shinrahunter Reviews

Enemy (2013)

A boringly snail paced movie with glaring transparencies from the outset

[3/10 · 4 June 2014]

The trailer for this movie sells it as some relatively fast paced psychological thriller, it is not!

The pace isn't it's main downfall though as Gyllenhaal is excellent in it, as always and the plot is a good one. The problem is that right form the start you can see that these two characters are one.

Possibly due to the excellent facial acting of Sarah Gadon, but it really is spelled out for the viewer in the first 30 mins, the rest of the movie is spent waiting for the reveal, which doesn't actually happen until the very end.

It's a shame this movie turned out the way it did.

Godzilla (2014)

Grossly misleading trailer, boring movie

[3/10 · 22 May 2014]

I grew up watching the old Toho stuff of Godzilla battling monsters and wreaking havoc and having heard all the praise Edwards was getting I expected something along those lines.

Alas, He lived up to his boring legacy after 'Monsters'. Anyone that followed the hype and saw the Japanese toy line knew about the other creatures but honestly what I expected was something along these lines:

Alien monster thing attacks, Godzilla awakens and destroys it, Godzilla destroys civilisation. The trailers made the movie seem like something it definitely wasn't.

Godzilla's origins were too vague, people just kinda knew who he was and were like, "cool, Godzilla's here" Sure, the climactic battle is good and Godzilla himself looks great, his foe on the other hand looks like a sleeker alien Cloverfield and the movie is over incumbered with tedious, made for TV melodrama.

This movie is the biggest disappointment of the year so far and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Hemlock Grove (2013–2015)

A very underwhelming and forgettable show, unfortunately.

[4/10 · 30 April 2013]

This show has had some great reviews from fellow IMDb'ers but I fail to see why. I'll start with the trailer I guess, they did a good job! It peaked my interest, highlighted that they had an actual star in it (Famke Jansen) and that Eli Roth was at the helm, which really sold it for me.

Now, here's problem number 1, Roth is just the producer. I'm sure he had a hand in the gore aspect of the show as the werewolf transition and some of the bodies are definitely right up his alley, however he didn't play a part in either the writing or the directing of this show.

Jansen plays a good part as what seems to be the villain of the show but is then quickly forgotten. The two male lead characters are not only useless 'heroes' (it's not enough that they never actually find the killer, she reveals herself to them, but they also fail in their attempt to defeat her) but also woefully dull and uninteresting. there's Roman the catalogue model vampire with Steve Buscemi level eyes and Peter, the lamest werewolf that ever was. The most memorable thing about Peter was his transformation scene (which, was AWESOME! by the way), I mean he makes George from the UK's 'Being Human' look like a bad ass.

Any way........ as I was saying, this show is full of bad acting and there's barely any emotion. Except for in the case of Litha, I don't know if Penelope Mitchell is a good actress or just the best of a bad bunch but she definitely stood out.

The writing doesn't save the show either, we are introduced to Christina in episode 1 and she seems like an interesting and quirky character but her charm is lost by the middle of the season by which time she's an annoying squeaky voiced irritant that I couldn't wait to leave the screen. This unlike-ability is a trend that flows throughout the show to the point honestly don't care about anyone. I'll admit I genuinely felt bad for the sheriff when his daughters died but that soon went away in the penultimate episode. Shelley would be cared about if they'd utilised her at all in the story, instead she's just this Frankenstein's monster-esque character.

I get that they were trying to set this up for a second season but they really should've given some explanations on some things. Such as the Ouroborous symbol's continued appearance throughout, Roman's war axe(?!) and especially this last one (although I think it's just a bad writing error); Throughout the show we are shown multiple occurrences of people referencing the smell of werewolves (Peter at the first murder scene, Chassuer's flashback and Litha sniffing Peter) however Peter never once notices the smell of Christina, he met her before she became a werewolf and also interacted with her afterwards so surely he would've noticed her smell had changed.

To summarise, the show is badly written, poorly acted and WAY too predictable: In the finale we find out that Roman is a Vampire!!!???? yeah....... I think EVERYBODY called that in episode 1, Christina was the killer..... again, not really a surprise with the amount of pointless screen time she was getting.

I give it a 2/10 for effort and an extra point each for the 1 werewolf transformation and for Penelope Mitchell's performance.

The Final (I) (2010)

I really tried to give it a go but this movie is AWFUL

[1/10 · 30 December 2011]

So, seeing as I find high school killing sprees interesting in real life (ie. the reasons behind events such as Columbine etc) I decided to give this movie a go.

Sure enough it starts of alright, introducing the kids, their bullies and their homes. From there on it's all down hill.

The acting is shoddy at best and smacks of a high school drama club, the effects are OK for a low budget horror and the editing..............Oh my god!!! WHO did the editing? was there even any done?

My first gripe came with the death of the clown, he was stabbed and then in the very next scene he is seen on a quad chasing the black kid. The next issue was the muffled crackling of a mic in the finger scene.

The scarecrow kid and the nazi are both killed out in the woods and then suddenly are both back to life inside the building. At this point I turned it off. Worst movie I've seen all year, and I've watched some absolute crap this year too.

Nine Dead (2009)

an average movie let down at the end

[4/10 · 13 March 2010]

I watched this movie as I liked the plot, a group of strangers are held captive trying to figure out how they're connected.

The setting and the premise were obviously influenced by the first (and best) Saw movie & although there wasn't much action the story moved at a relatively good pace.

There was comedy relief ion the form of the two bickering 'Alpha males' and it was a welcome surprise (for me anyway)to see Melissa Joan Hart hasn't given up on acting yet.

A few things let it down for me personally; 1. The paedophile was way over characterised making him get turned on by everything from children to dead bodies.

2. MJH's line about her cop ex 'getting her into this' when in reality, he was the least deserving person to be there, he hadn't KNOWINGLY contributed to the events leading up to their capture.

3. The ending..... what sort of movie just ends in the middle of something going on? There was no resolution, no cliff hanger, no obvious end... it just ends.

And for that alone I dropped two stars off my rating. The first 2 points I would let slide but not the end!