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larsan111
Reviews
King of the Ants (2003)
Surprised, very surprised.
It is getting longer and longer between the movie experiences: Woow. Got to say that this film was laying around in a year before I put in my player - didn't have any higher expectations. Gordon's, Wendt's and Baldwin's names draw me to it as the thought of it being a Them 2 or something. When there is a lot of reviews about the storyline and the movie in general I skip that part. The movie makes the thoughts wander towards "The Lord of the Flies" in retrospect and is a very believable "version". Whenever violence really feels in your seat or when a killing makes you squirm because of the tormenting knowledge of just how very wrong it is it's just Good directing. On to that, one's moral compass is challenged more than one time - and that is brave movie making. There are some things one might be curious of: is that drooling man at the mission the same man that got that cement block...? what are in those papers? To that I will say: Kudos to Stuart Gordon that Knows that that kind of information is just best left out (I'm so tired of getting every single fact written on my nose whenever I see movies by nervous Hacks!) The man knows that the viewers brains do have the ability to imagine stuff - and the brain works more effective when it doesn't know everything. A movie about Humans and what humanity contains. Every dog has it's day - and every average guy can be king.
But it is not a "nice" film. Caution.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Pleasantly surprised.
The reviews thus far are long ones, so I will keep it short. I have been quite "off" when there's vampires afoot in films nowadays (I'm more into the vampires like V.Price, J.Palance and such characterizations) so this movie didn't had much going for it. But the look, effects and the fact that it did not pushed some nervous funniness into it caught my attention. And when either animals or children is spared by the hunting pack of these predators it makes it more eerie and believable. Good suggestive parts in the electro acoustic soundtrack.
Maybe not a masterpiece of the genre but a well needed injection (in times of the Twilight movies and other atrocities.)
Superstition (1982)
Bad?
I saw this film in 1984 and at that time the effects really made an impact - SO even today (for me who saw it young remember that late evening alone). One can always say that the special effects are bad but the special effects are bad in 2001, King Kong, The Birds, The Hunchback of Notre Dame , Metropolis (-27) too - by TODAYS standards. So if you discard the past and it's techniques you'll end up with all of this often boring and cheap cgi. Someone thought "Superstition" was a follower after "Freddy Krueger"? very difficult to beleive since this film is made in 1982. It's quite slow at the beginning when the two buddies gets lost from each other, but after a bang and a slicing it's very much fast paced. Albert Salmi is seldom a letdown, nor here. The little girl, the witch, the NON-heroic father and all the grizzly murders/accidents/flash-backs are all reasons to this movie (if you like horror-films). The use of the Gregorian Chant "Dies Irae" I must confess is highly enjoyable and a great plus (although maybe a little bit too often played) and give the movie deph - but not to the extent so it's being pretentious. The Amityville and Poltergeist is named too, yes, that's two more haunted houses - so what, hundreds of movies contains haunted houses. This house was not built over an ancient indian burialground, that's a plus. Overall ***of*****
Mother's Day (1980)
Not for everyone.
Not for people that feel moral panics coming over them as soon as movies, music, books e.t.c. doesn't follow the main stream. It's very easy to just block your senses when you're getting disturbed, but that is what art is supposed to do. And don't tell me that movies like this is not art...independent and with low budget still gathering after 23 years after all of these reviews, something was done right.
Or else nobody would raise this film to the skyes. If you don't like films like this, then you're stars (or the lack of them) for them is insignificant. If I'm getting appauled by "The Blue Lagoon" or similar sleaze I know that I can't review it properly. Well. I bought this film in USA just to get a glance of what Troma was all about (in Sweden it was just rumors at that time in the 80's) and first i was stunned...seen Fulci, Craven, Argento...this was different. Rape, torture, with humor? these film makers just didn't beat around the bush. Satire is very difficult to make and sometimes discover even.
I recommend. ****of*****
But caution
Killer Crocodile (1989)
Fun, just fun.
Rented this film for being a horror-moviefan and got me one of the most amusing comedies I've seen. It's very hard to give this film any horror categorizing, did they ever (the film-makers) thougt this would scare anybody? After one minute or so the croc appears and I realized that this can be 90 terrible minutes of my life, but ooh, one needs to laugh sometimes.
With the special effects, that already by others been clearified, which are stiffy to say the least, the musical score that is ripped from John Williams jaws (in particular the second track of the "jaws"-soundtrack) - it's already then amusing. Then comes the characters, boy o boy, the teenagers behaviour in Fr:13:s movies are deep thougt genious moves. The dialogue for ex: ....yeah.....maybe you're right about that.....(dramatic thinkingpause) ..or maybe you're wrong.... (and the camera starts pulling back after this refreshing turn of event). Interesting how this monstrous beast loses a big tooth on a very thin wall that just about stands for itself and how a propellermachine can explode - once, twice, three...four...I lost count of the explosions. Finally, for now, the experienced hunter that shoots the hero (the croc) with a elephant-rifle time after time with no effect to the beast whatsoever jumps overboard onto the crocs back and starts poking it with a boathook (yeah, THAT will do a wonders).
Tons of stuff like this and I can only recommend this for those who want to laugh at a bad (but amusing) movie, a little gore, but that is NOT what you remember after seeing "Killer Krokodile" (the spelling on the swedish cover).
(Got to see the sequel)