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sylphstarwind35
Reviews
State of Emergency (2011)
Tedious, obnoxious, and just...lame
I came upon this movie through my friend, who said he started the movie but quit perhaps fifteen minutes in because nothing was happening. I wanted to give the movie a shot to see what he meant. He's an A.D.D. kid who's into action movies so I figured his idea of nothing happening might lean toward a mere lack of brutal zombie action, and not necessarily a lack of development.
Nope. It's literally that nothing happens - at least by the standards of your average zombie movie. That in itself isn't a bad thing (I don't mind just getting into the characters), but when the movie seems to be nothing more than a compilation of the slowest parts of all zombie movies culminating in a lot of anticlimactic nonsense, it kills it for me.
Here we get into the spoilers. I'll try to keep them minor but when it comes to State of Emergency, I think knowledge is power. The power not to waste your time. The story starts with a brief scene from the present, then goes four days back to before the protagonist has sighted zombies. The first scene builds itself up to be quite a tense situation, as if all the characters could die in the next instant, before cutting off and going back into the past. However, when we went through the hour of the characters slowly realizing a fraction of what's going on, enjoying some petty drama over who's alpha dog or who's backstory is more tragic, and of course acting in ways that only beg for them to be eaten, we found that Jim and the gang are (back in the present) facing off against...a single zombie. Two guns, four humans, one zombie. These were among the best odds they'd had through the whole story during any attack, and yet they'd made it seem like a desperate battle. This is just one example of the movie building you up only for a letdown.
Aside from most every plot point or relationship being dull and hollow ("You don't have friends? Me too!" *romance created!*), you get the horror movie staple of people acting like complete morons. "Hay gaiz, let's go outside unarmed and start screaming our heads off!" "While that zombie struggles to get up from its clearly non-lethal wound, imma slowly walk over to it and take a good look from two feet away." There was a moment where you saw some possible humanity in a zombie, but the emotion was drowned out by all the stupid occurring around it.
Seriously though, it's hard to find any horror movie where the protagonists don't make the please-kill-me choice at least half the time, so I wouldn't count that alone against the movie. It's that combined with the very tiny amount of action or violence, the lack of any real surprises (in the plot or otherwise), the forced new relationship right after the death of Jim's previous girlfriend, the meh sound and visuals, and characters who were mostly just flat (especially the females, who were basically just there to be females and either be in or prepare to begin a relationship with the males), which all ate away at my hopes that this movie would somehow redeem itself before the end. And in the end...well, we felt we got more nothing. Basically just a recap of everything that had already been explained, given by an uninteresting man that we came upon through uninteresting circumstances.
Quarantine (2008)
Fun for the first half, torture for the second
This movie was a big disappointment to me. I mean, I usually have the habit of going into any movie with low expectations, but Quarantine at least looked like my type of thing, and I found myself enjoying it a fair bit after things got going. But then, midway through, it just got extremely irritating. It was like every single person was determined to make a totally obvious and fatal mistake at some point in the movie. Some of them made smart moves or fought back well the first attack or two, but then it only made me groan at their stupidity all the more when they failed the next time. Characters would continue to get way too close or turn their backs to the infected, even after they'd seen an infected person kill several people. But the thing that completely killed it for me was the female lead, the reporter. You could tell from the beginning that she was "excitable", shrieking and jumping around over winning a bet or a game. And when people started dying, she flipped. She became like a child, needing to be comforted every five minutes so that she'd keep moving, screaming about being left in the dark, and flailing at her fellow survivors for no good reason. When she wasn't wailing like a banshee, she was loudly hyperventilating and sobbing. My dearest wish throughout the last part of the movie was that the cameraman would stop coddling her and instead deck her so she'd shut up. So, basically, it was a maddening experience and a great disappointment. And to top it off (spoiler about the end ahead, though it'll probably be obvious to most anyway), the very end of the movie was what was shown in advertisements. You didn't even get to have that last little part; you could tell what was going to happen when the night vision came on, and you were just waiting for it to end.
Dark Heaven (2002)
I was waiting for something to happen....
...and then the movie ended. I saw nothing in this movie that would have any value. I didn't find some deep meaning that made being bored worthwhile, it wasn't nice to look at (it looked really horrible, actually), it wasn't exciting... Maybe some people could find something in there. But I found nothing that justified me wasting my time and money. I thought House of the Dead was the worst movie I'd ever seen, but at least that had some of my attention with the violence and nudity. The best of that they've got in here is some red paint smeared around and an out-of-shape naked guy. I'm not saying I was watching for that. I can forgive either a bad but entertaining movie, or a good but slow movie. Not both of the bad sides in one. I was interested in the angels but they look like plastic statues and they squirt milk when you stab them. I only kept watching because I thought SOMETHING must happen but it was just a predictable ending. I didn't feel anything at the end because the main character said and did the most stupid things. I understand the whole faith thing but it doesn't seem like it was done well. I'm just an average viewer, and this movie was boring and meaningless to me.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Does well as a comedy and a zombie movie
As a zombie movie, this easily beats "Dawn of the Dead". The characters are more developed and you care about them more, it's not just people dying left and right, and the people aren't dumb (except those who are supposed to be) but they are realistic. Seeing that guy being ripped apart by zombies would satisfy some craving for gore, which beat DotD. And there was a wider range of weapons. As for the comedy angle, there were a few laughs, and the movie was enjoyable to watch. It's not hilarious, but it's good. The overall quality of the movie was good, including acting, music, and camera work. I recommend this movie for anyone who likes some comedy or zombie movies.
The Grudge (2004)
Enough to make straight guys hold hands in public...
I went to see this movie with a couple of my friends and they were terrified. They clung to each other throughout the film. I also heard screaming about ten times in the movie theater, which is a first for me. This is a very scary movie, and in the number and intensity of creepy moments, I think this beats the Ring. However, the Grudge doesn't develop characters much and it's not very mysterious. They hop around with the characters, connecting them all with the evil cursed house. So there isn't much on what they're like, and you don't really care about them personally. They also do some stupid things. If you're going to an evil house that plays tricks on you, and you know it, you probably shouldn't investigate any sounds. Especially if you're there to burn the house down. By the end, the people just seemed incredibly dumb. But, not many horror flicks have intelligent characters, so what did I expect? There isn't really much mystery in the movie, either. You can tell what's going to happen because everyone just dies. But, you get to see most of them die, or about to die. There is some blood, but it's not focused on that. It's just the totally helpless feeling that you get when you come face to face with an all-consuming evil. Ooh. Anyway, there isn't much to the story. The commercial says most of it. And if curses really worked like that, I think that the human race would have been wiped out by now. If you want scary, you should see this. If you want a movie that makes you think, this isn't it.