Cabin in the Woods

Ingredients: One part Evil Dead, one part Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, and one part Truman show.

Plot: Five teenagers go to a cabin in the woods, and they proceed to do the typical teenage thing. Party, smoke weed, and have sex. As their first night of partying proceeds, the cellar door slams open When the enter the cellar they find a room full of crazy objects. From a book of a deranged family with latin words written in  it, to a puzzle orb. Upon  reading of the book, they release unspeakable horrors. This is the premiss, and I can't and won't speak anymore about it. To talk more about it would be to ruin it.

Review:, So this is the new film from Drew Goddard (of Cloverfield fan) and Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy, and Dr Horribles Sing along blog). It is also Joss Whedons first time producing and co-writing a horror film. So how does this go for him? Joss Whedon passes with flying colors. He has made a truly original, funny, and suspenseful film. What works so well with it? 

The good, ninety eight percent of this film works amazingly well. The humor at times is very understated, throwing slight nobs at classic horror films and at other times is very obvious using great jokes better than most mainstream comedies. This film doesn't take itself series and that's one of its stronger. The characters are likable, while they are the stereotypical characters from most horror films they work very well as there own characters while still falling into the tropes and filling their own comical roles. Okay so how about the horror? As most people would think, that would be the most important part of a horror movie. Well, it does work really well and keeps up the suspense at all the right moments. Unlike a lot of slasher films, zombie films, ghost stories, and most other horror films, it doesn't use nonstop jump scares. It uses some but not enough too really cause irritation. It also uses enough gore to keep the gorehounds happy, it uses more gore in the final 45 minutes than most horror films in the last year.

The bad is that final few moments are a bit off. There is a decision made with in the last act of the movie that really don't fit the characters personalities. Outside of that minor issue, there are some plot holes that arise due to the concept. They do affect the overall immersion. While neither issues are major in the overall scope of the film, they are there.

Recommended?: Yes, yes, and yes again. It does so much right that when a few minor issues show up they aren't enough to take away from the good. Check this one out, it is one of the best horror films from the last couple years.

Scar 3D

Ingredients: 1 part torture porn, 1 part thriller, 1/2 part bad production quality, and 1/2 part "3d"

Plot:In the small town of Ovid Colorado, Joan Burrows (Angela Bettis) awakens in the basement morgue of Ernie Bishop, a local undertaker who secretly tortures, mutilates and kills teenage girls. Before becoming Bishops latest victim, Joan manages to kill him and escape with her life. Sixteen years later and still bearing the scars of her torment, Joan returns to her hometown in time to see her niece, Olympia, be crowned Prom Queen. Soon after Joans arrival, murders by an alleged copycat killer begin targeting Olympia  and her girlfriends. *

* Summary taken from Dvd  *

Review: Scar 3D tries hard to ambitious. It is a horror film shot in 3D instead of a bad transition like most movies now. But does that mean ambitions are the saving grace of this film keeping it out of forgotten corners of the mind?

I'll start with the good aspects of this film. Well it is bloody and for a horror film in the torture porn that's sorta a must. It also has a little bit of originality hiding in its bones. Mainly the killer, plays a game (I know, I know bear with me),, and he will torture one person at a time and wait for them to say to kill the other person (usually the best friend). While the "game", aspect is nothing new, the "game" they play is very intense at times.

Now for the bad, its plot is nothing special, it is horribly silly at times (the prom queen scene is the girl wearing a giant fish costume), and the "red herrings" are pretty obvious. Also, the production quality is a major issue in this film. I watched this off a Blu-ray player that upscales and this movie look terrible. Not only was it just low production quality, the 3D shooting makes it look pretty bad, and its all kinda wasted because there was only one scene that used any sort of 3D. While these aspects of the film are usually enough to ward people off a film like this, there was one major aspect that hurt it the most. Its utterly forgettable, nothing sticks with you after the credits.

Recommend: No, this is a film that I honestly wanted to like. Was it bad? No, you can just see a lot better of a movie in this genre. I think the Torture porn genre is a genre that can easily explore the darker side of the world and of human nature. This does neither. Take a pass, and go watch something better.

The Hunger Games

Ingredients: One part satire with one part survival thriller with a pinch of a love story

Plot: In a dystopian future, the totalitarian nation of Panem is divided between 12 districts and the Capital. Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by a random lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal retribution for a past rebellion, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem. The 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors while the citizens of Panem are required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.

*Based of the book series of the same name written by Suzanne Collins.
**Plot summary from IMDB.com

Review: Whats this a big budget hollywood blockbuster reviewed by me!? Yeah it does happen every once in  a while. So onto the review of this survivalist tale of teenagers killing each other.

Going into this movie, I had not read the book and honestly I still have not. I have done my research about my differences and I am starting into reading the book series. That being said I had heard the plot synopsis long ago, before it was even put into production, and thought of it as a Battle Royale knock off. Well I didn't get that completely right. It does have a very similar theme. You know teenagers killing each other. But I can't make any more comparisons due to the fact I have not seen Battle Royale for years,  the Dvd is sitting on my shelf in a backlog of other films for reviewing. Okay now to the main part of this review.

You're reading this review and after the paragraph your probably thinking one thing. How was it? Well to my surprise it worked. Young adult films haven't been done kindly in recent cinema years. Prissy vampires and emotionless sociopathic lead actresses have been the big hits. This has none of that. It has a strong female lead who honestly is able to carry this film on her shoulders. Jennifer Lawrence has shown some strong acting chops. She was fantastic as Mystique and continues being fantastic as Katniss. The rest of the actors and actress turn in some strong performances, from Woody Harrelson to Elizebeth Banks. Elizebeth Banks is clearly having the time of her life as Effie. Honestly I didn't know it was even her until I watched Brad Jones*  vlog. I do have to discuss the look of this film, the capital residents are a bit odd looking.  Given no reason in the film they look like Tim Burton characters. It is an odd design choice, but given the fact that in this dystopian future is not exactly normal it kind of fits. When you see the city in a few shots it looks suitably futuristic, and the run down districts look like Robin Hood villages. There are a few things that do not work, and that biggest one is the camera work in the action scenes. The issue being they use the bourne series shaky camera work, making the film horrible disorienting during the bigger action scenes. While the action scenes, when you can see them, are intense for a Pg-13 young adult film. The shaking can get too much and during the main action scenes, it becomes incredibly obvious that they where shot, or changed post production due to the Pg-13 rating. The shaky cam is incredibly jarring, if you see it in Imax it can be nauseating. The next issue comes the changes stem from the book to movie transition. Having not read the books I didn't know just what changes where made or how drastic they where. Not sensing the fact that they changed things is a credit to this film, but I wish they didn't change them. Spoilers incoming, the first change is that  of Rue's death the film has her die when Katniss turns the corner and finds Rue in a net, she proceeds to free her and then another "contestant" rounds the corner and throws a spear at Katniss missing and hitting Rue thus killing her. The book has it mostly the same, but instead of Rue being freed and then being accidentally hit, she is killed while still being trapped in the net. She is stabbed as soon as Katniss rounds the corner very cold bloodily. I assume that this change was made because of  the rating. The other changes are the dogs, in the book they have the eyes of the other "contestants" if done right it could have been absolutely chilling and really effective. The third change is Peeta the male lead is injured and loses his leg. This is remedied via a magic drug. Between Rues death and the leg amputation, some emotional impact and tension gets lost. The leg thing could have been incorporated, since How to Train Your Dragon has the main character lose a leg, and that was a pg rated kids film. I wanna see a uncut version on Dvd/bluray removing the shaky cam or at least deleted scenes showing the left out scenes or at least rough cg design of the dog faces via special features.

Recommend? Yes, I do recommend this. It really was a great film. It worked well enough as a standalone film for those like myself who have not read the book. I recommend reading the book before or after seeing the movie, or at least do research about those left out scenes. Check this movie out, be warned of the shaking camera though.