Review: Thir13een Ghosts (2001)

Thir13een Ghosts

IMDB rate: 5,3

Genre: Ghosts, Haunted House

Thir13een Ghosts is one of those movies that I bought without knowing what it's about. It seemed like an interesting movie but after watching it I mainly thought it was a weird movie. Does not matter though, it's always nice seeing a new movie.

Arthur and his two children, Kathy and Bobby, inherit his Uncle Cyrus's estate: a glass house that serves as a prison to 12 ghosts. When the family, accompanied by Bobby's Nanny and an attorney, enter the house they find themselves trapped inside an evil machine "designed by the devil and powered by the dead" to open the Eye of Hell. Aided by Dennis, a ghost hunter, and his rival Kalina, a ghost rights activist out to set the ghosts free, the group must do what they can to get out of the house alive.

This movie tries to reach a combination between comedy and horror, but fails miserably at it. It's absolutely not funny. I must admit that casting Matthew Lillard is a excellent choice for such a role that (tries to) combine horror and comedy. I like him very much as an actor, in movies such as Scream, Without a Paddle and even Scooby Doo he was amazing. Even though I like him much as an actor, he is often playing the same character. The sarcastic, slightly funny guy.
I'm not very familiar with the other actors in this movie, besides Shannon Elizabeth. I think she's a reasonable actress, who played in a few reasonable movie. But with her it's the same case as with Matthew Lillard, she's always playing the same characters. A bit boring to be honest.

I liked the stories about the ghosts. They looked very scary and there stories were kinda cool too. My friend told me that in the Extras of the DVD there's an even bigger story about them, and I haven't seen it yet but I will check it out eventually. It sounds kinda cool.

The movie itself was not too great. It was very vague and confusing at times. I think the movie had some potential, but was not worked out the right way. What made me dislike this movie mostly were the special effects. To be honest, they looked terrible.

I don't think Thir13een Ghosts is a bad movie. It's just not a movie of my taste I guess.

Quite a short review! I don't have very much to say about this movie I guess. Maybe one day I will watch the Extras of this movie and make a new post about it. I must say that I had trouble concentrating on this movie, so perhaps I will watch it again someday and redo this review.
Thir13een Ghosts is a good concept for a haunted house movie. It's a bit haunted house and a bit futuristic. Quite a cool combination, but for some reason I did not like it very much.

My personal rate: 5/10

Review: Teeth (2007)

Teeth

IMDB rate: 5,6

Genre: Comedic, Monster

Wow, some weird movie. I think this might make some guys frightened for girls huh?
I quite enjoyed watching this movie. It's funny, ridiculous and somehow frightening. That's the kind of movie that I like.
I don't really get why the rating is that low because it's really not a movie that you need to take seriously. Lighten up, Teeth is quite an enjoyable movie.

Dawn grows up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. In high school, while her biology class studies evolution, she realizes she may have a hidden curse, an "adaption." She lives with her mom, step-father, and hard-edged step-brother. She likes Tobey, a guy at school, and he likes her. She takes a pledge to remain chaste until marriage, so they date in groups, watch G-rated films, and don't kiss, but the power of teen hormones is great, so temptation beckons. Dawn has an admirer in Ryan, and when things have an unexpected twist with Tobey, she turns to Ryan for help. Will he be her mythical hero and rescue her? or can she find her way as her own hero, turning the curse into an asset?

I think Teeth is a very funny movie. It's not a movie that's so-bad-it's-good, it's really good. The movie also actually tells a story. It's a movie that's basically about a killer-vagina, how can that ever be good, you ask? Well, that might be quite hard to reach. But, this movie actually does it. It's very subtle humor, but also with a good twist of horror.
The characters are quite believable. Some girl that saves her body for marriage fails miserably because of her teen hormones. Not very strange. Also, guys who have too much hormones, not very strange either. These characters actually have dimension in them, even though it's quite hard to believe.

I think this movie might be quite hard to watch for some guys. I know that some guys even react themselves when they see that someone else gets kicked into his nuts. So imagine what happens when it's all being bitten off in the heat of the moment...
It's pretty disturbing, even though you don't see much of it.

Teeth is quite an original movie. It's a teen-flick with some nastiness in it. When you know the deal about this movie the surprise is a bit gone. From then on it's mainly about a teen girl trying to overcome her problems and casually bites a penis off once in a while.

Now for the guys, here's a fun link for you!

I remember the first time I saw this movie, and I just had one big WTF-moment. I found it a very funny but very weird movie. And to be honest, it still hasn't changed. I do enjoy watching this movie though. It's very original, with decent acting and a good storyline. I definitely recommend watching this movie.

My personal rate: 7,5/10

Review: Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005)

Homecoming

Masters of Horror

IMDB rate: 6,3

Genre: Zombie

And again, another Masters of Horror movie! Only 3 DVD's left to watch, which means I still need to watch 7 movies. This is only season 1 though, when I ever find season 2 I will be delighted to watch all of those too. But until that moment, I first need to finish watching season 1.
Homecoming is the sixth episode of Masters of Horror, and as always, I watch them in the wrong order because the DVD's are for some reason in a different order. This does not matter very much since these movies are not connected in any way.

During the campaign for the reelection of the President of USA, the political consultant David Murch wishes live in a television talk show that a deceased soldier could come back from his grave to vote in the election as a marketing to promote his candidate. The president uses his idea in a speech and wishes that all deceased soldiers could return from their graves for the election. Somehow his wish is granted and the soldiers died in the last war returns with the objective of voting in the opposition to the government. When the result of the election is manipulated and the president is reelected, all the soldiers deceased in pointless wars return to exile the members of the administration of the government.

I quite enjoyed watching this movie, and I think that so far this is one of my favorite Master of Horror movies. The idea is very original and quite enjoyable too. Zombies who are just walking next to humans, being a lot less scary and stuff is quite awesome. They drive, they talk and they even have feelings, how amazing is that?! What I enjoyed most was the plot for the movie: Voting zombies. Simply brilliant.

In this movie there are even some very touching scenes. Zombies who are telling their sad stories of how they died, I must admit that I had tears in my eyes. Loved it.

The make-up of these zombies look fairly good. Nothing Walking Dead like, but still quite good. The acting is reasonable too. The storyline is quite funny, even though it might become boring after awhile. At first you see these zombies rising, and you don't know what to expect. They do seem violent at first, but after awhile they suddenly are just walking among the living. And then the government is being irrational and then the zombies are getting all mean suddenly. This all happens very fast and I would've liked a bit more of a mean zombie. But this might also be what makes this movie more fun, because the mean zombie is quite standard these days.

This far this is my favorite Masters of Horror movie, but then again, I still have 7 more of these movies to go.

My personal rate: 7,5/10

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: The Human Centipede (2009)

The Human Centipede

IMDB rate: 4,6

Genre: Mad Scientist

It was time to watch The Human Centipede again, the very shocking movie from The Netherlands; the country where I come from! You see, this might be the only Dutch movie that I like, mainly because there are no Dutch actors in it. I live in this country but when I watch a movie from my own country (spoken in Dutch) I can't understand a thing of what they say, so weird. Anyway, that's why this is the only Dutch movie that I like. It's super brutal and very sick. But I liked it. Why? Because it's a very original (but ridiculous) idea.
I think the rating is too low for this movie, because I quite liked it. It's not the best movie I've ever seen, but it's a fairly decent and a very shocking movie. Something that's not seen very often anymore.
I get that some people get disgusted by this movie, but it's just not a movie for everybody.

Two pretty but ditsy American girls are on a road trip through Europe. In Germany, they end up alone at night with a broken car in the woods. They search for help and find an isolated villa. The next day, they awaken to find themselves trapped in a terrifying makeshift basement hospital along with a Japanese man. An older German man identifies himself as a retired surgeon specialized in separating Siamese twins. However, his three "patients" are not about to be separated but joined together in a horrific operation. He plans to be the first person to connect people via their gastric systems. By doing so, he plans to bring to life his sick lifetime fantasy, the human centipede.

First of all, the acting. I think it's an excellent choice to cast Dieter Laser as Dr. Heiter. He is one scary dude and even looking at him gives me goosebumps. He has the ultimate mad scientist look which is of course very useful for this role. His acting was simply brilliant.
Then the two girls. I did not like them. Their acting was horrible the first part of the movie (the part where they still were able to talk). Also they were so dumb. I can't stand movies where someone has the opportunity to escape (and get help) and instead they go back to save someone. Why do they not understand that getting help is much more useful!
There's not much to say about the Japanese guy, since he's only talking Japanese. All I know is that I find his character very annoying with the Japanese screaming the entire time. I do not get why Dr. Heiter puts him in front of the 'centipede', since he's not able to speak one word English. Quite annoying.

I kinda have respect for these actors because this might be one of the most uncomfortable acting jobs ever.

Of course there are many things in this movie that can't be right, for example surviving longer than a few days in that 'centipede' condition. Or that Dr. Heiter finds 3 matching flesh types where he only needed to kill one guy for. It's just too impossible. 

Also, it's very unlikely that the cops react this way. Especially when the cop found the anesthetic that Dr. Heiter brought with him, it's very unbelievable that the cop wouldn't pull his gun or anything. He might be an even worse cop than Dewey (from Scream). 

Even though there are many inaccurate things in this movie I did not find it very bothering. After all, there are not many horror movies that are 100% medically accurate.

I have not seen the sequel yet but I'm planning on watching it very soon. An even longer human centipede must be incredibly disgusting; therefore, more interesting. 

Personally, I enjoyed watching this movie a lot. It's an absolute ridiculous idea, but I liked it. It's very original and very fucked up. The acting of the 'villain' is absolutely brilliant. 

Unfortunately some of the actors are not that great, this made the movie less enjoyable for me. Also, some parts are just too unbelievable and annoying.

The Human Centipede is definitely not a movie for everyone. You need a very strong stomach and at least a bit of a sense of humor. 

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Masters of Horror: Jenifer (2005)

Jenifer

Masters of Horror

IMDB rate: 6,4

Genre: Monster

Time for another Masters of Horror movie! This time it's the movie Jenifer (isn't it bothering that it isn't called Jennifer instead of Jenifer?). Jenifer is officially the fourth episode of season 1 of Masters of Horror, but again, my DVD's are in a different order than the episodes are. So I guess this is the fifth movie for me! 

While parked in a remote spot lunching Chinese food with his partner, Detective Frank Spivey saves a disfigured woman called Jenifer from being sliced with a meat cleaver by a deranged homeless man. He flees sorry for the retarded Jenifer, and takes her from an insane asylum and brings her home. Frank becomes obsessed for Jenifer, feeling lust and attraction for her lascivious body. When he realizes that she is a human beast, he moves with her to an isolated old cabin in the woods, with tragic consequences.

Well now my thoughts about this movie... it was a very weird movie, and I'm not really sure what to think of it. The acting is not very good. The main actor is not too bad, the girl Jenifer neither, but the other actors are horrible. Your cat just got eaten by a weird girl, your reaction should be a bit different.

The worst thing about this movie are the reactions of the people, it's just not very natural. That a girl is disfigured it's possible, but those eyes are definitely not human. But everyone in this movie seems to fail realizing this.

The thing I liked about this movie was the music, it was very scary. It was perfect for the scene, the girl was seducing a guy without showing her face, and there was a very creepy "lalala lalala" going on, definitely perfect for the scene because you knew what would happen.

The make-up of the girl was done amazingly, I had to search for the actress (Carrie Fleming) to find out what she really looked like, because her make-up didn't give anything away! Her voice is a bit weird, she sounded a bit like a Pokemon, unless she had sex, then she was the hulk.

I'm not quite sure what the story's purpose is, the girl is scary and is not very human. She does like sex though, that's for sure. Other than that, I think that the moral of the story is that guys think with their dick.

Jenifer is not a very special movie. It's kinda boring and there are only two or three good moments in it. It's has some good gore in it, and a few shocking scenes but overall the story is kinda dumb. 

My personal rate: 5/10

Review: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead

IMDB rate: 8,0

Genre: Comedic, Zombie

It was about time that I watched one of my favorite movies again: Shaun of the Dead. I absolutely love this movie. It's brilliant, amazing acting, amazing script, great zombies and the movie is incredibly funny. Seriously, I watched this movie so many times already and I'm still not bored of it.

Shaun doesn't have a very good day, so he decides to turn his life around by getting his ex to take him back, but he times it for right in the middle of what may be a zombie apocalypse... But for him, it's an opportunity to show everyone he knows how useful he is by saving them all. All he has to do is survive... And get his ex back.

I think that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are my favorite acting 'couple' ever. I love them even more than Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, which says quite a lot. Individually they are great and talented actors, but together they are just excellent. Loved them together in Hot Fuzz and Paul, and I'm quite sure that The World's End will be awesome too. They just have great chemistry together that really helps understanding their connection together. 

Shaun of the Dead is certainly not a movie for everyone. I think that British humor is quite different from American humor and many people might not like it. I however, love this kind of humor. Shaun of the Dead is not typically a movie for horror lovers, I know plenty of people who don't like horror and loved this movie. For instance, I watched this movie tonight with my parents and they loved it, while they normally hate horror movies. 

The script is very good. It has a bit of comedy, zombies and romance in it, but never too much of one of these themes. The zombies are perfect, you actually have a chance of surviving with these slow ones. Like Simon Pegg himself said: "Death is not an energy drink", and this is of course true. I like zombies this way, this is my idea of how zombies are supposed to be and it's amazing that they felt the same way. Another fun thing, if you look closely you can recognize Chris Martin from Coldplay as a zombie.

My favorite scene is definitely the one where Shaun is walking -hungover- to the local shop to buy some cornetto's. The zombies are being shown very subtle and what's making it even more fun is the fact that it was filmed in one sequence.

All together, Shaun of the Dead is an amazing zombie film. In fact, it's one of the many movies that belong in my favorites list. Amazing acting, very funny people, also a very funny and good story. Brilliant camerawork and not to forget, incredibly good music!

Go watch Shaun of the Dead!

My personal rate: 9/10