Movie Appraisal: Mirrors (2008)

Mirrors is the American re-imagining (rather than a straight remake) of the South Korean film Into the Mirror, which I reviewed a few days ago. That movie, the South Korean one, was an absolutely brilliant film, full of both subtext and interesting moments that kept me both interested and intrigued from beginning to end. I enjoyed the subtlety of the movie, the intelligence of the film, and ultimately how it handled both the horror and the mystery of its story. Mirrors is an incredibly different film, taking very little from Into the Mirror besides a starting horror premise, a few select scenes, and the main character. Oh, and the ending, even though it doesn't make any sense for that ending to be there like it did in the South Korean film, where it was foreshadowed throughout. Ah well, let's get this thing started, shall we?

Directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Kiefer Sutherland literally just being Jack Bauer, it is a movie that doesn't know what it's trying to do, and also clearly doesn't understand the source material.

You know what? No. I won't even say that. Redact that. Take it back, and forget about it. This is a movie that kind of and sort of understands that Into the Mirror was a good movie, had some great scenes, had some great philosophy, and ultimately thought that an intelligent movie couldn't translate to American audiences. Because, ultimately the story feels forced. It feels like whole storylines were tacked on. It feels like the original intention of what the movie meant was put on the back-burner for gore effects, a relationship, and highlighting actors and actresses that literally did not know how to act.

I want to blame Aja here, but I feel it probably is a much deeper problem than just him. The film is directed competently. That's what I don't get. I don't get how it can be directed decently but written like a five year old trying to translate the original film. It's so simplistic, losing both subtlety and nuance until nothing is left of the original plot but scenes ripped straight from the Korean film.

If you read my synopsis of the plot of Into the Mirror, this plot is vaguely similar. Kiefer Sutherland plays Ben, a detective who shot someone (which never comes up again) and is off the force because of reasons. The only reason this backstory of the character is kept is so that Ben can grab up information from his old detective friend and be good at investigating THINGS and STUFF. It's so convenient it's stupid.

Ultimately the first half of this movie is pretty solid. I liked it as an opposing way of telling the same (or a very similar) story. Large sections of the first half involve Kiefer Sutherland alone and dealing with hallucinations in mirrors in a burnt out department store where he works as a night security guard. I like this a bit as it owns a different kind of story than the Korean film. And, in all honesty, I found the reopening of the department store in that movie to be pretty overdone and a little silly at times.

This movie sticks with a mystery premise, but instead of crime and money being at play here, we instead get demons and a psychiatric hospital. And mostly we get a psychomanteum (a room with all the walls being mirrors). And that's the big difference. It's primarily an Americanized difference. Of course the old department store was built over a psychiatric hospital where the patients all killed one another. THAT'S OBVIOUS.

The Americanization stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The gore, the relationship pieces of the plot, and the complete disregard for the source material really showed me how much I sometimes can loathe these remakes. While this one had its moments, there were times when I was literally seething with anger watching this movie. And I guess I should get into why.

Gratuitous gore? Did I mention there was gratuitous gore? Holy shit, do I have to mention that. All of the gore scenes are hard to watch (all two of them). My bile was rising when Amy Smart's reflection (Amy Smart playing Angie, the sister of Kiefer Sutherland's Ben) decided to pull apart her own jaw. I don't know what the point of that scene was unless it was just there to horrify, in which case, sure, it succeeded. I was made uncomfortable and creeped out by the scenes. I just don't know quite what the artistic merits of that scene were supposed to be. I assume there were none, and it was all about just being as scary as possible- even though the CGI effects were both obvious and somewhat poorly done at times. I kind of wish there would have been more gore in the film, if only so the movie would have had a second half that might have been scary or interesting in the slightest. Alas though, why would the gore continue in the second half?

Another gripe I have is that the ghosts from Into the Mirror (or the reflections or whatever you want to call them) simply didn't attack innocent people. They went after the guilty, those who were involved in murder, covering up a murder, or refusing to compensate victims of the arson. The victims all were guilty of a terrible crime or two, with none of them being upstanding citizens being punished by the spirit in the mirror. But this film has the innocents being punished, which seems to literally go against the premise of the initial film, and maybe go against what ghosts are supposed to be. Then again, Mirrors doesn't have a ghost in it. It just has a weird mirror-bound demon that somehow can go into any mirror without explanation. It's really dumb and nonsensical and completely tears aside the plotting and well-thought out pieces of the original. I could just keep saying that. This movie doesn't live up to the original. It's not a good movie. It insults the original by existing.

Shots are way overdone. Wow. While there is a focus on artistic shooting at times, the shots become overwhelming in this simple horror film. In the beginning of the film they kind of work a bit, but eventually they just start taking the focus away from the interesting bits of the story, and focus instead on the most obvious. There are some pretty well done shots though, again in the first half of the film, like Ben going down the stairs his first night as a watchman in the burnt out store or some of the night shots in the department store. Amy Smart's death was also quite well done, as is the subsequent reveal of her death to Kiefer. That was the final good shot in the movie though, and with the second half focusing more on Ben's family than the story, the good shots fell aside, replaced instead with insipid dialogue and vacuous scenes.

There is no subtlety here, just jump scares galore, something I am less than fond of. It takes the creeping menace of the Korean film and completely dumbs it down to something that is very American in its horror. It does this rather than focus on character moments and dimensions of the horror universe that we see. Instead the focus is on set-pieces, jumps scares, and long scenes with nothing really happening. The mystery of the movie has disappeared, replaced instead by dumb moments of what I believe the filmmakers think of as "psychological horror." Even more egregious are the times when characters simply come out and say the obvious for the benefit (and only the benefit) of the audience, who they think must be far too stupid to understand what their brilliance is trying to say. "Water creates reflections." No, I would have never guessed that. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED. It's not obvious to me at all. It needed to be stated in my directed as if I were a simple baby-child who has never heard languages spoken before. In fact maybe I'm not even a human at all, but an insect-person who does not understand your simple language or the subtleties of performance. This is why I need things stated at me. I need the relationship between Kiefer and his estranged wife because I wouldn't understand a story about a man searching through a department store for ghosts if he also weren't successful at one point and had a romantic interest. I needed the relationship because if he didn't have one, I simply wouldn't understand. I would be lost and confused. A single man? A single man in MY MOVIE that I AM WATCHING? I simply can't handle that. It's too much. I'm about to have a breakdown.

The relationship is the biggest failure of the movie, and also the largest original addition to it. I can't begin to state how much I loathe it, how much I despise it, and how much it shouldn't be there. Taking that out takes out a big problem with this movie, the problem of Americanization of a great premise. A straight remake would have made too much sense... and obviously would have been too intelligent for audiences here. And that's why all the philosophy and interesting concepts are dumbed down or removed entirely and why a relationship is added and horror and terror are taken away. This movie is designed to appeal to everyone, and instead it is mediocre at best and forgettable even on a good day.

Kid actors are terrible. I have to mention that because nearly all of the actors besides Kiefer and the brief appearance by Jason Flemyng as Ben's detective friend are universally awful. The child actors are especially horrid to behold, but even Paula Patton as Ben's wife Amy and Amy Smart are terrible. Their acting makes me want to cringe. And with Kiefer doing his best jack Bauer impersonation, he isn't much better. The thing is, at least he seems to be trying. He has enough charisma to make up for a bad plot or bad writing or whatever. Feature him throughout this movie and it might work. Feature other uninteresting and bland character whose actors can't act, and the movie falls apart. And that's exactly what happened. The plot with the family of Ben is completely superfluous to the actual plot. It being added into the story makes the story feel very bloated and frankly boring in response. The end of the movie feels like two different movies are playing out at the same time. And that is simply unacceptable for me.

When the ending comes around, and the mirror ghosts are just demon(s) and Kiefer Sutherland kidnaps a nun-

Wait.

Give me a second.





...



I need a moment to collect my thoughts.

Thoughts collected.

Did Kiefer Sutherland just kidnap a nun? Is this movie seriously culminating in Jack Bauer kidnapping a nun? This is literally the best movie. I take everything back. Nun kidnapping makes this movie more unique and greater than anything else. Every movie should involve the protagonist kidnapping a nun. I know Indiana Jones would have been miles better if he had been kidnapping nuns instead of fighting the Nazis.

I don't know what else to say. The nun gets possessed and Jack Bauer kills the demonified nun to death, in the process rehashing the ending of Into the Mirror without a fundamental understanding of that film. And that's it. I have a bad taste in my mouth. So, I want to wrap this review up.

Mirrors has its moments. At times it can almost be a decent film. The first half isn't terrible. Hell, it's almost good at times. The gore, although outrageous, was also quite creepy, effective at putting me into a creeped out mindset. The problems though, are too many to name, even though I certainly named quite a few. Comparing this movie to Into the Mirror will just make you sad. I suppose on its own it might be serviceable at times, but ultimately I think it fails as both a horror movie and an interesting one. I found the plot far too bloated, the story silly and over dumb at times, the characters flat and uninteresting, and the mirror possessions nonsensical. It is a movie that is fascinating though, in a way, because it shows how a movie can be bastardized to something sick and twisted for American audiences. I do not recommend this movie. Stick with the original Korean film.

Mirrors is a real stinker even with its few good scenes.

Movie Appraisal: Hausu (ハウス) (House) (1977)

Horror? This is considered horror? Do people go and select what genre movies are called by picking them out of a snazzy looking top hat? Because this is much less horrific than The Lion King, for example, which is a kid's film, just as a reminder. Nudity, a man turning into bananas, and a piano eating the girl playing said piano do not make this movie into a horror movie. There is not a single moment... NOT ONE SINGLE MOMENT... that is even slightly scary. This movie is horror like the The Rocky Horror Picture Show is horror, and that movie is not horror. The description of this movie as a horror movie actually and legitimately gives me anger pains. Hell, the tone of this movie is more like a screwball comedy than a horror movie. It's actually ridiculous to have this movie be typed as a horror movie when it is so totally not a horror movie.

No, this movie reminds me of a spoof of a horror movie or possibly even a comedic play on an actually horrific premise. That being said, taking my ranting out of this review for a moment, I loved this movie, absolutely loved this movie. It is the kind of movie that feels like it is custom-made for me through-and-through. I loved the cheesy looking effects, the story, and ridiculous acting. Oh man, when Togo turns into bananas... I don't think I've ever looked so baffled into a screen before, and I loved it.

The premise of the movie is that seven girls go to visit the of of one of the girls, Gorgeous. Each of the girls has a nickname that somewhat describes their character. Gorgeous (played by Kimiko Ikegami) is set to be the main character, but never actually is. Her character is vain and cares about her appearance much more than the other girls. She is somewhat quiet and has some family issues. The reason she and the other girls go to her aunt's house is because she doesn't want to be around her father's new fiancee, her future stepmother. So after the other girls can't go for vacation at Togo's (one of their teachers) sister's house, Gorgeous mentions that they all should go to her aunt's house.

The other girls are then introduced. Fantasy makes up stories and has these weird hallucinatory types of visions at times throughout the movie. She daydreams and becomes a big source of the drama in the film. She keeps seeing the strange things happening in the aunt's mansion, and the other girls simply don't believe her at first. Then there's Kung Fu, who basically becomes the main character for most of the film, being the character who takes care of the other girls, and kicks, slaps, and punches the weird stuff in the house the hell out of her way. Every time she does anything even slightly kung fu related though, there is a ridiculous kung fu movie kind of music that comes up. It's brilliant and campy and I love it.

The rest of the girls are Mac, the heavyset girl (who's not really all that heavyset) who loves eating and disappears early in the movie, Prof, who is the smart one... kind of... Melody, who plays the piano, and is eventually eaten by the piano, and Sweet, who I don't even remember at all beside the fact that she gets ganged up on by a bunch of mattresses for some reason.

The aunt is an older woman in a wheelchair, who also seems to be set-up to be a larger character than she ends up being. She seems like she is going to be some kind of campy villain, and she kind of is, but mostly during the second half of the film she disappears. That being said, when she is onscreen, she frequently breaks the fourth wall, winking at the audience or meeting eyes with the audience. It's well done and pretty cool. I've never really seen something like this implemented in a movie like this, and I really liked it.

The last character is Blanche, who is the white cat who basically is the aunt's portrait of Dorian Gray. I guess it's kind of like a moving spirit or something that keeps her alive beyond death as long as she has unmarried women to kill and eat to be both young and vigorous, waiting for her lost fiance beyond her living limits. Now, Blanche is a white cat, but... somehow, somewhere, the people who made the next poster seemed to think that Blanche was orange.

That's Blanche. Blanche is not white in this picture. I know the movie can grow a bit screwy at points, with some really bad CGI type of stuff. It works, in my opinion, but is very fake looking in general at times. Maybe that's why Blanche is orange on the poster. I have no idea.

So, each of the girls are killed one-by-one over the course of the movie, with the bulk of the movie being Kung Fu, Fantasy, and Prof running around the mansion trying to find a way out or trying to avoid death. Mac is the first to die, her head replacing the watermelon she buys the aunt for a gift. Then Sweet is attacked by mattresses and is put into a clock or something and bled out that way. Gorgeous... uh... disappears into a mirror only to come back out of that mirror as the aunt herself... I think? There are some very weird scenes with Gorgeous... so, it's hard to tell what's going on with Gorgeous.

Melody stays with the other girls for a while, but as she plays the piano, her fingers are eaten by the piano... then she is eaten... in the most sexual way... by the piano. And that's another thing, this movie has a bit more nudity and sexuality than I would have thought. Fantasy has romantic daydreams about Togo. Kung Fu is inexplicably naked after she is eaten by a lamp. She also goes most of the movie in her underwear. Melody is basically raped by the piano... or at least that's what it looks like. Sweet's clothes disappear off of her after she is attacked by mattresses. Gorgeous is naked a few times, once in the sauna, and another time later on as she is cradling Fantasy at the end of the film as Fantasy calls her her mother. That was pretty odd as well. Prof has an underwater naked scene as she is engulfed by the bloodwater that comes out of the portrait of Blanche after Kung Fu kicks it with a rocket-launched torso and legs...

I'm going crazy here. So much of this movie is absolutely insane, and I love so much of it. The nakedness I could give or take, but I love the story, the chittering dialogue, the weird scenes that are inserted into the movie and make little to no sense in context, like when Togo turns into bananas and the man he's talking to turns into a skeleton kind of thing.

The last scene in the film is when Gorgeous (who is probably her aunt at this point) taking care of her future stepmother, and that stepmother... every scene she's in she like some kind of old movie star with wind blowing her clothes around, looking like she's the center of attention... It's weird, but Gorgeous kills her because she's unmarried too. It works.

This movie feels like it was made on a lot of drugs, but I love every single part of it. It's weird, with a happy soundtrack, a great comedy-slasher feel to it, and with a good amount of charismatic women acting pretty well despite this being most of their first and only acting roles. I can't call this movie a horror movie... and neither should anybody else. It's a horror movie like The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a horror movie... and that ain't a horror movie. I keep harping on his because the descriptions I see pin this as a horror movie and it so isn't. I mean, I guess it could be well into the B-movie feel of a horror movie, but I've seen so many B-movies from this era and some of them are pretty disturbing and kind of creepy, but this movie is so not creepy and so not scary that I cannot, in good faith, call this movie a horror movie.

Anyway, I loved this movie. It's easily my second favorite movie I've seen so far this summer, the first being Possession. Not everybody will like this movie, but if you like camp, stylized art films masquerading as horror, and weird movies, you should really check this one out.

Movie Appraisal: Uzumaki (うずまき) (Spiral) (2000)

Well, here's an oddity of a film, one that is much more bizarre than terrifying, and much more mystifying than interesting. It's like a Tim Burton nightmare world, full of spirals and darkness, but with a lot more blood and guts as well. It's a fairly silly film altogether although it does have some wonderfully macabre ideas. I enjoyed portions of the film, but the whole thing left me wondering if there could have been a better execution... but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's start with...

PART 1: THE MANGA
So, I know this is based off of a manga called Uzumaki. I've read portions of it, but would rather not spoil the later bits. So, I'll only talk about the portions that are relevant to the discussion of the movie. This film is a really good adaptation of the manga. It has scenes basically taken word-for-word, shot-for-shot, from the manga. That's certainly not a bad thing. The manga certainly has its moments, but...

Let me tell you something. I know just about nothing about manga. This is the absolute very first manga-thing I've ever even read. My girlfriend coaxed me into reading it, knowing that I'm incredibly fond of body horror. And yes, there is body horror and it made me happy, but reviewing a manga or even 100% understanding it was something I wasn't even certain I could do. I mean, I sometimes feel as if I have something viscerally against the very idea of manga. So, this was different and even somewhat difficult for me o be okay with, but I did it. I read it, and I watched the movie. I have to say that it is a very good adaptation, probably even better paced than the manga itself.

That being said, in a weird way some parts of the manga seem better, whereas at other times parts of the film are better. I personally prefer the main character, Kirie, from the manga. I found her movie counterpart to be a much sillier, much more ridiculous character. She's hard to take seriously, and her actress seems to be a little over the top. Okay, really over the top at times. That being said I preferred her boyfriend, Shuichi, from the movie, finding his manga counterpart moody and annoying.  I mean, seriously, the dude says the exact same lines in most panels he's in, and he acts almost the exact same, which is like a psychotic person. In the movie he's much mellower, calmer, and genuine. I really liked his character in the film until the very end... but I'll get there. Oh boy will I get there.

As for other items between the manga and the film, I found most of the adapted portions to be pretty decent if a bit predictable. I actually wish more had been taken from the manga because the plot might have been a tad more coherent at times... although even the manga has the problem of a pretty incomprehensible plot at times. I, again, prefer the pacing of the film, seeing it as being less episodic and meshing together a great deal better, but I actually prefer the storytelling of the manga, seeing it almost like a scary tales for kids type of story.

PART 2: HORROR
So, I'm going to point this out right now: this movie is not scary. It is not horrific. It is not terrifying. It does not make me jitter and shake. It does not make me want to scream or run. Honestly, I found myself laughing fairly often, usually mocking the ridiculous direction and the very often strange characters. If there's anything I can compare the movie to it would be Twin Peaks. The same sort of humor as well as odd-ball characters  are present in both. I certainly don't mind that. I mean, I love the hell out of Twin Peaks, so seeing a movie with a similar feel had me kind of falling for it a bit.

The big problem is that the acting and the direction are not very good, and while Twin Peaks has at least a few fairly disturbing scenes and elements to it, Uzumaki is mostly pretty ridiculous. I can name all of one creepy scene in the entire movie, and that's more because of the thought of the thing and the gore than because of the film being effective at creeping me out. It was the scene where Shuichi's mother tears off her own fingerprints. Yeah, that was pretty crazy and disturbing, but when I saw Shuichi's father kill himself in a washing machine... well, I found myself laughing hysterically at the thought. I mean, I couldn't stop laughing at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation.

Overall for a horror movie, it isn't scary. That does not make a great horror movie. The film is interesting and sort of a fun watch, but is so damn ridiculous at times that it's easier to make fun of than be scared of.

PART 3: THE SPIRAL

The imagery of the movie is all about the spiral. All you see is spirals everywhere, spirals in hair, in the air, in food, in objects, on people, in smoke, in water... I can just keep on going. Would you like me to keep stating the objects that have spirals? Because I will. So many beautiful spirals everywhere.

Oh, I kind of like looking at them. They're really fascinating, aren't they? I could... well, I could just look at them all day long, staring at them, wanting them everywhere around me. I can... I can almost hear them speaking to me, telling me the secrets I've always wished to know. These secrets spirals, the brilliant vortex of both life and death, mocking me as it leans and moves, vibrating in my very mind, calling to me as I... as I...

PART 4: TRANSMIGRATION
I think I'm at peace now, with the spirals multiplying on my very being. I'm at peace that my cochlea is spiraled. I'm so happy that my fingers have spirals upon them. I am gladdened in my own very red heart that my hair curls enough to be a spiral itself.

The ending to the movie is absolutely awful. It ends both abruptly and without any fanfare. I think the rest of the movie is probably worth watching, but the ending is so cliched, abrupt, and disappointing, although the very last image of the film is absolutely breathtaking. I guess the good has to come with the bad. I wish the movie would have been better in general. If it had been I could have seen myself absolutely loving it if it had been a stronger movie, but as it stands it's pretty mediocre overall. It has some fantastic ideas, mostly coming from the manga and the imagery within it, but in general just doesn't work all that well with its odd direction style, its rough actors, and its sometimes comic dialogue. It also has some pretty bad CGI at times, but to me that isn't even surprising.

I think the movie certainly had potential, but failed ultimately as what it was trying to do. I wish it could have been creepy or scary or a horror movie, but instead it comes off as a pretty rough and well-paced adaptation of a pretty mediocre  and terribly-paced manga.

Movie Appraisal: White Noise (2005)

I had a very mixed reaction to this movie. It, on some levels, is very competently executed, but on others is simply befuddling. I guess my ultimate thought is that it is a movie that never really needed to exist. It seemed as if it was trying to talk about EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) but really became much more of a ghost or malevolent spirit film by the end. I guess the three malevolent figures could be demons as well. I mean, that right there is hard to get a conclusive thought on. I did somewhat enjoy the film, although, again, I found portions of it to be incredibly unnecessary, which is not a positive.

My biggest complaint would be the persistence of funerals. I have no idea why they kept springing up, but after a while they started to fall very flat, becoming a little too much for this hour and thirty minute movie to handle. The emotional intensity was lost on me after a while, maybe about halfway through the film, maybe a little more, and once it was gone, well, there wasn't much else to care about. Characters kept dying, funerals kept happening, and I stopped caring.

That being said, Michael Keaton is pretty good throughout the movie, and really is the best part of it. I like the idea of the EVP stuff, and the three demonic figures were interesting until the very end. I guess I still don't see the point though. It's just difficult for me to see why the movie ended the way it did or why things happened the way they did. I mean, yes, the "killer" was stopped, but ultimately nothing was solved but that. I think that makes it only a partial story, only a partial victory. So, the movie ends on a down note, which is fine, but also slaps the sacrifices in their faces by showing that no matter what they did they wouldn't stop the three shadow figures, which... okay, I can accept it, but it doesn't make a good conclusion.

So, talking about the movie itself, its plot and such, it really starts out like a weird Michael Keaton romantic comedy. I don't mind that, but it's a really odd way to start a horror movie. 1408 starts a similar way, but really gets so much more effective as the movie progresses whereas White Noise is really only effective towards the middle of the movie when few actual objective facts are known. The feeling of weird romantic comedy never really goes away until maybe the very end of the film. It's the weird bright colors of the cinematography, the slick apartment, and the camera focusing on characters in such a way as to portray a kind of weird romantic comedy effect. I can't explain it fully, but that feeling never truly went away.

White Noise is supposedly a horror movie, but it has very little actual horror. It's not shot like a horror movie as I said above, but that arguably works in its favor, especially at the end of the film when it goes into full horror movie mode. I guess if you like the ending the film is effective, but if you don't, and I fall into that boat, the film really becomes fairly ineffective at bringing across its ultimate points.

I really went into this movie with an opened mind. I had never seen this movie before, nor had I ever learned much about it. I saw a lot of negative reviews for it, but I rarely agree with other reviews, so I figured I'd give it a chance. I liked some of the ideas and some of the execution. The slow beginning was nice as was the middle of the film when everything was still pretty unexplained and spotty. My personal favorite part of the film was when Keaton's character starts reading the old transcripts that state words like "PIG" and "BASTARD" over and over again, trying to tell the EVP investigator, Raymond Price, to give it all up. I don't know why, but I really liked that part of the movie, showing the malevolent entities mixed with an investigation aspect.

My biggest problem was the amounts of deaths in the movie. It really kept me from caring about the characters or sympathizing with them. The lack of characterization in the second half of the film also shows, with most characters being defined with an adjective or two. Very one-dimensional and very flat. All the other major characters really besides Keaton's get shifted to the background and barely make appearances at all. It all feels rather awkward, never really giving enough screentime or care to anybody. I don't know, I guess the feeling that there was a concentration of plot over character didn't work for me. It might have if the characters were insignificant or if there hadn't been more of a focus on characters earlier in the film. Hell, it might have worked if the plot was better, but instead... it just fell very flat for me in general.

All of that being said Michael Keaton is fast becoming one of my favorite actors. The man is an excellent actor, but I feel very strongly that this film didn't let him show off his acting chops which is a real shame.

I also found it strange that most of the victims were women. I mean these demons seem rather woman-specific in their choices of victims. And it seems like it's always men who do the EVP as well. It's a strange kind of sexism that mystifies me. The "killer" is a man listening to the EVP stuff. Keaton's character, Jonathan, does a well, and so does Raymond. All of the other characters are basically female and never really have much or anything to do with the EVP stuff in general except to watch it. Kind of strange. I can't really say anything beyond that. I started noticing it and had no idea why it was chosen to be that way.

I didn't like the ending, not because Keaton's character dies, but because of the way he died. I don't know, mixing bad CGI, another really dumb and unnecessary death, the random killer gunned down by police, and yet another funeral... it felt really strung together and mechanical. I could have predicted it, but if I had it would have been a lot better. It didn't do it for me, hell most of this movie just felt so pointless and ridiculous. I did like parts of it, but overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. I think it's absolutely mediocre, and I also have no idea who this movie could be made for. It's not for the horror audience because it's not scary. It's not for the EVP audience because EVP doesn't work like that at all. AT ALL. So, who was this made for? I have no idea. All I know is that past the halfway point or so the movie really isn't worth watching... maybe a little for the imagery before the climax, with the broken windows of Jonathan's apartment and the three figures darting across a window or two... but mostly the movie isn't really worth it.

Movie Appraisal: Deathwatch (2002)

Deathwatch is an interesting take on the psychological horror genre. I won't say that this is the psychological horror film to end all psychological horror films, nor will I say that it's better than a ton of the mainstays of the genre like Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Sauna, but I will say that this is a good film for satisfying a bit of a psychological horror junkie.

The film takes place in World War I in the trenches and follows around soldiers from Great Britain as they fight their way through the Germans. The movie has an interesting cold opening followed by a very different kind of set piece altogether. You might think that this is a film about war, and to a point you would be correct, but this is a film about war like Sauna and The Objective are movies about war. There's no real war that we see on screen, rather most of the movie shows us imagery of war and the horrors one could see, from madness, to losing limbs, to forgetting God, to being shellshocked, and others. I feel that this movie shows a decent psychological approach to war, especially World War I and its trench warfare and lack of good medicine.

The barbed wire imagery is especially telling, and I feel it makes this movie even better. I'm not going to praise this movie up and down. There's a lot wrong here even if some of it is done pretty well. The acting is decent, but some of the actors are better than others. Andy Serkis really stands out in his part, blowing away the other actors in this by a long shot. The CGI stuff (I suspect it's CGI at least.) looks pretty fake, but then again this is a 2002 movie, and I guess I can forgive it a bit, since it alternates between looking really good and looking pretty bad. The fog effects are sometimes very good and other times pretty awful.

There are gore effects well, and I do understand why they're there, but I also think some of it was completely gratuitous. I feel that the filmmakers really shied away from very visceral imagery, but at the same time seemed to revel in gore, which makes absolutely no sense if you haven't seen the film. I almost feel like they showed us the wrong scenes as gory save one towards the end that I felt was especially justified to show. Most of the gory scenes felt tacked on and needless where a lot of the scenes that should have had gore shown in them really did shy away from the gore. It really made no sense to me, especially in a horror movie like this.

The cinematography is decent, but not amazing. This is not a masterful psychological horror movie, just an interesting and decent one. Most of the scares come early on in the movie as does most of the atmosphere. By later on the movie really kind of loses all suspense and becomes a glorified slasher film which really took a lot away from this film. It was too predictable, too easy to figure out. There were no interesting twists or turns, no huge revelation, no interesting plot. If you've seen any given psychological horror movie, you've seen this one. The thing going for this one is that it's different. The characters are interesting, it takes place during World War I, and it has a lot of war imagery when most psychological horror doesn't. That's not necessarily a huge plus in my mind, but I do think this movie really does work decently and was kind of enjoyable if not even close to the best film of its genre.

There's not much more I can really say. The ending was silly, the story moved slowly despite being a short film, and I never really felt engaged with anything besides Andy Serkis who was playing, like always, a crazy person.

Man, if I could I would just make a movie about Andy Serkis flipping out. I could watch that guy flip out all day. The best parts of the movie for me were him flipping out at people. I can't stress that enough. If you have some kind of deep Andy Serkis flipping out fetish, this is the movie for you, otherwise just go watch Jacob's Ladder since it's a better war-driven psychological horror movie by far.

Movie Appraisal: The Objective (2008)

The Objective is a difficult movie to categorize. It could be psychological horror, but it really isn't. It could be about aliens, but... that also doesn't really fit right with me. Is it a thriller? A soldier movie? No, it's not really either of those things... So, my difficulty in categorizing this film really left me asking a lot of questions of what exactly this film was about or why it was about it.

Not that it is a pointless film by any means. It's a decent film with some decent acting, and some very nice filmography for the most part. I guess my problem is it never really blew me away with anything. I could predict exactly what was going to happen from the very beginning of the film.

Soldiers. Fight for survival. Dying one by one. Sand replaces water. All overused ideas. All things easily predicted when the film opens. I complain about these things because it could have been done so much better. There were some VERY good ideas. One of the scenes in particular that stands out in my mind is a scene with binoculars where one character is looking through said binoculars (infrared ones, I believe, or night vision, or both. I really don't know the correct terminology here, so correct me if you see this film and I said something wrong.) and sees enemies charging at him, but he sees nothing with his naked eyes. It was very well done. Very dramatic. It was one of the few times this movie saw fit to really show some tension.

Most of the rest of the movie is... well, kind of boring. There are interesting parts, and some of the characters are quite interesting as well. The movie really wants you to care about the characters, but about half of them seem very empty. And the ones that do exhibit actual emotions and come into their own are soon killed off in radically terrible ways. The deaths in this film are terribly done. One second they're alive and the next second they're dead. It was kind of disappointing. Maybe the director was trying to show that in war things happen quick, but it really came off as sloppy filmmaking in my mind... or maybe a bad script... or not enough of a budget for good visual effects.

Speaking of the visual effects... they're pretty bad. Actually, they're very bad. It took me out of the movie when I saw some particularly jarring examples of bad CGI effects. The soldiers' bits were fairly well done though... as were the shadow effects, but the actual meat of the film, the whole "objective" is a bit of a let down. Well, it was to me. the film turned from a kind of neat, if not well-acted psychological horror film to an "UFO" film in seconds. It was pretty badly done. It would have been better to focus on the psychological horror than the UFOs, but I guess that's because I really dislike UFO films, because they mostly suck.

This film pales in comparison to other better films, but it isn't bad. I thought it was engaging and interesting. I can draw comparison to two movies in particular. The first is actually the movie that led me to watching this one: Sauna, and the other film is Dreamland (2007), which has a nonlinear and hard to follow plot, but for whatever reason reminds me of this movie. I think it's because of the way the films were both shot and the use of military stuff in both... but that's about it. The Objective reminds me of Sauna in very vague ways... mostly about the soldiers on a mission. The differences are that this movie has much worse acting, much worse visuals, and is in English, which instantaneously  makes it less classy. (Although there is an Australian, who happens to be the best character in this film in my opinion. So, that classes it up a bit.) But seriously, Sauna is a much better movie in every way and should be watched long before this movie is.

The main character in this film is a particularly good case in point of the bad acting. It's almost painful to watch his performance. But maybe that's just me.

I guess this is the point where I prattle on about the plot. Haven't I taught you already that the plot rarely matters in a movie like this? Fine, I'll do a hasty explanation. The CIA sends in an agent to get some information in a very remote region of Afghanistan. The CIA agent then recruits a few military men and they go off in the desert with only a young Afghani man helping them. They find out eventually their equipment doesn't work. And strange things seem to be following them to their OBJECTIVE. See? Did that explanation of the plot really help explain this movie at all? No. No, it did not, but I included it anyway. You're welcome.

So, in short. This is a completely average film in almost every way with exactly one memorable scene in it. It has no real category of movie to put it in, and it seems to be confused about what it wants to be. Check it out if you're really into weird films that are kind of creepy... sort of... or if you're into anything that has psychological horror at all... but otherwise stay away from this forgettable film.

I will admit one thing though: The Objective is the perfect name for this film. I've never gone out of my way to compliment a movie title before, but this one is very appropriate.