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Reviews
The Thing (1982)
A classic horror/science fiction
John carpenter's The Thing is an adaption of the short story 'Who goes there', by John W Campbell. It's a story of trust and suspicion, set in the isolation of an antarctic research outpost. This is brilliantly atmospheric, the ominous music score by Ennio Morricone adds a great sense of dread as well of lots of tension to the story, the cast all do a great job with what they have, and Rob Bottin's creatures are truly amazing. The movie is not without faults though, one of them being the lack of character development, however I understand carpenters intentions to keep us guessing about the characters.
This is a genuinely effective horror and an intriguing science fiction movie, well worth a place in any movie lovers DVD collection.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Good action movie, with Zombies
When I first heard the 1978 horror classic dawn of the dead would be remade, i felt pretty skeptical, knowing todays horror movie makers tendancies to neglect story and atmosphere in favour of cheap scares(monster jumps out and yells BOO!) and over the top computer generated effects.
My first qualm when seeing this movie was 'running zombies', I felt this displayed a level of dexterity which shows them less like creepy 'living dead', and more like living people infected with cannibalistic urges, obviously an attempt to keep in touch with peoples new idea of zombies as seen in 28 days later, and though this leaves less room for tension it does allow for some exciting scenes and some visceral action, the characters arern't too imaginative, most of them we know nothing about(eccept that they will die),and the movies attempts at humor often fall flat because they are dropped in with little subtlety.
On the plus side this movie really does look good, the make up and effects are convincing and the story has enough new material to keep you on you interested, though this isn't the thoughtful journey of survival or suspenseful horror that was the original, it is a pretty entertaining action movie which wont make you think, but will make you watch and listen.
Outland (1981)
not underrated, but rather ignored
I first watched this movie not expecting much as i had never really heard much about it and it didn't seem to be particularly acclaimed, but I was pleasantly surprised by it, Connery's performance is solid and the rest of the cast do a good job, there are some exciting scenes in this movie and the settings (outer space,mining colony) are convincing enough to keep you emersed in the story, the story is like a western in space, (which is about all I heard of this before I saw it),though its not particularly original and doesn't try to be spectacular, it is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours and good fun for Connery fans to see him kicking arse back in the days.