the time.

Well, that's a long story for what would happen if Fox did not broadcast The Walking Dead. BUT, they did so it was kinda an useless story for you to read. I'm just very thankful that they decided to broadcast it, okay ;).

I stayed up very late to watch this show and I will do this probably every Monday until it's finished. I will write a review about each episode every week, but eventually I'll also make a bigger post about the entire season 4.

!!!!SPOILERS!!!!

So, 30 Days Without an Accident is the very first episode of the new season of The Walking Dead. It started out a bit weird because apparantely it's a few days (30 days?) later than where season 3 ended. So no big gaps like season 2 and season 3. I'm quite happy that there isn't such a big gap in this one because skipping 9 months was way too much. They can't tell me that there did not happen a thing in 9 months, while in this single day of the episode, a shit-load happened. Anyway, in these 30 days everyone from Woodbury got transferred to the prison, where they are helping to get food and kill zombies and stuff.

We are immediately introduced to a bunch of new characters, and I immediately had a favorite: Zack played by Kyle Gallner. Unfortunately, my new favorite got bitten in this episode, so goodbye new favorite. What I am trying to say is, we are not being disappointed in the killing because there are plenty deaths again. And I can predict that there will come many more. Of course, there are way too many people in the prison to follow them all, so if a few people get killed, it wouldn't hurt a whole lot.

I loved the scene where the zombies fell through the roof, it looked like an improved zombie-breed: flying zombies. They are obviously not really flying, but they sure were predictable and very dangerous.
Then there's the scene with the strange woman. At first I thought she was some sort of zombie, but also still human. So immune to the virus, just like in 28 Weeks Later. Unfortunately, this was not the case. She really just was a creepy woman. To be honest, I don't really know what the use was for her presence in the show. I did not add anything besides a bit of tension.

I thought it was a good episode, filled with zombie slaughter, a bit of humor and a lot of tension. But, I did not like it a whole lot as an opening for a new season. I expected a few new things, besides the new people, things are still the same. And of course, you can not keep changing the location, but I would've liked it if something had changed. It felt more as a normal episode instead of a season opener.
I must say that I loved the ending and I can't wait until next week because I can predict: SHITS GOING DOWN!

Review: Lost [Season 1]

Lost

Season 1

IMDB rate: 8,5

Genre: Mystery, Drama, TV Show

Well, I'm quite late to this party, but I've finally started watching Lost. I bought a few seasons a while back, but I never got around watching it because I was missing season 1. Well, luckily there's season 1 on Netflix, meaning that again, I was addicted to another TV show. I've heard of Lost many times before and while it seemed kinda fun to me, I never got around watching it. It's quite funny because I remember that Lost first came to the Dutch television and it was announced that this was 'The best mini-serie of all time!', yes you read that correctly, "mini-serie". Six seasons later and it's being said that there still isn't a good answer to everything. Of course, I don't know anything about this yet and can't confirm anything since I'm only at season 2 at the moment. Perhaps I will watch Lost till the last season, but it's being said that it's quite boring after awhile, so I can't say for sure yet.
All I know is that I really enjoyed watching Lost, season 1. As I said, I am halfway through season 2 and I still enjoy watching it.
It's really a good TV show and I think that season 1 is brilliant. I do notice that season 2 is a bit less fun, but still very interesting. But I'll talk about that in the next Lost review!

I thought it would be nice to discuss the main characters and what I think about them.
!WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD!

• Jack Shepard: Well there are always people like Jack in a TV Show. The good guys who try to save everybody. Until this moment he does not have a bad thing shown yet. While all the others appeared to be not very nice in 'their previous life', he seems to be the only one this far that doesn't have any problems. I also think that Matthew Fox is an excellent choice for his character. He is serious but also has a soft side.
• Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes: Definitely one of my favorite characters on this show. He's very sweet and big and doesn't lose an ounce on this deserted island, a very strange matter, but I really like him. He brings a bit of humor in this show with his comments on everybody. Jorge Garcia is also a good choice for Hurley, I think they would resemble each other a lot in real life.
• Sayid Jarrah: Naveen Andrews plays the guy from Iraq, Sayid. I only knew the actor Naveen Andrews from the movie Planet Terror so this role is quite different from that one. I like that he is the smart guy on this island, he doesn't search for trouble with the others and is mostly apart from the rest. I do think that his character became a bit darker in the second season because of events that happened and this 'new Sayid' is a bit less fun, but besides that, I think that his character will grow a lot. 
• James 'Sawyer' Ford: His character is a real scumbag in the first season and I disliked him a lot, but his character changed a bit in season 2 and he's a lot more likable this way. He's kinda sarcastic but that's also what makes him funny. 
• Kate Austen: I would like to learn everything about her since she's the real badass of the island. I'm in season 2 at the moment and I still don't know everything about her. I am getting a bit crazy of her running between Jack and Sawyer though, a bit too much Twilight-alike. Make a goddamn choice woman! Evangeline Lilly is a very pretty woman and I think she possesses the sweetness and the toughness that Kate also possesses. So I think she's an excellent choice for the role of Kate.
• John Locke: Not too sure what to think of him. One time he seems like a good guy and the other time he seems like the bad guy. Also, he has this weird mouth which makes him look like he's always smiling even when he's sad or at a funeral or something. I think he will eventually become a bad guy, but that are only guesses.

There are so many other people to talk about, Jin Kwon and Sun Kwon are both main characters too, but I find their characters a bit underdeveloped at the moment. They don't seem to have a lot of functions for the main story. Especially Jin is very useless. Claire Littleton is also very useless for the story I think. She's always busy with the baby and seems kinda selfish sometimes. The one time that interesting things happened with her she couldn't remember anything of it so that makes her kinda useless. I do like the character of Dominic Monaghan though, which is Charlie. Charlie is a funny guy but a bit stupid. He brings a bit of humor to Lost.

There are 25 episodes in season 1 of Lost, which are way too many to discuss them all. 

Favorites:

Episode 1: Pilot part 1

Episode 2: Pilot part 2

Episode 11: All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

Episode 15: Homecoming

Episode 18: Numbers

Episode 23: Exodus part 1

Episode 24: Exodus part 2

Episode 25: Exodus part 3

Least favorite:

Episode 5: White Rabbit

Episode 6: House of the Rising Sun

Episode 8: Confidence Man
Episode 19: Deus Ex Machina

All together, I grew to be a big fan of Lost. I think it's an amazing TV show this far and I'm very curious about what's still coming. Obviously, I am only at season 2 yet so I can't say a lot about it yet. It is being said that Lost becomes real terrible after a few seasons, but I don't know yet. I will watch it until it becomes terribly boring but I hope I can watch it until the very last season.

I must say that it seemed to me like the last episode of Lost season 1 would be the ending, but then in the very last seconds it seems like they changed their mind. That scene could have been the ending so that it would indeed be only a Mini-serie, but that scene could have also gone in a way where they can continue the show. Apparently they choose for the second one, because there suddenly happened something in the very last seconds. I like how the show continues, but I wouldn't have mind if it had ended in the way it could have been.


I do recommend watching Lost, it's a very good show especially season 1. Very good acting and an excellent cast brought together. The storyline is interesting and fun to follow. A lot of cliffhangers make you want to watch the entire season in one day.

My personal rate: 8,5/10

TONIGHT!

The Walking Dead starts again tonight, I'm so excited!

Review: Orphan (2009)

Orphan

IMDB rate: 6,9

Genre: Killer Kids

It has been quite some time since I last saw this movie. I remember that when I first saw it I did not like it a lot. But now I've seen it again I remember why, it's a very long and unsettling movie. There are a few annoying moments in it but overall it's a reasonable movie.

Kate and John Coleman are rebuilding their troubled marriage. Kate had a drinking problem, but is in therapy and is doing well. She has been sober for one year. The couple decide to adopt a child. When they meet the nine-year-old Russian girl, Esther, at the St. marina Orphanage, they immediately fall in love with the well-educated orphan. Their young son, Daniel, is hostile to his new sister; but their deaf daughter, little Max, is enchanted with her - at first. Eventually, Kate begins to feel that Esther is manipulative and possibly even psychologically disturbed. John refused to listen to his wife's misgivings, and the wounds in their marriage reopen. Kate calls Sister Abigail at the orphanage, and the nun informs her that Esther has a troubled and mysterious history. Kate delves further into Esther's past and discovers she is not all she pretends to be.

Since watching this movie for the first time I grew an immense disliking for the actrice Isabelle Fuhrman, but now I saw it again I know why... She's a brilliant actress in this movie and her role is so brutal and scumbag-ish, that it's quite hard to not dislike her. I dislike her in a way as in I dislike Daeg Faerch from the Halloween remake, they both play the scumbag role that well, that it's hard to not dislike them. They're both great actors.

Not too sure what to think of Vera Farmiga, to be honest, I like her sister Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story) a bit better as an actress. I find Vera a bit plain in this movie and she's kinda stupid for her actions. She should talk more to her husband instead of immediately hurting Esther, the way she does it in the movie she looks like the bad guy instead of Esther.

Peter Sarsgaard is also kinda dumb in the movie, the entire movie he is all protective about Esther and suddenly in the last scene he says that she is indeed a scumbag. Dude, couldn't you sat that earlier? Because of your ignorance, your wife and son are in the hospital. The switch between protective and aware of Esther's true nature came a bit too sudden I think. Also, his acting abilities were a bit boring to be honest. His face was all emotionless the entire movie.

I think Orphan has an excellent storyline. The entire movie you think that Esther is just a real scumbag kid that's kinda fucked up inside her head, but then there's a plot twist and it changes quite a lot I think. I would have liked to know why she is like this though, it might have been kinda interesting. But since the movie was already too long for my taste, I think that adding more about Esther's history would have been too much.

I also watched the alternative ending, where you see that Esther is alive and well in her room and is being taken by the police. I did not really like this ending, it was kinda boring and it made me sad that she won.

The movie is very dark and has some brutal scenes. I think it was a very good movie but some moments were a bit annoying. Especially the parts where John's (Peter Sarsgaard) ignorance was being shown. Also, I really dislike movies where talking to each other seems to be difficult. If everyone would just talk normal to each other, there wouldn't have been a lot less issues. Of course, this is only a movie and talking would be taking out the tension, but a bit more talking would have been appreciated.

Overall this is a decent movie. It has some very story moments but also a few weaker ones. The acting of Isabelle Fuhrman is amazing and that makes it definitely worth a watch.

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Evil Dead (2013)

Evil Dead

IMDB rate: 6,5

Genre: Possession

So it was finally time for me to watch The Evil Dead, the most anticipated movie of 2013. I've seen the original one only once, but I was very drunk at the time so unfortunately I can't remember much of it. I am planning to watch it again though, but in a sober state this time. I remember only small parts of the original Evil Dead so I can't compare the two unfortunately.
I did like this movie quite a lot. Very good one.

Five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin. When they discover a Book of the Dead, they unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.

Evil Dead is definitely my favorite movie of 2013 at the moment, but with that I must say that I haven't seen many 2013 horror movies. Besides that, it's quite a good movie. Very good special effects, good acting and quite a fun story.
With many horror movies, it feels like it takes awhile before it reaches an interesting point, a point where suddenly a lot is happening, but with this movie, it felt like it all was very quick, and I thought the movie must be almost over, but surprise, it was actually still in the beginning. A nice turn of events. This really is one of the good horror movies of the last few years. I know that many people dislike remakes, but I think that there are many people who also like this remake. Or well, remake, reboot, sequel, prequel, whatever it is, it's really a good movie.

What I loved in this movie were the amazing special effects. It's filled with blood and gore, just as Evil Dead is supposed to be. It was an amazing combination between awesome and brutal. The tension is builds up great, it was good at the beginning, but at the ending it was amazing. The make-up looks amazing. I read that they did not use any CGI in this movie, just like in the original one. I love that they did this, keeping true to the original. With these effects some parts reminded me of The Exorcist. Great feeling.

Sure, this movie is a bit over-the-top, and it's all a bit too much, but from what I can remember of the original Evil Dead, it was the same. That's what makes it the Evil Dead. I did not find it a scary movie, but a good shocker it was.

I really liked this movie a lot. It was very good and had incredibly images. The special effects looked incredibly good and the acting was amazing. The movie is definitely one of the better ones that I've seen in the last few years. I'm quite sure that even die-hard Evil Dead fans will enjoy this remake, because it's simply brilliant. Go watch it!

My personal rate: 8,5/10

Review: Hemlock Grove [Season 1]

Hemlock Grove
Season 1

IMDB rate: 6,9

Genre: Supernatural, TV Show, Werewolf

I notice that my Horror Diary is slowly turning into a TV Show blog, I'm sorry for that but I'm quite addicted to a few at the moment. I will watch at least one movie again this evening, so the horror movies will be back!

To stay in the horror theme, I watched Hemlock Grove, season 1. Quite an interesting TV show to be honest, I'm very curious about the next season.

Hemlock Grove is made by Eli Roth so as you can imagine, things are awesome! I told a few people that I was watching a TV show about Werewolves and stuff, and everyone was like; Ah another Twilight inspired TV show?! And I was like: DUDE, this was partly created by the creator of Hostel, do you really think this will be anything like Twilight?! 

Well, that being said, of course it's nothing like Twilight. First of all, it's mostly about werewolves instead of vampires and there are a hell of a lot things going on that don't involve sparkling pedophiles. 

At first I was not sure what to think of this show. I thought it was interesting but it was not really catchy yet. Luckily, that changed after awhile.

The acting in this TV show is very good. Famke Janssen plays Olivia Godfrey who is the mother of Roman Godfrey, played by Bill Skarsgard. Famke Janssen is a brilliant actress and really like her a lot. One of the few Dutch actresses who I truly like. Bill Skarsgard is the son of actor Stellan Skarsgard and the younger brother of actor Alexander Skarsgard, so as you can see, he comes from a quite amazing family. He acted amazing. At first he was cold-hearted and very cool, but after awhile he showed that he also has a human side, that switch was amazing. Landon Liboiron plays Peter who is the werewolf in this show and personally he's my favorite. Excellent actor who I'd love to see a bit more. 

The one who I'm most curious about is Roman's sister Shelley who is a huge girl but is also part robot-like. We learn a few things in this season, but I would love to learn a lot more about her. 

Again, I wont discuss every episode of Hemlock Grove, simply because I can't remember every detail of each one. I will discuss my favorite and least favorite one though. 

Season 1, episode 8: Catabasis

This was my least favorite episode. At least, I think it was. IMDB does not provide much information about the episodes yet so I can't exactly remember which episode it was. But, in the cast of this episode there's a girl named Pretty Shelley, so I guess this is the episode that I mean. Roman Godfrey is in a coma, and while he is in a coma he sees visions with a pretty version of Shelley. She guides him through some events and well, it was very boring after awhile. This was the only episode where I kept looking if it was almost over yet.

Season 1, episode 13: Birth

This was my favorite episode. It was incredibly touching and it explained so many things that were kinda confusing in the beginning. It gave many answers and a lot of interesting things happened. The acting was amazing and it was a perfect ending for a season. There were some things revealed in this episode that makes me very curious about the next season. 

While I was not too impressed by this TV show in the beginning, I certainly am now. It's filled with blood and gore, amazing images, a very interesting story and it has a lot of excellent actors in it. It's certainly an amazing TV show for horror fans. 

I'm very curious about season 2, but unfortunately I have to wait till 2014 for that.

My personal rate: 8,5/10

Review: Under The Dome [Season 1]

Under The Dome

Season 1

IMDB rate: 7,2

Genre: TV Show, Science Fiction, Drama

I've developed some serious TV show addiction the last couple of weeks. I finished watching season 1 till 4 of The 4400, season 1 of Hemlock Grove and now season 1 of Under The Dome. And that only in 2 and a half week. And now I started watching Lost, so I hope that will take a bit longer.

So, Under The Dome is of course adapted from Stephen King's book with the same name. This might be one of the very few Stephen King books that I haven't read yet, but I am planning on buying it, it might be some fun comparison material. 

I don't really know which genre Under The Dome should be at. It might be a science-fiction, but also a thriller, supernatural or even a bit of a post-apocalyptic genre. A bit confusing and difficult to decide sometimes. I went with science-fiction because I think that fits best. And of course drama.

Speaking of drama, Under The Dome is filled with it. I don't think it's a good thing in this case because it became kinda boring after a while. I mean, the dome coming down is very interesting and gives very much potential for an amazing story -again, I haven't read the book yet- but instead the dome became some sort of side story after awhile. People are stuck there and that causes a lot of drama of course, and that's only logical. But what I would have liked to see a bit more was of course more about the dome. I would have liked to see that they tried everything possible to get out of this thing. And why is or isn't this possible? Instead, they are just mentioning in between the drama that there was also fired a laser to the dome which didn't work.

I really liked the pilot. It was very well written and super interesting too. It had amazing scenes of cows split in half, crashing cars and all sorts of cool things that involved the dome. But unfortunately, after the pilot, things got bad and not to forget, very unbelievable. 

At some point in this show there's coming in incredibly bad dialogue which won't change until the end. Everything is overdone, and with every dramatic thing that's being sad there's some sort of -TATADA!- music under it. Very annoying after a while. 

Then there's the acting, the only one that I enjoyed watching the entire season was Mike Vogel. Not only did he play a very smart and cool character, he played it very well. 

The others... not so much. 

Rachelle Levevre as Julia is perhaps not that bad but sometimes she's overacting a bit. 

Natalie Martinez plays a very lovable cop, and with that being said, also the worst cop ever. I believe that with every arrest she made she was kicked in the head during it so the prisoners could escape. This happens so often that it's just not fun anymore. 

Britt Robertson plays the dumbest girl I've ever seen. She gets kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend and a few days later she's suddenly kissing him again. I'm sorry, but that's not very natural. Even when it's only for distraction, there are other ways to distract people. 

Alexander Koch plays Junior. He's an obvious schizophrenic and should not be allowed to be a cop, why is everyone so dumb to see that?

But the one who bothers me most is Mackenzie Lintz, not only is she a horrible actress, I keep getting distracted by her face; what's wrong with it?! It just doesn't fit.

I can go on and on about the bad script writing, and this has very little to do with the acting jobs of these people, but putting the bad script writing aside, some parts are terribly acted.

With all this together, I can't imagine that this is how Stephen King has written the book. Not with all this drama. I'm very curious to find out about it.

All together, I did not really like it a whole lot. The concept is excellent, but it's all too much. This is a TV show that should have lasted only one season so it would be a mini TV-show. This way it would have been a lot more interesting and I would have known the answers by now. 

The show ended with quite lame, it was supposed to be a cliffhanger, but it was not very interesting. It did not make me want to watch season 2 or anything. With that being said, I'm not sure if I will even watch season 2. I was more annoyed by this TV show than entertained. Perhaps I will watch it if it's sure that there won't be a season 3 or else it would be just useless to watch.

The dome story is very interesting and I am quite curious to find out all about it, but I'm not a big fan of all the drama around this dome.

My personal rate: 6/10

Review: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

From Dusk Till Dawn

IMDB rate: 7,2

Genre: Vampire

Yesterday I finally watched From Dusk Till Dawn. I've wanted to watch this movie for quite a long time already but for some reason I never finished watching it.

It's a really fun movie to watch. What I love most about it is that I can recognize Robert Rodriguez style in it.

Also, it's very cool to see all these familiar faces.

After a bank heist, brothers Richie and Seth Gecko plan to head to Mexico to evade arrest. At a motel, Richie kills their hostage and their journey hits a hard spot, but, just when things could have gotten worse, the Fuller family shows up. Seth takes them hostage and the five successfully cross the border. The five pull to a bar called "The Titty Twister", where Seth will meet his handler in the morning. When moon strikes, the stripper and workers turn into vampires and the survivors must soon fight for their lives.

I'm a massive fan of Robert Rodriguez, and again even in a fairly old movie, he does not disappoint me. I especially love him in collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, again, someone who I'm a massive fan of. This was the first time for me that I saw this movie and I loved it. The humor is good, the acting is amazing as always, and things just feel good. Even when the vampires look a bit fake, it does not matter with this movie simply because it's such a fun movie to watch. It's a movie that you can enjoy without thinking about it too much. And not to forget, Robert Rodriquez always has the best music in his movies.

Well, speaking of those vampires, they really don't look too good. I thought they resembled the vampires of Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot, mixed in with the creepy girl/boy/demon from the last scene of [Rec]. It was very cool though to see Danny Trejo, Salma Hayek, Harvey Keitel and Quentin Tarantino as vampires. Very different look for them ;).

The acting is really good, but well, what can you expect when you have suck an amazing cast that includes George Clooney, Salma Hayek and Harvey Keitel? There was one person that I did not like a lot and that was Juliette Lewis. But to be honest, I just don't like her as an actress. In every movie she's kinda boring, even when she's trying not to be boring.

All together, I love From Dusk Till Dawn. The script is written excellent, with a darkly humorous undertone. As always in these movies, you will laugh at a lot of the lines. The acting is overall very good and the special effects are very good. Torn off limbs, blood splashing everywhere and a lot of other gore.

My personal rate: 8,5/10