Psycho is a pretty famous movie from Hitchcock and it’s pretty legendary. Unfortunately, it’s one of those films where the hype is definitely more intense than the film. This is essentially a horror/slasher film that plays out as you would expect most of those too go. The only difference is that there is no twist ending involved, which probably wouldn’t have hurt. I’ve never watched a good slasher film and I doubt that there is such a thing, but this is definitely Hitchcock’s worst film. He should stick to the murder mysteries, but let’s jump to the plot!

The film opens up with an awful scene involving Marion and Sam which should quickly start the warning bells in your head. Once she leaves, Marion goes to her nice ole job where people throw lots of money around. One look at that money is enough to corrupt Marion and she quickly gets out of town and decides to head to a private island. This is obviously the only course of action for her by this point and she makes it a point to act as suspicious as she can. She even falls asleep at the road and quickly starts to act like a criminal. She decides to stop at an abandoned motel to spend the night. At least the landlord seems nice and he’s got a nice mother…what could possibly go wrong!?

If you’ve seen any sort of slasher film, then you can probably guess where the film will go from here. Norman Bates is the main villain of this story and the fact that he believes in animal violence should have helped the main character realize this. Unlike Jason or Freddy, Norman isn’t much of a fighter and he relies on the fact that his opponents are either kids or people who are not ready to fight or have any experience in it. He also takes any opportunity to land a cheap shot in. There are no likable characters in this film so don’t hold your breath for one of them to make a solid decision!

One of the main problems with this film is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a point to the whole thing. The villain murders people and the heroes don’t know what to do. The cycle repeats and repeats until it’s about time for the climax. There was an unnecessarily long shower scene that was really awful and the opening scene did no wonders for the romance section. If you cut out both of those scenes, then the film is a lot better, but it still would have been doomed in the long run.

We’ve already established why Marion and Norman were both pretty bad characters. Marion got corrupted very easily which wasn’t a good thing. Norman made the mistake of being a psycho and he wasn’t a likable character while he was acting either. He’s just your average mass murderer, just take away the part where he’s actually tough. Lila wasn’t much better as she talked tough, but froze up when the going got tough. I disliked Sam from the start and he never turned out to be a good character.

The police officer could have been a solid character, but he failed in the end. I was actually liking him until he just stopped appearing. He just got written out of the script and vanished. The Sherrif wasn’t very smart and the guy whose money was stolen in the first place was pretty bad as well. Let’s skip the rest of the characters and just remember that they’re pretty bad.

Long story short, this is definitely not a film that I recommend. It was very close to getting a 1/10 for a while, but by the end, the detective was so awful that I had to raise it to a 2. The scene was just so inaccurate that it raised the score. As I mentioned earlier, the film just didn’t have any point to it and it was like watching paint dry. What’s the point in the end? This is a film that has 0 replay value as well. If you want to watch a true film, then check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time!

Overall 2/10

Disclaimer, this is a review of the edited version so that it does not receive an R rating. These thoughts are specifically from that version and the score will likely differ from uncut and cut versions.

It’s time for another horror film, but will it be scary? The truth always comes out to destroy the heroes of such films, but what if they challenge the problem with superior numbers? This is the question that you must ask yourself as the heroes take on their toughest challenge yet! Let’s see how good the film was.

The main character goes by the name of Julie and the film starts out with a party. Julie is having fun and all, with her friends Helen, Barry, and Ray. After some sad scenes that you’ll want to block from your mind, they go into a car and run someone over. They quickly realize that they are immoral people by heart and dump the guy into the ocean. He struggles, but they overpower him with sheer force. At least he’s dead….nobody will ever know what they did! 1 year later, Julie gets a note that heavily implies that their secret it out. Someone is out to murder them all and Julie may be their only hope at this point! Can she really overpower the villain?

Well, the film plays out as more slasher films do. The cast is slowly whittled down as the villain makes short work of them. Physically, he seems to be superior to the main cast and Barry may be the only one who could possibly match him in that regard. (Though it’s unlikely) Unfortunately, there are a lot of moments that are just completely unbelievable and don’t make sense. I’ll only mention a few scenes since there are far too many of them.

1. The villain turns off the lights and the music when one of the characters is scared on the ground floor. Then he jumps out at her from under a plastic as if he were a mannequin. That’s a very (cheap) interesting way to scare the heroes and destroy their morale before destroying their lives, but it didn’t work. How could he turn off the lights and the music if he was already under the plastic? How did he go back downstairs and get into the plastic after murdering another character in such a short amount of time? Why did this film not even try to address these plot holes!?

2. At one point, one of the main characters is running through a dark alley. She pauses for a couple of minutes to stare at the surroundings and give the villain time to pick a place to hide and ambush her. She sees a parade and (slowly) jogs towards them. She sees a suspicious tower of tires, but it won’t deter her. She keeps on going, but the villain jumps out from….THE TIRES!!!!!! I’m sure that was surprising (To nobody) and it was scary for her, but there is another problem. How could the marchers not see this happening? She was extremely close to them and they couldn’t have been more than a few feet apart. Maybe they couldn’t hear her, but with peripheral vision, you would totally see what was happening.

3. The final one that I will point out involves Barry. Barry is on the second floor during a beauty pageant and he’s by himself. (Of course) The main villain appears and quickly gets him in a choke hold. The girl on stage yells for everyone to look up and help Barry as she points to him, but the crowd quickly surrounds her and basically yell a lot so that nobody can hear her. The policeman goes with her to find out what happened, but he took his time and didn’t notice the blood that was around. (The police man doesn’t look good during his “fight” with the villain either) The town must be really slow on the draw since they didn’t look up and see what was happening. Even without looking up, you would be able to see a little of the action, so they must have been legally blind at this point. If not, then this is another plot hole.

There are many more moments like that, but let’s not dwell on them anymore. Let’s go on to the next negative point which is the animal death. Yep, we’ve got the cliched scene where an animal dies and we see someone cutting up another animal. We also see remains of other animals and you have to wonder why the scene was included. Probably just for grittiness, which makes it even worse. This film also had more romance than you’d want in a film and there are several scenes where you’ll just want to skip to the next scene. There are two beauty pageants that are basically filler, but they’re not extremely awful.

None of the four main characters are likable. Julie gets into a romance that goes nowhere and then she lets her friends get away with murder. At least she had some doubts about it, which makes her slightly better than Barry and friends. Barry is the stereotypical drunk who’s mean to everyone and he goes down pretty easily. Helen is also not a good character as she panics a lot and Ray spent half of the film getting knocked out or punched in the face. The police weren’t very helpful and not even the Sheriff could do his job correctly. How about the main character? He’s basically a generic mass murderer who wants to destroy everyone and mess with their minds in the process. There’s literally nothing to like about him and he’s just a villain. That basically wraps it up for him.

All in all, this film is not a horror movie that I’d recommend. The music at the beginning was actually a good way of foreshadowing since it started out good and then the lyrics came in. The characters are all pretty awful and they’re pretty slow on the uptake. The film had too much romance and the animal deaths were overkill. The violence and deaths may not be as graphic as Alien, but you will still want to have your kids skip this film for now. The only place where I will give props to the film is the very ending…you just need to ignore the dozens of plot hax that this scene brings along with it. Instead of watching it, bring your kids with you as you watch Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods. Now that’s a film will really shake you to the core!

Overall 2/10

Tremors is a film that you may have heard of, but perhaps it has not been mentioned in your past. There are giant monsters creatures who are out to wreck havok and it’s up to the two main characters to stop him. Will they be able to save the world, or at least their home!? It’s crunch time!

Well, the plot involves Val and Earl as they go around helping people with small jobs. It may not be the greatest work out there, but it’s fulfilling and they’re making a difference. They decide to leave town and head for greater things, but they find a dead person. After that, people start disappearing and the monsters start to show themselves. It may be too late to leave the city and they may not even get to leave this place with their lives!

One thing that I have to note about this film is the fact that I forgot the names of the two main characters almost immediately. I can only vaguely recall them mentioning the names during the film and the characters are more memorable than their names. This may not be very surprising, but it’s still a bad sign when you can’t remember the names of the characters. I wouldn’t say that any of them were likable characters either.

They spend most of the film arguing and they tend to panic when the going gets tough. I doubt that either of them would last a few seconds against a true warrior, which brings me to Burt. Burt was definitely a solid character and I dare say that he was the best one in the film. He had a lot of ammunition and along with Heather, they managed to fend off the worms. Burt may have thrown in the towel a few times, but without his grenades and raw power, the main characters would have died out a long time ago.

There are other characters, but they don’t really do anything important. There’s a character who’s monitoring the tremors in the area and she ends up helping out against the worms. We’ve also got a teenager who keeps on messing with the main characters. There’s a pretty hardcore shop owner who’s ready to name the giant monsters as well.

Let’s talk about the giant monsters, aka, the Graboids. The Graboids may have sounded really hardcore and epic in the trailer, but there are not that cool in the film. The Graboids are very weak and a construction worker injures one by accident. The Graboid can move at a decent pace when they are underground, but they still end up getting outrun by the humans. Bullets do damage the creature if you aim at the correct spot and they will go down. Since the monster wasn’t that great, that pretty much ended the discussion on whether the film would be really cool or not.

There is also a scene where a lot of animals die and it didn’t really have any point. Once again, animals died because all horror movies need those scenes apparently. This film counts as a horror film in my book because it had giant monsters. The film does contain some pretty graphic violence and I wouldn’t recommend it to kids or the faint of heart and especially not to animal fans

Would I recommend this film to the rest of the world? I don’t think so. When a film lacks a good character cast, any noticeable soundtrack, a good monster, and has animals die for no reason; what did you think would happen? If you want to watch a true Kaiju film, check out Godzilla Final Wars! Otherwise, I’d advise you to just go buy some popcorn at the theater, but don’t watch the actual film. There isn’t really any good reason to watch this one and while it was not awful, I doubt I’ll be seeing it again.

Overall 2/10

Leave Her To Heaven is a film that you may or may not have heard of. It’s essentially your typical romance film (Uh oh) that also features murder and danger! Adding those elements should definitely help the film, but how good can a romance get anyway right? (Unless you count Tsubasa) It’s time that we find out!

A guy by the name of Richard meets a girl on the train. After they take turns glaring staring at each other, they become friends. Her name is Ellen and if the long staring scene didn’t warrant any alarms in your head, then the plot twist will feel pretty sudden! Ellen and Richard head to the family’s house where Richard will be working on his book. According to Ellen, he’s not a good author, but she miraculously changes her mind later on! After she pressures Richard into getting proposed to her, they have happy days!…for a while.

Soon, Ellen starts to get jealous of everyone else and wants to be alone with Richard. Richard isn’t very sympathetic and he invites everyone that he can. Richard gets Ellen’s whole family to come over and we can’t forget about the Farmer. Ellen acts as mean to them as she can, but they stay strong for the most part. Later on, Richard’s friend dies…was it a murder or an accident? Ellen’s supposed to be a good swimmer, but she claimed that she didn’t notice in time.

Even further into the film, there is more disaster and fatalities. In theory, this should help the film to stay energetic and epic, but it doesn’t work. The deaths are tragic, but Richard is not a great main character. This is something that happens a lot in romance films; I couldn’t find myself liking any of the characters. They were all mean, jealous, or just not cool enough for me.

The main negative of the film is the fact that there is a lot of romance. Even if this is a romance film, they should try to avoid it. It tends to bog the film down with really drawn out scenes and unnecessary dialogue. It definitely took up a large chunk of the film and wasn’t needed to help the plot progress. I’m sure that they could have found other ways to continue the story.

Another thing is that the deaths are tragic, but nothing is really done about them. People dying in a random monster film or action anime is okay because they can fight back or at least they tried. There’s just not as much point when it’s from drowning or helplessness. We know that the character is a villain and that’s pretty much all that we need to know. Also, the main character went down fast when he expressed interest in destroying animals. Those were all the signs that I needed to write off the main cast.

So, I wouldn’t recommend this film to the average moviegoer. If you want a true story about a daring young man who must face all kinds of dangers to help out his friends, then watch DBZ. This film had one good scene in it, but that’s hardly enough to save it. (The Court Scene was pretty epic for the most part) If you really want to watch a romance film, then I recommend playing a video game to take your mind off of it.

Overall 2/10

You can probably already tell that this is a horror film from the title right? Well, the Wasp Woman takes an interesting approach as the monster doesn’t appear for most of the film. This may be a good thing or it could be a bad thing. I’d say that it’s time to find out!

Janice Starlin is the main character of the film and her company is starting to lose steam. Ever since she was replaced as the model for the company, people stopped using their products. The “General Audience” isn’t open to change and they want Janice to be the model once again. She may not be as young as she used to be, but beauty isn’t skin deep right? Even so, Janice wants to look younger again and seizes the opportunity when a suspicious character comes along and offers her this chance.

Janice believes the poor fellow and he begins his experiments. He answers only to her and nobody can see what he’s up to. He gives Janice injections that will help her to become younger. Janice quickly gets greedy and decides that she wants to get younger at a quicker rate. The Doctor gets into a car accident, which writes him out of the film for the most part. Janice’s coworkers start to suspect that something is up and look into the matter. They infiltrate his lab, but they usually did it one at a time. If you’ve watched horror films before, then you probably know that this isn’t a good idea.

Slowly, people begin to vanish during the night. They are not seen the next day, but their bag/clothes may still be around. It’s as if they’re still in the building, but there are no signs of a struggle. What’s happening!? Not even the night guard is able to stand against this creature. The heroes may be doomed this time.

The Wasp Woman is an intriguing villain, but she’s pretty weak. Physically she’s about as strong as the average mortal and likewise with her defense, speed, and everything else. Her strongest attack is her bite which tends to destroy her opponents in a single hit. Still, she definitely isn’t the next Godzilla! I did prefer her to the Gill Man, but that’s about it.

One thing that hurt this film was the scene involving the cat. It was supremely uncalled for and was just here to fill in the old horror cliche, where an animal always has to die. The film definitely lost a lot of points with that scene and it just wasn’t able to bounce back.

So, this film didn’t really have any great characters. Cooper wasn’t bad, but I think he tried a little too hard to be “cool”. Janice forgot the true meaning of beauty and the rest of the characters didn’t make the right moves at the right time. If you really want to watch a horror film, then check it out, but I’d definitely recommend checking out Godzilla 2000 instead. Now that’s a horror film!

Overall 2/10

Hereafter is a film that deals with the old question, “What happens when we die?” Well, as a Christian I know that I am going to Heaven and that Hell is also a real place where many will go as well. I’m not going to go to the “White Beyond”, the “Eternal Nothingness”, the “Final Slumber”, the “Next Life”, etc. So, with the basis for the film’s plot already solved before the film has begun, could it still be good? Let’s see!

There are three different plots where we see the main characters. We have George, Marcus, and Marie. Let’s go through the plots one by one and see how they fared. This way we can cover all of the bases and I will also comment on which plot was the most interesting. I will also cover which one was the least interesting and I may as well say that it wasn’t even close.

The first plot that we will go with is Marie’s. “Why?” you may ask? Well, Marie’s was the first to appear so it makes sense. After getting hit by a Tsunami, (she should have played more video games. It probably would have increased her reaction times and it may not have been such a close shave.) Marie decides to take a break from her job and write a book. (It’s too bad since the job was pretty interesting)

Unfortunately, she decides to change the complete plot of the book which leads to her being alienated from her employers. To their defense, she did change everything without their consent. I would have been pretty disappointed as well. Eventually someone picks up her book, but will people take her seriously? She believes that she saw a glimpse of what comes after death, but it’s hard to say what it was. She consults many people, but they aren’t really of any help.

Let’s go to George’s plot. His is definitely the best since it starts to delve into the realm of super powers. George has the power to communicate with the dead. This can come in handy, but it’s also a sad power since it always involves death. He doesn’t really use it for petty reasons like winning the lottery or finding out who makes the best pizza. Instead, he lets people find out what their dead relatives had to say…for a price!

George retires from this and decides to work in a factory. Unfortunately, there are the inevitable budget cuts and this isn’t a very stable way to live for the future. George goes to a cooking class, but things don’t go very well for him. (He never even gets to make a pizza!) Can George show the world that he doesn’t need his powers to be rich and famous? To be honest, there isn’t really much more to say about his plot. It was fun thanks to the super powers and the cooking part was intriguing.

Marcus had the worst subplot. He’s not even going to get 2 paragraphs for the summary! His brother is murdered, (An assisted murder is still a murder. They didn’t mean to destroy him, but that’s essentially what they did. Although we can call it an “accident” if you want) so Marcus tries to find out how he can bring him back, or at least talk to him. His foster parents are pretty cool, but he doesn’t give them a chance. His real mother appears a little towards the beginning of the plot and at the ending. If only there was a character who could talk to the dead… Why was this plot the worst? The quick answer is that I don’t really find kids entertaining to watch in the movies. I don’t know why, but they’re usually pretty boring and Marcus is no exception.

The three plots all meet up towards the end. It’s intriguing, but there’s not really a big payoff. There is a very rushed romance at the end. It definitely didn’t help the film and shouldn’t have been included. I don’t see why films feel like they need to add this. Melanie wasn’t a very good character either. Thinking about it, Neuvic was also pretty awful.

So, this is a film that was…okay. It’s a drama film that includes some romance in it so you weren’t expecting me to give it a really good score right? If you’re into the genre, then you’ll probably like it. The characters aren’t really that great and there are no noticeable music. The forced romance can be a bit much and Marcus’ subplot wasn’t that great. Personally, you’d be better off watching Kanon. That is a drama/romance that manages to cut away most of the romance and makes the drama a bit better. Did I mention that there are demons?

Overall 2/10

I believe that this is the first film of the franchise that I have reviewed. I have seen the others, but they were before my reviewing days. (And I don’t plan to re watch them, just so that I can get the reviews!) Long story short, I’m not a fan of the series and it tends to bring shame to the pirate name. (Rhyme intended!) Could this film switch things up since it would be so different? Well….let’s see.

Trying to cover the plot is usually tricky in these films. They are after the Fountain of Youth, but they spend most of the film getting caught up in the sub plots. Jack Sparrow is being impersonated (He’s the main character) by another pirate and he’s (Very) mildly upset. He tries to get his title back, but since his doesn’t have much in the way of sword skills, he may need help. He’s never been the most loyal ally to have in a fight and you can never tell what he’ll pull.

After the events of the previous film, he doesn’t have the Black Pearl and he doesn’t even have a crew. Jack Sparrow can’t really be called a Captain at this point and he’s mostly just having fun doing nothing. Blackbeard and Barbossa are around so at least we have our villains right? Well….if you can take them seriously. One of them ended up selling out while the other doesn’t make for a compelling villain. James Bond could probably defeat these guys in a fight and I’m sure you know how embarrassing that is right?

Angelica is the pirate who impersonated Jack Sparrow. Somehow this ploy actually worked since nobody has enough respect for the Captain to even remember how he looks. The Government also gets involved, but they don’t look very good for the entire film. Jack Sparrow ends up outsmarting them a lot of the time. (They did have 1 good scene where they outsmarted him though)

There’s one thing that I should mention. If you’ve seen the other films in the series, you’ll probably already know this. Still, this must be said so that all can beware. There has never been a single interesting character in the series! Every character in the whole franchise is unlikable (Monsters not included, but can be subject to the rule) and they really get on your nerves. It’s just sad how many mistakes these guys make. They wouldn’t last long in a tactical battle.

The Pirate films tend to be pretty long and this one still manages to crack the 100 minute mark. That’s not Very long right?…..you’d be surprised. They always drag on when Jack Sparrow is involved and this is not an exception. The camera can get very dark so you don’t really see what’s happening, but maybe that’s a good thing. There are less zombies and undead guys running around so there aren’t as many “Gross Out” moments in this one. On the other hand, we have the mermaids who don’t really add anything to the film.

So, what’s the verdict? I tried to make it painstakingly clear through the review, but let’s quickly go through the run down. Bad characters, Convoluted Plot, Bad Camera Work, Drags On, etc. The graphics still feel very old and this doesn’t look like a recent film. I don’t think that the series will be able to turn it around and we are going to need a reboot. To be honest, I actually preferred this one to the earlier films. That is definitely not a good thing! If you want a film with real pirates and cool action scenes, check out One Piece! You won’t regret it!!

Overall 2/10

True Grit is a call back to the old wild west days. If that didn’t start some alarms ringing in your head, then you may want to rethink that. I’ve never been a wild west person, but maybe this film could get past that. Maybe it could show me what a true wild west film should be like! Let’s see…..

The film starts out with a verse of scripture (Which is a solid way to start the film!) and then we get some narration. It appears that Tom Chaney defeated Mattie’s father and now she plans to avenge him. She mentions that everyone gets what’s coming to them at some point or other, but she’s going to take him down personally. First she needs to hire a gunman and get some money. In one of the better (but sadder) parts of the film, she negotiates with Colonel Stonehill. I liked his courage and dedication to the finer arts of negotiating, but Mattie is the protagonist, so things may not go his way. I’d say that this is where the film started going downhill. Slowly at first, but then it took a very steep nosedive towards the end.

Mattie hired a Marshall named Cogburn. They set out alongside LeBoueuf. (Who can get violent, but towards the end you’re supposed to sympathize with him because he’s a “hero”) They set off on a long trek to take down Chaney, but can they possibly catch him? Only time will tell I’m afraid.

Mattie isn’t a very good protagonist. I never liked a film to have a kid (Or in this case, very early teen) as the main character. I just can’t take the character seriously and it’s not as much fun. She has her “epic” scene at the end, but while it may have been temporarily satisfying, she should have listened to her own words. “Everyone pays for their sins” She’s all right with a gun, but she does freeze up when the going gets tough.

LeBoueuf is a pretty bad character. His opening scene is just awful and his next scene just keeps him on a spiralling track into oblivion. No matter what scenes he would get after that, it would be too late. He also tends to get taken out of a fight when things get tough.

How about Cogburn? Well, he tends to get drunk a lot and while he was a decent main character for a while, his poor treatment of his horse instantly put him on my bad list. That was just unacceptable and these characters could definitely learn a thing or two about true heroes.

Aside from Stonehill, I can’t say that I liked any characters in this film. Add to that the plethora of animal violence scattered across the film and some pretty cringe worthy scenes, this is not a film that I recommend at all. The Christian messages through the film are nice, but since the main character ignores all of them, you start to think about what the moral is. If you are squeamish about violence, you should probably avoid this film and if you like horses, then you should Definitely avoid this film. Next time you want to see something about the Wild West, check out the two part time travel episode in Justice League Unlimited. That’s the Wild West done right.

Overall 2/10

The Messengers is an intriguing title, but nobody really gets to carry the message. After Roy Solomon loses his job and the family is pretty low on cash, they decide to go live on a farm. There’s not much to do around there, but the place looks all right. It’s not my type of place since there are way too many insects and bees around the flowers, but it could be worse. Jess starts to see ghosts and human/zombie hybrids around the house, but only her kid brother seems to notice them. The ghosts start to get more and more destructive, but how can she deliver the message to her parents?

Well, this movie deals with supernatural creatures who possess reality warping abilities. It wasn’t stated, but that power seems to make the most sense based on their feats. They can wreck the place and then bring it back together, Summon Crows, and even turn the very ground into mud. Of course, while the ghosts may be super powerful…they never show it. Sure, they can attack kids, but they seem to be afraid of showing themselves to the parents. So, for all of their power, they can’t win the big battles and they tend to need some help. They were incapable of overpowering the main character (Jess) and even once someone had thrown the main villain into the mud…they couldn’t keep him in. These guys were hardly the strongest ghosts out there.

I never really liked any of the cast, but they were all right. Jess was your average teen protagonist who can see the ghosts, but can’t convince anyone. Her kid brother lost his ability to talk after a car crash. Her parents are trying to live life to its fullest on the farm, but it’s tough work since the stains on the wall never go away. A stranger whose name is John (Suspicious eh?) comes along and says something about how this would be a good opportunity for him. He decides to work for sunflowers until the main characters get enough money to pay him.

I don’t think that I would let a total stranger live on the farm, but to each his own. I think I would have been satisfied with the ghosts, but at the end there is a plot twist which makes them a little irrelevant. Or at least it makes them less frightening. I didn’t like the plot twist and it brought the film down a couple of notches along with the obligatory animal death. If you’re a fan of horror movies, then maybe you’ll enjoy this one. (I’ve never been a horror fan myself)

Overall 2/10