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Jim-382
Reviews
The Resurrected (1991)
What's everyone talking about?
I'm really confused by other users comments. After reading them I ordered a copy from the states as fast as my fingers could click to Amazon. I'm a huge fan of Lovecraft and to be told that this is the best film adaption of his work and that I'd never even heard of it made me think I was about to get my slime covered tentacles on a forgotten gem. Then it arrived and I must ask the other users, are you all completely bonkers? This is a terrible, terrible film. It's badly lit, shot, edited, acted and scripted. When the femme non fetale first arrives at the PI's office it's this dreadful side shot which just sits there for about five minutes while the two of them fail to act in each others general direction from the opposite sides of the screen. The rest of the film seems to consist of either seen it all before POV's or more of these overly lit side shots, I thought Dan O'Bannon could shoot films? Thank god the flashbacks break up the boredom. In a voice over Ward's wife says something like "He just left the party and said he had to do some work that couldn't wait", at which point Ward in the flashback says "I have to leave the party to do some work that cannot wait." Brilliant! It goes on like that for an hour and forty tedious minutes with a couple of goofy and gooey effects don't liven up the proceedings one bit, until it ends with Chris Sarandon hamming it up for all he's worth while I considered hanging myself from the tedium of it all. Come on guys, us Lovecraft fans have to be forgiving occasionally by the general low quality and/or budgets of his related movies, but we shouldn't let this film off the hook just because it sticks fairly close to the original story. I mean, Dagon is rubbish but at least it's FUN rubbish, this is just plain dull.
Van Helsing (2004)
Well what did you expect?
Really, from the man who brought us The Mummy films and Deep Rising (with Treat Williams as a lead, Ha!), did anyone honestly expect this to be up to much? Okay, maybe I did. But I suppose you can't just throw loads of money at something and think it's gonna be any good. Frankenstien's brain looked quite nice and the wolf man gave my wife a fright or two (though she got scared during Monsters Inc so I wouldn't pay much attention to that) but what the hell was old Dracula all about? Who keeps on casting Richard Roxburgh as villains? He's rubbish at them. Maybe it's just his slightly bulbous nose putting me off but I just can't take him seriously when he's trying to infect the world with gremlins/ blow up Venice/ ravage Nicole Kidman. Overall the whole film was just far too hectic for it's own good. I just have one thing to say to Stephen Sommers; calm down man, breathe in occasionally. Oh that's two things, oh forget it.