Of course originality is the least of the scripts problems. Skin Walkers is full of the same hokey scenes of wise men explaining age old prophecies you’ve seen a million times before, plus a few tepid, Robert Rodriguez inspired shoot outs and awkward werewolf transformation scenes, and one Near Dark barroom brawl ‘homage’ to flavour the been-there-done-that pot.
Skinwalkers are actually from Navajo mythology. They are supposed to be people who put on the skin of animals and take on the attributes of said animal. Well, that’s not really what “Skinwalkers” the movie is about. It’s about werewolves who are in an argument that’s been raging for centuries.
What if some werewolves didn’t want to be werewolves and other werewolves loved being werewolves? That’s the basic premise for this B-movie avalanche of gun fights and claws called “Skinwalkers.” It starts off quickly and never stops moving. There’s plenty of action and hot bodies and the occasional Werewolf wearing Levis. The cinematography is good and gives the movie nice a look especially in the night scenes. There’s a huge battle at the end that is very fun.
A report from Variety today quotes director and creator of the Hostel franchise Eli Roth as saying “Hostel III is all but signed.” This early news comes much before the April 5th, 2007 release of Roth’s Hostel II that just recently wrapped filming. Final decisions and more official announcements are likely to come after Hostel II’s opening weekend, where its financial success is to be determined. However it does have its loyal fans and there’s always room for more horror films! Production will likely begin after Roth finishes filming Stephen King’s The Cell sometime next year.
No, that doesn’t mean they’re negotiating with Quentin Tarantino for another. Though the advertising might lead you to believe Hostel is a Tarantino film, his name attachment is little more than a cheap marketing gimmick. Cabin Fever’s Eli Roth is the man behind the horror and Variety says he’s already in talks with LG and Screen Gems to do a Hostel 2.
Hostel 2 did not fare as well at the box office as its predecessor Hostel ($47.3 Million). The film did make a profit however, because of its low production costs and $10 Million budget.
Star(s) to watch : Bijou Phillips (”Pulse”) Whitney, Richard Burgi (”Cellular”, “Fun With Dick and Jane”) as Todd, Roger Bart (”The Stepford Wives”) as Stuart, & Jay Hernandez (”Torque”, “Joy Ride”) as Paxton.
Days of Night is an American horror film about vampires taking the small town on Barrows, Alaska. Metacritic gives this film a 53% and it was given a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Based on a comic book, the movie tells the story of Barrow, Alaska, northernmost point in the state that suffers 30 days of night every winter. While the citizens are getting ready to face the upcoming month of obscurity — some fleeing for more southern destinations, some stocking up piles of supplies — a stranger comes into town and starts making a mess behind the scenes. As soon as Eben (Hartnett), the local sheriff, starts investigating, and the last sunlight to be seen for a month is slowly creeping away from the skyline, a pack of ghastly creatures will unleash their fury on the villagers, turning the landscape from snow white to blood red.
This vampire movie takes place in a small town in Alaska that yearly has 30 days of darkness. The town members find themselves infested with vampires and have to hide and fight to survive till the sun comes back.
Star(s) to watch : Josh Hartnett (”Lucky Number Slevin”, “Sin City”, “Pearl Harbor”) as Eben Oleson, Melissa George (”Turistas”, “The Amityville Horror”) as Stella Oleson, & Ben Foster (”X-Men: The Last Stand”, “3:10 to Yuma”, “The Punisher”) as The Stranger.
Bright sun, warm waters and sandy beaches beckon countless Americans every year, particularly young adults seeking inexpensive fun. Enter Amy (Jena Malone) and Stacy (Laura Ramsey), two best friends who bring along their very different boyfriends — focused med student Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and free-spirited partier Eric (Shawn Ashmore). As the group’s vacation nears its end, they journey into the lush Mexican jungle in hopes of seeing some ancient Mayan ruins. But when they arrive at the magnificent site, an unexpected event drives the frightened travellers to the top of the crumbling stone structure, where they confront hidden deadly horrors and engage in a brutal battle for survival.
running time: 110 min.
director: Carter Smith
studio: DreamWorks Pictures
producer(s): Chris Bender, Jeremy Kramer, Stuart Cornfeld
Sydney Wells is an accomplished concert violinist who has been blind since a childhood tragedy. Sydney undergoes a double corneal transplant, and her sight is restored. But Sydney’s happiness is short-lived as unexplainable shadowy and frightening images start to haunt her.
Your eyes are at work from the moment you wake up to the moment you close them to go to sleep. They take in tons of information about the world around you — shapes, colors, movements, and more. Then they send the information to your brain for processing so the brain knows what’s going on outside of your body.
First, some specifics about the eyethe human eye is about 2.5 cm in length and weighs about 7 grams. Light passes through the cornea, pupil and lens before hitting the retina. The iris is a muscle that controls the size of the pupil and therefore, the amount of light that enters the eye. Also, the color of your eyes is determined by the iris.
Star(s) to watch : Parker Posey (”Superman Returns”, “Blade: Trinity”, “Scream 3?) as Helen Wells, Alessandro Nivola (”Face/Off”, “Jurassic Park III”) as Dr. Paul Faulkner, & Jessica Alba (”Sin City”, “Fantastic Four”) as Sydney Wells.
Halloween must be closing in because the Horrorfest marketing machine is churning at a frenzied place. On the heels of the Fronti?(s) poster hitting the Web and the pictures of the gore-hound hotties with aspirations of becoming Miss Horrorfest 2008, After Dark Films gave Bloody-Disgusting a peek at the trailer for The Deaths of Ian Stone, which will make its debut at this year’s Horrorfest.
Directed by Dario Piana, The Deaths of Ian Stone is an interesting supernatural thriller but not much of a horror film. The biggest problem is that it is completely dependent on exposition, not only that, but exposition provided by an outside character. Now being a film that requires much dialogue to deliver the plot it suffers from slow pacing where little learned. As the first half feels like a bit of a slog, the build to the climax comes at a rather high speed giving the film a rushed feeling.
The shortcomings of the film actually come from the delivery of it. First time director, Dario Piana, doesn?t dictate the pace of the movie very well. At first, The Deaths of Ian Stone just plods along at an surprisingly slow pace. The problem was that not enough time was spent with each incarnation. Just as Ian finds himself in a new life, he is quite literally vanquished five minutes later. While this abruptness does give the viewer an insight into the craziness of the situation he finds himself in, the number of times it occurs should have been scaled back to really drive home his attempts at survival.
Star(s) to watch : Christina Cole (”Casino Royale”) as Jenny, & Mike Vogel (”The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) as Ian Stone.
For photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife Jane (Rachael Taylor), his new assignment — a lucrative fashion shoot in Tokyo — was supposed to be a kind of working honeymoon. With this exotic professional opportunity and the limitless possibilities of a new marriage, Ben and Jane arrive in Japan. But as they make their way on a mountain road leading to Mt. Fuji, their new life together comes to, literally, a crashing halt. Their car smashes into a woman standing in the middle of the road, who has materialized out of nowhere. Upon regaining consciousness after the accident, Ben and Jane cannot find any trace of the girl Jane believes she hit with the car.
Shaken by the accident and by the girl’s disappearance, Ben and Jane arrive in Tokyo, where Ben begins his glamorous assignment. Having worked in Japan before and fluent in the language, Ben is comfortable there, and he eagerly reunites with old friends and colleagues. Jane, a newcomer to the city, feels very much like a stranger in a strange land as she makes tentative, unsettling forays through the city.
Ben, meanwhile, has discovered mysterious white blurs — eerily evocative of a human form — that have materialized on an entire day’s work from the expensive photo shoot. Jane’s concerns escalate as she believes the blurs in Ben’s photos are the dead girl from the road, who is now seeking vengeance for them leaving her to die…
Star(s) to watch : Joshua Jackson (”Urban Legend”, “Cursed”) as Benjamin Shaw.
One Missed Call is the 2008 American remake of the Japanese film Chakushin Ari. The film was released in North America on January 4, 2008 and is directed by Eric Valette and written by Andrew Klavan. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros.
The set-up is at least intriguing. Several seemingly-unrelated people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves with messages that include the date, time, and details of their deaths (these messages are usually accompanied by visions of random strangers with ‘Exorcism of Emily Rose’-type creepy-faces, perhaps provided in order to have something cool to put on the movie posters). Stumbling into this nightmare is Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon), whose friends begin dropping one by one, so she enlists the aid of cop Jack Andrews (Edward Burns), who, strangely, believes her. Together, they set out to solve the mystery, while the script piles one incomprehensible plot twist on top of the next as the film lumbers to its illogical, cheap-shock climax.
The concept for this one includes haunted cell phones possessed by angry vengeful ghosts. Yep One Missed Call is yet another J-Horror remake, this time of Takashi Miike’s Chakushin ari, which itself was sort of a rip-off of a Korean horror film about phones. The film is probably only unique for the fact this might be the first horror movie to hang together on the concept of Munchausen syndrome by Proxy. The genre clich?are getting less and less scary, and they feel like parodies of better efforts. Making appearances as expected are mysterious figures that dart around the screen, creepy crawly CGI bugs, loud noises, creepy childish cell phone ringtone, and an origin that deals with abuse and murder to make the ghosts angry enough to start calling people.
Star(s) to watch : Edward Burns (”A Sound of Thunder”, “Saving Private Ryan”) as Jack Andrews.
