THE KILLING (AMC TV Series)

I was just wondering if anybody else out there is as in love with AMC's new show THE KILLING as I am? I'm totally hooked on this show. I spend the whole hour on the edge of my seat wondering what new clue or what other person will become the new prime suspect. When the episode ends and we're left with another cliff hanger of sorts I get pretty irritated that now I have to wait a whole nother week to see what's going to happen. I really wish now that I would have just waited and not watched it now but watch it when it comes out on DVD, like I did with THE WALKING DEAD series.

When I first heard of this series and saw some of the previews I instantly got excited to watch it. At first I thought that maybe we would get a new TWIN PEAKS on our hands. Not really sure why TWIN PEAKS popped into my head really, maybe it was because of the whole "Who killed Rosie?" ads. Now, I love TWIN PEAKS but I'm kind of glad that this show didn't turn out to be like it. I'm liking the more straight on whodunnit as opposed to some of the crazy and weird elements that TP had.

It is interesting to note that this is based off a Danish TV show of the same name and I have read that it is really damn good. I need to track me down a copy of it and give it a gander myself.

So has anybody else checked the show out and if so what are your thoughts on it?

Long time no see!

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost two years since I've posted on this thing. A lot of things have kept my attention away from this place and watching movies in general. But I do hope to start using this thing again, so sit back and enjoy.

My Top 20 Vampire List.

So, the other day someone posted a link on twitter to Entertainment Weekly's Top 20 Vampire list, which caused a stir amongst fellow horror fans. Other blogs like www.ilovehorror.net and thevaultofhorror.blogspot.com/ both came up with their own list in response. So here is my attempt at making a list, hopefully with less suckage than EW's list.

First of all here is EW's list.

1. Lestat, Interview With the Vampire
2. Christopher Lee’s Dracula
3. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
4. Edward Cullen, Twilight
5. Bill and Eric, True Blood
6. Asa Vajda, 1960’s Black Sunday
7. Angel
8. Mr. Barlow, Salem’s Lot
9. Schuyler Van Alen, Melissa de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series
10. Gary Oldman’s Dracula
11. Klaus Kinski’s Dracula
12. Zoey Redbird, P.C. and Kristin Cast’s House of Night series
13. Jean-Claude, Laurel K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series
14. David, 1987’s The Lost Boys
15. Miriam Blaylock and Sarah Roberts, 1983’s The Hunger
16. Blade, the Blade trilogy
17. Eli, 2008’s Let the Right One In
18. Countess Bathory, 1971’s Daughters of Darkness
19. Selene, the Underworld trilogy
20. Caleb and Mae, 1987’s Near Dark

Now for my list.

1. Count Graf Orlock (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens 1922)
2. Gary Oldman's Dracula (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)
3. Selene (Underworld 2003, Underworld: Evolution 2006)
4. Christopher Lee's Dracula (Various movies)
5. Severen (Near Dark 1987)
6. Jerry Dandrige (Fright Night 1985)
7. Eli (Let the Right One In 2008)
8. Klaus Kinski's Dracula (Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht 1979)
9. Duncan Regehr's Dracula (The Monster Squad 1987)
10. Bela Lugosi's Dracula
11. Mr. Barlow (Salem's Lot)
12. Marius de Romanus (The Vampire Chronicles)
13. David (The Lost Boys 1987)
14. Lestat de Lioncourt (The Vampire Chronicles)
15. Amilyn (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1992)
16. Space Girl (Lifeforce 1985)
17. Monica Bellucci's Dracula's Bride (Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992)
18. Leslie Nielsen's Dracula (Dracula: Dead and Loving It 1995)
19. Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn 1996)
20. Solina (Dracula 2000 2000)

Yeah there are some interesting choices on here like Selene being number 3, but since I'm pretty much in love with Kate Beckinsale anything she does ranks pretty high with me. You'll also notice some other pretty hot women on the list like number 16, 17, 19 and 20 mainly because...well I really shouldn't have to explain that.

I'm disappointed in you, Christopher Smith...

Back in 2005 or so I got pretty excited after I watched a little British film called CREEP. I absolutely loved that film and still do. I feel that it's an excellent well made film. So I eagerly awaited what Mr. Smith would come up and release next. Well it seems that I had my hopes up for nothing.

I know I'm a little late in this cause Smith's next film after CREEP came out in 2006 and I'm just now getting around to watching it. Guess I wasn't as eager as I thought then, hmmm? Anyways, I've had the DVD, from Netflix, of SEVERANCE sitting on my entertainment center for the past 3 months, if not longer. Friday morning after I got home from a round of golf I decided to finally watch it. Well I tried to watch it cause I never did finish it. I got about an hour into the film before I just had to turn it off. I found myself being rather bored and doing other things than actually watching the film. I just was not being entertained by this movie, at all. There was a moment of interest when this one dude gets his leg caught in a bear trap and gets his legged severed, but that was about it.

So after all this time waiting I have to say that I'm severely disappointed in you, Christopher Smith and your movie SEVERANCE. I was left totally uninterested and turning it off before the climax of the movie.

BLUEBERRY (2004)

Directed by Jan Kounen
Written by Matt Alexander and Gérard Brach
Starring Vincent Cassel, Michael Madsen and Juliette Lewis

Blueberry (Vincent Cassel) is a Marshal for a small town in the west. One day he runs into Wallace Sebastian Blount (Michael Madsen), a man from his past, a man that he thought he had killed many years ago. After Wallace escapes from the jail with the help from his men, Blueberry and a couple of men go after him. They track him into sacred Indian territory where Wallace is on the trail of a legendary gold mine. What Wallace and Blueberry eventually find is something totally different and totally unexpected.

Basically this movie is just one long flashback, with the first 20 minutes or so the flashback that shows what happens between Blueberry and Wallace when Blueberry was a young man. At first this is really just a straight forward western but towards the end it spirals into some trippy ass shit that I really can’t explain. It’s just something you really have to see for yourself. Speaking of trippy about halfway through the movie when Blueberry is taking to his Indian friends for treatment after being nearly beaten to death by Wallace, he is given something to drink. Shortly after drinking it he starts hallucinating and we are treated with what he’s seeing. Although it’s really nothing more than just a bunch of CGI snakes, spiders, other insects and what looks like some kind of wacky octopus (?) it is executed fairly well and is pretty cool to watch. I believe they even try to make it where you feel like you are tripping yourself. And at the end of the movie we are treated with another trip scene that last about 20 minutes! Now this trip was just plain fucking wild and by the end of it I was starting to get a little dizzy and loopey myself. It was pretty great!

Like I said earlier it does spiral into something else at the end of the movie and I really couldn’t tell you what is all going on because there weren’t any subtitles for the Indian language. There is quite a bit of Indian dialog throughout the movie and with it not being translated for you it does take away from the movie a tad. Perhaps there are subtitles on other releases, I don’t really know. I have the Russian release and so all the menus and stuff were in Russian. Hell it took me several attempts just to get it on the English language track.

But don’t really let any of this deter you from checking this movie out. It’s worth seeing just for the visuals alone, for it is a beautiful and well shot movie. Tetsuo Nagata did any outstanding job at the photography for this film, beautiful stuff. Jan Kounen also deserves to get some kudos for his directing on this. I’m not familiar with any of his other work but he did a hell of a job on this. Jean-Jacques Hertz and François Roy do a fine job at providing some nice music that really fits the film. I would like to find this soundtrack.

Surprisingly enough there is a fairly big cast on this with the likes of Vincent Cassel (IRRÉVERSIBLE), whom I’m a big fan of, Juliette Lewis (NATURAL BORN KILLERS), Michael Madsen (KILL BILL), who does a nice job as the villain of the movie, Temuera Morrison (STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES) and Ernest Borgnine (THE WILD BUNCH) who has a funny part as the wheelchair bound Sheriff. Eddie Izzard (THE RICHIES) is also in this as a German with the worst German accent I’ve ever heard, hell it seems like he hardly even uses it.

At first I was going to recommend this to Western fans but this is really like no Western you’ve ever seen before. Overall I found this to be a very good movie that is visually stunning that I would recommend to everybody, whether or not it’s a film for you remains to be seen.

8/10

ASYLUM (2007)

Directed by David R. Ellis
Written by Ethan Lawrence
Staring Sarah Roemer, Mark Rolston and Jake Muxworthy

A group of college kids break into a restricted part of the new campus dorm, which used to be an old asylum in the 1930’s, and unknowingly release the ghost of the former head doctor. Now Dr. Burke is free again to help the sufferings of the teenagers, unfortunately for them.

This is a decent enough movie from director David R. Ellis, who you might know from directing films like FINAL DESTINATION 2 and CELLULAR. There are mainly fairly no name actors in this movie which stars Sarah Roemer as Madison who also played in 2007’s DISTURBIA. But most fans of the genre or movies in general should recognize Mark Rolston who plays Dr. Magnus Burke. He played in movies like ALIENS, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and a ton of other films. He does give a decent performance.

One character in particular was really annoying and I really couldn’t stand him as I can’t stand those people in real life. This character is Tommy played by Travis Van Winkle. He’s annoying cause he’s one of those loud mouth asshole’s that never knows when to shut up. So it was nice to see him get what he deserved. The character of Rez played by Randall Sims had some nice comedic moments which helped the movie out.

The deaths are really nothing special, I thought, but I’m sure that some people will like them. And there is hardly any gore in this unlike some people have stated.

My only real complaint of this movie is that I couldn’t hardly see a damn thing. Most of the movie takes place at night and it seems like the only things lighting the scenes were either a flashlight or a 10 watt bulb. So it was hard to make a lot of things out and it really irritated me, badly. But that was really the only bad thing about this movie. Everything else was pretty decent and enjoyable enough. Although I probably would only recommend this movie to the fans of haunted asylum films or those similar to this. So if you like those types of films then you should give this a rental.

6/10

PATHFINDER (2007)

Directed by Marcus Nispel
Written by Laeta Kalogridis and Nils Gaup
Starring Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russell Means and Clancy Brown

A young Viking boy is left all alone after all the others on the ship he was on die sometime after reaching the shores of North America. He is soon found by a Native American woman and brought back to the village where they decide to raise the child as their own. Flash forward 15 years and now the boy who they called Ghost is now a young man and while he is out on a hunting trip another boat full of Vikings have arrived and soon find his village and slaughter everyone. Later when Ghost is trying to get his revenge along with some other natives from a neighboring village are captured, the Vikings force him to show them the way to the other villages so they can cleanse this world of the savages and settle down in the new land. But the Vikings never figured one of their own would betray them for the savages.

Marcus Nispel, yes the same Marcus Nispel that directed the remake to THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE returns to the big screen with this nice little period/fantasy piece. Personally I found this movie to be a much better and far more interesting film than that remake. After watching this I’ve went around reading reviews on numerous different websites and I was surprised to find that most people didn’t like this movie. Their reasons varied from site to site, such as the characters were shallow or the story was to predictable and shit like that. Now I’m not a professional film critic so I can’t really say anything that shit, nor do I really care to. I could care less about any of that because I found this to be a fun and interesting movie and that really all I care about, is if I have fun watching this. I’ll let other people worry about the little things like that if they wish to. This is not like many of the Period type films that have been released in the recent years. Most of those films had huge budgets and hundreds of actors, extras and crew members. PATHFINDER was nearly the complete opposite as this had a small budget and only a handful of actors and crew members. It was interesting listening to Marcus on the audio commentary telling about the many tricks that they had to use to make it look like the village was much bigger than it actually was. As well as the tricks with the actors and extras in a way that it looked like there were more than just a few that they actually had. PATHFINDER was pretty violent in some scenes, the only problem with that is that most of the blood was CGI which does suck. This film was released in both PG13 and Rated R so I would get the Rated R version like I got, because I’m sure all the fighting and “violence” is pretty lame in the PG13 cut of this.

The film is pretty dark in the lighting and the color palette and it might seem that some of the same shots and techniques are pretty similar to the TCM remake. That might be cause Marcus brought along Daniel Pearl, who shot both the original and the remake of TCM, as his Director of Photography on this film. Daniel always does a good job with the cinematography in my opinion and continues that streak with this film. Jonathan Elias provides a sparse score, yet I felt that it fit the film well.

Karl Urban, who you might know better as Eomer from the LORD OF THE RINGS films, gets the starring role as Ghost the grown-up Viking kid and does a decent enough job with what he had to do. Moon Bloodgood gets her first major role as Starfire, the love interest of Ghost and whom also helps with fighting off the Viking horde. We also get the wise Russell Means, who you might remember from such films as THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and NATURAL BORN KILLERS, plays Pathfinder the elder member of the Native village and brings yet another solid performance to the screen. And last but not least we get Clancy Brown, who always seems to play great villains is the leader of the Vikings. Overall I would say that the acting in the film is pretty solid by all who are involved.

I do have one complaint and that is the use of language in this movie. Personally when it comes to period type films such as this I prefer to have the native language of whatever culture we’re watching. For instance, the Native Americans in this movie are speaking English, why? Well, I probably know why, but I would prefer to listen to the natives speaking some native dialect. The Vikings on the other hand are speaking another language, albeit a poor form of Icelandic but at least they are speaking something different.

Overall I would recommend this movie to anybody that enjoys period/fantasy films and who likes to see Clancy playing a cool villain.

8/10