Tag Archives: Horror

The Village Review

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Time to take a look at The Village! This is the kind of film that you know will be bad before you actually watch it, but finding out just how bad it is ends up being your main goal. Needless to say, the film met my expectations and maybe even exceeded them in that regard. You certainly won’t be missing much if you skip this title and The Village is certainly no NYC!

The main characters all live in a small village where they are scared of the color red and dare not go near it. They bury anything of that color so that the demons won’t attack them. Unfortunately, one of their members is gravely injured towards the end of the film, but that’s actually when the main plot begins. The main character must now venture outside of the village to get some medicine from the outside world, but since she is blind…can she really defend herself against the demons? Only time will tell!

Well…there’s not a whole lot of good things to say about it. The only good thing that I can say is that the design for the villains was decently good. They certainly seemed like a bit of a threat even if they were extremely slow. So, that’s a plus. Beyond that, the film really just makes mistakes at every corner and even the plot twists are fairly predictable even if they should be. Of course, they do help to create a lot of plot holes and face palm moments.

None of the characters are likable so I should get that out of the way first. The main villain is a psycho who wants to hurt people. We’ve seen this kind of villain many times before and it’s never been enjoyable. He just brings the film down more and more. The main character is blind as I mentioned, which makes for a climax that is hard to believe. Are we really supposed to believe that she can traverse through a forest that she’s never been in before and make a multi hour journey over to the nearest town, get some supplies and find her way back home again? There’s just no way and her fight against the “demons” was also rather unbelievable.

The other villagers are all fairly slow on the uptake as they fall for multiple tricks their whole lives. Have none of them considered fighting the demons who are extremely slow and look rather old? Instead, they all hide in the basement and in the attic as if they were children. A whole village should consider defending themselves a little more than that. That being said, this is the same village whose men didn’t mind leaving a blind girl to fend for herself in a harsh environment so we shouldn’t be too surprised.

One of the main reasons why this film was so terrible was that there was also a lot of animal violence. Several animals are skinned and destroyed in very cruel ways. It’s pretty violent and just one of the many reasons why you should skip this film. It’s just distasteful and adds nothing to the film except to remind us that the villagers are all rather insane. The writing is unbelievably bad as well and none of the characters seems to have an original thought. There are so many red herrings that you begin to wonder if there is even a plot anymore.

An example of this is a security guard who throws a lot of veiled threats at one of the workers and the guard never actually appears on screen. He’s just around to intimidate the audience and try to make the film scary. The director/writers probably wanted this film to be really scary, but it ended up just being rather boring instead. At one point, the heroes all discuss their sob stories in an attempt to justify what they have been doing the whole time, but it’s just an excuse to discuss some dark happenings in the film to make the whole thing tougher to watch.

The main guy also deserves to be singled out as to how bad he was. His big scene is basically him yelling at the main girl as he tells her that he can be quiet if he wants too. It’s a terrible speech and he’s basically just being mean to her because he can. I’m glad that the romance never went anywhere as the guy was a terrible role model and makes the kids from Jurassic World look good. I miss the days when the kids were all like Arthur from the famous animated series. That guy knew what to do. The Chief of The Village condones just about anything and his final speech can’t save him. He goes for the Oscar Bait as he gives what he thinks is a heart warming speech, but it is incredibly generic and just not interesting.

The Village is the kind of film that you wouldn’t expect to get a theater release. It feels like an indie film that simply wasn’t good and is relying on the creepy factor to keep itself going. None of the characters are realistic and there’s no good scenery to look at. Forget about having a soundtrack either and I could go on and on about how bad the film was. It’s the kind of film that could almost make Sucker Punch look good. This film wasn’t even exciting or had any good action scenes and it just felt like a waste of time. Luckily, I had extremely low hopes going into the film and had a feeling that it would be something like 1 star, but it’s not always fun to be right.

Overall, Don’t watch this film. It’s time to stop mentioning all of the negatives and just wrap this up as you get the point. This review was definitely a negative one and I can’t begin to describe just how bad it was. It felt like the film dragged on forever and it continues to remind me why I’m not a fan of horror films. You could argue that this isn’t a complete horror film, but no matter what genre it was, it wouldn’t have been good. When the writing is terrible and all of the characters are unlikable, there’s really nothing that can save such a title. Go check out Terminator 2 if you want to see an epic film instead as this Village is just depressingly bad.

Overall 1/10

Still of the Night Review

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Time for a modern mystery film! The poster is quite good as it takes the classic saying and throws in a knife for good measure. The only reason why it doesn’t work is because none of the characters look particularly intimidating in that scene. Hmmmm….ah well. I appreciate the effort. This film was not quite as good as the last two that I mentioned and it never ended up rising above itself. While I get what the film was aiming for with the flashbacks…it shouldn’t have bothered.

The main character is named Sam. He is a pretty good psychiatrist, but one of his patients is murdered one day. Sam takes this personally and begins to look into the matter. A mysterious lady who says that she had an affair with the guy appears. Her name is Brooke and she works with auctions. Sam forgets that one should always stay objective in a case and falls for her right away. That’s pretty embarrassing for the guy given that she had been messing around with a married man. Doesn’t Sam know a trap when he sees one? It becomes more and more evident that she may have destroyed the guy, but isn’t that too obvious? Sam better hope so because his life continues to be in more and more danger as the cops suspect that Sam’s days are numbered.

I almost chuckled when I googled this film to grab the names and saw that it said PG on the right. This film got a PG….really? You can tell that the Indiana Jones film was needed as the days before the PG-13 rating were certainly scary.The film isn’t that violent, but the Teddy Bear scene alone would make it PG-13 and that’s before the film becomes a horror thriller when the girl appears with the knife. Even the fact that there are flashbacks with a terrible character would make it PG-13 for all of the insanity that he is spewing.

As I’ve essentially established, I didn’t care for Sam. Going for someone who’s already been in a pretty bad affair is not the way to start a romance. Later on, we find out that she was calling it off, but it’s still a bit much and Sam didn’t know that for a while. Sam is also not the bravest action hero that I’ve seen recently. His life is at stake of course so he should be nervous, but going to the laundry room in the creepy basement at life is not the greatest of moves. Even if my life was not threatened, I wouldn’t be doing something like that.

Then, Sam also went to Central Park at night and was nearly destroyed by a random mugger. Again, that wasn’t his best move and the mugger wasn’t even that tough as he was easily defeated a few minutes later. I don’t see how the guy wouldn’t hear the heels getting close to him so he evidently lost in what must have been close to a fair fight. Sam just took too many risks in solving the mystery. I definitely couldn’t get behind him.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for Brooke. The beginning really destroyed her chances of being likable. Especially when you consider that she was hanging out with a guy who seemed to not exactly be a nice guy. She also didn’t help make herself less suspicious since Brooke was constantly acting a little shady and it’s easy to picture her destroying the guy. There are several times when she is following Sam and acting very suspicious so that you can think that she did it. But…did she do it? That’s the question!

No matter who the main villain was, Sam didn’t look too good at the end. He forgets to lock his car door and his reflexes and hearing are pretty bad. You’ll know where the scene is going as soon as there is some rustling in the backseat and it’s hard to even feel bad for Sam. Why would he not notice someone in his car? Definitely not a great move on his part and you’ll just be facepalming as it goes from bad to worse when he makes his last appearance. He basically just yells “Stop!” without making a move. I wonder if the villain will decide to stop…

The film certainly has a lot of misdirection as it tries to make everyone seem pretty imposing and scary so that Sam is unsure of who to trust. The scene with the laundry was a perfect example of this and it was also quite iffy. Someone was certainly messing around down there so were they doing it as a prank or were there ghosts in the machines? I prefer to think that it’s the latter, but you never can tell sometimes.

One reason why the film is not so good is naturally the romance between the two leads as it makes them look pretty bad. The dream also had something to do with it as the Teddy Bear getting injured was completely unnecessary. That was an example of the film just trying to be gritty for the lolz. That was pretty not cool and the film quickly turns into a horror for the climax as the heroes nearly don’t make it.

Still, that’s not really enough to break the film down to a 3 is it? No, the final piece in the puzzle is the flashback scenes with the guy who died. The film is trying to be deep and have a lot of layers by adding in this feature, but it was better off without it. We quickly learn that the guy was a pretty bad individual and almost all of his lines will just make you cringe. It’s easy to see how this guy was murdered and his speeches just bring down the overall quality of the film. His lines give us some hints as to who got him of course, but we could have found out that intel another way.

Did I mention that the cops also don’t look too good? The Detective starts to get onto the trail of the villains so he is quickly taken out of the picture. I suppose that he never had any proper combat training as he was taken down so quickly that it ended up being off screen. Yeah….that’s not cool. He was around a lot, but he never really got anything done.

Overall, Still of the Night is a film that took a lot of wide turns and didn’t succeed. While it started out as your average mystery film, the ending decided to play out like a horror film as the villain moved in with the knife all Jason Voorhees style and started to cut the cast down to size. It was handled decently although the protagonists IQs started to drop as the scenes went on. The film was simply riddled with too many problems along the way like the romance, the flashbacks, and the Dream. The Dream was totally unnecessary and we had to see it more than once. Not cool! There’s also something about the actual film that will keep it from catching your attention. Perhaps it is the characters as they definitely do not grab you. If you’re looking for a good thriller, horror, or mystery film, you can do better. This one is better left at Blockbuster this time.

Overall 3/10

The Woman in Black 2 Angel of Death Review

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All right, it is time to see the sequel to the Woman in Black. While I do like the saying about not judging a book by its cover…you often can. There are some movies where you know that they will not be good and vice versa. It would take something rather dramatic for me to dislike Age of Ultron and the trailer for something like Mad Max would have to be extremely misleading for me to believe that it is good. These things aren’t set in stone, but I have a fairly good idea of what to expect before I head in. This film essentially met my expectations so my gut instinct was right on this one.

Well, this may be the second film, but it is actually a prequel. That’s fairly disappointing I suppose since it is always preferable to look to the future as the plot can advance. After all, we basically know the ending thanks to the plot twist about the swamp in the first film right? Well, the backstory was only lightly touched upon so you still may not guess the ending although you will certainly predict the twist. Now, let’s really talk about the plot.

Eve is the main character and she heads to a mysterious house along with a group of orphans/kids who need protecting. World War II is raging on after all so the heroes have to get to safety. Eve is not the headmistress, but she helps out along with the leader. The house seems to be evil and strange occurrences like moving doors and sounds start to happen, but the main characters try to tune this out. The area is strategically sound as the rising tide makes it impossible to approach the house during most parts of the day unless you have a boat. That being said, someone appears to have infiltrated the island and wanders from tree to tree! Uh oh…can Eve defeat The Woman in Black?

When was the last time that you sneezed when watching a film. Was it when Lex Luthor kicked Superman down a flight of stairs or when Godzilla was crushed by Mothra many years ago? You may get in a few sneezes here as The Woman In Black tries to make her presence known while also being vague. The film is short as it is nowhere near 2 hours so there isn’t a lot of time for the villains to do anything. A surprisingly large amount of time is just given for the heroes to wander about and wonder what they are going to do. Still, when the Woman in Black does arrive…she is not very impressive. Evidently, she can roar and scream, but she can’t do anything else. She doesn’t display any level of super strength and the heroes could likely beat her in a fight if they actually tried. The problem is that the characters always run away from her instead of trying to do anything. The main guy actually backs away when he sees one of the possessed kids. Dude…it…he..is still a kid!

Harry is the main guy and he doesn’t look very good. He’s a decent character and he means well, but the sob story just came out of the blue. He needed one though to fit the film. In this kind of film, everyone has something that they wish to hide or a dark past that has yet to be explored. It happens almost every time. At least he went out like a man and had a decent ending even though he should have been able to put up a better fight. At least he made the right call,

Eve is fairly generic for a lead, but she does try her best to do the right thing. There’s certainly no real negative things to say about her. The romance is rather rushed, unnecessary, and also generic, but she can only claim half of the blame for that. She locked the door and warned everyone about the supernatural so Eve was a lot more helpful than the rest of the cast. Naturally, this did make her a bit of a target. The villains can’t have any of that!

As per usual, the horror films love to give demons a whole lot of props. They can possess you and totally override your free will. It is a little sad as hollywood is brainwashing us into looking at only half of the equation. Demons are real, but their power is greatly exaggerated. Don’t underestimate how lethal they can be, but they are certainly not all powerful. In this film, the humans have no chance against them. The demons are basically just toying with the heroes for as long as they can and the twist ending basically solidifies this.

As per usual, we have a twist ending. I have grown to expect them in horror films and they are needed since every film should have a twist ending. That being said, it is handled in a very generic way as everyone knew what to expect. Seriously….there was no other way that the ending was going to be handled at that point. A more subtle twist like the Woman in Black growing wings and shooting energy blasts would have been nice, but this is better than nothing I suppose.

Some films like to start off with an epic intro while others prefer to start off on a low note. Unfortunately, this film had some brief animal violence to start things off. A lamb/sheep got caught on the fence, which injured it. This wasn’t a terrible moment of animal violence, but it was completely unnecessary and did nothing to help the film. I don’t know whose idea it was to add this animal, but it was certainly a terrible one.

It is also unfortunate that there are kids in this film. Seeing the demons basically force them to destroy themselves was very bad. It is one of the things that will always hurt a film. Keep the children out of it and just give us unlikable characters to defeat instead. This just makes the film not enjoyable to watch and one of the reasons that it wouldn’t be able to succeed. There’s also a crazy, blind guy who is really only here to give us some more jump scenes. I don’t think there was a point to adding him and there aren’t supposed to be other people in the area. This guy is definitely a security risk if I ever saw one.

So, the film played out as it would be expected to. There is a monster/demon who is running around trying to wreck lives and turn the heroes against each other. We have animal violence and the humans are helpless against these forces . It doesn’t make for a very engaging film and nothing ends up happening. The heroes basically just stayed at the house for a while and eventually left. If nothing else, prequels are supposed to serve a purpose and I didn’t see one here. We could have not made the prequel and literally nothing would change. If you’re looking for development for the Woman in Black, you’re not going to find anything new here. It is basically just the same rambling from the 1st film.

Overall, The Woman In Black 2 is a film that I wouldn’t recommend. It suffers from the typical problems of the horror genre and there’s ultimately no point to it. We don’t learn any new data so the prequel may have not even come out. Actually, a mild correction there. This is actually still a sequel and takes place 40 years after the 1st one. Wow…you would never guess that and this is actually the biggest twist that the film series could have given me. In a way..the writers deserve some praise for this. The film isn’t fun and the only kudos that I could give it is the fact that the film’s ending is slightly happier than you may have expected. I thought that the whole cast would just drown or something, but the actual ending is much better. We also get the twist ending, which hints that everyone is doomed, but maybe they’ll be okay. If you want a scary film, check out Justice League Starcrossed as the Earth gets invaded. Can the heroes win!?

Overall 2/10

Unbreakable Review

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It’s time to look at a superhero film that doesn’t involve good ole DC or Marvel. Naturally, that can be a little dicey at times since we don’t have the tried and true Stan Lee to ensure that character development goes well. Unfortunately, my fears were realized as the film quickly crashed once the superhero element began. Seriously, the film was good for over 60% of its run time, but then everything went downhill from there!

David works as a security guard and he’s pretty good at his job. One day, he is approached by Elijah, a man who claims that David may have the uncanny ability of being unbreakable. David cannot get sick and Elijah is on the opposite end of the spectrum as his bones break at the slightest touch. David is intrigued, but he doesn’t know what to do about all this. Ah well, he has about an hour-90 minutes to decide where he goes from here.

All right, here’s why the superhero part failed. The film decided to go for grit and darkness instead of actually providing us with a real threat. David can see the past, which is one of the worst powers that you can think of since he will know that things have happened to people, but he can’t stop them. Conveniently, he sees a problem that he can still help with, but the damage has been done and that’s why the film sunk. The film showed us a bunch of grim happenings that happened to the characters around the lead and there’s no need for it. Assault, Rape, Murder, you basically see all of that and the main character can’t do anything about this. As far as I am concerned, that destroyed any chance that the film had of being even somewhat decent.

David attacks the murderer and defeats him, but the film didn’t need to show us the other situations. If they had to display his ability to see the past, they should have just showed us people stealing jewels or robbing a hot dog stand. Minor crimes would give us the same image without just being dark to be dark. It’s a lesson that more films could definitely learn if they want to succeed the way that Bonds Beyond Time did.

The final fight is actually pretty humorous because of how it happens. Let’s just say that it’s hard to know what the director was going for here. David has been shown to be able to bench press over 350 pounds so we know that he has some degree of super strength. And yet…he can barely take out the average thug. He gets the guy into a choke hold and then they wrestle for an awkward 5-10 minutes. The guy simply won’t go down and David looks extremely unimpressive. Naturally, David decides not to take any prisoners so he pulls a Man of Steel on us. Yeah, this guy’s going to end up being more like the Punisher than a real hero at this rate. He also lost round 1 when he was simply pushed into a pool.

Again, every bit of the superhero part of this film was pretty bad, but it was actually good before that. Elijah’s backstory was pretty sad, but we got to see him make it through that in one piece and own an art gallery. He was pretty unreasonable, but the scene of him defending comics as actual art was pretty funny. Elijah was a decent character for a while. The ending makes him very unlikable of course and the way that he trashed the comic store was completely uncalled for. So, he had his moments in the film, but he could have been better. Considering his condition, he shouldn’t be much of a threat to David.

As for David, I guess he’s a decent character although he’s rather slow on the uptake at times. He just spends a lot of time dragging things out and being rather indecisive. I find it hard to believe that he simply forgot about his past. You don’t really forget events like that and how has he never realized that he had super strength? A bit of a stretch in those areas, but he tries to be a nice guy. The main outlier is the opening scene where David decides to flirt and hides his wedding band. That made him pretty despicable. For most of the film, he’s certainly not a bad character, but you can’t easily forget such a scene. David gets some development later on, which possibly counteracts the scene. Hopefuly..he just needs to work on improving himself a bit. That shouldn’t be a problem. Once he is used to being a hero, maybe he’ll remember that you have to be heroic and take the villains to the authorities to qualify.

David’s kid is a pretty annoying character I’m afraid and he shows why kids should never be main or supporting characters in any films. His decision to shoot David to prove that he was a superhero is pretty crazy and he should know that with great super strength doesn’t always come great durability. The kid certainly hasn’t been keeping up with the comics even though he owns some action figures. There was an odd romance going on between David and the heroine, but it didn’t have a place in the film and it makes you wonder what the point of it all was. They are already married so that subplot could have just been terminated before it even began.

The film isn’t great with pacing. There are many points in the film where it is clearly stalling to inflate the run time. This film could have easily happened in closer to 70 minutes as we have almost half an hour of fluff. David just thinking or other characters standing still and waiting to be blown away. The film needed to move a little quicker and show us that there was still a point to all of this. The problem is that there isn’t much to the plot if they played it straight. It was a little convenient how the characters found out about David’s weakness and it would have been more natural if they hadn’t found out until he fell in the pool. It would have been a big “Connect the dots” moment and more of a shocker that way. Not really a negative though, just a different path that it could have taken.

Overall, Unbreakable is a classic example of what happens to a film without an end goal in mind. Once David became a superhero, the film fell apart very quickly. If it had just stuck to being a suspense thriller, it really could have gone far. As it stands, you are better off checking out Man of Steel or the Avengers. Those superhero films are always ready for action and they will inspire you to see other superhero films while this one can just make you avoid them. I can’t say that I would hold out much hope for a sequel being good, but you never know. Either way, the next time you want something that is unbreakable, I recommend buying some Jaw Breakers! (Disclaimer, those candies are choking hazards and are as tough to chew as they are delicious to eat)

Overall 2/10

Dracula Untold Review

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It’s time to check out a film with vampires in it! That’s typically a bad sign for me to be honest since vampires = blood sucking which = instant loss. Luckily, that doesn’t really happen much until the end of the film, which is a big plus. It’s still filled with enough negatives to fill a bowl of mashed potatoes, but it’s a start and a franchise with this film at the center could be pretty decent. It should also be noted that the poster for this film is pretty incredible!

Dracula grew up as a nice guy until he was sold to the villains. He helped them destroy hundreds/thousands of opponents and then left to rule his homeland. Well, the villains are back and they want most of the youth along with Dracula’s son. Dracula quickly slays the minions who report this and prepares for war. If he is to beat an army, he will need some extra power! (Especially since Dracula’s allies are extremely weak) Dracula heads to a mountain where an old vampire gives him vampire abilities. This is how the legend of Dracula begins! The change will not be permanent if Dracula can resist the urge of blood for 3 days. Can he really win the war in that time? Let’s hope so!

Considering that this film is about Dracula, I think it’s safe to say that we know the answer to that last question. Still, he tries pretty hard not to give in to the temptation and he certainly had the potential to win the war in 3 days. His strength and speed were greatly enhanced and this could be one of the strongest incarnations of Dracula that we have seen. He can manipulate the weather and his super speed allows him to take down dozens of opponents in an instant. That is certainly a feat that one can respect.

All right, let’s go into the negatives before we look at the rest of the film. It was teetering on the edge between 3-4 stars, but one area ended up plunging it down. I nearly forgot about it at first, but the film has quite a few romance scenes that do not age well. The film isn’t that old, but the writers may already realize the problem here. There’s no point to the scenes with Dracula and his wife as they don’t impact the plot. It’s also not a good or developed romance as they just make out with each other for no reason. That’s the kind of romance that will hurt any film and this one is no exception.

The next negative would be the classic animal violence part. A dog is attacked in the background. Again…there is no reason for this! We also watch as a spider catches his prey and there’s no need for this as well. Unfortunately, this is where we get to the blood sucking part and it’s no better than usual. It’s pretty gross to see Dracula drink the blood from a cup from the get go, but it’s even worse once he starts to bite his opponents and steal their strength. Dracula even goes as far as to bite someone who was already dying for his extra bit of power. His excessive biting eventually backfires on him, but he really over did it.

The fight scenes were better than anticipated at first. Dracula was finishing everyone off, but it wasn’t in an unnecessarily gritty/violent way. That changed for the climax as it went all Lord of the Rings/Prince Caspian on us. The heroes were biting all of the villains that they could find and then we remembered that there were no more heroes. They were all gone or corrupted by this point. The film definitely lost steam by the end.

Still, the film does end on a great note. Not just a good note, but a great one as we see the true potential of this new universe. The ending involves a certain character in the modern world. A necessary step if we are to have a shared universe after all and then we see the big villain. Presumably, he shall be the big threat in the first crossover film. He states that the games will now begin and you can’t help but feel excited for what may come next. There appears to be a war between two immortal figures. We know that one of them is the old vampire and he has already recruited Dracula to his side. (Dracula has no choice in the matter) I’m speculating that Imhotep is the other one and maybe he’ll recruit a Werewolf or Frankenstein. Then we’ll have the biggest fight on our hands since Batman vs Superman! Of course, we need the shared universe to really start if that’s to happen so they’re going to need to hurry with that. If they back off now, that’ll be sad for the fans!

There’s not much of a soundtrack to be found here I’m afraid. The effects are decently good and it’s fun to see Dracula in his bat form. How likable is Dracula as a character? He’s actually good for a while and I can sympathize with his desire to protect his people at any price. That being said, he should have easily ended the war right away. When it was night time, he should have headed straight for the opposing king after messing up the enemies. He also could have done a better job commanding the troops and letting them know of his abilities so that others could not spoil the opportunity for him. It’s pretty terrible that the people were so scared of him when they found out, but that’s the casual observers for you. They simply were not ready. Dracula was also very powerful before he became a vampire, which was certainly a welcome twist. He made the right decision when he didn’t hand over his son.

The final battle between Dracula and the human is riddled with plot hax all around, but the important thing is that he still won. The film had to make the clash dramatic somehow, but they should have simply thought of another way. I’m sure they could have made it a little more believable if they really put their mind to it. It was interesting to see the main villain because he looks a lot like Howard Stark from Agent Carter. I couldn’t help but think of the guy whenever the villain appeared so it was always humorous to see him. The characters are stark contrasts of each other after all.

There’s not much of a cast here though since almost all of the other characters don’t actually get any personality. They’re just here to talk big or to lose dramatically. The ending proves that none of them have any strength of will and most of the heroes are traitors anyway. The only one Dracula can count on is himself. There’s an odd guy who follows Dracula around and wants to be his servant. The guy just didn’t make any sense as he wanted to help Dracula one moment and destroy him the next. He seriously needed to make up his mind!

I give the film some props for its mention of Heaven considering how much Hell is discussed. Dracula says something along the lines of “Now that I know Hell is real, I know Heaven exists as well” when a certain someone dies. The Cross also continues to have power over the vampires once they have consumed human blood. It’s always good to see those influences here since horror films tend to only show you half of the equation. It’s not much, but it’s a start!

Overall, Dracula Untold suffered from the negatives that follow just about any vampire film, but it did have some enjoyable moments. The ending really leaves it with a lot of potential for a good sequel and the film did a good job of making Dracula more likable and sympathetic than usual. Unfortunately, the romance, animal violence, and blood sucking ensure that I cannot recommend this film. If you want to see a good horror film that doesn’t even try to take itself seriously, go check out Scooby Doo Frankencreepy. If you want to see something with Dracula in it, I recommend waiting for the (possible) sequel or maybe checking out The Batman vs Dracula if you’re feeling bold. Finally, I know you have one more question. Could Dracula defeat the Avengers? The sad answer is…yes…yes he could. At least, the movie versions, but we’ll see if I still think this once Age of Ultron comes out!!!

Overall 3/10

The Happening Review

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This review is of the edited TV PG version. All thoughts below pertain to such even if I reference the fact that it was not originally PG. Know that a review of the uncut version would likely be harsher and have a lower score.
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It’s time to check out the next horror film…The Happening! Many of you have probably heard of this film. I probably saw the title at some point, but I wasn’t very into the world of films at the time so I missed out on most of the titles. Still, it has a reputation of not being so great and I can safely say that the reputation is deserved. It’s essentially your average horror film and there are no real original or creative scenes to be found here. It relies on the driving power of its shock value scenes and that’s never a recipe for success.

One day, a large group of people decide to destroy themselves. Scientists believe that this is an attack from terrorists and they try to calm the people, but it is too late. These attacks are spreading across the country and even manage to take out New Jersey and New York. This just got very personal and Elliott quickly dashes onto a train so that he can get out of Philadelphia. The problem is that no state in the US is safe…perhaps no place in the world! Are these isolates incidents at all of the big parks and small towns really the work of terrorists or is it something more…environmental?

Hmmm…makes you think a little eh? This is the kind of film that I would consider to be a slasher even if we don’t have a Jason or a Freddy running around. It feels like a Slasher in the sense that everyone dies in brutal ways as the cast is offed one by one. So, nobody’s destroying them, but you almost get the same effect. There are so many shock value scenes that you will just be trying to figure out how it’s all going to end. Who will be the last survivor and who will end up being the victor. That’s what we’ll really have to think about here.

To an extent, I still do give horror films some credit in that area. The plot does tend to be pretty interesting. I can’t argue against that. Whether it be Resident Evil or The Fog, the plot is typically pretty engaging. It’s just ruined by all of the over the top violence, typical fanservice, language, and any other factors that you can think of. There’s essentially no fanservice here so we can at least rule that out…but not the other two. The language is certainly around since it’s a go to for the average horror writer.

As for the violence part….oh yeah. It’s definitely there! The version that I saw was pretty good with cutting most of it out, but based on where the screen ends, you can definitely see why it would be so intense. The mower scene was probably the grittiest, but most of the big ends try to give it some competition. Even kids are not safe from guns, which is another line that the average film won’t cross. That wasn’t to be here, even if the kids were being real awful about the whole thing. Talk about asking to get shot, those kids were trying to put the people inside of the cabin in danger just so they could get some food/water. It’s the end of the world….they should have realized the danger.

All right guys, I think it’s time to mention what the cause of all this is. It’s actually obvious right from the start since this film lacks subtlety anyway. So…it is….the….plants. See, the plants are tired of the humans messing around with the planet so they are going to emit some poisons all around the world that switch our preservation switches so that we have an instinct to die instead of to live. In theory, that’s actually possible for some kind of bio weapon in the future, but for the planets….hehehehehehehe. But this is a film so I suppose that we’ll cut it some slack in that department. Still, how can you fight plants? The easy answer is that you really can’t. Even if we could somehow destroy all of them, we would be left with no air to breathe since you learn about the whole carbon dioxide equation back in 1st grade.

It’s game over for the humans, but it still makes for an interesting tale. Also, perhaps the writer knew that the audience would figure out the main villain right away so he throws a ton of red herrings. We have a mysterious plot where the bees flew away. None of the other animals are effected…only the bees. Next, the heroes head into a house that is deserted and filled with fake things. Sort of like the prop you would see in a nuclear testing site. Maybe the government really is involved! There’s also an odd lady who barely appears to be human and she makes no sense. What is she? These things are all just here to mess with you and it’s best to just tune them out all together.

The main way to save yourself is to make sure that you don’t travel in groups. If there are too many humans in one place, then the flowers activate their toxins. There’s not much of a rhyme or reason to the attacks since they’re incredibly sporadic, but it’s nice to know that they care. The plants shall protect the planet…..in theory.

There’s not much of a soundtrack, but it actually does get very ominous at some points. It reminds me of a documentary that I saw about Monsanto a while back. The directors know that you’ll realize something is up if they don’t distract you so they throw in the music to stop you in your tracks. It’s rather ingenious and at least the themes give it an edge over the average horror film.

As for the characters, most of them aren’t very likable, but we have some decent ones. The main guy actually isn’t bad. He seems like a pretty likable professor and he’s certainly interested in the work that he is doing. He takes the situation in stride for the most part and he’s pretty forgiving of the main heroine. She…was not quite as good. She’s very quiet and sullen the whole time and we know that she is having some kind of argument with the main lead, but the film never really goes into that so it’s hard to pick one side over the other. Meanwhile, the main character’s friend is a math whiz who makes all of the wrong choices. His wife went all the way over to NJ to buy a backpack after the attacks had already started. Not a good move and the friend naturally went to help, but he didn’t last long. The daughter stayed with the main heroes and she wasn’t the best either, but she’s here to show us that we wouldn’t last 5 minutes in an apocalyptic future. That’s nice for the film….but I still like to think that in times of trouble we will all become Eren Jaegers and simply adapt, crack, adapt, crack, and keep going through the cycle until our minds really do burst.

One of the supporting characters loves hot dogs and it’s nice to know that he’s ready for the adventure, but he has no point in this film so you can certainly just forget about him and it won’t really affect the film. That’s about it as far as the big characters go. I liked the Cop and the main character. Beyond that….the rest of the cast could not rise above mediocrity. It’s a shame, but it’s just how it goes. Even the train drivers weren’t great as they decided to be randomly vague the whole time instead of just letting everyone know that they were toast. Staying in the train may have actually been a wise decision…so we can’t have any of that!

We can’t forget that the film has a twist ending. You’ll see it coming from a mile away, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty intense. All horror films need twists, I’m almost convinced of this fact at this point. If the film’s going to get a low score anyway, might as well end it in a way that will have people talking about the title for a long time right? It’s a sound strategy and I was glad that the guy on TV now has a solid case. People wouldn’t believe him unless more attacks occurred right? Time for this guy to put them in their place. (His smug attitude quickly made him the best character in the film although the guy he was debating would probably rank in 2nd)

Overall, by all accounts, the Happening could have been a decent film. It’s interesting, has a good plot, and the lead is actually likable. The main problem is that it decides to be edgy for the lolz. According to the super reputable site known as Wikipedia, it was even advertised for being the writer’s first R film. You can see why they threw in so many intense death scenes and sprinkled in the language for good measure. This film could easily have been PG 13 and you could have even made it PG without taking away any critical scenes. It just goes to show that some writers can handle the pressures of making a good horror film while others cannot. Instead of checking this title out, I recommend watching The Avengers (2012) to see a survival film where humanity must unite to fight off the big aliens! That’s a film with a good script and some nice writing techniques.

Overall 3/10

Spawn Review

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It’s time for a triple horror review on the blog. Not in one post of course, but I’ll be posting them consecutively as I get to work on the film backlog. The third film review isn’t technically horror, but it’s a tragedy, which shares many of the same qualities as a horror. Why not right? All right, back to Spawn! This is one of those films that had an incredible premise, an awesome poster, and yet you knew that it wouldn’t be a very good film. Probably not even a good one. Well, your fears were well founded as this title shows why it will always be known as one of the weaker superhero films.

Al worked as a hit man of sorts for a shady company. He took out threats to the country in secrecy. One day he finally realized just how much collateral damage he was dealing to the outside world during this chaos and decided to fight back. He told his boss that he would quit so the boss had his replacement shoot him with more holes than a chunk of Swiss Cheese. The joke was on the boss though as Al was sent back to Earth from Hell so that he could lead the demon’s army against Earth. No worries though, the demons will allow Al to get his vengeance first!

It’s hard to know where to start first for a film like this one so let’s just look at things from the demon’s point of view first. After all, his plan doesn’t make a great deal of sense. For starters, why did Al have to lose his memory of the deal that he made in Hell when he went back to Earth? If not for the clown, AKA, The Violator, he would not have known to lead the armies anyway. Al was incredibly mixed up for a great chunk of the film and it felt like the villains almost didn’t care. That was rather sloppy and if Al has retained his memories from the start, he may have stayed on the path of darkness. Their loss I suppose.

One of the big weaknesses of this film is the..crude humor! Trust me, that’s the last thing that you want to see in a super hero film that’s supposed to be really dark and gritty. A little crude humor doesn’t tend to phase me, but it was extremely over the top and very cringe worthy. The scene where the clown bites into a certain slice of pizza is really what did it for me and you really will feel like losing your lunch. If the film was trying to be original, it may have succeeded, but certainly not in a good way.

The clown is also an example of another poor character. All of his scenes are pretty bad and some of his lines are pretty terrible. His threats to Al may be pretty personal, but it just makes him a rather despicable villain, not a likable one. You will certainly be pulling for Spawn to take him down already. The Clown also isn’t an incredibly impressive fighter, it’s just that Spawn isn’t very strong here. He definitely has a lot of work to do if he wishes to master his abilities. I could have definitely preferred another sidekick to help Spawn instead of this guy.

Okay, let’s back up a bit and look at some of the film’s pros. Spawn is a pretty likable character. It’s good that he wanted to get out of the shady business and he ultimately decides to act in the name of justice over being an emissary from Hell. Given his circumstances, it certainly shows a lot of willpower. In the hands of a better writer, he could have been a great protagonist. As it stands, he was simply a good one. He did make all of the right choices after all. Spawn can be rather slow on the uptake and it takes him a very long time to even think of using some of his abilities, but he would likely have been much more powerful in the sequel. A shame that we’ll never get one for this film…..or not.

Another big positive is the soundtrack. It’s easily one of the greatest comic book soundtracks of all time. I definitely prefer the instrumental themes though since that’s where all of the real action is at. The rock/metal themes really get your heart pumping and you’ll be ready to see what kind of action scenes they throw at you. I haven’t heard a film with fight themes like this since Mortal Kombat and Man of Steel! (Man of Steel had one good battle theme anyway!)

I can’t really complain about the fights either. They holds up pretty well. Spawn’s fight with the Violator will remind you of Spidey’s recent clash against the Lizard in TASM while Spawn’s epic fight against the master demon is something that is very original. Most of the fight is in CGI, which actually works quite well since it looks like a video game. I was loving every second of that fight and Spawn definitely got some good durability feats as he was constantly slammed to the ground and kept on getting back up. He also used his spikes to impale dozens of villains at once, which is something that he’ll get better at as the years go forward. Even Spawn’s quick spar against his replacement is pretty intense. The fight reminded me of Resident Evil…only less graphically intense, which was neat. Spawn definitely knew what it was doing in the action category.

All righty, back to the negatives. So far, this probably sounds like a 5-6 right? Well, we’re bumping it down 2-3 spots from that so we need to figure out why. Wait for it….waiiiiit for it….Animal Violence. Talk about adding insult to injury right? A dog gets punches by the big villain and we see him limping in his next appearance. That’s simply inexcusable and you’ll want to exit the room right after this happens. It really had no place in the film and I don’t see why they would add this. It made things more personal of course, but how much more personal does this have to get before Spawn unlocks his true powers?

Beyond that, the film is pretty tame violence wise compared to what you may expect. Granted, they may have edited out some of the violence on TV, but usually the language is what gets hit the hardest. So, I didn’t find the violence to be that bad. There isn’t really any romance although one of the plots also seems a little crazy. So, Al’s wife moves on to his best friend after he vanished. Really? Sure, he may have been dead, but that’s an incredibly low blow and especially after she said that she would be with him forever. It’s why you’ve always got to be careful before you fall into the romance trap. I’m still glad that it didn’t get more screen time since that could have been dicey.

Another reason why this film simply wasn’t that good is some scenes can drag a bit. The main example of this is when Spawn first returns to the world. He can’t talk so we just see him crawling and walking around as he has no clue what he should do. It’s pretty painful to watch the scenes as the Clown gets to mess with him for a while. I want to see Spawn verbally debating the pros and cons of fighting with a neat cloak, not getting thrown into an alley to get some more sleep!

I think we’ve mostly established why this is a film of missed opportunities. One more thing that needs to be mentioned is the ally who lends his strength to Spawn. This guy pops up out of nowhere and he has some connection to Hell or Heaven. It’s all very vague and he silently threatens to kill Spawn at one point before just joining him into the fray. He looks decent when it comes down to a fight, but he’s also pretty old so he can’t last very long in the heat of battle. He got his moments I suppose, but he really needed some actual character. One minute he’s basically telling Spawn to let his revenge go and then encouraging him to tackle the human villain in the next scene.

Overall, Spawn is a dicey experience. Some scenes can certainly be funny and it actually does work as more of a comedy than a horror. That being said, it goes too far in too many different ways to really be a good film. The animal violence, crude humor, and unnecessary scenes/lines keep it from being the kind of film that you will want to rewatch. The costumes and effects are way ahead of its time, but a film can’t get a good score on good looks. If it could, then I’d expect TASM2 (Electro vs Spidey) to have better scores than most other films. The video game is probably much better than the film, but I can’t really vouch for that. Either way, this is a film that you will want to skip and you’ll be better off watching the first Ghost Rider. It really outranks this title in just about every way.

Overall 3/10

Hellboy Seeds of Destruction Review

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I’ve seen both of the Hellboy films, but I had not read any of his comics before now. I had to change that and now I can safely say that I have delved into the comics where it all began. Hellboy’s a good action title so far and we can be sure that he’ll face off with a lot of demonic beings before the day is over.

This comic naturally goes over Hellboy’s origin a little. The Nazi’s summoned him during World War II, but the allies found him first and trained him to be a hero. Hellboy joined a group of other supernatural fighters and he now aids them in the war against crime. It’s been 30 years, but the villains are still around. The main plot is about a family who constantly climbs a mountain in the hopes of getting rich. For 9 generations they have kept on trying to reach the top, but they continue to fail and all who travel the mountain eventually die. Hellboy’s father figure was the latest casualty in this quest so Hellboy and his team go to the family’s mansion to investigate. They may run into more trouble than they bargained for when they realize that an evil group is around..the same one from Hellboy’s origin!

This is the first volume in the Hellboy comics so we’re still in the process of getting used to the cast. Hellboy’s allies from the films to get a role, but we mostly only get to know about them through Hellboy’s exposition since they tend to get knocked out of the fight pretty quickly. Abe is a water fighter who can breathe under it. This makes him a good ally to have for tactical missions and he appears to be the smartest member of the group. That being said, he’s not much of a fighter and he doesn’t get much of a role here. He seems like a good character although he’s not particularly interesting.

Liz gets a lot of hype as her fire abilities have not been fully explored yet. It seems like nobody can fully contain them at the moment so she has to always be careful not to cut loose. She is knocked out fairly early on in the story so it’s hard to comment on how likable she is, but Liz is decent for now. As with Abe, she doesn’t have a lot of character development and I’m worried that she will be all hype and no action, but she does have good reason to be confident considering that her abilities are easily the most impressive out of all the heroes around.

Hellboy is the lead, but I would argue that he is not the strongest. He has basic super strength and his right arm is impervious to pain. This means that he is definitely stronger than the average human, but he is only as strong as the average monster of that size. He’s pretty experienced and he always seems to have a plan. His narration can sometimes differ with that thought, but at least he never gives up. He’s pretty likable and easily the best character in the volume. It’s always good for the main character to end up being the most likable one because he/she is guaranteed to have a lot of screen time. Hellboy gets into quite a few close shaves, but that’s why he has allies to back him up right?

The villains didn’t seem to have thought things over very carefully. There is one main villain here and he’s the guy who summoned Hellboy in the first place. Since Hellboy will not comply with his demands, he will have to force him to use his right arm for something. The guy has summoned the legendary monsters and his plans are vague, but deadly for the planet. He talks a very good game as he admits that he could wipe Hellboy out if he chose to do so. Little did he know that he should have held nothing back since it comes back to bite him.

The art is on the grim side to fit the tone of the volume. That being said, it’s not meta at all, which is always a good thing. It’s not quite as polished as what you tend to see in today’s Marvel/DC comics, but it still looks good overall and doesn’t hold the series back. Hellboy’s red design certainly stands out here since there isn’t a lot of color to be found. It’s an art style that you may find nostalgic or associate with some comics from back in the day. It’s a little similar to the Hawkeye/Daredevil series, but not nearly as cartoony or undetailed, which is a good thing.

This series definitely has a lot of text in it and it works in some ways while hurting it in others. On one hand, I like the fact that Hellboy is constantly thinking. His thought bubbles can certainly be amusing and it lets you get to know the character better than if he didn’t think that much. On the other hand, the series does have a lot of exposition and I think some of it could have probably been cut out. At the very least, I would have liked to have made the text a little bigger so that it would be a little easier to read.

The main reason why this volume ultimately didn’t crack a 7 is just because it didn’t have enough popcorn entertainment or interesting characters needed to make it reach the next level. A 6 still means that it’s good, but that I simply have some more reservations than the average 7. For example, this comic likely wouldn’t have a whole lot of replay value compared to the average superhero adventure. As the series goes on and the characters get more likable, it could easily rise up to 7 status. Due to the dark atmosphere of the series, the writer/artist will still have to be careful to keep the atmosphere as it is without going too far. I’m sure that the series can pull it off though and hopefully we’ll see more cool monsters for Hellboy to fight.

I’m not sure if the series will keep the mystery aspect that this volume had, but hopefully it will. A good mystery can always make a comic more exciting and mixing action with mystery is brilliant. Why do you think Batman is so popular? This was a good start and the series should stay episodic for a little bit so that we can really see how the agency fares against everyday threats. After that, then I expect to see some real organizations or at least a really powerful villain. Hellboy may need a power up soon.

Overall, Hellboy starts us off on a good note. He’s definitely a good lead and the art works for the series. It’s an action with some elements of horror, but we haven’t seen anything that goes over the top in either direction so that’s a good show of restraint considering the title of this comic. The supporting characters do need to improve a little, but they’ll certainly have time for that. I recommend checking out this comic if you’re looking for a new action title. Watching Hellboy take on demons is pretty fun and the writing is good. We’re still waiting for Hellboy 3, but this will help to tide you over until then.

Overall 6/10

The Bad Seed Review

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Well, it’s time to look at a really old film that couldn’t manage to be that good. It’s an uncommon occurrence, but we have seen it occur as with the Picture of Dorian Grey. This film is much worse than that one and we’re talking 2001 levels of wince worthiness. The concept doomed the film from the start so there’s not much that it could have done, but it still managed to underwhelm.

Christine’s life seems to be just about perfect. Her husband is a hard working member of the army and her daughter is extremely polite. Mix that in with her nice neighbors and she really couldn’t hope for better. Unfortunately, her life begins to unravel once she finds out that her daughter is not quite as nice as she appears. No, she is actually pretty bad and now she must decide what to do with Rhoda. Will she even be able to do something about this situation?

Well, I’ve got to start somewhere so let’s just look at one of the film’s big problems from the get go. That’s the plot. For horror films, I prefer (in this order) the villain to be a Kaiju>>>Monster>>>Alien>>Super Powered Thug>>>Random guy>>>Friend>>>Family Member>>>Main Character. I never like it when the big villain actually turns out to be a family member or the main character. “The main character is the villain” twist almost never works and it makes it hard to root for anyone. I also don’t care for the friend ultimately becoming the big villain either in this kind of film although it can work out depending on how it’s handled. In a more comic bookey film like the Avengers, it works out beautifully, but imagining that subplot in an old film like this one…well it wouldn’t work.

It’s naturally used because a twist like this can really be milked for emotional value and you know that the characters will have a tough time taking Rhoda to the authorities despite the fact that she is a murderer. Well, it may cause some drama for the characters, but as a film plot, it’s more annoying than anything else. The heroes know what they should do and watching them not do it can be sad. By “them” I’m really talking about Christine.

The Bad Seed also drags on a lot. It may only be a little over 2 hours, but it’ll feel like 3 by the time that it is done. I was 1 hour into the film and I thought that we were at the ending because it had been so long. Little did I know that we weren’t quite done yet. It helps that we all know how mean Rhoda is, but the characters refuse to believe it for a while. So, you can only watch a villain trick the heroes with a cutesy act for so long before you begin to get bored.

The film did opt for a different ending than the book and both have their demerits so it’s tough to say which is better. Naturally, I can’t even go too much into this area for spoiler reasons, but the best ending would have been to send Rhoda to jail. This doesn’t get to happen, but I’m happy that the aunt got to survive. She was definitely one of the better characters in the film and she really meant well. She even has a Lovebird so you can tell that she’s a respectable person. The film doesn’t resort to animal violence so I’ll give the film some props there.

The film has one character named Leroy who doesn’t add anything to the movie. He is just here to the audience has another unlikable character to root against. I suspect that this is supposed to make you want to take Rhoda’s side despite what she has done. They simply didn’t need to add this guy and at least his wisecrack about someone being lonely doesn’t go anywhere. I was expecting it too and for Rhoda to destroy him, proving that her skills can be used for good. That doesn’t happen though and we’re left with a bad character.

Rhoda is definitely not good as well. Her reasons for destroying people boil down to one thing. She simply wants whatever she can’t have and she’ll destroy anyone to get it. She destroys a kid, an old lady, and an adult so she covers all of the bases. Naturally, this doomed her as a character from the start and we have more cases of civilian deaths, which aren’t cool. Destroying characters who can’t fight back is always pretty distasteful and it was yet another nail in the coffin for this movie. It’s also a stretch that the kid made it to the raft and the lifeguard didn’t notice, but Rhoda tends to plan for everything.

Christine also deserves some of the blame since she tries to cover this up rather than going to the proper authorities like she should have. That was a critical mistake on her part and it’s something that she should have tried a little harder to avoid. Instead of doing that, she just decides to cross the line and it’s not a great move. I also have to question the ending because it means that the shot must not have hit something critical. I don’t see how you can miss at such close range.

The film has an interesting tale about bad seeds and the theory where you can inherit being evil through your genes as opposed to the environment shaping you. It’s the Nature vs Nurture argument that people like to discuss and it’s naturally a bit of a mix. I’m more on the Nature side as in the soul, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the genes. You can inherit someone’s looks and probably a bit of their character as well, but the choices between good and evil are ultimately your own. Nobody’s destined to be a great person or to be a bad one. That’s simply something that you decide from the get go. The film suggests otherwise and I definitely disagree there. Rhoda became a bad person on her own and it ultimately came back to bite her.

Still, if the whole film had just been a discussion between the professionals, that could have been entertaining. Listening to theories and such is always pretty enjoyable and it may not be for everyone, but 2 hours of that could actually be amusing so long as they don’t begin to run in circles. I suppose that just about everything would have been an improvement for this film though. It didn’t even have a soundtrack to protect us from the events. Had the villain been the neighbor’s daughter and she was attacking the heroes, that could have been more amusing. They’d still need to cut out her attack on the old lady and the kid, but it could have worked. “Could” being the key word of course.

Overall, The Bad Seed is a film that I highly suggest skipping. It’s really just a tragedy film where you watch the main characters cry and experience more sad events as the movie goes on. We naturally get to see the victim’s mom appear and we find out that the experience basically broke her. She is now a drunk and then Christine basically breaks by the end. If I want to see something breaking, I’ll look at a documentary of Super Smash Bros Brawl’s reputation! Tragedies are like Horrors in the fact that neither one of them tends to be very good. If you want a film with some sad scenes that is still great, check out Yugioh Bonds Beyond Time. We do get an emotional death and things tend to get very intense very quickly, but it balances that out with good plot progression and some action. Just watching the sad scenes over and over again does not make a film and that’s where The Bad Seed went wrong.

Overall 1/10

Ghostbusters II Review

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Well, the Ghostbusters are back in town and they definitely mean business! They may have taken down the Marshmallow Man last time, but the new villains attack on a more personal level. The heroes are already down and out from the last film so this could get dangerous for them. Unfortunately, this film suffers from most of the flaws of the first film and is less funny. It’s definitely a mixed bag here.

So, The Ghostbusters have once again been branded as a group of guys who don’t know what they are doing. People don’t respect them anymore and that’s never a good thing. Peter is still flirting with Dana despite being gone for so long and the other Ghostbusters have been reduced to appearing at parties. These are dark times for the heroes, but they are forced to come together again when a mysterious incident puts Dana’s baby in danger. The heroes know that it’s probably the work of a ghost somewhere, but proving that will be difficult. Little do they know that the villain is close to home!

One of the problems with this film is that nothing really happens for the majority of the film. There is no sense of danger or plot as the heroes just walk around making jokes. The villain’s plan doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since he will be vulnerable for at least 10-20 years. See, the villain is currently inside of a painting and he wants to possess the baby’s body so that he can live again. The problem is that he’ll still be a baby….so it’s not a great plan. The villain doesn’t really have any character and he’s not a threat so we can safely ignore him.

The film also gives us a rather underwhelming minion in the form of Janosz. He can’t fight and he likes Dana so he is another flirt that we didn’t need. Anytime he is on screen is a time for you to go stretch your legs. This is actually one of those films where you can easily fall asleep if you aren’t careful so you’ll want to stay vigilant to stop this from happening.

The main characters are all still in character. Peter still spends too much time cracking jokes and mocking his teammates to actually be a good ghost buster and the other two main members don’t tend to take the initiative in a case. They will always be Peter’s subordinates even if they try to take charge. One of the Ghostbusters, Winston, tends to appear and disappear with no real reason. It’s like the writers weren’t sure whether they should keep him in the film or not so his appearances are rather sporadic. He tends to look good while on screen and he’s actually the best member of the 4, but he doesn’t feel as important to the plot as he could have been.

Unfortunately, we get a subplot with Louis and Janine as they continue to be two characters who are hard to watch. They add the romance plot to this film (Alongside Dana and Peter’s plot) and their scenes are all rather terrible. They definitely make it hard to really enjoy the film and taking them out altogether would have been a great move on the film’s part. They just don’t add anything to the adventure.

I still like the main Ghostbuster theme, but I’m not crazy about the other themes and remixes that are added to this film. They simply aren’t as catchy or entertaining. They’re not that bad I suppose, but I would have been content with the film just choosing to spam the main theme over and over. It’s almost as catchy as the Men in Black theme and that’s saying something!

Now, we looked at most of the negatives in the film so now let’s look at some positives aside from the soundtrack. One positive is the move that the Mayor’s right hand man made towards the end of the film. The Ghostbusters were threatening to tell the press about the ooze so the guy told them that he knew someone downtown who would be interested in the story. The Ghostbusters figured that they could spend a few minutes, but then they were quickly thrown into the psych ward and locked up in straight jackets. That was pretty rich and it was fun to see them taken down so quickly. I always like when someone pulls a fast one like that. Naturally, Peter quickly tried to convince the men there that the other Ghostbusters were crazy since his own safety must always come first.

Another fun scene is the court case. I always love those moments and this was no exception as the Judge was pretty biased against the heroes from the start. That’s what I like to see and the heroes put up a decent defense, but they were simply doomed from the start. Peter gets to almost turn the tides when he says the classic “Who you gonna call” line, but he is eventually shut down. Still, that was a pretty fun case.

Finally, it was cool to see how Peter had moved on from the Ghostbusters gig and now had his own show. That’s pretty impressive considering how he is not typically seen as a team player. He was able to put up a pretty good facade of interest as he listened to two people discuss how the Earth was going to end soon. Nothing fazes Peter and while he has many undesirable qualities, at least he is always ready with a witty one liner. This is why he can’t be stopped.

That’s about it for positives. The film can be funny at times, but it just feels like this film was rushed out without as much inspiration as the first one. They really should have brought back the Marshmallow Man so that we could have had more excitement. Speeding up the plot would have also been a good idea since nothing really happens until the very end of the film. Audiences don’t want to wait that long and neither do I.

Overall, I can’t say that I really recommend this Ghostbusters title. If you want to see the legendary franchise, just check out the first film. This one gets distracted by romance way too often and the villains are pretty bad. They certainly don’t strike fear into the hearts of many and they manage to be uninteresting as well, which is not a good mix. Their plan was even worse and the heroes didn’t look as noble as they should have. Yes, I highly recommend watching the original Men in Black instead.

Overall 5/10