Saquarry's Top (and Bottom) Movies and Video Games of 2012!

This year was an interesting year, bringing forth some absolutely amazing new video games and movies as well as some huge disappointments. It's not every year that I can see a movie in theatres that I absolutely love like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and see another movie that I absolutely dislike in The Avengers or Prometheus. It's not every year that my game of the year is a game that almost nobody else is even considering for game of the year. And it's not every year that I get slightly more positive about the direction of video games.

So, without further ado, let's talk about some movies first.

Top 5 Movies

Rounding out the bottom of my top list is The Tall Man, an extremely good movie that I also wrote a review about. I enjoyed this movie immensely despite the horror bait-and-switch. While this is certainly not a movie I would usually be attracted to if I had known the story outright, I found this one compelling nonetheless. 

With both great acting, great set-pieces, a wonderful dark story, and so many more things besides, this movie is more than a simple horror flick. It transcends that and speaks a very interesting... and very controversial... message. I think not mentioning this movie would have been a crime. I am so glad I saw it, and I also think that this was my biggest surprise of the year.

People have said a lot of things about my number four film of the year. They have said The Dark Knight Rises is awful and aimless and too messy and cluttered to be any fun, but this movie really stands out despite all of those claims. I loved this movie from beginning to end, loved it almost as much as I loved Batman Begins, which is my favorite superhero film ever. I am not always a Christopher Nolan fan. His movies are usually either hit or miss with me. I didn't really like Memento, I hated The Prestige (Hugh Jackman is an actor I cannot stand in any film he's in), and I found The Dark Knight to be all kinds of not my style. Yes, I am the only person on the planet that was not really all that into The Dark Knight. I had no particular affinity to the Joker, despite a good performance by the late Heath Ledger. I found Harvey Dent as the most compelling character of that movie, but then suddenly he's a villain for no good reason. But I do love Batman Begins and Inception more than any human ever should. But, going into this one, I was expecting more of The Dark Knight, which- while not a bad movie at all- just wasn't what I wanted from a serious Batman film or... well... any film I was watching at all.

The Dark Knight Rises gave me a great conclusion to a story and character that I really liked. I found it amazing, more about the city of Gotham than about Batman himself, more about the legacy of a masked character than about a single man. I know Batman is not really in the film much. I know it's more about Selena Kyle and good ol' Robin and Bruce Wayne and Bane and the stories of characters that revolve around Batman and Bruce. But I still loved this film because I could. And nobody can take that away from me. Bane was a better and more compelling villain than the Joker, and that is the biggest slap in the face I could ever give to The Dark Knight. So, there, I guess?

The Cabin in the Woods is one of the best deconstructions of a horror film I've ever seen. I loved it throughout almost the entire movie. I found the actual real plot of the film to be one of the bet plots I've seen in a very long time, and the movie was an incredibly enjoyable ride. This movie might have been higher up on the list than three if it had just had a compelling conclusion and last five/ten minutes of movie. But because it fell apart in those last minutes, I really can't. Read my review of this film if you want more info on it. Otherwise I think this choice is pretty self-explanatory.

Yes, I chose Silent Hill: Revelation 3D as my number two movie of the year. It was incredibly enjoyable. Maybe it was a little dumb. Maybe it was a little silly. Maybe it won't hold up once I buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray, but I don't even care. This was one of the best movie theatre experiences I have ever had. It was such a fun movie to watch. No, it wasn't ever scary, but I still think it understood two very important things. First of all, it understood what I, as a Silent Hill fan, wanted from this movie. Second, it understood what it means to be a good ADAPTATION of the material. Unlike the first Silent Hill movie that was less an adaptation of the material and more a serious look at a Christian cult and a woman alone in a foggy environment, this movie really stays consistent with the source material. Again, it's not scary, but I never found Silent Hill 3 scary either.

Honestly, I knew I would like this film. It's not a film I would recommend to anybody, but I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I seriously would have put this film atop my top films of the year and been looked at as a laughingstock if not for my number one movie...

...The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey! I have been looking forward to this movie for almost a decade. I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan (so much so that I've seriously dressed up like Aragorn before). I loved every single image in this movie, every single moment, every single line, and every single everything. This is the very definition of a movie of the year- a movie I enjoyed so thoroughly that it will stick with me forever. While it is a to sillier than The Lord of the Rings it works well integrating the source material and extras into its plot to tie up any loose plot threads between The Hobbit films and The Lord of the Rings films. Martin Freeman and the Dwarves and Gandalf are all pitch-perfect. Also I loved the cameo by Radagast the Brown. Man, that was awesome.

I will say that if you are not a hardcore Tolkien fan like I am... well, you may not enjoy this as much. I've heard complaints of being boring, or about the 48 frames per second thing... but I didn't really see any problem when I saw it. Honestly, I don't think I've ever had a better movie theatre experience in my entire life. I went with a bunch of very Tolkien-loving friends, and every last one of us loved the movie despite the fact that we all like very different films. All five of us loved it. So, yeah... there was never another choice for my best film of the year. This was always going to be it. Peter Jackson has delivered yet again.

Worst Movies and Special Mentions

Starting with special mentions of movies I really enjoyed this year but that didn't make the top five...

Chronicle was a brilliant little movie. It would have been in my top five if The Tall Man hadn't been slightly better. As a superhero film, and a deconstruction of what it means to be a superhero, this film is some of the best and heaviest hitting material I've seen in a long time. I enjoyed it thoroughly despite the movie giving me a migraine... and that's pretty high praise.

I just did a review of this movie! Check out what I thought there for more details. For one of my favorite books, this movie did a pretty competent job. It could have been better, could have been worse. I liked it for what it was even though I wished it could have been more.

And now... for the worst two of the year...

I really dislike The Avengers. I don't like Marvel, don't like the characters all that much, and found everything about the movie unappealing to the extreme. Well, almost everything. Mark Ruffalo makes an amazing Hulk, and is subsequently the best part of the film. But there is more here to dislike than to like. This is easily my second least favorite film of 2012. And no, it's not because it's popular, and I hate popular things. It's more because I genuinely did not enjoy the film. Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson were frankly awful, Jeremy Renner didn't have to be there, Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth were going through the motions of acting, and I never found myself actually enjoying the film. It had one of the most forgettable soundtracks I have ever heard in a movie. The lines felt completely out of place... and did I mention I really dislike Marvel? It was one of the worst times I've ever had watching a movie despite being with my girlfriend who had seen the movie three times before seeing it with me. Every time she would whisper something to me about something she did or did not like, I would only be able to focus on the negative things she said, which really poked out of the film at me and hit me in the gut with their obvious awfulness. And the thing is I generally like Joss Whedon. No, he's not my favorite dude ever, but I usually enjoy his films. This one... not so much.

I probably wouldn't have even seen this film if not for my girlfriend being a huge fan of the film. I watched it with her when it came out on DVD and just hated every minute of it. She said I had a pained expression on my face for almost the entire movie. It was not a fun experience. I'm sure a lot of people enjoy it, but I am not one of them. So, sorry...? It's not my kind of film, which is one of the reasons I never reviewed it. I thought it would be unfair to give a critical analysis of something I was never going to like.

This pile of garbage that someone called a movie is the worst of the year. I have nothing else to say. Its nonsense plot, insane logic, and baffling decisions all make for a pretty bad movie. The directing and cinematography are some of the best I've seen in recent memory... but the characters look awful, the acting is awful, the script is one of the worst I've ever seen in an ACTUAL MOVIE, and I thoroughly abhorred this film. The great looking spectacle comes off as even worse in a movie that is actually this bad. Terrible movie and my worst of 2012.

Video Games

Mass Effect 3 is on the bottom of my list (because I only played 5 games released this year) and have no real interest in playing any others besides a couple indie games I haven't gotten to yet. To me Mass Effect 3 was a mess of a game, never quite finding where it should have been. Mass Effect 2 was one of the greatest games I've ever played, and that is one of the reasons this third game disappointed me so much. It is nowhere near as well put together as the second game. It does not have the wonderful story I was expecting. The gameplay was worse than the second game as well. The party members in the game are conspicuous because not a single character introduced in the second game comes back to stay in the third. This is about as big of a sin as I can imagine. I like James Vega, but why couldn't we have had a great character from the second game instead of him?

There's a lot wrong with Mass Effect 3. From the first five hours of the game being incredibly lackluster, to the game without the Extended Cut having one of the worst series of endings I've ever seen in a video game of this calibre... well, I think it's obvious I have my issues with this game all around. There are some good things though. The story works really well in the middle bits of the game. The characters are incredibly well-written, and with the Extended Cut and the Leviathan DLCs, a great deal of very important things were added to the universe of Mass Effect. Altogether, although this game is disappointing, I put it on par with the first game. It is a solid game, but has some pretty apparent mistakes and missteps that make it far from perfect. I was very disappointed by this game, but suspect I'll grow to accept it as the years go by.

One thing I've learned from this game though, one important lesson, is to never pay full price for a game that you have doubts about.

I had heard so much about this game, and I felt I needed to check it out. It is my fourth favorite of this year despite having some fairly awful technical bugs and glitches to it. I played it on the PS3, and there were a few times the world just disappeared, and I floated in a soulless white void as train noises played in the background. I did play the whole "season" by the way, and for the most part I really liked it.

The first three episodes, specifically the second and the third episodes, are really the very best this game has to offer. They are heavy-hitting, emotionally impacting, and full of every twist and turn you can possibly imagine with a game about the zombie apocalypse. I did not like the last two episodes nearly as much, specifically the fifth episode, which felt more like a grab for emotional attention than any true conclusion. The first and fourth episodes are pretty clearly in the sometimes good/sometimes eh category, but I did enjoy them both a great deal.

I have no overall issues with the game. It's well put together, and for an episodic game you can get for twenty dollars or under, it's well worth the price. I myself am neither a fan of zombies or of The Walking Dead franchise, so this game was clearly not made for me. That doesn't make it bad. Honestly, it probably makes it quite good that it can appeal to me, the uninterested person, as much as it actually does. The horror is very well done. The characters are all very well written. Sometimes the plot can be a little contrived and convenient (or inconvenient as it may be), but it portrays a (I think) fairly accurate idea of what an apocalypse with zombies would be like.

In playing the game I was instantly reminded of three games, all of which I think are better. The first is Fallout 3 and specifically that game of that series alone. I'm thinking the relationship between Andale in Fallout 3 and the farm in Episode 2 here. Spoiler warning, I guess? It's pretty obvious, but very well done. Also the apocalyptic things that coincide between the two games even though both are very different kinds of apocalypses. The second game is Alpha Protocol, a game I love and love to rant positively about. It's a game that was basically passed over in its time, but seems to have grown a cult audience because Obsidian knows how to make great games. That game is all about dialogue creating choices and those choices rippling out. The Walking Dead has a similar system, but it is not done nearly as well. Sorry, but it's true. The lack of actual control on character deaths (or lives) or any real choices besides what certain characters feel about your player character, Lee, reflects a bit poorly on the whole "This game is custom designed for you the player." aspect that The Walking Dead was trying for. And the sad thing is both Alpha Protocol and Heavy Rain (the third comparable game) do the choice thing a lot better in my opinion.

Now, despite all of that, this is a great game... but nowhere near as good as my top three...

How could I mentioned a game of the year list without Dishonored being mentioned? How could anybody who thinks and loves video games? I loved this game. I loved every aspect about it. I can complain that there wasn't enough game... but that's kind of not a negative thing, is it? If that were the case every Portal game would get a very low score indeed. It's a game designed to be played more than once, a game that has a ton of wonderful things to explore and to do, and a game that is one of the single best original properties, not associated with any other franchise, I've seen in a few years. I love how it does the steampunk, the deiselpunk... the whatever you call whatever it does-punk. It does it so amazingly that I wonder if the creators knew what kind of perfect pitch they were hitting.

Yes, I've heard comparisons between this game and Bishock, but it's not even a good comparison. I didn't like Bioshock because it gave off the illusion of a lot of things... choices, horror, philosophy, and politics. It didn't really say or do anything different or new to me besides having the game look really good. Dishonored doesn't take that route. It is a very fat game, full of a ton of information, choices, horror, adventure, and everything else as well. It has a wonderful art style, but not realistic at all, a great and amazing world to explore and learn about, and some of the best characters I've seen in a non-RPG game. So, it's basically the exact opposite of the shallow Bioshock.

The silent protagonist of Corvo only adds to the game, making it better at every turn. The voice acting is wonderful. While the plot is standard, it absolutely works, and the characters are so well done and clever that it's hard to not fall in love with them all (or hate them).The choices I made in the game mattered to me. The high chaos choices lead to a chilling conversation with a little girl... one that sent shivers down my spine... and the low chaos choices are harder to achieve leading to a slightly better ending... even if it's not really more satisfying.

I loved this game so much. All I want is more. Seriously, give me DLC, give me another game... just don't dumb anything down. And always leave me wanting more.

This game was my best game for most of the year, and my actual best game only narrowly beat it out. For all intent purposes these games are basically tied, but it is very difficult to not see how hard it must have been to get my game of the year actually out on store shelves, which is why it has to win. Silent Hill: Downpour impressed and surprised me no matter what anybody else says. While never a genuinely terrifying experience, it unnerved me constantly, leaving me off guard and jittery. It was an experience of a game, one that I will play again and again because of how much I love the story, the characters, the scenes, and basically everything else about this game.

While it hasn't overtaken Silent Hill 2 as my favorite of the franchise, it is a close second tied with The Room. I loved this game from beginning to end, even though there were a few issues here and there. The choices are pretty shallow when you get to make them at all. The game doesn't really have the strongest ending(s), even if it is (they are) very good and a very new take on the Silent Hill series at the same time. The town of Silent Hill has never been as amazing to look at or as real as it looks here. No, it does not have the claustrophobia of the early games, but it works well in a very different way. No fog, but rain. And a very different feeling setting despite it all being the same place. I love it so much! I love the mystery, the inconsistency, the game itself!

I never found the game all that scary, unlike both Silent Hill 2 and The Room, but again, it was unnerving and thrilling. I wanted to see more of the story. I wanted to have it unfold before me. All I wanted was more and more and more. And it gave it all to me in the end, creating a game that is about as close to perfect as one of these psychological horror games can be. It is so well done, and I will continue finding time for this one for years to come.

Although Spec Ops: The Line came out earlier this year, I did not get a chance to play until a few days ago. It is the very best of gaming this year. Everyone involved in this game's development and production should be proud of themselves, proud of what they accomplished, and proud of this game. It is, in a single word, brilliant. It is more horrific than almost any other horror game out there today despite not actually being a horror game. It is a painful, systematic, and scathing deconstruction and criticism of the modern war games genre and of the people who play those games.

Also, if you like those modern war games, play this one. Please play it. It might change your perspective on some very important issues.

This game is tonally fascinating, starting out as nothing more than a regular third person gung-ho modern war shooter, then morphing into a very different game by the end. Somehow I never had the game spoiled for me, and for that I'm thankful. I will, in turn, not spoil this game for anybody else. All I say is that every game player should give this game a try and a chance. It is so well put together, so well thought out, and so amazing that it deserves the attention of every single person it can get.

I am disappointed it is not on more game of the year lists, as it really should be. Yes, The Walking Dead is very good, but calling it innovative would be disingenuous. It would be forgetting about other games that really should be remembered. Again, it's not a bad game, but it isn't this game. It doesn't say what this game says. It doesn't do what this game does. Yes, I was attached to the characters in that game, attached to the characters in Mass Effect 3 too, but there was never a moment in either of those games where my mouth hung open as I played the game with a migraine raging in my head, pain both in the game and in real life... and only wanting, desperately, to see where the game was going next, to see what would happen... to wonder if the hallucinations were real or in my head... to wonder if the tonally dissonant happy music playing was the game screwing with me or my own head screwing with me.

This isn't just a game. Don't think about it like that because if you do you'll be disappointed. The multiplayer should be avoided, and the gameplay is all over the place. It is an experience. It is one of the most depressing and disheartening experiences I've ever played through other than Silent Hill 2. The sense of failure, of reeking with not only a physical defeat but a mental one, is something I have never felt in a game before... and here... well, let's just say that this game is my game of the year because it is different, because it is brilliant, and because it is like a punch to the gut.

And those are my lists this year. Yup.

Movie Appraisal: John Dies at the End (2012)

John Dies at the End was one of my most anticipated films of 2012. I was looking forward to this thing almost as much as I was looking forward to The Hobbit. So, just remember that when it comes to me being critical or reviewing this sucker in any and all ways. Also realize that I wasn't expecting much from this film either... so I was not nearly as disappointed as some might be.

I also have to say that I love the book of the same name by David Wong (of Cracked.com fame). It has fast become one of my favorite novels after I read it, full of both horror and comedy, with both mixing together to create a wonderful reading experience. Because I thought so highly of the book I was really looking forward to the movie... but then I started hearing things. I generally avoid the hype or hate machines because my tastes tend to be fairly different from most other critics and reviewers. i tend to like fairly different things from either mainstream reviewers or the indie crowd. So, most of the time I reserve judgment for myself. The things I was hearing though... they were on the fairly negative side of things, with some calling it a disjointed mess and others saying it was fun but confusing. It was mostly plot-related and pacing-related criticisms. I hate to agree with most critics but... well... I'll give my opinions shortly. First I want to talk about the book and what I liked from it.

I like to think of myself as a pretty big reader. I tend to like horror, but I'll try anything that has urban fantasy or that might be kind of different. I bought the book in a Borders before they went out of business because I had heard some interesting things about it. Then I waited a year to read it because that's what I usually do. Anyway, when I finally picked it up, I fell in love with it. It told a story I loved, with great characters, great ideas, and a great execution despite not having the best writing ever and being mostly very casually written. Even so it left me wanting more and more. I just wanted to read more about these characters and their adventures. That happens pretty rarely, let me tell you, but I was absolutely sold on it. The comedy was great, if a little random at times. The horror was actually really well done in a story this goofy. And mostly, there was a perfect balance between the serious and the comedic, which appeals to me quite a bit. The book was something of a dramedy horror book, something I see very rarely, and like quite a bit.

And you know what? It worked. It found that perfect place of happiness in my head and settled there. It had great scenes- memorable scenes- a great cast of characters, and a lot to say about almost everything- weird and normal alike. The first person narration really added to the character of David (the main character), and made him seem like a big ball of randomly knowledgeable everyman... and it worked. The other characters, Dave, Molly, Amy and the rest... well, they worked too. Dave being this goofy screwed-up and drugged-up guy who was the main comic relief and David's best friend. Amy was this sick and disabled girl who really became the heart of the book... and the reason for Dave to do anything crazy or heroic at all (mostly). And then there's Molly the dog, who remains the smartest character around. Other characters were really well done as well, these ones being completely absent in the film, like "Big" Jim Sullivan and Jennifer Lopez. Both of these characters were incredibly well-written and created despite being fairly minor characters in the finished work.

"Big" Jim is kind of the crux of the entire novel, seeming to be the real reason for the soy sauce to have come into the world. (The soy sauce is the drug that makes the characters see the weird things that normal people can't see.) His characterization in the novel is one of slight antagonist or antihero even though he thinks of himself as the put upon heroic Knight Templar. He knows much more than he ever lets on, and yet we as the readers and David Wong as the narrator know almost nothing about what he did except for the conjecture on his part. Jennifer Lopez also was well done, being the initial object of desire that David wins over, this perfect woman he falls for, gets as a girlfriend, then loses through their inability to stick together. In some ways its one of the most depressingly real parts of the book. David gets the girl; he wins her over by being the best he can be, by being the hero, and by standing by her... but their relationship, which is both heavily physical as well as being emotionally draining on the two of them ultimately doesn't work out. They go their separate ways... and even though it's kind of amiable... relationships ending like that are never pretty. It makes the Dave in the second half of the novel one that is a bit more serious and a bit more depressingly real as well.

Both of those characters exist in Book I, and they are either gone or dead by the second half. Their disappearance from the narrative makes other characters (mostly Amy) have room to come into the story and be used effectively. This works really well in the novel, better than I would have ever thought. Having two distinct and very different feelings to a distinct and singular novel makes the novel feel more like a vignette of stories rather than a coherent narrative despite the fact it remains a fairly cohesive narrative throughout. It works well at establishing many moments of fun and terror between all the characters of the novel, as well as showing that a history exists between many of the same characters in the novel. Amy was not always the heart of the novel, but became it through perseverance. Hell, in the novel she is initially established as some kind of deranged and disturbed young woman, one who David went to a special school with. He even made fun of her, giving her the slightly awkward nickname of Cucumber because she threw up so much and he likened it to sea cucumbers exposing their guts when attacked. She was never meant to be his girlfriend. Again, she was set up with this confusing and somewhat disturbing past. Her brother "Big" Jim died in the first half of the novel, and David really didn't like him. There was nothing that foreshadowed their romance. He never called her hot or gorgeous or the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Instead they fell in love because of mutual respect, some conversation, and both of them taking care of the other. It exists in the novel and is one of the most well put together romances I have ever seen in fiction. But it sadly does not exist in the movie.

I'm not here to review the book, but it disappointed the hell out of me that certain scenes didn't make it into the movie. For instance, most of the second half of the novel isn't there in the movie. Amy basically takes on a very different character than she was in the book. She becomes some strange mixture of both Jennifer and Amy without ever being either of them, and being a much blander character because of it. She also has the least amount of characterization for the main cast. Because so much of the second half of the novel is cut out (and because I prefer the second half of the novel), I found myself not enjoying the second half of the movie as much as I could have otherwise. Now, don't get me wrong I loved the first half of the movie, but the second half... Look, there were no snow scenes (some of the most atmospheric moments of the novel), no real reason for going into the mall or any explanation of what the mall was at all, no shadows, which are some of the main antagonists of the novel, no going to Amy's house and finding her missing and all the things that came with that (some of the tensest and most serious moments in the novel), no dog eating a bomb, no characterizations for many of the minor characters, and no Las Vegas bloodbath. Most importantly, there is no major plot twist like the novel has. If you've read the book, you already know the twist, if not I won't say it. It makes the entire monologue at the beginning of the movie about the ax completely worthless with that twist not being in the movie. It has nothing to do with anything... unless Justin's status as Shitload is being discussed, or Arnie status as... yeah... Without that plot twist, there is no real emotion coming from the movie, no real reason to bother with or fear Korrok, and no real reason for Amy and David to be together. It instead becomes a random collection of scenes and emotions (mostly funny ha ha) that have little to no emotional ground in them, something the book hit incredibly well.

Ultimately, with some of my favorite moments of the book excised from the movie, this is a movie I could never LOVE. I was glad I went into the movie already knowing some of the changes. And I think others who love the book should be prepared as well. I would have been very annoyed at the movie if I hadn't known what the changes were, specifically to Amy, Bark Lee, and the whole second half of the plot. The scenes between David and Amy were the biggest disappointments. I understand that with the plot of the film those scenes couldn't have been fit in without reworking the script, but those were Amy's character establishment scenes, and taking them out essentially removes a main character in the plot from being characterized. Also, the time crunch of the story bothered me in the film. The novel takes places over the course of years (I think two years, but I could be slightly off. It could be three.), and it needs that time to establish the characters and their feelings towards everything that's going on. The movie makes everything seem predestined and very quick, almost making us and the characters get used to everything long before they even have a moment to think and become established as characters. These guys have to get used to all of this in maybe two days or so rather than two years, and their characters never really reflect that. There is no real change or arc to the characters in the movie, unlike the book, and some of the most poignant and meaningful moments and character establishments are just nonexistent. David's line about John never calling Amy the girl with one arm, Amy's reaction to the twist and to Dave beating the crud out of the guy who called her a "burden," Dave helping Amy after she threw up, Amy and Dave's time in the car with the shadows chasing them and the snow slowing them down, John holding Molly to the antagonists and commanding her to defecate the bomb she had eaten... well, too many great moments are just missing, and I just don't see much good that comes from that.

I think the emotions in the novel added a lot to it and made those scenes with comedy all the more comedic. It let the steam off of a fairly serious and pretty horrific plot. The second half of the novel real upped the stakes, and made everything a lot more meaningful... but that doesn't come out in the movie at all. The movie is basically and essentially the first half of the novel with a few parts of the second half put into it, mostly Amy (if you can call her Amy), Korrok's homeworld, the other dimension basketball game, and the mall. Other than that the movie was almost a straight adaptation of the first half of the novel... which, honestly, it should have been all along. Just take away Korrok, add Jennifer and Jim (and the characters who get forgotten after they are lost to the shadows), add Las Vegas instead of Korrok's lair... and there you go. You have the first half of an incredible book made into a stellar movie, and you can hope that a second half of the book can be made into a movie later on. Maybe that's crazy... you know, with money and the chances of success... but it's so close to only being the first half of the novel... why not just make it that and add the second half later or not at all?

Anyway, I have other, granted mostly minor, gripes, but I think that last point I mentioned is the most important. I would have loved this movie if it were only a straight adaptation of the first half of the novel. And as it is now, it's pretty freaking close. The first half of this movie is nearly perfect, making sure that each important note of the novel is hit in turn. It's only when the things from the second half of the novel are added and shoehorned into the plot that the plot stops working as well, and the adaptation kind of craps out. Robert North is the first indication of this. Although I love Doug Jones, and he's playing the right part here, the character is completely unnecessary to this film for all of the two scenes he's in. Marconi is another problem, being dumb rather than well done. I hated how this character was portrayed in the movie, especially when he was a very different kind of character in both the novel and its sequel This Book is Full of Spiders. Also, why the hell is Amy's last name changed from Sullivan to Larkin? It seems like such a dumb and arbitrary change to make. I know the dog was named Bark Lee instead of Molly because they had a male dog, not a female one... and I can't complain about that change because of that... but Amy's last name change just seems insane and nonsensical.

The funny thing about this movie is that although the plot is sometimes not incredibly coherent and at other times actively confusing as both halves of the novel are crammed into the movie, the little vignettes with the meatman, the police station, and Robert Marley's trailer are incredibly well done. Hell, even the ax scene that starts the movie off is all kinds of awesome. The bratwurst phone is funny; the soy sauce looks fantastic. All of the characters (except Amy and John) look dead on to me. "Camel Holocaust" is brilliant and hilarious. The acting is really top-notch throughout as well, with Chase Williamson making the perfect David Wong. I loved his voiceovers, his dry humor, his jumping between melodrama and absolute deadness in his voice. I thought he was absolutely brilliant. Rob Mayes is also great as John Cheese... but he looks nothing like the character is described in the book, and tends to act very little like a man who has an addictive personality to booze, smoking, women, and any kind of drug available. Rob Mayes is way too ripply and well-muscled to scream out John Cheese to me. That being said, I loved his acting performance as well. He had some absolutely fantastic expressions and comedic timing.

The direction was good as well, especially in the soy tripping scenes. Don Coscarelli did an amazing job with the directing even if his screenwriting was not as amazing. I was pleasantly surprised by how good almost  everything looked (except Korrok and the wig monsters) even with a ton of CGI at times. I was less happy about how the plot and characters ended up, but an adaptation containing both halves of the novel would have been difficult for anybody to adapt. It was a really good try... even if the second half of the film mostly didn't work.

Uh... I guess I can quickly talk about the plot if you know nothing about it. David Wong, the main character, is getting interviewed by Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti) about being some kind of spiritual exorcist or something like that. He tells Arnie about some kind of drug that can make him and his friend John see things that most people cannot see. As the story starts, David is at a party. Amy is there too (not in the book though; in the book it's Jennifer) looking for her dog Bark Lee. David is listening to John's terrible band Three Arm Sally playing and eventually runs into Robert Marley (not his real name), a (possibly) Jamaican man who is the "source" of the soy sauce. He tells David what he dreamed and freaks the guy out a bit.

Eventually David gets a call from John after he gets home and goes to sleep. John is telling David to come over and help him. David jumps out of sleep and rushes over to find John going crazy and seeing things that aren't there. David sighs as John runs outside. He looks around and finds a syringe full of some dark liquid that John calls soy sauce. Eventually, after they go to a restaurant to cool down, David gets a call from John while he's sitting across from him. This is the first indication that something is wrong. David takes John away, calls a priest, gets poked by the needle in his pocket, starts tripping (in one of the best scenes of the movie), and is eventually accosted by Detective Appleton. The detective takes him and John into custody to ask them some questions about the party. It is here Appleton reveals to David that a bunch of the party-goers have shown up dead or are missing, and that only he and John are known to have survived. David freaks out as the soy sauce enters his system completely, but before he can do anything John "dies," and he is left alone in the interview room with a police officer who doesn't show up in mirror. A fight ensues, he gets away, talks to a bratwurst, and ends up at Robert Marley's trailer.

In the trailer, David sees the soy sauce, ingests it accidentally, saves himself inadvertently from dying from a gunshot, and almost gets run over by Bark Lee driving his truck. He goes back home, meets Shitload, formerly one of the people at the party, and is taken captive along with a comatose John, Bark Lee who is channeling John, Fred, and Amy. (Fred dies by the way. That's what happens to minor characters...) Shitload takes them to an abandoned mall, John tries to run off, makes Shitload go outside where he gets shot by Appleton. They all are "saved" until Appleton explodes into little white worms. They then decide to go into the mall and take care of business.

Amy has only one hand. Her other is gone. She opens a ghost door with her phantom hand. And then she disappears for the rest of the movie... She kind of starts a romance with David, but it is so quick and stupid that it is actually embarrassing to watch, and it shouldn't be there at all if it's going to be that kind of low quality. Bark Lee, David, and John... the humans among them armed... enter the mall and meet Robert North, who kind of held David at slugpoint (ha ha) earlier in the film, and Dr. Marconi, who seems out of place here and is idiotically used with his twin blonde assistants for... reasons... They send the three "heroes" of our story into another world where they find a Largeman and a bunch of naked other people, all of them with their upper faces masked. Largeman talks about the history of their world, Korrok, and why John and David need to help them. There's also a really gory and well done cartoon shown. I liked that part quite a lot. Eventually they meet a badly CGIed Korrok, explode a bomb, inexplicably meet Marconi again, and survive. David is with Amy at the end. Arnie is a half-ghost, and John and Dave play basketball and go into another world, but make fun of the guys there rather than help save it.

And that's about it. Some parts of it come out of nowhere and are confusing, while others work quite well. Very little is added to the plot, with the movie mostly being an adaptation of the first half and the very last part of the novel. A lot of lines are taken directly from the novel... and subsequently they work very well... although there are some lines not in the novel that are also quite good.

I guess the ultimate conclusion I have come up with to this movie is that while it is sadly a very broken movie... it worked pretty well for me. I think very few people who haven't read the novel will like it. And I think that people who have read it will be annoyed by some of the plot choices. I have to also disagree with most people who said it needed a bigger budget. It may well have when it came to the amount of film or getting a great screenwriter to adapt... but for the most part, besides Korrok, the CGI was solid, the acting was solid, and most everything else worked. What it needed was about twenty more minutes or so to establish characters, specifically Amy and John, and to have a slightly less confusing plot. Hell, even David needed some fleshing out. And the plot is all over the place. The romance, a wonderfully written romance in the novel, is awful here, if it exists at all. The main point of the novel is completely untouched in the movie. The main antagonists of the novel are not even mentioned here. Amy is for all intent purposes a completely different character. And mostly, the movie forgot that there were both serious moments and comedy in the novel. Those are the main problems, and I doubt throwing money at the film could have fixed them.

That being said, I liked the movie, but didn't love it. I enjoyed it, but felt confused by some of the plot points and how some things were executed. I would not recommend this film for people who haven't read the book (although some very well might enjoy it, so take that as you will. I think most will find it more confusing than not, although I could be wrong.), and for those who have read the book and want to see the movie, beware of the changes the movie makes and know them before watching it. I suggest reading a few reviews (or just mine here), looking at the changes, and thinking to yourself if you really want to see a novel you like with light characterizations, inexplicably dumb changes to the plot, and some of the best scenes of the novel not even in the movie.

I will say that the scenes that are lifted straight out of the novel are really good though. So, take that as you will. I really think the movie is worth seeing for those scenes alone... but just take your head out of the plot or the coherency of the story... they really don't work. So, here's to tentative recommendations with warning labels attached to them in red ink! Check it out, but don't blame me if you're disappointed with it in the end.

Movie Appraisal: Pulse (Kairo) (回路) (2001)

Pulse (or Kairo) is an incredibly melancholic Japanese horror movie released in the early 2000s. While it is not much of a technical majesty by any means, it relies on mood, atmosphere, and characters and situations that an average person can easily relate with. I cannot say that this is that scariest or most horrific film of all time, nor can I say that this film really scared me all that much at all. What I can say is that the entire film is unsettling, and that's really all one needs in a great horror movie.

And you know what? This movie, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, delivers on every front. It is a great horror movie, not precisely because it's scary or it made me urinate myself from fear... but because it is both unsettling and unforgettable. See, I've watched a great many horror films over the course of my life. (I have to point that out here to make my ultimate point.) I've watched horror films from all over the world, from any decade you could name. I've watched monster movies, slashers, gore films, psychological horror, drive-in horror, B-movies, space horror, and all other kinds of films besides. Very few stick out in my mind, and very few stay in my mind for years after I've forgotten even the name of the movie. But Pulse stuck in my mind. It stayed there like some kind of mental brick. I had seen this movie years ago, probably while I was still in high school, but possibly before even that. And I remembered certain scenes in it, but the ending specifically stood out... the ending and the final scenes in the abandoned factory. And for years those scenes stuck in my head without a name to attach to them. I had forgotten what this movie was called, but the story, the scenes, and the scares stayed behind. Very few movies have done that.

For instance I can look through all the movies I've reviewed over the course of two-and-some-odd-years, and I might remember a scene or two here and there. Hell, maybe I could even name them simply because I wrote about them, but before this blog existed, I was just a dude who liked horror movies. Invariably I would forget some of them. Hell, I've forgotten many more horror movies than most people have even watched. But Pulse stood in my mind. Sure, the title of the film was entirely forgotten, but the content certainly wasn't. And so now I'm revisiting this film years later, ready to talk about it, review it, and tell my impressions to any that would read them.While this movie is not perfect or wonderful or even good looking, it works as exactly what it is, and it remains memorable because of that.

I have to mention that I searched for the name of this film for years, simply wanting to see it again, but never remembering what it was called. I, completely accidentally, watched a "scariest horror movie clips" kind of video on YouTube a little while ago and recognized a scene from this film, saw the title, and whooped with joy. Then I proceeded to track this movie down by any means necessary. I still have a few movies like that, movies stuck in my head without names to them, and maybe someday I'll find them too... until then though, this is a success story for the past.

Pulse is a fine movie by the way. Its parts are better than the whole of it, and taken alone some of the scenes could be quite terrifying. But as a whole the movie kind of loses its terror. All I could see while watching it was a social commentary rather than a horror movie, and that was an absolute shame. If I could take my head out of why this movie was made and look at it on the merits of the plot and characters alone I could really see this as an effective horror movie. Try as I might though, all I could see was social commentary using ghosts. A heavy hammer seemed to pound thoughts into my head... thoughts like: "The Internet isolates and makes people lonely and terrified, ghosts within their own houses," "The culture of Japan seems to be so focused on work, school, and things that aren't people, and that relationships, friendships, and love in general are lacking to an extreme degree," and mostly ""If the world keeps moving in this direction, the world will be as good as empty, each person committing a social suicide, being stuck to a computer forever rather than with people, caring and helping and even dying as they ought to." Those are the comments I kept seeing with every scene. There were comparisons between the living and the dead, but it was saying that both the living and the dead are both dead... dead, cold, and lonely... so what does life even matter if there are no relationships, no meaningful meetings, nothing but strangers and websites without names?

While I think it's an incredibly astute commentary, it hits like a steel beam. There is no real subtlety there, and also no real point but to stick a middle finger at the technological world. It makes an interesting tech-ghost story into something with meaning, yes, but it kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing, which is a bit of a negative. The characters don't matter.... and neither do their struggles... since the commentary is first and foremost what can be, and is, seen. I find that disappointing even if it doesn't take anything away from the movie. Most people watching it probably just watch a kind of creepy apocalyptic ghost story, and good for them. I'm glad that they can enjoy the film without seeing too far into it. As for me, the film was more mediocre. It didn't really do anything I haven't seen before. The ghosts were sometimes creepy, but never scary. The music was sometimes out of place. The sounds and voices never quite worked for me. And the characters never truly felt real. I couldn't imagine most of them outside of this movie, hanging out with friends or going to a movie, playing a video game or just screwing around on scooters or something. They were too self-contained within this movie, and that is the biggest negative about this film. I wanted to see some life in the characters or the story or something... but I never felt anything. I never cared about the characters or the story. The only thing I truly cared about, thought about, was the social commentary, which, while interesting, does not a great movie make.

So, I'm contradicting myself, saying that this is a great movie and not a great movie at the same time. And that kind of sums up my thoughts of this film. I loved the creepy aspects of this film. I loved how technology (and a creepy ghost within that technology) was shown as this evil and malignant force that could easily overpower any person. I loved the ghosts and the people fading into a dark stain upon the walls. The suicides were incredibly well done, specifically the woman who jumps off of the side of a building. That looked amazing. And I loved a lot of the idea of ghosts being just as real as the living. That concept and execution worked so well it made the entire movie worth watching for that alone. The story itself was complex in its own right as well, but not precisely as confusing as many comments seem to think of it as. The whole story is there, but some things are simply not told to the audience. I think the movie not showing its entire hand is not a bad thing. In fact, I liked that about the movie as well... the fact that there were still mysteries within this universe.

This movie was made when the internet was still not quite the monster and behemoth it is today. It was still big and used for many things, but it wasn't as practical, nor was it quite as easy to find all the information you could ever want. Chat rooms were the standard for talking to people online, forums were getting off of the ground, but the internet as a whole was still this undiscovered country. Very little social media existed, and certainly nothing like Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Tumblr. Nothing that could so easily encompass all of your social and practical needs all in one website. Isolation was what computers were for. They were for putting you further from society, not linking you up... but that's not true, is it? The internet is used to connect us all together... but not together at the same time. We are always separated by a great curtain of space, and those who frequent the internet are nothing more than the norm now. Looking at that student, the main male character, Ryosuke, who had his first experience with the internet ever... so much so that he didn't know what "bookmarks" were, well, that just doesn't happen in society today. We're born knowing more than we could ever effectively use about technology... and yet more frequently we find ourselves not understanding each other, becoming more and more isolated from the very people we think we are getting closer to by using the internet. Okay, I should stop my diatribe on today's culture. Let me just finish this paragraph by saying that if that were my first experience with the internet like it was Ryosuke's, seeing creepy people on the internet and a dude with a bag over his head before I even had my entire internet hooked up correctly, I'd need a smoke too.

Ultimately the movie succeeds at doing something. I don't know if I'll ever be able to say what. Maybe I simply love the ideas presented in the movie and that's it. But maybe it's something more. The movie looks creepy, not crisp and sharp, but muddy and always dark. The sounds are off. The music doesn't fit. Unsettling is the word of the day for this flick. The use of sound (or lack thereof) is also very well done. It both unsettles and startles without the movie itself having to do much at all but exist in the background.

This is a hard movie to review and a hard movie to rate. I have no idea if I should recommend it or not. I enjoyed watching it even though some major parts of the film are incredibly flawed. I think it is one of the creepier Japanese horror movies even though I was never scared. And I think it is incredibly effective even though it is overlong. If you like social commentary in your horror movies, this is a good one to watch. If you like a creepy ghost movie without any social commentary, you might like this film too though. Just turn your brain off. As for Japanese horror, this is one of the best I've seen, easily up there with Noroi. So, I guess check it out if you find all this 3-5AM ramble-writing-dissecting-reviewing interesting. Or not. I liked the movie well enough. It still is a great movie even if it isn't perfect.

Movie Appraisal: Triangle (2009)

"Is this normal?" A man asks.
All I want to answer is, "No, it's CGI."

Triangle is a moody, melancholic, and somewhat imaginative "horror" movie directed by Christopher Smith and starring Melissa George. It was made by and in the UK and Australia with mainly Australian actors, but takes place in Florida for some reason with every one of the actors faking an American accent, probably because of the allusion to the Bermuda Triangle, which is not what this movie is about. Instead, the titular Triangle is the sailing ship the characters start the movie on.

Melissa George, the big name in this flick, plays Jess, a single mother with a special needs son. Throughout the film, but especially in the beginning of it, she seems out of it, confused, and a little lost as well. I'm not sure if it was the character that was out of her element or the actress. I'm kind of sorry for saying this, but Melissa George is not a powerhouse actress in this film. While I've seen her play some decent roles (most notably in 30 Days of Night) she doesn't seem quite ready for the emotional performance that this movie really required. She has a mighty vacant expression on her face for most of this film, with her mouth slightly agape, like it's stuck in constant surprise. I know that's a bit unfair, but it kept getting to me as the movie progressed.

The being said, this is a whale of a movie plot. Despite the limited characterizations and dialogue, the plot is incredibly complex... although equally incredibly predictable. It's kind of the nature of a plot like this to be predictable, but I seriously wish I hadn't guessed most of the movie in the first ten to fifteen minutes of the film. It made a large portion of this movie quite boring. The only thing I couldn't have even anticipated was how Jess was going to act and react rather than what was going to happen, since that seemed set in stone. And her reactions, which should have been the most interesting part of the movie, became confusing and badly put together and thought out- more frustrating for the viewer than interesting.

The problem is that I have no idea why everything was set in stone and why Jess couldn't have changed stuff at any time she wanted to. This becomes a huge problem towards the end of the movie, but I'm digressing a bit. If you know nothing about this movie you are probably lost, and I don't blame you. If you have watched this movie you may be lost as well, but no worries! It's fairly easy to understand once you realize that time travel plots and being stuck in a time loop is utterly idiotic and rarely works well in any fictional medium.

Okay, maybe not ENTIRELY idiotic, but I cannot stand movies that attempt these types of plots. Time travel and time loops are complicated and never seem to work in movies or stories in general, often falling flat long before they become compelling. I would have shut this movie off in an instant if it had not shaken anything up at all or performed intelligent moves effectively. But it did. No, it didn't do it amazingly every single time. I still have a ton of questions lingering in my mind, but I thought it told the plot satisfactorily.

So, yes, this movie is all about a time loop. It's basically your standard Sisyphus plot. They even mention it in the movie proper. It's so apparent and so telegraphed that it felt like the movie were trying to hammer it into my head. It did back off a bit eventually, and I have to thank the director for that at least. While I did appreciate some of the more intelligent designs in the plot throughout the movie, I found for the most part that the movie lacked surprise, which is a leading force when it comes to actual HORROR movies.

Anyway, the movie starts out at Jess's home. She has a special needs son and is cleaning up some paint he spilled on the floor. She hears the doorbell, goes to get it, and finds nobody there. She asks her neighbor if he saw anyone, and of course he didn't see anyone. She goes to tidy up and then we meet up with the other characters of the film. Greg is on his sailing ship, getting it ready to take some of his friends out for a nice and relaxing cruise. Victor, a young friend of Greg, is staying with him and helping him with the boat. Greg has two married friends coming along specially for the ride as well as a friend they brought along to hook him up with. Jess then makes an appearance as well, looking disheveled and awful, seeming like she needs a good sleep. Greg had invited her along, and seems particularly protective of her.

So, they go sailing, start having a good time... and THEN (because of course there's an "and then") the wind dies, a CGI storm hits, capsizes the boat, the friend of the couple is lost, and a large cruise ship from the 1930s rolls past them looking to help. Or so they think. They see a figure on board, the ship seems to let them on board, and then there's nobody there to greet them. They start looking all over the ship for other people, but all they find is Jess annoyingly saying that she thinks she's been here before. Some odd things start to happen, including Jess's keys suddenly dropping at a random place on the ship, and a figure seeming to follow them.

Jess eventually gets upset with Greg because he's being realistic and is trying to reason with her, so she runs off, and is attacked by a seriously wounded Victor who tries to choke her to death. Now, this is the kind of movie that has characters in it that have never seen a horror film before. They had split up before this all happened, so being on a creepy empty ship and splitting up is obviously the best course of action. Anyway, Jess runs back to find the others only to find Greg shot dead, claiming that she killed him, and the couple over him, blaming her for the death even as they are shot to death by a mysterious figure with a sack over its head. The masked figure continues to shoot at Jess even as she tries to escape, leading to one of the funniest scenes I've seen in a horror movie in a while, where the masked gunperson runs out of bullets and throws the gun at her. And it hits her too! I mean, I was laughing to myself even as the scene went on because it was absolutely ridiculous. It was also easily the best moment (or two- ha ha ha time travel ha ha) in the film.

So, Jess fights the gunperson with a fire-axe, and eventually backs the masked person off the ship while the masked person whispers something unintelligible to her. We think the movie must be done at this point- but it's only just started. Jess backs into the captain's quarters or the bridge or something, plays some music and hears some cries coming from the open ocean. Oh no! It's the capsized Triangle with the five characters again calling out for help from the cruise ship. And we have officially entered the plot of this movie.

It's all a loop on the cruise ship that ends when all the characters (seemingly save Jess) die. When they all die, the loop starts all over again. So, Jess starts off by doing exactly what previous versions of her had done before, jotting down a note, losing her locket, grabbing a gun... but then decides she wants to break the pattern. She finds Victor, hoping to warn him, but that just spooks him because she sounds like she's insane. She grievously wounds him completely by accident (which it seems every Jess seems to do), then changes what happened earlier in the time loop by making certain Victor didn't attack her earlier self. She confronts that earlier self, seems to think about killing her, then lets her run away. Again, she seems like she's trying to break the loop and keep everybody alive. Remember this for later.

The problem is that the masked person (who is also Jess, but a later version of her) is killing off the other characters whenever she can. So, this "good" Jess is trying to save them, and the masked "bad" one is trying to kill them. This goes on for a little while and several loops, every time having the characters die. She even sees herself die at least once, I believe. She sees a mass of Sallies (the female of the couple) and where they all died, and kind of realizes that this has been going on much longer than she's been here.

Jess, who had been trying to save the others, suddenly doesn't want to do that anymore. I mean, she seriously just changes her mind without any character development saying why. She actively starts hunting the other characters down with the sack on her head, shooting them whenever she can. Oh my God how stupid can Jess be? She goes and decides to do all the things it was decided that she would do by the loop or fate or whatnot, but SHE KNOWS HOW THAT'S GOING TO TURN OUT, with earlier Jess making certain that the final Jess jumps overboard. There is an easy solution here she hadn't thought of: why not just wait out on the landing dock, let the other Jess kill all of the others, then warn the Triangle when it gets close? Why does she start thinking it's a good idea to murder all the others? Why does she do it exactly like the earlier version of her saw her do it? She could have changed anything and everything, but she knew how it would turn out. Why not change what is going to happen rather than living it? And why be surprised when it happens the way she KNEW it was going to happen if she followed that route?

I can't get over this. I really can't. Her character changes in a single second from being a decent person trying to save the others (even if she doesn't) to being a murderer with a sack on her head for the simple reason that she wants to save them by killing them. Look, lady, there are easier ways to go about doing this than murdering them, okay? I don't like the jump of personality change here. I don't think it works, and it bothered me a ton. I don't like her justifications, and I especially don't like how she doesn't act like a person would. Look, if I find myself in some kind of weird loop and then see I can change some things sometimes, I'm going to make certain I don't do anything that I saw some masked moron do earlier. I am especially not going to put on said mask and shoot people. I mean, seriously.... damn it. This was too frustrating for me.

Anyway, I guess the rest of the movie happens after that. Jess, in a mask, jumps off the ship, hits the water, wakes up on a beach and goes home. At this point I'm wondering why the movie is still going. In my mind it should be over. But no, Jess goes home and we see that she's gone back in time, it seems, to watch herself scream and beat her special needs child. Jess decides she doesn't like the old her very much, plays ding-dong ditch with herself, grabs a hammer, and beats the everloving crud out of the earlier version of herself, killing her. The son panics, understandably, and she consoles him by saying it was all a terrible nightmare. She packs her body into the trunk of the car and gets ready to leave Florida. On her way she hits a seagull which causes her son to freak out, and we see the ultimate TWIST of the movie. There are a ton of dead seagulls which it seems like previous versions of herself had thrown over the cliff as well. She is still in the loop! She continues driving for a few seconds, but she is totally not watching the road... AND ACCIDENT.

Her son dies, and the earlier Jess is also there dead. There's a very obvious nod to the idea that she's in a loop of hell, and really died in a car accident, but she doesn't seem to think about it much, instead talking to a random creepy taxi driver. This taxi driver out of nowhere decides to drive her away from that place, and she accepts, saying she'll go to the harbor to meet Greg and the rest. And she does. And the loop starts all over again, although we have no idea how much she remembers now or how much she remembered in the first place at all.

So, one other thing I have to mention is that in the cruise ship there seemed to be a much later version of Jess for several minutes. She killed Downey (the male member of the couple) and seemed to be doing all of what she was doing to save her son, even citing that she loves her son as the reason the other have to die. This seems to be the final version of Jess we see, the one who remembers that her son died because of her... and she's still looping.

Okay, while I think that all sounds very complex, it's actually pretty simple to follow for the most part. It is a movie that requires paying a bit of attention, but most of the film is explicitly stated in dialogue. Jess is in a loop, more than likely because she died. The others may or may not exist, but that doesn't even matter. Jess is a bad mother and feels guilty about it. She dies in a car accident and cannot accept that she and her son are dead, which creates the loop in the first place. That's the more plausible explanation, and I hate movies that do that. The other explanation is that the cruise ship is a magical time dimensional traveling cruise ship from the 1930s that allows her and the others to loop constantly through time ad infinitum because she's too stupid to break the loop or convince the others that what she's saying isn't crazy. And that isn't a much better plot, is it?

Anyway, this is a really different movie. I appreciate how it's different. I really do. I like the plot, but it's not very original no matter what you think. Look at Stay, Jacob's Ladder, The Dark, or a ton of others movies I'm simply not thinking about right now. While the loop may not be done in every movie, the premise is one that is wholly predictable, and the plot is way to easy to figure out. Most of the characters are either unlikable or completely flat, and the one that seems to show any personality, Jess, simply does confusing and nonsensical things throughout the film. The acting is nothing special, with Melissa George probably putting out the best performance out of everyone even if it is mediocre. The actors are somewhat believable, but... again... it's hard to feel anything for them throughout the movie. They just don't have enough character for me to go "Oh no! I don't want him/her to die!"

As for being a horror movie... No. No, this movie is in no way scary. It may be kind of interesting and gory, but it is in no way horrific or terrifying. Calling this a horror movie is like calling spaghetti thrown onto the ceiling psychological terror. It's simply not.

I also want to say that, yes movie, I saw what you did with the references to The Shining. Don't think I didn't see the Room 237 there. I am a big Stephen King junkie. Do you think I would miss obvious references like that? Or the blood on the mirror? Or the ax? I mean, I don't even like Kubrick's The Shining, but the blatant references just made me roll my eyes. You should never make me remember a better movie while I'm watching your movie. And as I said, I don't even like The Shining very much, but it is a much better movie than this, and I shouldn't have been thinking how much more I wanted to see that than this.

Now, this movie isn't garbage. Nor is it bad. It's a mediocre plot mixed with some pretty decent time travel looping kind of stuff that makes it kind of interesting and different. The first half of the movie is not very fun to watch, but once the true plot comes out, it's a much easier movie to stomach. While I never wholly bought the movie, and found myself more frustrated than happy with it, I will say that it was a decent enough flick. I came away feeling like it was pretty average and kind of forgettable, but not bad exactly. While that's no recommendation, I can't say to avoid it fully either since there are some decent things here even if it's frustrating and nonsensical at times. If the plot sounds interesting or you think Melissa George is a great actress or great looking, maybe check it out with the warning that there are much better movies out there. Barring that, it is just not a good enough movie for me to wholeheartedly thrown my support behind.

Movie Appraisal: Love Ghost (Lovesick Dead) (Undying Love) (死びとの恋わずらい) (2000)

"I love you to death."

Junji Ito movie adaptations, why do I keep coming back to you like some kind of ex-lover bent on winning you back? What is wrong with me that I keep expecting quality in these movies when all there is is... uh... Wait... just give me a moment to collect my confused and befuddled thoughts. I just finished this movie and... Love Ghost isn't bad...? Are you serious, me? Did you seriously think it was... (Dare I even say it?)... good? Did you actually LIKE it?

Okay, this movie is not precisely what I could ever call "good," but it's better than many of the other Junji Ito film adaptations I've seen. It's better than Kakashi or Marronnier without any single doubt in my mind. Hell, it may even be on par with Uzumaki, although I'm not sure how much that is worth exactly. See, Uzumaki, although a fun movie to watch is not even close to being a horror movie. The manga in that case was actually horror, but the movie was more like a comedy with a few horror overtones maybe-kind of. Love Ghost (or Lovesick Dead, Undying Love, or Shibito no koiwazurai) is a pretty interesting film when compared to Uzumaki, with incredibly different tones throughout the movie and a great deal done differently. Where Uzumaki is goofy and kind of fun to watch, Love Ghost is handled pretty seriously. I had once heard the argument that Kakashi was the serious Junji Ito movie equivalent of Uzumaki in terms of quality and story, but I'm going to disagree with that and instead say that Love Ghost should be the equivalent.

It is a fairly well made movie when all is said and done. No, it's not perfect, and no, it's not a very good adaptation of the original manga, but it works in its own convoluted and odd way. I actually enjoyed a good majority of this film, only finding the last third or so of the movie truly mediocre. The rest of it enjoys some great acting, some really decent directing, some fitting musical cues, and some great settings. While I will never give this movie an award for being amazing, it works quite well for what it is, an adaptation of a really good manga.

Now, Lovesick Dead (the manga) is probably one of my favorite Junji Ito stories. It is four volumes and works quite well at both tension and a creepy factor. The movie changes a great deal from the source material, with the plot, characters, and ultimate ending all being very different. In the manga, the main character is Ryuusuke, a sixteen year old boy who moves back to the town where he grew up ten years after he and his family left it behind. It goes into Ryuusuke trying to fit into school and eventually meeting up with an old friend of his, Midori. Midori is the main character of the movie with her character ultimately taking the place of Ryuusuke in the fish out of water plot, but not in plot importance really.

Over the course of the manga, Ryuusuke finds himself angsting over whether he should tell Midori that he believes that he was responsible for the death of her aunt by giving that aunt a bad fortune while he was in a rotten mood when he was six. Yeah, the guilt of this boy runs really deep. It runs so deep, in fact, that somehow through a bad fortune and the ill-fated death of Midori's aunt, a doppelganger of  Ryuusuke emerges from him, stalking the streets of the town they live in, giving terrible fortunes to young women, and causing them to ultimately commit suicide. This is complex, isn't it? Anyway, this doppelganger is named "Intersection Bishounen" and is wildly popular with the young women of the town, who seek him out for both love and fortune, and fear him for the same.

These young women play a game called "Intersection Fortune Telling," or Tsujiura in the film, which involves standing in an intersection, putting something over your face (like a book-bag), and telling your troubles to the first person who comes there, hoping that they'll give a happy fortune to you. This game is the focal point of the entire plot, being the reason why Midori's aunt committed suicide and the reason why the doppelganger preys so easily on the young women of the town. It is also the sticking point of the movie plot as well although it is nowhere near as important in the film.

The story progress with almost all the young high school women falling to this "Pretty Boy." A rumor goes around that Ryuusuke is the Bishounen, but since that isn't precisely true he denies it... The girls pursue him anyway, believing the rumor. Midori sticks by him through thick and thin, believing him and helping him throughout the story to figure out the mystery and make everything right in the end. This being a Junji Ito story though, the two of them fall for each other, but Ryuusuke pushes her away because he's afraid of his guilt and of his feelings for her. While he begged her not to play the game, eventually her curiosity and brokenhearted feelings at Ryuusuke (who had told her of his role in her aunt's death) gets the better of her and she plays the fortune game, meeting the Bishounen and causing both of their downfalls. Midori goes insane with rage and hatred for Ryuusuke, tormenting and torturing him both physically and mentally until she finally commits suicide, which breaks Ryuusuke, who had loved her. Ryuusuke eventually sacrifices himself to a mob of crazed young women to make everything right, ending the Bishounen's reign of terror and becoming the "White-Clothed Bishounen" who gives good fortunes instead.

Uh... yeah, this movie is not that plot though. Simply enough, while some similar plot threads run through both, the movie only goes through two girls who play the fortune game. Ryuusuke is both a ghost and the Bishounen character, even if he has no reason to be at all in this storyline. And you know why he has no reason to be the Bishounen here? He doesn't give bad advice or have guilt or a dark side. He instead dies at seven to a crazy lady who wanted the fortunes that Midori told to be true so she could be with her lover. Midori had, before meeting the woman, foretold that Ryuusuke would die the next day in a refrigerator with his tongue cut out... as a joke... because that is what seven year old children joke about. The tattooed woman, who doesn't come in until the end of the movie, carries traits from Midori's aunt from the manga as well as a crazy woman in the manga who stalks both Ryuusuke and Midori when they decide to be helpful to her. The tattooed woman in the manga eventually kills her lover's child to gain his love back... which is basically what happens in the movie as the main plot. She kills Ryuusuke to make Midori's fortune seem more true, asks for a fortune, gets Midori telling her she will never find love, then kills herself by stabbing and immolation in front of Midori. This is probably why Midori is insane, come to think of it... Oh, I'll explain that statement, just give me a few sentences.

So, Ryuusuke is dead and a ghost. Midori sees him despite the fact that he's a ghost. They're in love for some reason despite him being dead and her being... we're getting there... but there's this added plotline of a tall jockish kind of guy falling for her while all the girls around him are crazy for him and commit suicide because they can't be with him because he likes Midori despite knowing her a single day. And it gets confusing. I'm already confused. There's a body in the wall of Midori and her mother's house, and it turns out to be the mother's lost husband. There's no intersection fortune telling... it's now fortune telling around a creepy shrine. Oh, and Midori is crazy and escaped from a mental institution. Yeah. It kind of pops up out of nowhere.

Adding to this, Midori's mother is actually Ryuusuke's mother who is posing as Midori's mother, and she's also quite insane and from the same facility as Midori. They escaped together posing as mother and daughter for some reason even though Ryuusuke's mother seems to have no idea who Midori is half of the time.

The whole institution plot caught me off-guard, I have to admit. Nothing like that happens in the manga, and it seems needlessly complex for an already needlessly complex story. The last half hour is weird and nonsensical, mirroring Midori's own insanity. I didn't like the plot-twist and felt it took away from a movie with a pretty solid premise. Previous to that last half hour, I was enjoying myself immensely, liking the adapted story for the most part despite myself and itself. That last third of the movie killed a bit of my enjoyment of it, relying on cheap tricks and overdone plot points to tell its ghost story.

In the end you have to wonder if Midori is dreaming or dead as she lies upon her insane asylum bed. And you also have to wonder if the filmmakers even understood the actual point of the well put-together manga. I was more disappointed than thrilled by this adaptation, but that is seriously exactly how these Junji Ito movies always go. Always, seriously. Well, at least this wasn't Kakashi...

As for the more technical aspects of the flick, most of the film is incredibly competent. While there are times of inappropriately loud music and Foley effects that are missing or too faint to hear, most of the sounds and music are actual quite fitting. The visuals are muddy at times, but you could actually tell that the director, Kazuyuki Shibuya, knew what he was doing for the most part. The framing of most shots are quite well done, with only a few hiccups from time-to-time, mostly in regards to focusing on a particular face or expression for way longer than is needed. The actors' expressions are sometimes hard to read as well, particularly Ryuusuke's, although that might have been the idea even though it was awkward to see within the movie proper.

One of the down sides of this movie is that it relies on tropes that are seen time and time again in these Japanese horror films like a character never being able to tell anybody the way they feel if they like another character. Then there's the typical Japanese town and walk to school that seems to be in absolutely every Japanese movie, manga, or anime ever made that involves school children. There's also the fact that nobody seems to understand anything about what liking or loving people means, and this point blank refusal to accept defeat in love gracefully without committing suicide or dying in some horrible way. Also there's that unfailing trope of a ghost that doesn't seem to be a ghost until a character realizes much later that it is a ghost. This one also involves the trope of the ghost being a student and seeming absolutely real despite being a ghost. Now, I know Japanese ghosts are different than western ghosts, but this is silly. Aren't there records for these kids in the school? I know this means much less in this movie because of the crazy Midori and maybe Ryuusuke is kind of in her head and comes from her maybe, but there are plenty of other movies where this happens, and it's ridiculous.

I also want to talk to Suzue, a character in the film for one moment here. Call this a public service announcement to her and characters like her. Let me just say that, Suzue, jock-dude told you point blank he liked Midori. Don't start thinking he'll magically start liking you AFTER he revealed to you he liked her. That's ridiculous. I understand that a pretty ghost boy thing told you to think about yourself, but jock-boy TOLD YOU POINT BLANK HE LIKES MIDORI. How dumb can you be, Suzue? Oh, dumb enough to put your blood in the dude's food so that he can taste your love for him. I'm sure that's not something he's going to freak out about especially when you tell him while he's been eating it. That is... just... wonderful. No, Suzue, stop repeating "I love you" over and over again. That is not helping anybody or your love, especially when you are putting a blade up to your throat. Look, suicide is not the answer. if you wait just a few days, Midori will be insane again and dead/sleeping... and you can seriously probably have the jock dude all to yourself without anybody caring at all. It's not as if Midori was interested in him anyway. But no, you had to crazily and creepily repeat it over-and-over again and then kill yourself in front of him. That's really the best way to go about winning him over, isn't it Suzue? And now you're probably dead. What are you going to do now?

While all of that is very Junji Ito of the plot to do... I find it also very indicative of Asian horror movies in general... and I hate it oh so much. Again, this movie is not bad, just kind of mediocre and standard. While the source material is all kinds of creepy and awesome, this film is fairly bland. There were many times I was simply bored at the progression of the plot, or tired of the characters, or just kind of wishing it would all be over. While I don't dislike this movie, it really is incredibly forgettable, especially with an awful name like Love Ghost. There is no horror here, no real scares, and no real interest. While I liked it sort of a bit for where it came from, I think this movie should be avoided even by hardcore Junji Ito fans. There's simply not enough good stuff here for me to even think about recommending it.