Review: Killjoy (2000)

Killjoy

IMDB rate: 2,4

Genre: Clown, Slasher

A while ago I found this movie on DVD on some second hand sale. I'm quite scared when it comes to clowns, so I decided to give Killjoy a go. Sure, I expected it to be bad. Now I've seen it I'm convinced that Killjoy isn't bad. It's way worse than that. You'll have to know that I actually bought the original DVD of this movie, and the subtitles are still shit as if it's some subtitles downloaded with an illegal movie. I mean come on, I paid for this DVD, the least you could do was make decent subtitles!

I don't expect this to be a very long review, because there's not a whole lot to talk about, besides of course how bad this movie is. I really think that's a shame though, since this world is definitely in need of better scary clown movies. It has been ages since a good one was released.

Sometimes you watch a movie and at first you're not really sure what you thought of it. But after a while you think it was actually quite good, or in contrary, very bad. One positive point: Killjoy will never ever give you this feeling. From the second it starts you know it's going to be a rubbish 72 minutes (and thank god it was only 72 minutes). It's not that bad that's good, it's not some bad horror flick that might be slightly entertaining. Nope, it's really just bad.

The actors are just plain awful. They're also absolutely not fitting within a movie like this. It's like horror in the ghetto. Sure, there should be nothing wrong with a horror movie in the ghetto, perhaps it's some new invention that might become interesting after awhile, but no, in this movie it was only weird. Very very weird. Even Killjoy himself talks as if he was born there.

I'm almost afraid to start talking about those 'special' effects. My opinion is that someone got very creative with paint. Seriously, those deaths are filled with pixels and green weird shit. It was absolutely horrible to watch.
The camera work was pretty weird as well. When someone talked the camera zoomed in, to give it some mysterious effect I suppose. This didn't work out though, because it was obviously filmed with some cheap camera, so the zooming in was really slow and it was almost as if you could hear the 'zoom-effect'.

At some points I thought the movie would turn out to be some weird porno movie or something. The music was absolutely way too porn-y. I was quite scared that the clown would show up during these moments for 'some fun', if you know what I mean.

I don't think there's a word for how bad this movie actually is. It was 72 minutes wasted unfortunately. I do have one thing to say about it though which could be considered positive. Besides the clown's accent the clown was actually decently scary. He did make me feel a tiny bit uncomfortable.
Fun fact btw: The first movie has a 2,4 on IMDB, part two (I own that one too on DVD) has a 3,1 on IMDB, part three has a 4,8 and part four has a 5,2. Quite strange really, because normally the sequels are even more terrible, but this franchise seems to get better with each sequel. Perhaps I'll give the sequel a chance ;).
My advice: Don't waste you're time with this crap.

My personal rate: 1/10

Review: Primal (2010)

Primal

IMDb rate: 4,9

Genre: Survival, Monster

This movie only has a 4,9 on IMDB but I actually quite liked it. I've watched it for the second time this week and it's really a decent movie. It's definitely better than I expected it to be. Most of the time these movies are about a few teenagers going camping while a murderer chases them, and tons of stupid actions are performed after that. First of all, Primal isn't necessarily about a murderer, it's about some sort of very old evil force that does something to the people.

It does have the typical characters in it though, a funny guy, slutty girl, studious type, alpha male and a girl who doesn't seem very interesting at first, or actually, there are two of those in this movie. It's actually exactly like Cabin in the Woods described. It isn't bothering though in this movie. The slutty girl seems true to her studious boyfriend (besides some flirting), the studious type isn't being to smart, the alpha male isn't very commanding and the funny guy is good at relieving some pressure of the movie when it's needed. There were a few annoying moments though, for example when the alpha male thought that his painting was far more important than a friend whose losing all her teeth. Or the studious type who was probably the biggest pussy ever.

A very noticeable thing about this movie is the camera work. It has a lot of speeding-up effects and cleverly leaving some parts away, but not in a way that you can't see what's happening. It's a good way to cover up difficult stunts and obviously keeps the budget low because stuntman aren't really necessary this way. The style in which it's filmed is comparable with Lesbian Vampire Killers I think.
I watched the extra's by the way, and they show how they created the wounds and how they trained the actors for the stunts. It was really interesting to watch.

Most of the movie is set while it's dark, but there's never a moment where you can't see what's happening. The lightning in this movie is very good, you don't miss out on anything this way. In most horror movies there is happening a lot of stuff, but it's too dark to see what's happening. So kudos to the lightning!

Primal was a low budget film, but not until the ending was it noticeable. The mutated bunny looked slightly fake, but it also gave a creepy effect to it. The blood parts looked very real in my opinion. The only thing that made this movie a bit terrible was the ending. One of the girl escapes the creature by going to a tunnel, here she finds one of her other girlfriends back who is all weird and is suddenly pregnant by some creature. Another creature also shows up and this one looks disappointingly fake. It's also a really strange monster and he seems a bit random to the story. But this is probably a continuation of the prelude.


Sometimes it felt like I was watching two different movies. One starting with the prelude, about the cave. It's the background story what everything was about but somehow it seemed unimportant. Then there's the middle story of a girl who is mutated by the water, she is becoming a treat. I felt like this was much more the main story of this film. The water is probably infected by what's in the cave, but still, surviving those weird creatures seemed much more important in most of the movie.

I thought Primal was a surprising movie. I liked it even thought I expected it to be shit. The acting is fairly good, the characters are a bit standard but it's not too annoying. The lightning is very good in this movie, as well is the camera work. The ending was highly disappointing though, that's quite a shame. Overall, I really recommend giving this low budget movie a go, it was definitely not bad!

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Session 9 (2001)

Session 9

IMDB rate: 6,6

Genre: Possession

Second time watching Session 9. I'm not really sure what genre to put this in. It's a bit possession I think? But is that because of the institution of because of the person? I'm not too sure, but let's keep it with possession. But if you disagree with that, please let me know what would be a better fitting genre for Session 9.

Session 9 is quite a slow movie and I'm still not too sure what to think of it. It has great moments and great shots but what's the best about this movie is the location I think. 

An asbestos abatement crew wins the bid for an abandoned insane asylum. What should be a straightforward, if rather rushed, job, is complicated by the personal histories of the crew. In particular, Hank is dating Phil's old girlfriend, and Gordon's new baby seems to be unnerving him more than should be expected. Things get more complicated as would-be lawyer Mike plays the tapes from a former patient with multiple personalities, including the mysterious Simon who does not appear until session 9, and as Hank disappears after finding some old coins.

I think that abandoned buildings are the best places for horror movies, they have something mysterious and in the case of an insane asylum it's actually kinda frightening. I think it's fair to say that I have a small obsession with abandoned buildings and I think the location of this movie is what made me interested in watching this movie. The movie is particularly set during daylight so you don't have to be scared of scary faces showing up in the dark. Or well, that is if they're not going into the hallway under the building, where there is almost no light. 

It's very interesting to see that a movie in this location is set during daylight, because the night would give a much scarier vibe to it. But that's not necessarily the purpose of this movie, to scare people. If it was, the storyline would've been very different and they would have used this amazing location very differently (probably a bit like Grave Encounters). But it gives a nice vibe to the mysterious thing happening to them while it's still daylight. 

What's most scary about this movie is when Mike is playing the tapes of Mary Hobbes. It's not necessarily what she says, it's the way she says things. When she suddenly switches voices with one of her personalities it's very creepy sounding. A great touch to this movie.

What I did not like as much in this movie was the acting. And with that I mean David Caruso's acting, I think he's one of the worst actors out there. His face is pretty Kristen Stewart like, and the way he speaks is pretty annoying. What I hated most was when he said to back off or something, they dramatically zoomed in on his face. Not his fault of course, but he was in the shot so it's still a bit his fault. Actually, the acting wasn't too bad if we're just ignoring David.

It's well written and unpredictable, it's very different compared to usual horror movies. I think a lot is left to the imagination and that is a nice twist for a change. 

The first half may be a bit slow and perhaps slightly boring, but in the second half the movies fights his way back and gives us some action with it as well. 

Session 9 is an interesting movie but you do need to pay attention to it if you want to get the story. The acting is good with the exception of David Caruso's acting abilities. It needs imagination to like the storyline, but I think the location helps quite good with that. I did expect that there would've been more action though, and it would've been more interesting if the beginning wasn't this slow.

My personal rate: 6,5/10

Review: Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla

IMDB rate: 7,2

Genre: Monster

Yes, you read that right. I'm actually reviewing a 2014 movie, and this time I'm pretty sure I'm not the last one who has seen it! I'm sure as hell not the first either, but hey, you can't have it all!

I've watched this movie in the cinema, which is a complete different experience of course than watching it at home. It's a 3D movie, and as usual I borrowed some 2D glasses (they turn 3D movies back to 2D, I can't see 3D unfortunately) but someone messed it up and eventually I just had 3D glasses which gave me an immense headache while watching it. This kinda sucked and I guess it did make the cinema experience a bit worse for me. Seriously, I hate this 3D rage. 

Now Godzilla might seem like a promising title, you'll expect a lot of monsters and of course a lot of Godzilla. I hate to break it to you, but there's not a whole lot of Godzilla in this movie. The first half of the movie is about some bad parasite and he looks very badass, and at first I figured that this was some twisted version of Godzilla. That the makers of the movie didn't use the Godzilla dinosaur type anymore but created an robot-like monster. It was literally in the second half of the movie that we finally got to see some of Godzilla. Luckily, it still was the dinosaur type.

A very unexpected thing to see was Godzilla's role. Now, I had never seen a Godzilla movie before this one. I knew the stories and I always heard that he was a bad monster who attacked an Japanese city. So with that in mind, I was slightly confused at first by his storyline. Now, if you don't want to know any spoilers, don't read the next part!

Godzilla is in fact the good guy in this movie. He attacks two (awesome looking!) creatures who wanted to make babies to destroy the rest of the earth. I also was a bit confused by these creatures' origin, they are old fossils and stuff, I know that, but there background story could have been explained a bit better. Same goes for Godzilla, he's the helping force of nature which is very cool, but where does he come from? I would've liked to know more about it.

This movie has quite some impressive actors in it, such as Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Ken Watanabe (Inception, Batman Begins) and Aaron Taylor Johnson (Kick-Ass). I especially was curious about Bryan Cranston since he's an amazing actor in Breaking Bad. Juliette Binoche isn't bad either, it was very nice to see her name show up in this movie. What disappointed me greatly about this was the fact that both these amazing actors, spoilers, they died quite  early in the movie. Juliette Binoche's role was almost embarrassing small, I think she had 4 lines tops. Bryan Cranston's role was a bit bigger but still way too small for such an amazing actor. 

I felt like they wanted to show off with those big names in the movie, just to attract more people to watch the movie. 

I was convinced at first that Bryan Cranston would be the main character (I hadn't seen the trailer) in this movie, but surprisingly enough it was Aaron Taylor Johnson. There's nothing wrong with that though, it only was a surprising twist of events. I thought that a young actor such as Aaron Taylor Johnson did an amazing job in Godzilla. He carries almost the entire second half of the movie and his role was very surprising. I really liked him in it. 

In real life he's only 24 years old and he still looks young as well, so I wasn't too sure about him playing a father, perhaps the only thing that could've been better. Fun fact: Even though Aaron Taylor Johnson is 24 years old, he is married to the 47 year old Sam Taylor Johnson, and he has two children together with her.

Elizabeth Olsen played a smaller role and I must say that everything I've seen from her this far is pretty amazing. She is in fact a sister of best known twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and at first I thought she would be a lot like her sisters in acting terms. Her sisters aren't really good at acting and I thought it would be the same for her, but actually, she's really good! It's quite a shame her role wasn't any bigger in this movie.

- Another amazing movie of Elizabeth Olsen is Red Lights, you should check it out!

While Ken Watanabe is an amazing actor, I thought his role in Godzilla was a bit degrading compared with his former work. His role wasn't extremely big and every time his character had to speak he was being all weird and vague. His answers were never really clear and he never looked at someone while speaking. He was just staring into the nothing or just staring right next to someone. It wasn't his best role, that's for sure. 

There were a few things in this movie that I didn't enjoy very much. For example, there are 3 helicopters flying over an area, while a group of soldiers is searching inside if everything is still secure. Apparently things weren't secure because something broke half of the building and got out. They only saw this when opening the door, while 3 helicopters are literally flying over the broken side of the building. Are they blind? Or another example, pretty much the same, 3 helicopters are flying over the woods while a group of soldiers are following a sign of a submarine. They are very surprised when they run into this, again while the helicopters are flying over this area. I think that a huge submarine wouldn't go unnoticed in the woods. The helicopters also didn't notice the creature who stands right beside this submarine and according to their words 'is bigger than the trees around it'. The helicopter people are definitely blind as fuck.

I love these 'nature' disaster movies. I really think they're amazing and I love the special effects in most of those movies. I loved The Day After Tomorrow (besides the stupid wolf scene) and I even enjoyed the movie 2012. How more things go wrong, the better I like it. Godzilla is also one of those disaster movies. Only this is because of monsters instead of nature. It's still filled with moments where everything goes wrong, and where everyone dies besides of course the main character. 

It's very cliche after awhile, because the main character keeps escaping, but overall, the things that he needs to escape off always look so amazing. Really amazing special effects and CGI in this movie. Godzilla looked incredibly real and so did the two other parasites. Their battle was amazing and definitely worth a watch. Sucks that their city is broken though. 

I really liked Godzilla, even though I did expect a few other things from it. There's not a whole lot of Godzilla in it, which is quite a shame, but the times he does appear are incredibly real looking. The story could've been better and I did expect it to be a bit different, but it was still OK. It's an enjoyable movie and even when you're not into these types of movies, it's definitely worth a watch just for the special effects. 

My personal rate: 7/10

Review: Game of Thrones [Season 4]

Game of Thrones

IMDB rate: 9,5

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, TV Show

The last eleven weeks have flown away again. Yes, with pain in my heart I must tell you that another season of Game of Thrones has ended.
I know I say this every time a season has ended but I think that season 4 is my new favorite season. So much happened and it was all just so awesome.

I'm very sorry that this post isn't horror related, but I'm just so in love with this TV show that I definitely think it needs it's review. In my last post I mentioned that I had some difficulties with remembering all the character names, since there are so many but since then I figured out a way to remember everything, which is, read the books. At the moment I'm reading the third book, or actually... in my country the third and fifth book are split up, so there are seven books, which means that I'm actually in the fourth book. I love reading the books and I love watching the show. It's perhaps one of the few times that I'm not bothered by the differences, both have great happenings.

The first episode (Two Swords) is a good start from where we left of in season 3. There weren't much specific awesome happenings, but still it was a good episode. The second episode (The Lion and the Rose) however is immediately incredibly awesome. It contained one big happening that everyone was waiting for and believe me when I say that things were shown exactly right. It was awesome.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth episode didn't contain any remarkable happenings, it was just a nice story with some tensive happenings.
The seventh episode (Mockingbird) again contains an unexpected happening which makes you feel sorry for the Starks even more.

Then there's the eight episode of this season, perhaps the best known episode of Game of Thrones. It's called The Mountain and the Viper and it perhaps was one of the most brutal episodes I've ever seen. It contained so much action and so much cruelty, it was incredible. Definitely the best episode of this season. Quite odd really since in each previous season it was the ninth episode which was the best. Speaking of the ninth episode (The Watchers on the Wall), it's a episode that's all about Castle Black and I've just read this part actually. It is very different from the book and in my opinion the episode was a lot better than how it was explained in the book. It contained much more awesome actions and it was overall just tensive to watch. Unfortunately there were a few deaths that weren't in the book so I was quite sad by that.
The tenth episode (The Children) was actually what we were also waiting for, Tyrion's well deserved revenge. Believe me when I say it was amazing.

My favorite episodes this season were episode 2, 8, 9 and 10. Parts that I didn't like very much was the parts of Bran. His journey is a bit slow and in the tenth episode there finally happened something exciting with him. Still though, I'm not very excited about seeing his parts. Stannis also still seems a bit useless overall, although I must admit that his appearance in episode 10 was very remarkable. Even Daenerys was quite boring this season. Her dragons start to disobey, she fancies Daario and kicks out Jorah. Her reactions to these happenings are actually very annoying and don't seem to make a lot of sense. I really hope her role will be better again in the fifth season since she really was awesome in season 1, 2 and 3.

Season 4 was amazing, it contained more amazing episode compared with previous seasons. I don't think I'll grow tired of this show very easily.

My personal rate: 10/10

Yes indeed, this is my very first 10/10 rating!

Review: The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013)

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia

IMDB rate: 5,2

Genre: Ghost

I think it's been a month already since when I last watched this movie. I was a bit busy with school and the time I had spare I never really wanted to write a review about this movie...
I never really was a fan of the first Haunting in Connecticut, although I liked it a bit better compared to this movie. The first half of this movie wasn't too bad, but things suddenly got slow and boring and I started disliking it.

The first thing that's wrong with this movie is it's title, The Haunting in CONNECTICUT, Ghosts of GEORGIA. That are two different states! Just call it The Haunting in Georgia, or just Ghosts of Georgia or something. It wouldn't really matter since the story isn't very relevant to the first movie. Besides the fact that the happenings are happening because of things that happened in the past.

Starting with the acting, it wasn't too great, but not bad either. Abigail Spencer plays Lisa Wyrick, a mother who has the ability to see ghosts but takes medicine to avoid seeing them. She is one of the main characters in the movie and while her acting isn't bad, it's not very convincing. She cares about her daughter but is also very ignorant when her daughter is seeing invisible people (aka, ghosts just like herself).
Lisa's sister Joyce, played by Katee Sackhoff, also has the ability to see ghosts. She's a bit of a comedic relief to the movie, the reactions of Andy Wyrick about her are quite funny and it gives a good twist to the movie. Joyce doesn't mind seeing ghosts and treats it like it's a gift, but she doesn't seem to see them that often actually.

Chad Michael Murray plays Lisa's husband Andy Wyrick. He's quite a decent actor but I don't really like him in a 'family situation' kind of role. He still seems very young (even though he's almost 33 years old) and he would be more suitable for a younger role I think, for example his role in House of Wax.
The main character of this movie is Heidi, the daughter of Lisa and Andy. She's played by Emily Alyn Lind. I know that she's a young actress but I wasn't very crazy about her. The looks on her face were very annoying actually, even when she's happily riding her bike she's looking concerned (and this was before she saw a ghost). Her acting wasn't bad and for most of the movie she was quite well, but the look on her face was just very annoying.

The script wasn't too good. First of all, Heidi's name is called a thousand times in this movie. I never was very crazy about the name 'Heidi' but after this movie you'll easily start disliking it. The fathers job to take care of his daughter isn't being done very well. When stuff is happening he's asking her to stay put while he goes investigating. It's soon very clear that she of course will wander off. Also, when she goes missing he drives maniacally around to search her. This while she can wander on the road or walk from the forest to the street in those few seconds.
What bothered me most was the ending. It was so incredibly boring while those last things happened. It was too slow and too over exaggerated. It was just like that scene in Mirrors where the mirror collapses a thousand times.

The movie immediately shows a lot of ghosts already in the beginning of the movie, while it has it's good sides that things aren't postponed until the very end of the movie, it also has it's bad sides. Because we already witnessed so many ghosts it wasn't scary or surprising anymore. We already saw most of it and it was just waiting for another ghost to show up. It was a bit too much in my opinion.

The acting was quite decent in this movie, the special effects were OK as well. The story was interesting in the beginning but became boring after a while. It definitely doesn't live up to the first Haunting in Connecticut.

My personal rate: 5/10

Review: Misfits [Season 2]

So I just finished watching Misfits season 2 for the second time. I've been planning to write about it for such a long time already, but I never got around doing it. But now I've watched it for the second time I figured it might be time to write this review.

Here's the link to season 1, if you're interested in reading it.

Those who read my first review know that I loved the first season. I'm an absolute big fan of this show ever since first watching it. It's refreshing, it has great humor and even though most characters are kinda dicks, you'll get to like them after awhile. Their superpower somehow represents their character so that's kinda nice.

Perhaps a bit of a spoiler, but if you're interested in know the main characters powers then please read further.

In short; Simon can get invisible, he's a very shy boy and often feels ignored.

Kelly is always worried of what people might think of her, her power is hearing other people's thoughts. 

Curtis is always regretting his past and has the ability to travel back in time to reconsider bad choices. 

Alisha likes attention and her 'power' is that everyone who touches her wants to have sex with her (or rape her in some cases). Lamest power ever?

We finally discover what Nathan's power is after his brutal end in season 1.... yes, the guy is immortal. And believe me, he will need it in season 2. 

I won't discuss each episode since I don't really see the use in it (even though there are only 7 episodes), but my favorite episodes are episode 1 and 6. Mainly because there are so many things going on in there, they're pretty awesome. 

My least favorite episode was the seventh episode, the Christmas special. It's the one were Nathan finds a girl and acts all stupid and disappears from the show. So unfortunately he doesn't show up again for season 3. I liked season 3 but it was not really the same without him. I liked the replacement guy Rudy as well, but he was very different and it made the third season not as good as the first two seasons.

(After season 3 I didn't continue watching any further because all the main characters disappeared and it became really lame). Anyway, I will write about season 3 shortly as well, since I almost finished watching it (again).

Another thing that I didn't like as much -again, spoilers-, was the time traveling Simon. I like time traveling things but if you start thinking about it nothing is right anymore. It's such a confusing thing. And when you finally think you've figured everything out, you'll figure out that you're still wrong. Time traveling is just to confusing to make it right. 

Misfits isn't a very typical show. It's brutal in many ways and it contains very strong language. It shows everything it wants and that makes it absolutely awesome. it's funny, refreshing, tensive and good. It really is a great show. Unfortunately this was the last amazing season with Nathan, after that everything changed a lot :(. Still, first two season were amazing.

My personal rate: 9/10