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jayrandall883
Reviews
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Cheesy ending is forgiven for an overall great horror movie
I absolutely loved this movie and thats actually saying a lot since I haven't seen a good horror movie since High Tension (I don't think its a coincidence that both movies have the same director). The opening completely caught me off guard with how fast and brutal the death scenes were and I was wondering if the movie would drop off after a great opening. I was wrong. It was a little slow for people who may get bored by a lot of character development, I know a lot of people in the movie theatre did. I liked it... but I like a lot of interesting and entertaining character development (especially since you rarely find it in a horror movie).
I had seen the original movie and remember being really shocked by it. The scene in the camper where a couple of the family members die also caught me off guard which is why it caught my interest. It got so brutal and disturbing and the first few minutes could have passed for a family drama. The scene when the father is hearing his named called in the darkness was one of the scariest scenes I had ever seen (still is). Thats why I was so shocked that the whole scene in the remake was still just as shocking and intense as the original. I still got scared s******* when the father was getting his name called in the darkness and still just as disturbed when all the chaos started happening in the camper.
I knew the movie would be brutal and bloody because Wes Craven was still producing it and he chose the director because he loved the bloody High Tension. The audience that was getting bored in the beginning while I was watching it was cheering, oohhing, and screaming by the end of it and I was doing the same.
The music was just right and the acting was top notch (I couldn't believe that the father was Buffalo Bill from "The Silence of the Lambs"). It was a great horror movie especially after the crap thats been coming out. The last movie I watched was "When A Stranger Call" and lets just say that Simon West could have kept that to himself. I highly recommend this movie for anyone that loves a lot of gore and relatable characters (not something you find that often in the same movie).
I did find the ending to be a little to over the top. I think it would have been fine if it weren't for the cheesy music (that was the only time I didn't like the music). It kind of sounded like that triumphant music that you heard at the end of "Cabin Fever" when the blonde dude thought he was gonna live and then got shot all to hell. I hated "Cabin Fever" so anything that brings me back to that movie cannot be good. But the whole movie really made me forgive those bad last two minutes. I'm beginning to think that Aja just doesn't know how to end a film well, but the rest of the movie makes up for the bad endings.
Overall good film but great horror movie that I would recommend to anyone. It's not one that you'll be able to forget as you walk out of the theatre. It sticks with you
The Fog (2005)
God, I hated this movie!
I always hold out hope for remakes because I actually like a couple of them. I liked the remake of TCM and Amityville, and for the most part I like the Japenese horror movie remakes (but lets all forget about the god awfulness that was The Ring 2). When I saw that they were remaking this into a PG-13 movie I wasn't that thrilled (however, I am not apart of the bandwagon that says all horror movies should be rated R and not PG-13. I think there are some great PG-13 horror movies out there).
Even when I saw the first preview I was not excited about it. But I still held out hope because the original The Fog is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, and not to mention, in my opinion, John Carpenters best movie (Halloween is a little to slow for me). Even if the movie would be bad, I figured that Selma Blair could at least carry some of it.
Opening night I was there to watch and I was so shocked because, for the second time ever in a movie (the first was The Talented Mr. Ripley), I was dying to get the hell out of there. The movie was painful to watch and doesn't even hold a candle to the great original. I am not kidding people when I say that this movie was bad bad bad. Horribly bad. Its like the filmmakers just wrote down all the good things about the original and then threw them out.
First of all, I don't really need lots of blood and gore, and the original didn't have an excessive amount (but it still scared the hell out of me). But this was just PG-13 ridiculousness. We rarely saw any blood or gore (or did we see any at all, it was kind of hard for me to stay awake), the guys in the fog weren't even actors in scary makeup but was instead really bad CGI that wasn't scary at all. I wasn't expecting much from the actors (minus Blair) to begin with but, OMG, Golden Rasberry Awards should be given to all who were involved. Even Blair couldn't' do anything with what she was given.
***And what was up with the nanny (or aunt or whatever) getting choked by the hand through the GARBAGE DISPOSAL. Oh my GOD, yes ladies and gentleman we have stepped into the bad clichés that we often find in Friday the 13th or the later Nightmare on Elm Streets. There was nothing scary about that scene!!! We laughed at it and there should be no laughing in The Fog.
And then, do I even need to bring up the STUPID love story as a subplot. That was just a god-awful addition to a bad enough movie. At the end when whatsherface goes and kisses the old ghost and then becomes one??? what the hell was that? It was like I was watching a bad scary movie only with Moulin Rouge type camera work (I'm referring to the 360 degree view we get of the kiss for those of you who have seen the movie).
Shame on the people that had anything to do with this film. This could have been good. The filmmakers could have taken the original, fixed the rough spots that Carpenter had in the film and maybe tweak a few small things, and they could have had Grade A movie. But no they had to go and modernize it and have it primed and ready for the high school crowd who probably don't even know this is a remake. I've seen the box office results for the weekend and they are not pretty so maybe Hollywood will finally catch on that we actually want good "scary" movies and not cheap knockoffs.