And boy did I still not like it...
When I see Wes Craven's name stuck on something, I'm generally expecting to develop a nagging groin pain and some intestinal cramping, it's what Craven does. I recall at one point thinking he's made a good movie in the past, but to be honest, I can't remember what it was anymore. He only produces this, not that it changes anything.
Like every horror movie that was released by a studio in the last decade, not only did this movie suck, blow and lick, it just didn't make a lot of sense. Have a seat and I'll run you through some of the awesomeness.
As a recurring chunk of the movie, these otherworldly, pasty, ghostly dudes keep popping up to suck the faces off whoever happens to be around. Which I guess is fine, but why are they such jerks? First, are they even ghosts or some kind of extra dimensional high frequency wi-fi demons? I don't know, but meh, I'll get over that and still wonder...why are they jerks? Why do you throw wet laundry out of the machine first...then leap out all contortionist-like and suck the will to live out of Christina Milian? Or why toss books around in that dank, dank, DANK library to get the attention of that foolish kid at the beginning? Speaking of dank, why couldn't the production team get a swear jar together or something to pool funds for a couple of 60 watt bulbs? The 40's they used throughout the entire movie really weren't helping me out much. I thought my brain might be giving up on me or my retinas were detaching in an effort to seek stimulation elsewhere.
I enjoyed the way the director so slyly gave us shot after shot after shot...after shot, of people using cell phones and PDA's and laptops. Oh no, we're a society so reliant on this technology and even when with others we distance ourselves from them with this technological over-saturation. Whatever could it all mean?? It's so friggin subtle!
I'm all for idiotic story telling, but the moment you put on a big sandwich board sign that says "Hey, I'm an idiot and I don't know what's going on," your story suffers a little bit. Such was the case with red tape, accompanied by the note to the effect of "this stops them, I don't know why." Dude, I dunno why either. And since it's a significant plot point, maybe someone could work on a why. All I got was a sketchy character introduced in the last 15 minutes who guesses about it blocking frequencies. Which makes even less sense. Jerk ghost/demon/pale kids have a frequency that doesn't mesh with red tape? What the hell does that even mean? I want to grab every character in this movie and shake them until they get whiplash.
I'm gonna be honest, I was a little tired by the end of this, so maybe I lost some of the monumental meaning or whatever. But what the hell was that? Come on! Let's download this virus and get...system overload? Yeah, I get that warning on my PC all the time. Then the system reboots and the ghosts come back and even though we already decided nothing was going to happen thus making the last like 45 minutes of this movie pointless we tried anyway and look, nothing happened so let's run away but I'm gonna keep my stupid cell phone and we're just gonna stop the truck in the middle of nowhere and have a nap!!! A NAP?? Oh yes, then a voice over monologue about the end of the world.
Wait, what? No seriously...what?
When I see Wes Craven's name stuck on something, I'm generally expecting to develop a nagging groin pain and some intestinal cramping, it's what Craven does. I recall at one point thinking he's made a good movie in the past, but to be honest, I can't remember what it was anymore. He only produces this, not that it changes anything.
Like every horror movie that was released by a studio in the last decade, not only did this movie suck, blow and lick, it just didn't make a lot of sense. Have a seat and I'll run you through some of the awesomeness.
As a recurring chunk of the movie, these otherworldly, pasty, ghostly dudes keep popping up to suck the faces off whoever happens to be around. Which I guess is fine, but why are they such jerks? First, are they even ghosts or some kind of extra dimensional high frequency wi-fi demons? I don't know, but meh, I'll get over that and still wonder...why are they jerks? Why do you throw wet laundry out of the machine first...then leap out all contortionist-like and suck the will to live out of Christina Milian? Or why toss books around in that dank, dank, DANK library to get the attention of that foolish kid at the beginning? Speaking of dank, why couldn't the production team get a swear jar together or something to pool funds for a couple of 60 watt bulbs? The 40's they used throughout the entire movie really weren't helping me out much. I thought my brain might be giving up on me or my retinas were detaching in an effort to seek stimulation elsewhere.
I enjoyed the way the director so slyly gave us shot after shot after shot...after shot, of people using cell phones and PDA's and laptops. Oh no, we're a society so reliant on this technology and even when with others we distance ourselves from them with this technological over-saturation. Whatever could it all mean?? It's so friggin subtle!
I'm all for idiotic story telling, but the moment you put on a big sandwich board sign that says "Hey, I'm an idiot and I don't know what's going on," your story suffers a little bit. Such was the case with red tape, accompanied by the note to the effect of "this stops them, I don't know why." Dude, I dunno why either. And since it's a significant plot point, maybe someone could work on a why. All I got was a sketchy character introduced in the last 15 minutes who guesses about it blocking frequencies. Which makes even less sense. Jerk ghost/demon/pale kids have a frequency that doesn't mesh with red tape? What the hell does that even mean? I want to grab every character in this movie and shake them until they get whiplash.
I'm gonna be honest, I was a little tired by the end of this, so maybe I lost some of the monumental meaning or whatever. But what the hell was that? Come on! Let's download this virus and get...system overload? Yeah, I get that warning on my PC all the time. Then the system reboots and the ghosts come back and even though we already decided nothing was going to happen thus making the last like 45 minutes of this movie pointless we tried anyway and look, nothing happened so let's run away but I'm gonna keep my stupid cell phone and we're just gonna stop the truck in the middle of nowhere and have a nap!!! A NAP?? Oh yes, then a voice over monologue about the end of the world.
Wait, what? No seriously...what?