Change Your Image
haggis109
Reviews
Hoboken Hollow (2006)
Pants. don't bother.
Never has a horror film so spectacularly failed to include any of the ingredients needed to make a film scary. the tone is one of mild sarcasm, the actors seem amused to be a part of such a mess and the scriptwriter is assumably a monkey of some sort. There isn't a plot, just a bunch of toothless morons grinning at each other. Yes, there are gory bits, but just showing a severed arm or a bucket of blood isn't enough to terrify anyone these days. Oh, and don't be fooled by the presence of Michael Madsen and Dennis Hopper - they're hardly in it. Guess they just took the money and ran. Dennis Hopper is one of the greatest living actors, and yet he seems happy enough these days to plod along making ten or twenty of these straight-to-DVD obscurities each year.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Peter Jackson was robbed
How Ron Howard won an oscar for best direction is beyond me, as this has to be the worst-directed film I've ever seen. It was so flat I couldn't believe there actually was a director- it seems someone simply aimed a camera at Russel Crowe and then left. Every scene is blandness epitomised- it's an interesting story, and Russel Crowe is a good actor, but Ron Howard has made such a hash of this it's incredible. I honestly think I could have done a better job. Not a single scene stood out- it all gelled into one mass of mediocrity. Ron Howard is carving a niche for himself as the most robotic director on the planet. No doubt the studio bigwigs love him. Not a bad film, though; but I can think of about 10-15 that were better last year- even Ghosts of Mars was more exciting than this (seriously). Please, Ron, take a few risks next time!
Ghosts of Mars (2001)
Most underrated film of the year
I only watched this because I work in a cinema and so got in free, but I was dead surprised at how good this was- it was the least pretentious film I've ever seen- it's just straight-forward, uncomplicated thrills from start to finish. Yes, it's cheesy, with cardboard characters, but so what? it's exciting, scary (the martians freaked me out) and great fun. 8/10
Xtro (1982)
Seriously spooky
Although clearly made on a budget of about 5p, this is an effective little film that managed to freak me out in a couple of places. The scens where the UFO lands near the start is just a white blob moving towards the ground, yet with the naff 80s synth effects somehow managed to be quite a freaky scene. Makes no sense in places, but well worth watching.