Devil

M. Night Shyamalan is one of those writers who you can't help but hate...even just a little. Despite films such as "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable", his other films are not so memorable. Even if they are it isn't for the right reasons. However, I am not one to hold a grudge, so I thought I would go to see "Devil, more so since he is only credited as a writer and not the director. I loved the premise, simple and elegant. The acting and script were another matter entirely.

First off, let's get up to speed with the plot. The story begins with a suicide being investigated by the police. The crime eventually leads them to the front of an office building where the main story begins. Inside the building, five strangers have taken the elevator and soon become trapped within it. As attempts to rescue them go wrong the police are eventually called in when one of the trapped passengers becomes injured. No one knows who has hurt them, and things soon become fraught with tension. The idea is that one of the people on the elevator is not who they say they are; and as you find out, not all saints either. The whole film is strewn on top of a sub plot about the police officers wife and child who were taken away from him by a hit and run. As the movie progresses we start to see that things are more important than they originally seemed and that everything is happening for a reason.

As I stated before, I think that this as a film concept is ingenious. The tension, the clashing personalities, the impending doom and deliciously over stated Devil makes for good watching. However, this was not the case. As much as I wanted to like this film, I just couldn't let myself do it. The acting was shoddy, the script at times seemed to have been penned by a five year old and the frequent attempts to make you care about the characters go unanswered. Through out this 90 minute torture session, I was being hastily thrown deliberate chunks of characters exposition in an attempt to make them seem easier to relate to and familiar. This seems a tad unnecessary as the characters themselves are so generic, you have probably seen them in a million other productions.

There is an obvious religious tone to the entire picture, but I feel at times that it went to far. The talk of the wicked being punished for their sins and yet there are innocents who are harmed in the film. The idea that if the Devil exists, then so must God, is only tangible if God gets up of his arse and does something to help. Instead it seems like he just sat back in his reclining chair and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, "Devil" missed the mark; by quite a large amount. The trailer promised a thrill ride, full of tension and horror. What I got was ninety minutes of less than mediocre acting and yet another preachy message from a writer whose main goal in film making is to explain to people why they are wrong and how much better he is than all of us. Great idea on paper, but poorly executed. In short, I wouldn't waste your money on it; it's hell.

Rating 1 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Bleeding from your eyes!

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Review by Stephen King

Soundtrack to your movie

Have you ever thought, "If my life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?" If this is you then I think I have have the solution. This little game has been going around the internet for a while now, but I always get a kick out of doing it and I think that you will too. All you need to do is follow the instructions below and you will end up with a soundtrack to your own film. I have done this many times; and I think the best part about it is you end up with songs that don't necessarily fit the mood, but this often makes it funnier. So...let's get started!


Instructions

1) Open Windows media player or itunes (whatever you have your library of music in)
2) Put it on shuffle
3) For each part of the film shuffle to the next song and this song will represent that particular part of the movie.
4) Why not post it on the Bad Movie Black Jack blog page so we can get a collection of peoples movie soundtracks going. Remember and let shuffle decide the songs though, no cheating to make your soundtrack better. Much more fun when it's random.

Song list

Opening Credits = ?

Waking up = ?

First Day of School = ?

Falling in Love = ?

Breaking Up = ?

Prom = ?

Life's OK = ?

Mental Breakdown = ?

Driving = ?

Flashback = ?

Getting Back Together = ?

Wedding = ?

Birth of a Child = ?

Final Battle = ?

Death Scene = ?

Funeral Song = ?

End Credits = ?

The Brood

What can I say about this film? The late great Oliver Reed stars, David Cronenberg directs and it's bloody terrifying! Just when you thought that Don't look now was the ultimate in scary midget films, another emerges that has scarier midgets!

The story is about a woman who is undergoing an experimental kind of psychiatry, and how she has been separated from her husband and daughter. The father would prefer not to have his daughter visit her mother at all but he is bound by law. Soon it emerges that the daughter shows signs of being abused by her mother. Couple this with some deaths and you have yourself the making of one scary plot

I love Cronenberg's work and this film I am pleased to say is no exception to his usual excellence. Everything is perfect, the score the scares, the acting and the constant feeling in your belly that something could go wrong at some moment in time. One thing in this film that shocked me more than anything else, was the fact that when people were being savagely attacked, the child actors they had would witness it happening! If that was me as a kid I am sure I would have been scarred for life.

In short (no midget joke intended) I would recommend this film for any horror occasion. I perfect example of how this type of film should be made. I just wish that perfect examples of horror would rear their ugly heads more often. Sadly, modern shock flicks are proving a little lacking. I can only pray that David Cronenberg gets back to making the kind of films that matter!

Rating 4 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Don't Look Now
Children of the Corn
Scanners

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Review by Stephen King

Paperhouse

Having looked into the people starring in the film, I found out that the little girl who played the lead role, never acted again after this film. Another interesting fact was that the actor playing the young boy died at the tender age of 21; with the internet yielding little results on the reason for his death. It seems tragic that the cast of this film never really worked after this film. Another interesting fact is that the score of the film I believe was also written by the now famous, Hans Zimmer! I love his work, and to find out he started out with such humble beginnings was rather refreshing.

Anyway let's start this review up with a little bit about the film. A young school girl is gradually becomes ill with glandular fever, and as a result is bed ridden for a little while till it clears past the worst. She begins to draw a house in her sketch book one day and then falls asleep only to find out that she has been transported to the very house she created. Living in this house is a small disabled boy who has been left there, but is not sure why. It is brought to light that the doctor treating the young girl has a patient matching the description of the little boy she meets in her sleep.

As time progresses she befriends the young boy, drawing more and more things for them to enjoy when she falls asleep. However, things begin to take on a new quality when she attempts to draw her father; who isn't around very often due to work. The drawing goes all wrong, and her dreamland becomes a nightmare.

To be honest I didn't really know what to expect from an 80's Brit horror film, but by the end of it I felt that watching it had been worthwhile. The film did not really rely on gore, and loud noises to shock you. Instead, there was a great sense of fear brought on by the disturbing dream world she lived in. The addition of an evil character to this fantasy made me feel extremely uneasy every time she would fall asleep.

The film itself is almost like a slightly more cerebral Nightmare on Elm Street, maybe throwing in a few elements of Labyrinth. Unfortunately, I by the end, it was dragging on a little, and that their problems were all to easily solved. Despite this, the film was still a pretty good. A few little down points here and there bring the score to a respectable 6.5. I would recommend watching this movie if you enjoyed Nightmare on Elm Street and other films in the same vein. For what looked like a low budget horror flick, they certainly made it work with what money they had.

Rating 3 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Nightmare on Elm Street
Labyrinth
New Nightmare

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Reviewed by Stephen King

The Last Exorcism

The idea of demonic possession is nothing new in films and forms the main focus of "The Last Exorcism”. Unfortunately the Eli Roth (Hostel) produced movie mostly fails to impress.

The Last Exorcism is filmed in documentary style and focuses on Reverend Cotton Marcus. Cotton is an evangelical minister from the deep south of America who, because of his minister father, has giving sermons at his church and performing exorcisms since the age of 10.

Cotton Marcus doesn't believe in demonic possession and has decided to stop doing them as he sees them as a dangerous practice that exploits money out of people and on some rare occasions kills the person who is believed to be possessed. He has decided to allow a camera crew to follow him on one last exorcism so they can see how the fraud is set up and carried out.

The movie is filmed on a single camera which, as with the majority of movies in this vein, shakes during the numerous times the cameraman runs. This is understandable given the situation but in most scene, when the camera changes focus, it takes several seconds for them to find the focus again. This was likely done in order to remind the viewer that it is meant to be a documentary but for me it was realistic but highly annoying.

The character in the movie fitted very well with the setting and the situation and they all had a slight preoccupation with the camera watching them. As such, the acting in the movie was either good, as the actors were able to portray their characters perfectly or simply mediorce acting. Both of which worked well in the context of the movie.

Overall, The Last Exorcism blends into the background of the ever growing number of shakey handi-cam movies that are all too common nowadays.

Rating 3 out of 5

See it if you liked:
Blair Witch Project
Hostel
The Exorcist

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